'Covideolizations'- The COVID imparted life and work lessons

It's been over a year and the Covid situation has got worse. It's been over a year of learning resilience, over a year of learning how to deal with life when everything doesn't go on as you planned, over a year of learning how to not rush and be okay slowing down.

Here are 3 insights from the last year since Covid has changed not just our lives but how the world works to a great extent:

1. Success can also be achieved by slowing down and not rushing things

Be it work or relationships, rushing things create disasters, it destroys things. At work, when we slow down, we have time to reflect, observe and analyse what's going right, what's going wrong, what needs to be constant and what needs a change of strategy. By slowing down, we increase our productivity and creativity, we get fresh insights and ideas to take things to a better level than the initial plans and with more clarity. By slowing down, we reduce stress not only for others but ourselves too.

In relationships, when you slow down, you have time to reflect, to heal yourself, to understand yourself and your strengths and weaknesses, your healing and toxic traits that could be dealt with better. By slowing down, we learn to appreciate ourselves and the present better than just focusing on the appreciation others give us and the future. By slowing down, we give ourselves the time and space to understand what we really want and what we deserve rather than just rushing for what is quick and appealing momentarily.

2. Ability to deal with change with spontaneity and flexibility

Before the Covid situation, targets and goals were very important at work and in life. Being ambitious, loud and bold was glorified more than being steady, balanced, consistent and firm. At work, it was all about following the 1 year, 5 year, 10-year plans and daily goals and checklists. It was all about setting targets and meeting them no matter what. Work culture in physical space seemed exhausting and suffocating, it was forceful and round the clock. With the Covid situation, people's health is getting affected, internet or devices giving trouble sometimes or not having good connectivity due to everyone staying in different locations as compared to when everyone almost had the same facilities at the office. Covid has taught us to deal with situations, with challenges as and when they come, to be ready whenever they come and to be flexible about our goals.

In life, it was all about external validation for so many of us. It was all about other people in either extreme. Life has become more about yourself or with your family or loved ones, about those who matter. There's little or no choice to cater to others needs or validation so much because of social distancing, partial lockdowns and little to no physical socializing, priorities and commitments changing that we didn't see coming earlier and that have helped us to be more real, to be more authentic and forcing us to be true to ourselves than ever before. Before Covid, if we felt sad or upset, we found a way to make ourselves happy through others, through the outer world, outside our homes but now it's becoming more and more about finding and seeking happiness and peace in the inner world of our soul as well as inside our homes.

3. Realization of what needs to change first and is under control – the world outside of the inner world of the mind and soul?

With restrictions in physical movements, we realize that social change can't just be seen by checking into a place, posing with a group, offering items to others, talking on issues and creating awareness, posting won't help but performing well, even if there's no audience to click, like or applaud, even if there's no audience to watch us succeed or see us create the change. It may not be easy to reach out to all audiences to offer support or help as it was before Covid. We realize that many things, other people, the world, and the Covid situation may be out of our control, but what is in our control is our own life, mind, body, and soul.

Even if we can't change others, even if we don't change the physical things around us, we can always change ourselves, we can always change our attitude, we can always create a better inner world so that our own mind and heart isn't uncomfortable for us so that we feel peace and happiness inside to create it outside even when others may not be supplying those to us. At the end of it all, we realise that what will really matter is whether we changed ourselves over whether we changed others because when we change ourselves, we create a greater change that we may not have to work hard excessively for separately. Everything that's around us or with us or under us will shift, they will evolve and change because we chose to lead the change and be the inspiration of all others to follow through example.

(Madiha Ahmed is a Socio-Cognitive Development Specialist, an Edupreneur leading two companies, a STEM Mentor at New York Academy of Sciences, Digital Literacy Consultant at Dell Aarambh and a lover of horses who finds deep joy in riding them.)