I have always been an advocate of positive thinking, in fact its almost expected now in conversations that if people start to take a downward spiral in their thinking, I will ask questions that can help them flip/reverse their view point. So how do we do that for 2020 when for many (including myself) it’s been a tough year.
Firstly, we can focus on the good, great and small that has come out of it. Many of us have created stronger bonds with friends/family, learned new skills (my 88 year old father is now a Zoom expert) and taken time to appreciate some of the smaller things in our lives that may have passed us by in other years.
But for some people that can all seem a little cliched. It’s been a hard year, many have been ill, lost a loved one, been on furlough for months or even lost their job.
So how about this, I was told something years ago that has stuck with me when it comes to helping people out of tricky situations. If a butterfly is helped in anyway when it struggles to come out of its chrysalis, it is unlikely to survive. It’s the struggle that helps the butterfly’s wings to develop and enable it to fly. Without the struggle they don’t grow strong enough to enable it to escape and so after spending time as a grounded caterpillar and then wrapped up in a cocoon the butterfly never gets to see the world from the air.
So if you have struggled in 2020 ask yourself, are you stronger as a result? No matter what you have gone through, have you learned things that will help you have a better 2021? Our I Have Got This! logo is about holding the world in your hands and evolving into the amazing person you were born to be (the butterfly), that doesn’t always happen without some hard work and struggle.
So perhaps whatever 2020 has thrown at us, it has given us new skills and perspectives that can help us grasp 2021 with renewed resilience, confidence and perspective. Happy New Year!
Alison Burgess