4 Key Lessons From 2020 That Can Make Your 2021 Better
2020, What a Year!
It indeed has taken away a lot from us, in terms of money, job, traveling, social life…. the list is endless. At the same time, this year has taught us many things like taking up family responsibility, becoming more fiscally responsible, learning to become adaptable, and staying fit and healthy.
Let’s have a look at 4 key lessons which according to me all of us have learned, irrespective of being in a different part of the world or from different social strata.
1. We are now a bunch of Resilient People
Resilience (or resiliency) is our ability to adapt and bounce back when things don’t go as planned. Resilient people don’t wallow or dwell on failures; they acknowledge the situation, learn from their mistakes, and then move forward. By going through 365 days of 2020, for sure we have learned to face the challenges and failures better, though the scale differs. This resilience is going to play a key role in making your future better. Hereafter you are not going to get bogged down when suddenly the offices close down or your life plans get put on hold for an indefinite period.
2. We are more Adaptable
Adaptability is more than being flexible – it is about being open to things, even outside our comfort zone, and not making pre-conceived judgments such as ‘I could never do that’ or ‘that will be too hard for me’. When the news of the coronavirus outbreak and lockdown came we all were anxious, worried, and irritated. We all were not willing to the rules set forward by the government. Unwillingly we started to accept work from home, wearing masks, staying indoors, and that for a really long period. By pushing ourselves through this we all have picked up the trait of adaptability. This trait for sure is going to help you in your work and in managing relationships.
3. We all have high degree of emotional intelligence
Emotional intelligence or EI is the ability to understand and manage your own emotions, and those of the people around you. When this pandemic started we all use to get annoyed with the noise of a baby crying during a meeting or getting interrupted in a meeting by a family member asking for help in doing house chores. But then by the end of 2020, we all have evolved to accept the situations around us and are fully able to control our emotions and reactions. We all have developed unknowingly the skill to stay in control. In 2021 we are going to find it easier to form and maintain interpersonal relationships and to ‘fit in’ to group acts well.
4. We all developed Learning Agility
Learning agility is the ability to be in a novel situation, not knowing what to do, and then quickly figure out a way to get out of it successfully. We all have treaded the unknown pandemic path with zero experience and have come out of it successfully. Learning agility you picked up during 2020 is going to help you in becoming more adaptable to today’s world of rapid changes.
These are just four skills that came to my mind. There are several more you would have acquired during this eventful year. So do not be upset or sad that you have not picked up a new business role or hit a milestone, be proud that you have already picked up so many good traits, by staying afloat during this pandemic time. Wishing you all a prosperous 2021. happy New Year folks.
