17th July 2020
Getting through Covid-19 – Embracing the suck
Covid-19 turned our lives upside-down overnight. Many organisations and their people are working harder than ever to replace lost revenue streams and ensure they stay afloat. The majority of us will have had to adapt our way of working and support those around us. Or maybe you are a frontline worker who is facing extremely difficult situations every day. In short – it sucks.
As Jason Lauritsen battles his way through the stormy waters, he is reminded of his son’s military training and the advice he received to get through hard times. In his blog, he shares his story and the advice that is getting him through.
From the blog:
Embrace the suck.
This is a familiar phrase for those who have served in the military. It’s a way to remind yourself or others that what you are doing is hard but important and that you need to keep going.
The difficulty and discomfort of the experience are a necessary part of the mission or process, so there’s no point in wasting energy complaining.
My oldest son, Dylan, served as a United States Marine. If you know a Marine, then you may have heard that boot camp is one of the most challenging experiences anyone can endure. It’s thirteen weeks of being pushed to your physical, mental, and emotional limits.
Dylan knew going in that it would be hard. He’d been given a lot of advice and guidance for how to best navigate the experience. Chief among that advice were those three words:
Embrace the suck.
Dylan didn’t enjoy boot camp, but he recognizes that “the suck” was a critically important part of shaping him into the Marine and the man who emerged on the other side of it. The struggle and unpleasantness shaped him in ways that will remain with him throughout his life.
I’ve been reflecting a lot on this lately.
In almost every conversation I have right now, at some point the topic turns to the uncertainty and challenges we are all facing as we try to make important decisions day to day in the face of tremendous uncertainty. There’s a lot of “suck” to go around.
We are being forced to give up, reconsider, and change so many things in our lives that it can feel pretty overwhelming. And it’s really unclear when it will end.
On my end, the middle of March represented a moment when much of the way I make my living was put on hold indefinitely. Conferences were cancelled or postponed. Corporate trainings were delayed. And given the economic turmoil since then, there was no easy way of replacing that work.
A whole lot of “suck” hit me overnight.
Out of necessity I started experimenting and doing things that I hadn’t done in the past. I’ve helped produce and host two online conferences since April. And I launched a new employee engagement online learning community.
These weren’t things that I’d intended to do this year. And all of this has been far more difficult than I expected. Like many of you, I’ve worked harder since March then I have in a long time, partly driven by anxiety about the future and partly due to the fact that so much of what I’m doing now is new to me and requires a lot of learning.
Get the full article online: Embrace the Suck.
Make sure to explore Inspiring Workplace’s other content and insights about leadership.