There is nothing like a global pandemic to change your perspective!
Yours will have changed without a doubt!
It’s helpful to examine our changed perspectives so that we know where we have grown and matured.
It also helps us understand changes that have happened to us. This all helps us to move forward into better ways and new directions.
Examining our new perspectives is also a useful practice as it helps us to be aware of where God has been at work in our hearts, changing us from the inside out.
There are 3 areas in particular that I have noticed where many people’s perspectives have changed during this pandemic:
Clarity of what we value
Without a doubt the prolonged lockdowns have shown us more about what we truly value. Being faced with a shortage or potential shortage of provisions, having to be separated from family, being stopped from travelling and working in the way we are used to, being isolated from so much of what we used to call ‘normal’ and so much more has all changed us.
We have adapted learning to live in new ways.
We have learned what we can live without and what we cannot.
All of this helps us understand more clearly what our core values are, showing us what is truly important to us. Is it connection, above all else? Is it certain relationships? Which routines or ways of doing things in daily life do we need in place the most? What do we struggle with not having the most? What does that show us about what we value most in our daily lives?
From all that has been restricted what has stifled you the most? Freedoms have been taken away, and given back but what is it that you have felt the most strongly about? What does this point to in terms of the values you hold dear and how you want to express them in your life? What does this show you about your purpose?
For me, in part I have loved some of the isolation. It’s given me a chance to think, feel and process more deeply. Also, it’s given me a chance to connect to God a fresh. It’s given me a chance to re-evaluate vision and purpose. But I have also found that too much isolation, points to what I value most about community. Not being able to meet with and spend time with people has made me realise the importance of it and my absolute need for it! Iron sharpens iron (Proverbs 27:17). Wise people can question, encourage, coach, and challenge each other.
Without spending time with each other on some levels our growth and development is stunted. Without connection with others, we lose our sense of belonging and purpose, our feeling of being part of a family which is part of our very identity.
What have you learned about what you value most? How can you align your life to this more?
Seeing a better perspective of what is possible
Extreme circumstances bring about extreme changes. These changes don’t happen without extreme decisions being made. Because of the pandemic many of us have been able to see things differently. We have been able to see life without certain things in it that would have previously been considered inconceivable.
Work has had to change radically and quickly. This has given people many different perspectives and ideas on how to do things differently permanently. Many of our coaches reverted to running training courses and coaching online having previously been against it. They have found whole new audiences online ready for what they have. They would never have connected with these people if they hadn’t changed how they work.
Sadly, jobs have been lost, putting many in situations to have to reinvent their work and life altogether, envisioning something completely different. On the positive side of this many are making big decisions and giant steps to step into doing something they would have previously just thought or dreamed about, but never had the courage to do. Losing a job, makes making a change essential. What people feared stepping into previously, because they feared losing a regular income and a comfortable and familiar job, all of a sudden becomes a viable option when you have already lost that job and have to make real and radical choices.
Even watching others close to us being thrown into different and difficult circumstances suddenly gives us different perspectives. It helps us see what is possible beyond what we have seen before.
Having to do church differently, or not being able to do it at all, has made many of us think, what we really want in the future and what is possible.
What we may have perceived as impossible previously in so many ways, we now see as possible.
What do you now see as possible for your life?
Knowing what you want
Many are becoming clearer on what they do want and what they do not want. Both are so important. The pause in our lives during the pandemic has given many of us thinking space, forcing some of us to think more deeply about the life we really want.
Coming out of the last lockdowns, many people made big moves geographically and changed up living in the city. The extreme circumstance of the pandemic made it as clear as day what they wanted and made making decisions that may have been put off for years all of sudden easy.
For others an urgent desire to know what they want and what that could look like in the future has grown. The coaching industry consequently is exploding! Realising that life is short and life is adaptable, people are seeing that they have many more choices than they previously ever realised. This is helping people get clear of what they want for their lives and their families more than ever before.
What have you become clearer about regarding what you really want?
CHRISTIAN COACHING
Changed perspectives don’t go away, all that we see differently now we will continue to see differently. Our perspectives have been broadened. God has done a transformative work in each of us during this time and this will continue.
Years from now, many of us will trace back major shifts in our thinking, our faith, our courage, and belief to the 2020 global pandemic.
Romans 8:28 – And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
Philippians 1:6 – And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.