Living and Working with Intention, more important now than ever!

This blog post was initially written three years ago, however fast forward to today, and the message is still as important as ever, so we wanted to revisit and share it with others again.

 

On February 18th, 2020, which now seems like a lifetime ago, Lead to Inspire was honored to speak at a Women’s Conference in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Making the drive into Lincoln that morning, we talked about various topics, one of which was something we’d never heard of before, Coronavirus. When we stopped for gas the Omaha World-Herald headline reflected the situation, 13 people were quarantined at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Hmmm, interesting, we’ll have to do more research on that one, and then our conversation moved to other things.

Arriving at the conference, our focus for the 200 women in the room was Living and Working with Intention. We talked about how much pressure we put on ourselves to be perfect, to be all things to all people at home and at work. We challenged the group to not fear failure, to realize NO ONE is perfect and to be empowered by saying NO to the things that clutter our lives. We also talked about how sometimes our “best laid plans” get uprooted but when everything seems to be falling apart, how we react to the situation makes all the difference.

Wow, how many times in the past few weeks has the universe wreaked havoc on our plans? It’s happening daily, if not hourly, our lives are changing amid the Coronavirus crisis. So how are we reacting, individually, as a family, as a community, as a nation? The crazy world we’re living in today can either pull us down or keep us focused on the fact we need to adjust and live life on purpose. How do we continue to move forward in a time of crisis?

1. Focus on what we can control

  • Don't panic
  • Nothing causes more fear and anxiety than trying to control something we cannot control. When you start to feel anxious ask yourself if it is something you can control? One example, our kids are not in school, we cannot control when or if they might go back, what we can control is how we help them and their teachers through virtual learning.

2. Be educated

  • Get factual information from the World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Control
  • Use common sense
    • Social distance yourself and your family – stay home
    • Wash your hands

3. Help build a stronger community

  • Take care of your family
  • Look out for your neighbors
  • Lend a helping/supportive hand

4. Have faith

  • Whatever you believe now is the time

Let’s move forward, together, whether you have the title of “Leader” isn’t important, what matters is how we react to what’s happening around us. It’s about helping others, knowing although our normal today, is anything but normal, if we stay focused on living life with intention and focus on what we can control, we can’t go wrong.



Sherry and Marcia