Is It OK to Do Nothing About My Career During Coronavirus? (Because It's All I Want to Do)

No doubt you've been fielding calls from your clients, boss, team, friends, family, acquaintances this week. You've gotten a zillion emails about your yoga studio/hair stylists/Jamba Juice's plan to defeat coronavirus.

No matter how many free magnesium booster shots we put in our smoothies, absolutely everyone is on the edge of their sanity with all this uncertainty.

This is natural.

We are now experiencing a once in a century phenomenon no one has ever lived through.

We -- none of us -- not our leadership, scientists, employers -- have a playbook for what the "right" thing to do is and that leaves us scattered, paralyzed, zoning, stockpiling, binging, disinfecting, tweeting, stressing, terrified.

This is natural.

There was never going to be a playbook. The best we can do is compare it to things we've learned from our own experience.

And at this point in our mid-careers that experience is vast & valuable.

Remember the dot com bust? 9/11? The auto & bank bailouts? The 2008 housing crash? The 2016 election? The immigration crisis?

All impacting millions. All stressful and hard. All moments we've survived (even if we continue to suffer the consequences).

We're old timers now. This is a good thing.

We have the experience and perspective to know that though we've never experienced anything quite like the current climate, this too shall pass.

But maybe we're not there yet.  

This is natural.

The day everyone raided their local supermarket for the last box of spaghetti, I had a client come to a call with a terrible migraine and say she was considering ending our engagement early (and eating the cost) to avoid wasting my time.

She was beyond stressed. A month into a big new role. In physical pain. In a foreign environment, away from her wife during such an uncertain time (she was on a business trip when we spoke). Not a time to make any serious decisions. We put aside on our session so she could sleep. We kept out designated time together as a physical space where we could talk about anything other than the pandemic.

When a massive amorphous blob of uncertainty flops directly in front of your path your first instinct is not often to grab a bucket and get to shoveling. Often we'll deny, fret, and deflect before we deal.

This is natural.

I will not deny the allure of completely taking your foot off the gas and laying along the roadside, waiting for the vultures to take you. 

Maybe this is where you need to hang out for a few more days. That's cool. These are stressful times.

This week the President announced this new state of affairs - social distancing, working from home, relying on frozen foods - may last through the summer. That's up to 6 months. When you're approaching the peak of your earning potential, that's a lot of time to lose.

At a certain point, we're going to have to deal.
When it comes to moving forward with your career -- getting hired, getting promoted, owning your leadership role -- in the time of coronavirus:
Though we're called to shelter in place, we don't have to stand completely still.

We will get back to "normal." Companies will hire again. The economy will pick back up. In the meantime there are things we can do to help yourself along.

I'll talk a bit more about those things in the next newsletter. This week, tho -- take care of yourselves.

• Call your parents and peer pressure them to stay indoors.

• Meal plan like a champ.

• Take you and yours out on an outdoor adventure that would terrify an agoraphobe.

What's your biggest fear around your career trajectory in the time of corona?

Join our newsletter below or email me at ac@acelectric.co with the subject: Coronavirus.