Coping With Our New Normal - Calgary Event Planner

Coping With Our New Normal

For years, I’ve had the great fortune of being an event planner with no shortage of projects, clients and things to keep me busy. But, like so many businesses, this past year has basically brought my career in events to a grinding halt. While I’m fortunate to continue working with some clients that have successfully adapted their events strategy, there’s still no real replacement for the large scale experiences that have become my specialty thus, 2020 has been very quiet and has provided me with plenty of time to think.

Ordinarily I’m a force of nature that’s constantly on the go. I thrive in high stress situations that most others dread and now with the absence of hard deadlines and places to go, I’ve found myself floundering for the first time in years.

So, with that in mind – and with more down time than I care to have I thought I’d share how I’ve decided to refocus and bring myself out of this event-less slump.

Last week I shared about choosing a word to help guide me through 2021 and that word was Grace.

This week I’d like to share some of my own coping mechanisms that have helped fill the void in hopes that perhaps you’ll find value in them too

Gratitude

One of my more popular posts from the past was An Event Planner’s 6 Steps to Practice for Living Your Best Life and the biggest and most important step I discuss is all about practicing gratitude. It’s a simple practice that can truly make a world of difference. Consciously putting effort into identifying the positives around you helps preserve the optimism and keeps us grounded during a time when that sometimes feels impossible.

The Home Edit

With all this extra time I no longer had any excuses to avoid all those home projects that tend to pile up so I spent some time organizing, cleaning, sorting and purging. Its amazing how decluttering can free up your sense of well being and provide a sense of accomplishment.

The Mental Detox

The next thing I’ve been working on is choosing what to allow myself to mentally consume. The current state of the world and 24-hour news cycle can easily become overwhelming so disconnecting can be unbelievably refreshing. Stepping back from social media and disengaging with those in your life that are overly negative or mentally draining can also offer a massive amount of relief and freedom. It’s important to remember that ultimately, we’re our own masters. We chose who we want in our lives and what we want to consume. What surrounds us affects us so be sure to choose your surroundings wisely.

Identifying What’s Really Important

The one bonus of this pandemic is it has allowed me the head space to carefully consider the things that I want in my life and clarify what’s truly important. Travelling has always been a priority in my life and while I miss it (and the 5 trips that were cancelled last year) I’m also grateful that I took full advantage of that freedom in the past. I know that I will travel again some day but in the mean time, I have many amazing memories to tide me over. This slow down is allowing me to explore areas closer to home – and try new things like (don’t laugh) but skating and snow shoeing.
What’s really important lately has been making time for the things I never did before like music, reading, the outdoors and meditation.

This “new normal” has certainly been far from ideal but when we can shift our perspective, recognize the opportunities still in front of us and find those silver linings, we might just find it a little easier to cope until our true normal finally returns.

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