Everybody Needs to Calm the F*** Down

I don’t want to make light of the very serious and dangerous situation we all face right now, but some of the response has been ill-informed.

By and large the government has managed this emergency well, but society is often a different story.

It would seem that when it comes to our own individual wants, humanity can be feral. If you don’t believe me, try buying toilet paper, pasta or rice. This “I must have more” mentality has been on display since the outbreak of Coronavirus (Covid-19) and it must stop.

Darwin would argue this is survival of the fittest, but I don’t agree. It’s shown many of us to be selfish and lacking the ability to think long term.

While I fully appreciate many are doing it tough, I still believe we all need to calm the f*** down and relax.

Despite the media’s relentless efforts to fear us into a frenzy, the sun will still rise tomorrow and our lives will continue (albeit while adhering to certain measures, like social distancing, for a period of time).

Like the bushfires, this is a time to come together (not physically) and work out ways we can not just survive but prosper. And that starts with removing the anxiety and just relaxing.

The fact is, the world has dealt with worse, like world wars, and has come out on the other side and eventually bounced-back and improved.

If you are looking at this time and thinking you’re staring down the apocalypse, I think you need to take stock of yourself and look at this circumstance in a different manner.

How to deal with uncertain times

Choose your attitude: While this sounds harsh and dismissive of somebody doing it tough, the reality is to deal with difficulties you need the right attitude. If you don’t you won’t find the most effective outcome. No matter what happens, I believe you choose how you deal with it.

Here’s how to reframe a poor attitude:

• Turn your challenges into missions you have to complete
• Be grateful for your life (chances are even in a dire environment, you’re still more fortunate than most)
• Remove people who only add negativity and complaints to your life (seriously, what purpose do they serve?)
• Take responsibility for your circumstance and deal with it head-on

Look for the positive: A positive mindset goes a long way towards success. In fact, you can’t succeed without being positive in life (or business). Your life or business journey will never go entirely to plan and that’s why you need to remain positive to deal efficiently and effectively with hardship.

Here’s how to have a positive outlook:

• Be happy for what you have, not negative for what you don’t
• Get up each day early (with a smile) and ask yourself what you’re doing to achieve with it
• Develop your purpose for being and don’t allow other events to deviate you from it
• Remember that you’re strong and valued

Commit to giving back: How many times have you heard people talk about how helping others was much more beneficial than being in life simply for themselves? Well, it’s true. In these uncertain times, helping others in need enables you to change your perspective.

Here’s how to give back:

• Find a charity in need of volunteers and offer to work with them (trust me, there’s no shortage of charities needing help)
• Engage someone in conversation, so many people are lonely and a friendly chat can make the difference (do you know your neighbours?)
• If possible, donate to causes you agree with and make it a regularly occurrence (ask what your money has contributed to, so you stay connected to their objectives and it becomes more than just a task you do)
• Get involved in community events that bring people together (as much as you can in this time)

Help a mate out: You have skills they don’t and vise-versa, so work out what you can both do and use each other in areas of your life or business where your or their help is needed. Helping others is a great way to know your worth and make a difference in the world.

Here’s how to help a mate out:

• Identify the skills you have that your mates don’t
• Ask your mates what they would benefit from that you can help with
• Plan out what you’re both going to help each other with and then get it done
• Ask your mates if they know anyone else what needs a hand and get in contact with them

Think like a start-up: If you’re in business, you need to go back to the thinking you had in the early days. In uncertain times, money and customers are not as readily available so you have to rework the way you operate.

Here’s how to think like a start-up:

• Be nimble and look for opportunities in markets that are growing in tough times (for Covid-19 think commercial cleaning companies)
• Use the slowed business environment as a chance to train team members in new technology and upskill them where needed
• Adapt your service offerings to accommodate the new world we live in (ask your customers what they truly need right now that you can help them with)

Covid-19 has been unprecedented and it has caused us to fumble through an uncertain time in life and business, but we’re going to recover and be stronger for the experience in the end.

For now, we can’t control much of what’s going on. So, our focus needs to be on remaining positive and having the correct attitude to get through this.

If you’re struggling to come to terms with this new reality and you believe taking your mind off your circumstance is a good thing, start looking at who you can help.

We’re all humans and we need to get through this together, not in competition. The more we work as one, the better.

And if you commit to remaining positive and helping others (where you can), it will come back to you ten-fold when you least expect it.