As lockdown is being more relaxed and we’re urged to return to work you might have found yourself called back into work, whether from the office or home. How did this make you feel? Were you ready for it? Or maybe you are still off and getting anxious about how you’ll cope when you go back?

It hasn’t been easy adapting to life in lockdown but you’ve made it work. You’ve finally settled into your new routine and maybe are starting to enjoy it. You’ve had breakfast with your kids for the past two months, perfected your tan and are finally have time to practice yoga every day But it’s all about to change again and you need to prepare yourself to go back to work at some point. 

No one knows what work is going to look like when we’re fully out of lockdown, will we all continue to work from home where we can, or will employers be desperate to get everyone back in. Will we still be able to grab a coffee with a colleague and sit together in meetings or will we all be sitting in cubicles surrounded by plexiglass? Only time will tell and rather than speculating and getting yourself worked up about what it may or may not look like, you need to take this time to reflect about whether you want to go back to your job, regardless of where you’ll be working from. 

You need to consider everything that is certain about your job so you can evaluate if it makes you happy. 

Some of the things to reflect on are:

• your actual job: do you like what you do day in day out?
• your employer: are you proud to work for your company?
• your team: do you enjoy working with your manager, colleague, own team?
• your pay and benefits: do you feel fairly rewarded for the work you do?
• your work life balance: even if things have been different for the past few month, were you given space to live your own life or did you become available for work 24/7?

Things will change, only time will tell if your employer is going to recover from this crisis, if your boss will leave, if you’ll be working from home permanently or be made redundant in a few months. But it doesn’t mean you should delay doing something about it if your job is making you feel like shit. 

You have to deal with the facts that are in front of you right now. If you keep hoping and waiting for something to change, you’ll be there for the rest of your life. 

Take action now and get yourself ready to become employable again. Think about your dream job, take a course, update your CV. Whatever floats your boat…

What I don’t want you to do is to go back to the same job, feeling like you’ve waisted an opportunity to change your life.