What have you achieved during the ‘first’ COVID Lockdown period?

How you define ‘achievements’ in the question I leave up to you. You may choose work-related successes, which will include how you adapted your working practices to address the restrictions and the (yuk) New Normal; you can list any charity or community efforts you undertook; you can rattle through the personal development you made.

Or.

You can consider the lack of initiative you might have displayed in any or all of those areas. You can now consider what you could have done. You can think ‘I could’ve’ (not could OF) and ‘I should’ve’ and ‘I might’ve’. And you can wallow in the self-pity that ensues if you did nothing to take advantage of the developmental opportunity that this pause could have provided.

But GREAT NEWS!

In my area, several local authorities have been re-locked down. (In fact, Cardiff is technically under siege as it is surrounded by locked down unitary authorities.) There are constant rumours, even expectations that another national lockdown is a-coming our way. A second pause-button that you can press and decide ‘What can I do in this period of change?’

I’m lucky. I have no formal occupation other than writing and blogging so I had massive amounts of discretionary time. Oddly, I still have a 9-5 mentality and regularly ‘pack in’ at tea-time. Weird.

But in the period since March I have:

• Lost 35lbs.
• Increased my cycling – time and distances travelled.
• Attended umpteen free webinars to stay on top of my game.
• Sorted out some home-environments.
• Written The Way.
• Edited Three Resolutions. (Okay, I finished that just before it started but it needed a proof read.)
• Rewritten Police Time Management (still doing that).
• Had two mini-breaks with the extended family during the eased-off hiatus in the Pandemic Panic.
• Refocused my mind.

And here we find ourselves at the cusp of another, allegedly 6-month lockdown opportunity.

The Three Resolutions ‘commitments’ provide a framework for consideration of exactly what you can do to take advantage of the gap. You can reinforce your self-discipline by choosing to eat less and exercise more. You can redefine your personal values and your congruence or incongruence in terms of how you behave in their respect. You can learn new stuff, or you can study the old stuff you need to know in order to do an excellent job. You can revisit your sense of Purpose and decide if what you are doing is right for you, while simultaneously considering what service, or what better service you can provide to others – either through work or in a voluntary capacity.

Or you can just accept the entropy that doing nothing engenders. You can actively pursue the self-redundancy that ‘just doing enough’ causes.

Which is the right choice? You KNOW it.

Now DO it.