What a year it has been! It has been a roller coaster ride, horror movie, and a walk in the jungle – all at the same time. As I write this, the province is a multitude of colour markers depending on the county/region that you live in with the number of total Canadian Covid-19 cases still going up on a daily basis.

A recent article in the Globe and Mail highlighted a study that showed 45% of employees would still like to have the flexibility to work from home and office while 48% of Canadian employers do not intend to continue the flexible working policies once the pandemic is over. This begs the question what are you taking away from 2020? As uncomfortable, strange, frustrating, and bizarre as this year was, it provided an opportunity to do things differently. What have you learned about yourself? What do you want to continue doing and what do you want to start/stop doing? I often utilize the stop/start/continue question as a year-end reflective space for my coaching clients and it seems even more poignant this year.

For me, I made a conscious choice to block off time in my calendar to go outside for my mental and physical health. This commitment allowed me perspective and space to embrace nature in a deeper and richer way and gave me a much-needed break and outlet from the daily grind of always being in my home office. As an outdoorsy type of person, I needed nature more this year than ever before to help restore my mental clarity and balance which I will gladly commit to continuing.

As for what I want and need to start and stop doing, I am going to take more time to reflect and define what served me and what did not. What about you? What has been your biggest takeaway from 2020? What have you been surprised about during this unprecedented year?

Identify what you need and start, get rid of what is not serving you and stop, embrace what feels good and continue. Why? Because you are SO worth the effort.