As I begin my fifth week at home, I have realized that the world isn’t going to end, patience is needed, my husband and I really do get along and the world will be a completely different place until we all get vaccinated for COVID-19.
We are all anxious to get back to work and our initial edginess is perhaps starting to turn to apathy in relationship to our routines and work habits. There has been a diagram going around amongst well known management consultants and although I don’t know the original creator of it, I think it has some good lessons to share. I have taken some liberties with it to make it applicable to the dental community. Choose which zone you are in and then choose where you would like to be and make any necessary changes.
Which Zone Do I Want to be in During Covid-19?
Fear Zone:
- Hoarding food, toilet paper and medications that you don’t need
- Complaining all the time
- Transmit my anger and fear related responses to others
Learning Zone:
- Stop compulsively consuming things that harm me, from food to news
- Start letting go of things that are out of my control
- Honestly identifying my emotions
- Verify information before sharing it
- Acknowledge that everyone is trying their best
- Think of the best way to act in the situation
Growth Zone:
- Find a purpose to each day that will help your practice move forward when this is done, whether it is personal growth or reviewing current systems in the practice
- Thinking every day of how I can help others who are having a tougher time than me. This could be connecting with team members, helping neighbours or connecting with people you have been too busy to connect with lately.
- Show empathy to myself and others without becoming apathetic.
- Live in the present and focus on the future
- Show gratefulness and appreciation daily to those around you and those who have gotten you to where you are today
- Exploring ways to adapt to change both personally and professionally
- Practicing calmness and patience so that we can easily bring these qualities to work once we return
Accountability Partners
We now know that our quarantine is going to be much longer than expected and initially it was likely pretty easy to make yourself a To Do List of projects that you would like to get to as you figured you had approximately two weeks at home. As we move further into this it will be harder to motivate yourself especially as there is no current end date. There will be a flurry of activity when we get closer to return, in the meantime we should all have five activities everyday that suit our goals to successfully getting through COVID -19. My suggestion is that find someone (or me) and have them as your Accountability Partner. Send each other a quick text before 10am each morning of what you are going to accomplish for the day. It may look something like this: 1- watch a webinar for technique suggestions 2- exercise 3-homeschool kids 4- connect with two team members 5- practice guitar. Knowing that you are accountable to someone else will increase your likelihood of completing those tasks. The next day along with your new list of five actions you can add in a comment of how you did on the list from the previous day.
Can We Talk?
In my previous communications with you during COVID-19, I have been suggesting that you connect with your team members both as a group and individually. I am offering the same idea to the dental community, a complimentary thirty-minute one-on-one Zoom Call with me. I will be happy to hear your specific concerns, offer some suggestions or provide encouragement if needed. Sometimes, it is helpful to voice your biggest fears to help them dissipate or obtain another point of view. I am not going to be following up with annoying calls or emails after these calls, my goal is to share my passion for my profession, show appreciation to the industry that I work with and it will allow me to feel that I am helping out in some small way during these unprecedented times. Contact me if you would like to set up a Zoom call with me and I will send you a link.
As you can tell by my communication today, I have chosen to be in the Growth Zone and I hope you make that choice as well.
Stay safe and stay in touch!
Cindy Mark
905-577-5796
www.yourbenchmark.ca
