The online model for language teaching/training/coaching has been growing more and more popular in all corners of the world but I think it’s safe to say that the current global crisis has catapulted online and remote work models into the forefront of everyone’s mind. Maybe the call for social distancing has been just business as usual for you or maybe you are in the middle of opening a brick and mortar learning center! In either case, one thing we all have in common right now is, theoretically, more time. We have more time from the lack of commute and we potentially have a vacuum created from not doing the gazillion, small, in person tasks that we normally fill our days with when we go to work. This is a positive for sure, but some of us might be so freaked out about how to continue to thrive professionally during a situation that seems to have driven the world to a halt. My response for that is PLAN and ENJOY. Let me explain:
Plan: Use this time to make extra plans, regroup, evaluate how your year has started off and if this is the way you want it to continue. Use your extra time to really focus on your goals and establish the kind of time-oriented plans that will really push them forward. You can do this by journaling, using spreadsheets, making lists, whatever floats your boat!
Enjoy: Have you seen the meme about social distancing not meaning that we can’t still have fun? Get out in nature, take a walk, play games, make art, establish a routine that will work for your family. We are used to shipping our kids off to school and kissing our SOs goodbye and heading into the office to spend our best hours of the day with other people, well let’s flip that on it’s head! Let’s give our families and ourselves those premium hours. Enjoy your days, move, cook, organize, dance, sing, whatever it is that you are always wishing you had the time to learn or do…do it! Your professional inspiration will only grow if we embrace this this time with joy and with hope.
I have an online coach training business, a brick and mortar business and a consulting business. My first reaction to this situation was sheer dread: How will I move forward? How will I serve my clients? How will my clients ever be able to afford to hire me? That dread has slowly been replaced with the feeling that this is, in fact a huge opportunity to show up for my clients in ways that they didn’t even know that they needed me, and to really turn my focus inward as well and figure out how to reconfigure my offering and make it so relevant that even a global pandemic can’t slow me down!
Carrie Mckinnon, in addition to being an ILCA CO-founder is a linguist, consultant, and business owner, currently based in the metropolitan Atlanta area.
