Hibernation
I’m a Victorian.
Just as we faced the end of stage 4 of lockdown there’s no real end in sight…we’re all just hoping we can have a “normal” Christmas.
Now I know it can seem that the weeks are kind of flying by on one hand, but I think it’s because one day seems to melt into the next and the one before it so time is a bit tricky to use as an independent arbiter. While it’s only 3 months until Christmas, it seems like an eon away. It feels like we’re in a deep winter sleep, where the spell can only be broken by the ones who didn’t cast it “doing the right thing”.
Many years ago I read a book by one of my favourite business mentors – Jim Rohn – 7 Life Strategies for Wealth and Happiness. He talks about the seasons of your life where there’s a summer, a spring, an autumn and of course a winter. Like normal seasons there are many such cycles in our lives and just as surely as one begins, another of course comes to an end.
What matters, he says, is knowing the purpose of each season so you can work with it. He talks about winter as the season of hibernation, of preparation, of accepting that it’s not necessarily the season for harvesting. It’s the season for learning something new. It’s the season for resting and recuperating. It’s a time to go within so that when “spring” rolls around, new growth can actually take place.
This time of stage 4 lockdown is to me the winter of many of our collective lives….and while we don’t know when spring will come, there will of course be a spring. So is it possible that now is the perfect time for us to reconsider our lives, our business models, our offers, our teams and our approaches so that when spring comes around, we’re best placed to grow with it?
And is it possible that while so much has been taken out of our hands, that what remains is our ability to make decisions that are necessary, hard and can change the trajectory of our lives? For many this will actually mean closing the door on a business that can no longer survive through no fault of its own. For many it will mean letting go of employees who have stood by us in the hope that this is all temporary. But temporary has been 6 months for many.
Please don’t mistake me.
I’m devastated by the severity of the decisions made that affect the lives of so many people I know and thousands whom I don’t know personally but know how much of ourselves goes into building up a business. Not every business can “pivot” to online due to their very natures.
My heart is with you and I hope we cross that invisible line sometime soon, holding one another up.