Winding down for 2020

I’ll start by asking you as a business owner & leader - what do you need right now?

Maybe it’s a few more ‘deals’, maybe it’s to finish a project before year-end, maybe your work is winding down and you’re still shopping and thinking about preparing to celebrate the Holidays, and maybe it’s…rest.

Whatever the answer for you, I wanted to add some thoughts about what to consider as you wind down this tumultuous year.

Expectations - Consider the expectations you’re holding and think about how that might be tempered with kindness, compassion and understanding of what we’ve all gone through this year. Most people are doing their best right now and sometimes an individual’s best, on a scale of 1-10, can be a 6 on one day and 12 on another. Even for yourself. I’m sure you feel it too.

Celebration - celebrate where you are now, after having gone through the year we’ve been through. Celebrate your perseverance, creativity, adaptability and more than that, showing up. For continuing to look ahead and trying to roll with the ebbs and flows of the year - whether you feel like you did it gracefully or not, you’re here now. Winding down 2020. Celebrate being here, now, with the people around you (physically & virtually).

Compassion - consider showing yourself and those around you compassion, recognizing that if you’re feeling a different level of fatigue right now, you’re not alone. A number of you have shared with me that you are feeling t-i-r-e-d. With the added uncertainty of this year and the length we’ve endured to this point, it’s wearing on us. I am not a mental health professional, but I do know this much: this year had worn us down. We’ve carried a lot with trying to function at home and at work and many of us carrying the responsibility of the livelihoods of others. Acknowledging this for yourself is a form of compassion. Consider giving yourself some space to rest and slow down. And, encourage your people to do that too.

My wish for you as we come to an end this year is that you find peace within yourselves, in your hearts and you’re able to acknowledge to yourself all that you’ve done this year. All that you’ve lived through.

Being kind to yourself looks like knowing when you’ve set your expectations high, seeing the big picture and understanding what matters and what doesn’t, knowing that at the end of the day, making space to rest and slow down doesn’t mean you’re not the go-getter and high-achiever that you are.

In fact, even Marathoners have rest and recovery days when they’re in training. It’s part of the training. It’s part of why they perform super-human feats of endurance.

I will be taking my own rest and space in the coming weeks and will be pausing on my weekly newsletters after today, so together, we can be poised to begin January stronger, focussed and motivated to make 2021 a fantastic year.

So in the meantime, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, and Merry Christmas.

Thank you for allowing me into your inbox throughout the year.

NOW is YOUR time.

Ariana