A Phased Approach…? Well, there is nothing like a phased announcement of a phased approach to create opinions and divisions all over both media and social media. I left writing this piece until today (Monday 11th May) knowing last week that there would be announcements over the weekend and through today.
It may look like chaos, it may very well be chaos, and by the time this is published tomorrow will be today and we will have the 50-page Government document which may hold the answers. This week’s scrawlings then will be about how to find opportunity and a solid future while wading through chaos.
I, like others, learned some years ago that change is almost always uncomfortable, usually started by a blow, a shock, a negative experience of some sort - often ending in a patched-together outcome that is not ideal.
However, I now challenge this belief. We can take those tens of thousands of thoughts we have every day as discussed in one of my previous blogs, and manage them to see things differently, to drive a different outcome. We cannot change the fact that there is a pandemic, however, we can change our response to it and therefore our personal outcomes because although we are living through it, the virus will go, we will learn from it, and we will be changed by it. 'This too shall pass.'
Is there an easy way to do this? I was sitting at my desk one morning last week, feeling despondent, struggling with various personal and work challenges. A strong memory caught me by surprise; my mother’s advice from 19 years ago, when I was recently separated from the father of my baby son and his two toddler brothers: “Do 35 minutes work of some sort, then you can get in the car with the children and come to see me and your father.” We discussed it a lot subsequently – half an hour turns in to just 20 minutes and is not enough to really achieve much, and an hour is too long to face when your life is in turmoil. 35 minutes was a magical length of time. That day early in 2001 I did 35 minutes of housework, and as I left the house to drive to my parents not only was my house a nicer place but so was my head. So, last week, I sat and thought for 35 minutes. I switched everything off and wrote a list of the outcomes I wanted, the changes I’d love to see in my life and our business.
The to-do list will no doubt bend and change over the weeks and months ahead, after all, it is a phased approach…, but the most significant impact was that at the end of the 35 minutes I had a plan, I had focus, I felt amazing, I was smiling and full of energy wanting to talk with the relevant people to start to move forwards. My fears and self-doubts fell away as I could now both sense and see a pathway with new priorities, new creative solutions, new opportunities for AestheticSource, our customers, our brands.
Here are my two key tips for this week:
Plan: Spend 35 minutes planning the next stage of your positive approach.
Remember: Not all activity has stopped, many people are still working (even if it is a different job, homeschooling, charitable work, key workers roles). There is still a desire to buy skincare that is delivered to our homes and to do safe treatments ourselves at homes such as exfoliating peels and handheld electrical devices like LightStim®. If you need any assistance, ideas or advice, we are here to help - call us on 01234 313130 or email us at orders@aestheticsource.com.
In short, your clients/patients still need you, they need your services, they may even just want to have half an hour (or even 35 minutes) to talk with you. Spend 35 minutes deciding how you can reach out to them home to home, how you can consolidate the changes you have made in the last 7 weeks, and how you can frame the next 7 weeks, 7 months, 7 years and onwards in this phased approach to long term personal and business success.
Cheers, and Good Health,
