How’s your “new normal”?

If you’re like me, it really depends on the moment.

Sometimes I take my own advice from two weeks ago and brush my teeth, drink water, and text my mom a funny joke to encourage her not to walk around Rite Aid even though she’s bored.

At other times, today for instance, I cried and broke out in hives before noon.

Based on what I’m seeing from others on social media and feeling in my own body, these are stages of grief. Nice that Harvard Business Review agrees. We are collectively grieving change on a level most of us were unprepared for and without an end in sight.

On top of that is having to hold it together for others.

If you let yourself, you can likely feel the burden of other people depending on you for stability, a sense of calm and order, being their shoulder to cry on.

That’s a lot, especially if you don’t have a shoulder for your crying.

As an A student, this time may also bring out your superpowers. You could excel at being thrown into action, managing schedules, comforting loved ones, and working out to one of the many new online classes.

If you’re firing on all cylinders, go you! And if in the quiet moments you also break out in hives, you’re not alone. If you want to talk through either, my calendar is still open for Pep Talks.

More support when you need it:

1) Brave the discomfort. Brené Brown has a new podcast and I already listened to the first episode twice because it’s about this pandemic being a FFT — “F-ing First Time” — for all of us. There’s a relief in naming our collective new territory plus she also offers concrete steps to move through it.

2) Make a to-do list. The first thing that went out the window when changes started? My to-do list. The thing that will save my sanity, and keep me positive and productive? You guessed it. No doubt your to-do list is different in a lot of ways than a month ago, so if you haven’t already (go A students!) make a new one. Decorate it special, choose a new font. The version I offer my mailing list might help.

3) Join me for a Lunch Break on Instagram this Wednesday at 1pm ET. I’m speaking with Stella Yoon of Hudson River Exchange about how we’re navigating this new normal as business owners and what might help you too. Follow her to see when we go live.

4) Choose hope. I listened to a meditation by Oprah and Deepak Chopra on Hope in Uncertain Times, and she quoted Maya Angelou: “Hope and fear can’t occupy the same place. Invite one to stay.” You might need to re-invite hope several times a day, treating it as a form of meditation: choosing hope (for your family, business, health and community), and when your mind wanders choosing hope all over again.

I believe so much in you, and what’s possible when we lean on each other.

What to do instead of hiding

In conversations lately, I’ve heard a lot of insecurity about the world and our place in it, money and having “enough” of it, and time and losing it to constant recalibrating. And that was before the virus started spreading.

I can’t be the only one who wants to hide when things happen that have no clear solution.

Of course plans need to change in order to keep people healthy, and of course our businesses and lives will change along with those plans. Kids will be home from school. Customers will make less of some purchases while buying a whole bunch of toilet paper.

And what do we do in the face of all of this?

Some ideas, and I’d love to hear yours too:

1. Remember the basics. Take deep breaths, drink water and wash your hands often. Like every great goal you’ve achieved, the small consistent steps are the most meaningful.

2. Stay grounded. Brush your teeth while looking in the mirror and really see yourself. You’re here. You’re safe in this moment. You are loved big time.

3. Show people you care. Tell people you love them. Phone calls, sending letters (there’s still time to join my real mail #hugtour or start your own!), smiling at drivers you pass on the highway or shoppers in the aisle over. Thanking postal workers, school bus drivers and pharmacists.

4. Create contingencies. Life changes all the time, and though now feels unprecedented it will feel that way again in the future. What’s most important? Really answer that question for yourself, your family and your work, and then make plans accordingly.

5. Make lemonade. I’m pretty sure you’re already good at this one. Enjoy the first signs of spring by looking for them everywhere. Get dirty finishing a home improvement project and feel good about the accomplishment. Re-start that daily gratitude journal. Borrow more books from the library. Use the changes as a way to innovate your work.

And if accountability helps—we are A students after all—email me about how you’re making lemonade.

Maybe we can brainstorm some fun ideas or inspire each other to get creative.

Let’s make the most of this time. How special it is.