In light of the virus situation, is it time to consider a career or business change? For many people this is a good time to rationally re-evaluate your opportunities – instead of merely hoping that things will magically turn around. Hope is not a good career or business strategy.

Many restaurant and retail workers, for instance, now have to field questions like these as part of their jobs:

• Why should I wear a mask?
• Why are you even open right now? Do you only care about the money?
• Can you take a pay cut and do the same work as before?

If this (or something similar) has become part of your job or business, do you really want to continue on these terms for months or years? Is the offer you’re getting from that situation still a good one? Are you still happy with the opportunities? Or are you just spinning your wheels there due to the difficulty of shifting?

Think of your current career circumstances as an offer from reality. See it as a test. When the offer shifts to something unpalatable, will you grudgingly accept it? Or will you pass the test by declining the weak offer and requesting something better? You don’t have to say yes to an offer that’s full of stress and uncertainty.

The virus is suppressing some previous opportunities, not just financially but emotionally as well. For some people the work that was once reasonably pleasant is now a lot less pleasant and more polarized. This is a good time to reconsider whether it’s still worthwhile to invest your life in the same path going forward. You could invest elsewhere instead. Sure it’s challenging to do that, but staying could be a lot worse.

You are not your career or your business. When a line of work is on the way out, you needn’t link your own survival to it. Businesses aren’t born and don’t die. They’re created and retired, and the people live on to create more. It’s not a failure to retire from a business or line of work. It’s simply a choice to reinvest your time and energy elsewhere.

Bet on choice opportunities instead of chasing after bad ones. Many opportunities that looked good a year ago have turned into bad ones these days, and that’s unlikely to change in many fields for at least the rest of the year. Even if everything clears up by 2021, which is unlikely, you still have six months left in this year. Don’t throw that away on non-opportunities and virus denial. Reinvest your time and energy where there are some truly good opportunities, which are still abundant.