Well, 2020 has been a bit wild hasn’t it?! I suspect that, when we all wrote our goals of what we as individuals and companies wanted to achieve this year, we didn’t include a world-wide pandemic in our planning. However, looking back at my own 2020 ambitions (my blog post on what I set myself at the beginning of January can be read here), I’ve noticed that I have actually begun to accomplish what I wanted to do – I’ve been building and continue to develop my experience, skills and network.
Some things have also happened this year that I didn’t expect on a personal level as well as professionally and I would suppose that this is also true for others. Though I’ve said in previous posts that I’m trying to write content that is less personal, this will probably contradict that. Yet, though this blog is an element of (and is categorised within) my ‘Things I’ve Learnt About...’ series, I have included the word we in the title and at certain points throughout the post as I wanted to also discuss all the things as a collective that have happened this year (the pandemic and everything we’ve all gone through). So, let's start at the beginning.
Pre-COVID
Doesn’t January, February and March feel like ten years ago and not the actual start of this year?! I was in the middle of working in the bookshop of my local cathedral, job hunting, writing blog posts and my Babbasa mentorship. I was also doing bits of content work for Catalyse Change. We were in the midst of Brexit and the fallout of Harry and Meghan from the royal family. Things were normal – we could go about our lives as we normally would.
Lockdown 1
And then, in the middle of March, COVID arrived and the UK went, with many other countries around the world, into lockdown. We were all told to stay at home and all places that were not someone’s home were shut to the public. We couldn’t go to other people’s houses and we were only allowed to go out for one hour a day to exercise. We all had to get used to working from home (WFH – wrote a blog post on this which you can read here) and learn how to use Zoom/Microsoft Teams.
I personally knew that my cathedral job was coming to an end but the closure happened a lot sooner than I and my colleagues imagined it would. I spent a lot of the first few months of lockdown trying to do as much as I could work wise and, thanks to my mentor, managed to get paid freelance work. I’ve been doing social media content creation and management for a board level non-executive director training and networking company since the middle of May which I felt really fortunate to have. I also continued to write blog posts and develop my network by using LinkedIn and going to webinars.
Summer
As we entered the warmer months, lockdown began to ease and places began to slowly open back up again. I spent the summer working, going on holiday with my family to Cornwall and having my first ever proper dating, relationship and breakup experience. It was nice to be able to be out and about, albeit having to wear a face mask. Masks with glasses are a challenge, am I right fellow spec wearers? The WFH/new job gleam began to wear away and things began to get complicated in terms of what we could and couldn’t do. Life was very up and down.
Autumn
The pandemic got all the more complicated as we moved into Autumn. This was also the point where my sister started at university, meaning that it was only the four of us (I, my parents and my brother) in the house. This was also the point where work started to get busy again as more online events happened and I got back into writing and posting blog content. Nothing much changed during this period apart from the pandemic getting bad again.
Lockdown 2
So much so that, at the beginning of November, we went into our second national lockdown in the UK. Whilst this one lasted one month rather than three to four, it felt much weirder and more complex than lockdown one. I and my family spent most of it starting our first ever watch of The West Wing after the news of the presidential election. Work rolled on and I also began applying for jobs again which kept me occupied.
December and Looking to 2021
As we’re now in the middle of December, I’ve begun to think about what 2021 might bring and all the challenges we’ve faced during 2020. Whilst some things have changed (everyone now working from home, the loss of a job for me and the gaining of a new one, relationships), some things stayed the same (still living at home, still spending most days at a computer screen, still using an A4 notebook and Excel timesheets to plan/monitor). I’m beginning to get in the Christmas spirit, but it’s a lot harder this year than previously.
I recently read an article on Glamour UK about how the livelihoods of Gen Z and Millennials are being forgotten about as we try to come out of the pandemic and vaccines have begun to roll out. This is something that I feel is quite close to home for me personally – though I am extremely lucky to have a paid job and a loving family and a roof over my head, I’m still not satisfied with where I am professionally or personally. A lot of us, including me, have felt stuck this year and resilience is needed when we try to get unstuck. I hope that as the new year rolls around, the stickiness can loosen but until then, who knows?
Beth x