What If Covid Was A Pivotal Moment?
Mar 30, 2021We have just passed here in Switzerland the anniversary of the first lockdown. I think that back then we all hoped that it would be a short lived thing and that we could go ‘back to normal’ by the Summer.
Beyond the exhaustion of it all... one year on, for many Covid seems instead to have triggered a pivotal moment. One of those points in time that gets us to stop and think. And ask deeper questions about why we are here and what we are doing with our lives.
I am experiencing more and more leaders asking questions about how to shift their careers or their businesses - to explore how to integrate more balance, purpose and meaning into what they do. Which are tell tale signs of a pivotal moment.
The question is if Covid is a pivotal moment for us all, then are we navigating it in the right way? Both personally and at a humanity level so that we can reap its benefits. This is not a class we want to fail and have to retake.
A pivotal moment like any game has rules. You can fight it. But ultimately the way through is the same. So here are a few things to know...
1. Pivotal Moments are not about the events in themselves. They are meant to stop us in our tracks.
At my pivotal moment, I was left in constant pain and unable to walk as a result of a minor exploratory operation that went wrong. I was told that I would never get better. Talk about my life coming to a sudden stop! Its significance is that it made me completely review and reassess my life.
So this is not really about masks nor lockdowns. It is not even really about vaccines or whether you can go to choir practice.
It is about humanity as a whole and each individual for themselves pressing pause on their life. So that we can review how we are doing and whether we are aligned to our true purpose on this planet.
It is the time to assess the track we have been on and whether it is truly leading us to where we want to be. And even if it all feels successful on the outside. It asks that we check inside for anything that might have been missing.
Is there a nagging feeling that we have been ignoring? A feeling of unease that was getting lost in the noise of our lives - and that now can be heard in the quiet of our hearts?
2. We think that pivotal moments are about rearranging the external furniture of our lives. When they are in fact calling us to reconnect to and bring out lost aspects of ourselves.
So in the career arena, we think that they are about finding another job, going to work for an NGO or starting our own business. But what they are actually about are stepping into a new level of authentic personal contribution and leadership expression.
At the humanity level, this pivotal moment is about humanity itself going to a new level of expression of its true potential on the planet. It is about realising that our current system has become too small and limited. And that we need to evolve that system to make it fit for the purpose we are being called to.
So the question here is what aspects of lost potential are you being called to reconnect to and express now?
3. We believe that getting through pivotal moments means managing the existing crisis to eventually get back to normal. But what they are actually calling us to a different path altogether.
One where beyond managers of the day to day we become courageous conscious creators of our lives. Where we step aside from the highway of the traditional success ladder and we enter the less travelled road of pure potentiality. One where we focus our work and our leadership on imagining and creating a new world through our unique inspiration.
In all its harrowing and gruesome initiatory shake up, Covid has snapped us out of our automatic lives into consciousness. And as such it plays its pivotal moment role perfectly. It has shown us that life can be different and that we can rise to the occasion when we really want to - even if it feels unbelievably hard at the time.
Its unexpected potential benefit, is that it has awakened us from the dream back into our true creativity and power.
I don’t know about you. But when I look at the kind of problems I have had to solve in the last year, they have asked of me a completely different level of creativity. Not just a few innovation tweaks. But quantum leaps in insights, rocket fuelled levels of growth and paradigm shifts in thinking.
And so this pivotal moment is doing exactly what it is designed to do - have us stretch to breaking point. So that we can realise just how powerful and resourceful creators we actually are.
Let’s be clear these are tough times. But seeing it through the pivotal moment lens, we can make sure we harvest its treasures. So what will you do with this new found creative power - what has Covid taught you in terms of what really matters in your life and what you want to create that has meaning?
Until Next Time,
Louise
Louise is a Next Generation Career And Leadership Catalyst who supports leaders to step into their unique purpose, blueprint and impact. She is the Creator of The Positive Energy Leaders' Academy - A Next Generation Leadership School To Create Fulfilling, Meaningful Work And Become The Inspiring Leaders Of Positive Transformation You Are Meant To Be. She can be reached at [email protected].
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