The title itself may seem too obvious but there is more to it. When COVID hit, where were we? Nowhere! Many lost their jobs, furloughed, laid off- sitting without any contingency planning. Most of them resorted to networking, referencing, asking colleagues and other employed professionals to help them out. We all have gone through this nerve-racking ordeal. Throughout this whole year, we have learnt a lot of things which we might have not pursued, if we had our normal lives. This blessing in disguise has really proven to be a new direction for many.
Things we learned:
1- Plan B is direly needed. If you don’t work on it- you would be trapped in your professional life at some point in time. Depending on one source of income and considering one job as long term security, is now proven wrong.
2- Tech-savvy world- Technology has got a huge role to play in our lives. Not knowing the nitty-gritty of virtual platforms such as Zoom, YouTube, Microsoft Teams etc, would not have been helpful. These digital tools gave us life and made us stay connected with our networks.
3- We need some time than a mere 9-6 office life to work on self-learning. I have personally witnessed it! Throughout this tenure, we finally got some time to work on our self-development, introverts explored networking, professionals got active on LinkedIn, invested ample time in their CV revamps, many started personal branding doing online sessions, found an excellent medium to showcase their potential.
4- Exceptional people ventured into their career dreams starting their own platforms. Finally, they had the flexibility and plenty of time to think over their long-desired entrepreneurial spirits.
Every dark cloud has a silver lining! Just think for a moment – Would you have achieved all that in a non-COVID year? If you ask me, I would say a big NO! Out of frustration and social distancing, I started fulfilling my achievement need all by myself, solely working on my potential and exploring new things.
Yes, I am more than an employee- I just need to exercise a bit of flexibility, positive mind mapping, proper planning and timely decision making to make my dreams come true!
