While planning our team’s annual ‘Steps Challenge’ I noticed the US National Walking Day falls on April Fools’ Day. How ironic. In our own country the necessary Government restrictions in place to reduce the spread of COVID19 have put paid to one of the easiest and most accessible forms of free exercise available to us.
I have always found a walk to be good for my physical health, good for my mental health and good for my soul. It is also good for our business (@Anderson Anderson & Brown Consulting Limited). A few short walks during the working day help shift my mind into different zones to reflect the type of work I am about to do and they provide me with both quiet time and some mental freedom. Walking is also sometimes a good way to hold meetings; the meetings seem to have a different feel during a walk.
Like most things in this time of the Coronavirus, our walking habits have been massively disrupted and the benefits of walking have been jeopardised. So what do we do?
We manage it like every other disruption that impacts our lives and businesses. Of course, not every disruption is as deadly or frightening as the current one, but we seem to be in a period of continual disruption of one sort of another. We need to establish a way of thinking and acting that enables us to cope both in our personal lives and in our businesses:
- PHYSICAL HEALTH : we need to accept (albeit perhaps not quite embrace) the disruption and train ourselves to act. If we want to continue to receive the physical benefits of walking, we need to commit to doing our one daily outside walk and become more mobile within our homes. Plan it and do it (no middle stage of ‘thinking about it’ or ‘worrying about it’). The same goes for our business - we are planning the next few months and just getting on and delivering. We are also today starting a team “We will walk 500 (actually,1000) miles” challenge to keep us all fit together. Nike’s ‘Just do it’ has never been more appropriate.
- MENTAL HEALTH : it is possible in the current climate that we may not get the usual additional benefits from walking because our minds are elsewhere. We lose the ‘quiet time, mental freedom and productive meetings’ benefits. We need to find other ways to get these additional benefits. Let’s start thinking differently about new ways to get those benefits. I am setting aside some quiet times (particularly important for my wife’s mental health also!), I am making time to do some drawing and a little meditating. In our business, we are encouraging more informal chats using digital comms tools and we are having regular team virtual coffees with only one rule – no work chat. We are also being even more mindful to start meetings by asking how everyone is rather than just jumping into content. “Health isn’t just about what you eat. It’s about what you are thinking and feeling too.” — Unknown
- SOUL : the very essence of who we are. This is probably the hardest thing for me to describe but I know that after a walk I just feel stronger, more capable and ‘lighter’. I know there will be many out there who will say ‘that’s just the physical benefits kicking in’ but it is more than that – it is about me feeling more like the Mark I like and that others love. The same goes for our business – we are working hard at the moment to hold onto what makes AAB Consulting special and to ensure we feed that whilst also managing client work, pipeline and cash-flow. “The soul is placed in the body like a rough diamond, and must be polished, or the luster of it will never appear.” ― Daniel Defoe
So, please observe the Government restrictions but keep walking – good for you and your business.