As we all start venturing out from the past few months of quarantine, we want to help you identify, prioritize, and prepare for your “new normal,” by sharing some of what we have learned in the piece below, as well as some reflection questions (attached) for you to consider.  We would love to hear any answers or additional thoughts you’d like to share!

Is it Tuesday? Or Wednesday?  Unexpected changes filled the past few months, for all of us.  We’ve been in limbo, staying home and waiting.  Lingering concerns vary from financial worries about market volatility, staying employed, and redefining retirement plans, to personal and family worries about staying healthy and juggling family care while working from home. Even our vocabulary has changed, as we’ve added over-used phrases like social-distancing and new normal. 

1.  Daily Life:

• Without events to look forward to, the passing days blend together…is today Tuesday?
• Working from home and home-schooling are harder than they sound.
• Our brains need the decision-making break that comes from habits and routines.
• Quarantine 15? During times of stress, taking care of ourselves becomes even more important.

     What about YOU?

• Where are you most challenged right now?
• How are you feeling about the future?

2. Priorities, Goals & Values

• We get used to racing through days, check off boxes and forget why we even do it all.
• We take for granted hospital visiting hours, and seeing grandma in the nursing home.
• Face to face time with family & Friends is precious and hugs are priceless.
• Long term investment planning may not change, but our conversations will.

     What about YOU?

• How have your priorities shifted?
• What do you think you’ll regret not doing during this time

3.  Refocus on what is important

• Planning is how we make sense of the passage of time. Keep preparing for life after quarantine.
• Look for positives; communities and families pulling together.
• Focus on what you can control and do what is energizing.
• Reframe thoughts, like “stuck at home” to “extra time to focus on family.”

     What about YOU?

• What are you doing to take action, feel some control, or de-stress?
• What have you seen in others that’s brought hope?

Your actions, though seemingly small, make a difference to you and to others.  It’s the little things that add up to change the world.

The other day my daughter said that she and her husband created a “chuck-it” list.  Then explained that it’s like a bucket list, but instead consists of things they thought they wanted to do, see, go to, and such, but now priorities have shifted and they give themselves permission to chuck-it.  We would love to hear which things you would move to your chuck-it list and what you are now adding to your bucket list?

Dive a little deeper by exploring these and more questions here:  What About You?