Restart: A tool to help you reinvent yourself, your team or your community I Susan HayesCulleton
Channel: The Positive Economist
Date: 2021-03-24

Throughout history, there have been many downfalls that have forced communities to rebuild from the ground up. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused immense global suffering, and communities now face the challenge of rebuilding economic, social, and environmental factors all at the same time. The Restart Project led a holistic discussion about community regeneration, providing advice on the key factors that help the rebuild process for individuals, businesses, and communities.
 
*Three Key Takeaways*
There were many important techniques identified in the conference to help leaders through the process of regeneration which can be summarized into three key takeaways. The first is to be as clear as possible about why you want to get somewhere. When looking to reinvent yourself, you first need to know why you are doing it in order to find the best ways to motivate yourself. To measure how successful you were at accomplishing your goal, you need to know why you were doing it in the first place. 

Secondly, community regeneration pushes you to test assumptions. Often times the most worthwhile assumptions are the most obvious ones. By measuring an assumption’s likelihood to change, and the impact it had if changed, you can highlight the areas that need improvement in yourself, your company, or your community. This strategy is helpful because it often identifies problems that you may be blind to. 

Lastly, when a problem arises, you must find ways to improve as a result of that problem. It is no secret that the pandemic has paved a bumpy road for everyone, but by changing your perspective you may find that there are lots of opportunities to grow. For example, take the opportunity that most jobs, meetings, and conferences are remote to lever technological skills and learn how to work remotely. While this is not ideal, you are developing new techniques that can be applied to future tasks.
 
*Benefits of Community Regeneration*
Although community regeneration is often brought on by disaster, there are many positives that regeneration brings. Mícheál Ó Duibhir can attest to this, for he said: “regeneration enables families to return, emigration to be counteracted and work-life balance to be restored”. Working from home during the pandemic has given families time together that they did not have before, as well as presented international opportunities that would have not been possible otherwise. Orla Casey added that “2020 has made companies hyper-local, increased the importance of tech and agile thinking, and soared community spirit”. According to Clair Ferris, if leaders are taught the best practices to change their mindset, they can enable others to do the same which will ultimately lead to growth.
 
The pandemic has brought different struggles to each and every one of us, but it has also provided an opportunity to reinvent the way we live our lives. With the greater good in mind, community regeneration can lead to a better future for everyone.

To learn more about Restart, go to:
http://www.restart.how/index/home

To learn more about The Positive Economist, go to:
https://www.thepositiveeconomist.com/​​

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