I was a Girl Guide, and am still a member of Girlguiding to this day, so I try and live by the motto, Be Prepared.
The Scout and Guide motto is founded on Robert Baden-Powell’s own initials, BP – Be Prepared, which means, you are always in a state of readiness in mind and body to do your duty. ‘Be Prepared’ means Guides are ready to deal with anything that might come their way.
In the main, I get myself and feel prepared for most things. But I will admit, I didn’t feel I was prepared to deal with a pandemic when we went into lockdown earlier in the year.
It took me a while to prepare myself for dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. I think because it was thrown at us with such short notice, so with very little time to plan. We didn’t know what we were, or how long we were, planning for. Initially I assumed it was just for a few weeks. So even the plans I did make were very short term, and therefore initially not appropriate for what was required y any stretch of the imagination. So the plans needed to evolve to help me cope, and feel prepared. And I needed alternative plans, i.e. plan A and plan B.
If you know me, you will know I love a plan. I can spend hours planning. In fact, some might say I can spend more time planning than delivering, if I have a fault, it might be to be tempted to over plan.
But being prepared needs a plan. And we’ve all heard of the 6Ps haven’t we ….. (prior planning prevents p*** poor performance).
Christmas is another time of year I normally create lots of plans. Christmas cards, Christmas presents, Christmas shopping, entertaining, food to buy, food to make, places and people to visit, Christmas present deliveries and of course, cooking the main event, the actual Christmas dinner ….. list after list after list. And even on Christmas Day I make more lists, of what presents we’ve received so we can write our thank you letters.
But this year, I’m struggling with my Christmas planning, are you? I’ve got my Christmas card list, and should be ploughing through that now, instead of blogging, but hey …. any excuse. And I have my present and Christmas shopping lists. But other lists are proving more difficult. Because we can’t see many people, and if we can, we have to do it in small groups and outside. I’ve got to make an effort to see people and do things differently I know. I need to keep calm, and be (get myself) prepared.