2021: Planning for an Uncertain Year
If 2020 gave us nothing else, it gave us some of the best memes in, well, ever. Of course, as much as we all wanted it to, all the calamity that came with 2020 didn’t leave at the stroke of midnight on January 1, 2021. We’ve seen some changes, and we’ve seen some progress. But we haven’t seen a whole new world. Some of us are still stuck at home in quarantine. Some are locked down. Some are going to work, and the world looks a lot like it did before COVID-19 – just with more unemployment and more uncertainty.
I’m sure you’ve seen the meme floating around that says something like “If someone asked you in 2015 where you saw yourself in 5 years … you definitely got that answer wrong.” Analysts across all industries made wildly inaccurate projections for 2020. Business owners thought they’d have their best year yet, and now… well, things aren’t as sunny as they were a year ago.
So, how can you plan for uncertainty? How can you get through another 2020, another pandemic, the end of this pandemic, a personal tragedy or family emergency, or any of the other things that could happen in a year? Here are a few life and career lessons I picked up along the way in 2020.
Never stop marketing (and, yes, content is still king)
Okay, first, I wrote a blog about this last year, and it holds true. If you’re running a business, you need to be marketing that business. If you’re working to advance your career, you need to be positioning yourself and your skills to your best advantage. Your customers may not be ready to spend money right now, but when they are, you want them to think of you. Your boss might have the whole company in a hiring/promotions freeze, but when that freeze lifts, you want to be the person they think of first. Always market yourself. Which brings me to my next survival tip…
Always celebrate your successes
It’s easy to beat yourself up about your failures. “I had the worst sales year in the history of my company!” Okay, but your company survived a year of lockdowns and economic upheaval. That’s a huge success! “My biggest client had to cut back to a quarter of the work we were doing for them before the pandemic.” Okay, but they’re sticking with you, and as their business rebuilds, they’ll come back to you for more help as they can afford it. By empathizing with their situation and working with them, you helped them survive a tough year. And by staying with you at a lower commitment, they helped you do the same.
When you think of failures, consider what you can learn from them and how you can pivot to fail up. What can you take from 2020 that will set you up for success in 2021 and beyond? And what went well last year? What worked, and how can you carry it forward? Celebrating your successes can take you a long way toward more success in the future.
Stay agile
Finally, plan as much as you can. Automate your social media posts and schedule out your blogs. Build your strategy and create a roadmap for each week, month, quarter, and year. And then get ready for those plans and strategies to change. Stay flexible and agile. Give yourself room to get creative. The more you can bend, the less likely you are to break. Give yourself room to grow, to retreat, and to change course. The world will throw a lot of challenges at you, but you can brave the storm and get through just about anything if you have the right mindset.
Need help with your marketing content? Looking for ways to boost your marketing strategy? Want to partner with a consultant and coach who knows what it’s like to run a small business? I’m here for you! Let’s talk.
