By Dani Raskin
I attended two ICON sessions this year that really stood out to me, mainly because they revolved around what our world is dealing with right now. One was about how to manage our mental and physical health in the hybrid work era and the other was all about how to thrive in your post-pandemic career.
Mark Mohammadpour, an accredited communications executive and certified health coach and personal trainer discussed tips on how to take control of your health in our new normal. What I found really interesting about this session was when Mark spoke about how PR Professionals in particular have not been taking their paid time off. They are working TOO MUCH. They are having 15-20 meetings a week, in person or on zoom. Burnout is a real issue. We need to take care of ourselves, our mental health, and our physical health. Some tips he gave to balance work life and our own personal wellness were to go on walks, whether it be during your lunch break or after your workday. We can also jot down thoughts in a journal each day. We can see a therapist. Therapists can be for anyone. Having that unbiased, outside person to just talk about anything and everything could be very helpful for some people. My biggest takeaway from this session was that we need to be transparent. The world has changed in so many ways and changes take a toll on us. We are all human beings, we cannot handle everything thrown at us. It is okay to take a day off if needed, it is okay to contact your boss to express you are not at your best and it is okay to make time for ourselves. While the pandemic is not fully over yet, we still need to think about what is next for us. Career coach, Angee Linsey, shares some tips with us on how to thrive in our post-pandemic careers. With people who have never heard of zoom now spending full days staring at their screens and sitting in their childhood bedrooms, it will definitely be an adjustment. The year 2020 came with many disruptors such as an intense election, a pandemic, and mass protests. I took away a few really helpful tips from this session that I will carry with me post-pandemic. I learned to look for opportunities that are not just available to me, but those opportunities that I have reached a little further to get. Angee Linsey also spoke about how important it is to learn from others.
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