Are you a newly trained baker? Runner?

Did you learn that your kitchen floor really needs re-tiling, that your window needs replaced, that you would rather spend the money from your wedding on a housing deposit…?

Getting plunged into the bizarre will force you to adapt and learn.

Some of this has been really painful stuff. Some of this might be useful that you will keep in your life going forward. What you learned might actually have changed everything about ‘your normal’.

I’m not going to go into great detail about the many aspects of self-reflection and change that I have been through since the pandemic began. I’ll probably have to write a book about it (let me know if you have a publisher).

But I will share with you the business-sorts of lessons that I learned during Covid. The journey was totally wild and did not end up where I expected at all.

And I learned loads.

Have a read. And then go do your own thing.

1) Learn by doing.

Oh dear. This was so painful to find out.

Turns out, entrepreneur-ing and the ‘world of work and business’ is not something that you can experience through textbook pages.

However, doing, without over-researching, is not my comfort place.

On that note – another term for ‘uncomfortable’ is ‘growth opportunity’.

2) I work too much.

(I knew this already.)

I seriously do need to invest more time in self-care *she said while sending this advice to everyone else*

I’m working on the fact that I work too much.

3)  Everyone has a personal brand.

Even if you think you don’t, you do.

Actively cultivate it.

(A ‘personal brand’ is what people say about you when you are not in the room. It helps if this is something like, ‘She was helpful, keen to learn, energetic and always does what she said she will’, and not, ‘She bores me and never cares about anyone else’. I hope I am the former).

 Caption for gallery: images of each lesson on a new slide to browse through.

4) Ask for advice…

You are not the first person to go through this. And most people will be willing to help.

Reach out. Watch tutorials. Listen to podcasts.

5) …Then ignore most of it and find out what works for you.

Thing is, the more things that you find out, the more you end up in the ‘pit of despair’ i.e. you are aware of everything that you still need to learn. Also people will tell you different things. It all gets a bit confusing.

Be brave enough to leave things that do not work for you.

And that’s the first five. Five more to come in the next post!