Proactive Resilience: Do everything you can to be prepared and strong (physically, mentally, emotionally, financially and more) in advance of things getting worse.
Nine days ago, September 18th, I published: “Prepare for things getting worse, then hope for better“, sharing that I feel strongly that the UK will move to full “stay at home” lockdown. I wrote:
I am not certain we will go back to the same level of lockdown this time, but the evidence strongly suggests to me that we will, so (sorry parents) schools will not make it to the end of this term without having to close, plus pubs and other gathering places may be closed again before Christmas. This time the psychological impact will be worse, as there will be less hope there of it being lifted or even eased for months to come.
What do I recommend? Prepare for worse, then hope for better. The alternative is to be under-prepared. I know which I’d rather plan for.
In that preparation, consider what I call “Proactive Resilience”. Do everything you can to be prepared and strong (physically, mentally, emotionally, financially and more) in advance of things getting worse.
Well, within days from that post we started to see this come to life, yet most people I talk to still say: “yes, but we won’t go back into lockdown like we did in March”. Do read that post where I talk about our bias to the positive and to the status quo.
Today, though, simply suggesting you make “Proactive Resilience” list to carry you through a potential lockdown winter. Write it down and focus, yes, on logistics and similar essentials (hopefully we won’t have such panic buying again!), but my focus for you is on the physical, mental and emotional wellbeing side. A few examples from my list:
- Start each morning with a five-minute “body scan” meditation
- If I can’t see my Pilates trainer for a full workout as I am doing now, take the “Pilates at home” mat workout notes she gave to me and make doing a short mat workout part of the daily routine
- Reinstate the routine we created in March for several months of a daily check in Zoom with my sons
What might be on your list? Like a Hurricane plan when I lived in Cayman, you may not need it, but there is value in, proactively, making one.