The question you need to ask yourself during this quarantine: how to improve your post-quarantine life
One really important question you must ask yourself this quarantine: what do you miss the most about pre-quarantine life? I'll explain the significance of asking yourself this later. For now - who do you miss the most? Were you socially anxious and used to avoid people as much as possible but now realize you miss human interaction? What have you learned about your productivity patterns? Did you formerly complain about not being able to be home more, but ended up realizing that you're actually not the most productive when you're home? Or, on the contrary, do you usually study at school or at the library, but now realize you're actually more productive at home? Do you need to study or work with people to stay focused? Do you miss going to the gym? Did you used to complain about not having enough time to work out, but now that you have all this time, you still haven't devised a work out plan? How much money did you save this quarantine? If you saved a lot, how did you end up saving all this money? What do you miss more: partying and large crowds, or real conversations with a select number of friends? Are you growing frustrated with your family? Are you getting tired of your partner while quarantining with them? Perhaps your relationship is not cut out for the long term. For those of you quarantined at home with more people than you're used to living with, are you realizing you can't be around people this much, then? Is it a problem with them... or is it a problem with your attitude? Analyze what your coping behaviours have become - this is important data. If you have a fight with your family, do you find yourself eating more? Or eating less? Did you spend a lot of money online shopping for things you don't need this quarantine? What do you find yourself doing the most while with your free time?
Now let's use the data you've gathered about yourself this quarantine to make your post-quarantine life better than your pre-quarantine life.
If you're craving human interaction more than you expected, you may be less socially anxious than you think you are. But if you're thriving with all this alone time, you should probably reorient your life post-quarantine to allow more alone time.
What did you learn about your productivity? Did you realize that maybe all this free time actually hampered your productivity? Remember that next time you complain about not having enough time. Let this be a lesson that extra time doesn't guarantee a better outcome, and with that, you can't use time as an excuse to put off doing something in the future. Do you miss being in a cafe or library while you're studying or working? You may be most productive with a light buzz around you. Make sure that's where you go if you have a deadline coming up in the future. Do you find it very difficult to stay focused if you're alone? Do you find yourself wishing you were working or studying around with people? You may have some serious issues with keeping yourself accountable. Next time a big test is coming up, perhaps it's better to do a group study. Or, maybe you should avoid coming home early on days you have big deadlines coming up, because you need to be around your work mates to be more productive.
Did you complain about not having enough time to exercise during your pre-quarantine life, but now that you do have all this free time, you still don't really work out? Then the problem isn't lack of time - it's a big fat lack of discipline. Perhaps you don't have a quantifiable goal - an actual weight, fat percentage or muscle mass that you're aiming for. Having a quantifiable, visualizable goal significantly increases your chances of going after that goal. Do you miss the gym? If so, has your progress been significantly reduced by not having access to the gym, or did you realize that you can actually get a lot of efficient exercise done at home, and thus can make do with a cheaper gym membership? Check out my article on how to efficiently work out at home this quarantine here. Did you realize you have a hard time keeping yourself accountable with exercise intensity at home? If so, the gym atmosphere (particularly, being around others who are working out) may be pivotal to your focus - tell yourself that the next time you think "oh, I'll just work out at home today."
Did you save money this quarantine? If so, evaluate what has been different. You've certainly cut transportation costs - that's probably not something you can change in your post-quarantine life because you can't avoid driving/commuting. But perhaps you saved money because you ate out less. Did you cook at home more? Perhaps you realized cooking isn't so hard. If you haven't saved much money this quarantine, I encourage you to cook more. You're going to realize what many have realized - that it's not worth it to pay for food that you can easily make at home. I'll insert a personal experience here - I keep an extremely detailed account of where my money goes every month and I realized that I saved literally hundreds of dollars per month on food during this quarantine due to eating at home and almost completely eliminating take-out. I learned how to recreate a lot of my favourite Starbucks drinks at home and thus don't really feel like paying 6 bucks for them anymore... nor do I feel like paying for boba drinks, which I also learned to make at home to satisfy my cravings. These are habits I can take into my post-quarantine life. I used to enjoy UberEats a lot, and I was initially very upset at not being able to order take-out in the initial stages of lockdown (because I was hesitant about bringing in anything from outside), but I ended up not missing take-out at all. That's because I learned how to make a lot of my favourite foods at home and now feel kinda stupid paying for it. This is a good habit I will certainly preserve post-quarantine, and I recommend you do, too!
Were your monthly expenditures increased this quarantine? If so, why? Do you tend to online shop when you don't even really need to when you're bored? How about your physical appearance, like your skin and weight? Is eating your coping mechanism while you're stressed? If you tend to eat more when you're stressed, and you've gained weight this quarantine, that may be an indication that whatever conditions or people you're exposed to right now aren't the best for your productivity or health. If you gained weight, is it because you eat while you're bored? Is it because you haven't been able to go to the gym? Have you been breaking out? Is your hair falling out? These events are indicative of stress. Has your skin been clearer than normal? Is it because you're not wearing makeup? It might be time to throw out whatever foundation you were using pre-quarantine and find a different one if your skin is doing much better.
Perhaps it's time to develop some better habits in this extra time. Start flossing your teeth regularly. Fix your sleeping schedule. Read some self-improvement books (or these articles!). Start deep conditioning your hair every week. Learn some new recipes. Organize your makeup more efficiently. Check the news more often and donate to human rights causes. Start reading about the stock market. Invest into new stocks while the prices are down.
This is also a valuable time to evaluate your relationships
Who are the people you miss the most? Who checked up on you - dropped you a message or gave you a call to see how you're doing? This will help you evaluate who is most likely to be there in your time of need. Are they different than who you expected? Who asked you how your family's doing? If the quarantine has affected your career or academics? Who told you to give them a call if you needed anything? And, of course...who did you check up on? Who do you find yourself curious about during these trying times? If you failed to be there for someone who might have really needed you this quarantine, perhaps that person isn't as important to you as they should be. That might be important data. For example... are you getting tired of your partner? If you're quarantining with them, you may be realizing your relationship isn't where you want it to be. Or, maybe you actually grew closer. Are you quarantining with your family? How has that been for your mental health? How have you affected their mental health? Perhaps this is a good time to repair your relationship with an estranged family member, or perhaps it's time to realize you need to draw boundaries with a family member because your pre-quarantine life without them was better. Or, perhaps you realized that more family time is calming for your sanity.
"There is so much I wanted to do during this quarantine" or "I wasn't able to do as much as I wanted to during quarantine"
If you have a to-do list for this quarantine, you may be feeling restless because you haven't made as much progress as you want to. Maybe you wanted to finally start painting again, or learn how to play the guitar, or start a blog (*wink*), or change your job, start a diet, improve your MCAT or LSAT score, and so forth. And maybe you haven't pursued these goals, even with this extra time. This is all data. The simplest answer is plain old procrastination. But explore why you lack discipline - it may be an indication of what's actually important to you, and what's actually important to you may be different than what you want for to be important to you.. A year from now, after all this is over, would you wish you had rested more? Or would you have wished you had a better plan? Would you wish you created a solid list of things to accomplish during quarantine? If you're not sure about what to plan, ask yourself if you know what you really want. Do you not have a clear vision for where you want to take post-quarantine life? This is especially important to ponder for new grads, those unhappy in their current career paths, or those who are still in school. If you procrastinate a lot, push the brake, and ask yourself what you want your life to be like five years from now. Then work backwards to see what you need to do to build that life four years from now. In order to do that, you'll have to do A, B, C three years from now. In order for that to happen, you have to accomplish the tasks D, E, and F two years from now. Therefore, a year from now you'll have to accomplish G, H, and I tasks. Therefore, right now, year 0, you have to indulge your time into doing J, K, L.
Why is it so important to ask yourself what you miss most about pre-quarantine life?
As I said, you're most likely experiencing a great dialling down of stimulation. Less interactions with people, less work, less homework, less deadlines. Everyone at one point or another wishes they were less busy. Your current environment may not be conducive to reaching for your old coping mechanisms. For example, you're not able to go out and party to forget about your career goals, you're not able to anaesthetize your worries by drinking them away, you're not allowed to tell yourself you're too busy to apply to a new job because you're stuck all day at an office you hate, since you're home. You may never experience this again - the complete global absence of the fear of missing out, and such a dramatic decrease in unforeseen stimulation.
Annesa
If you get nothing else from this article, I want you to take this paragraph seriously. Think about what you want your life to look like a year from now. "Who am I now, and who do I want to be a year later?" A year from now, what do you wish you'd done during quarantine? Been more proactive vs. reactive? Use this time to pinpoint what exactly is holding you back. Are your financial constraints holding you back? Is your weight holding you back from confidence? Is your office atmosphere holding you back? Are you much more mentally sane now that you're not around your toxic work peers? Is your relationship holding you back? And then, make a plan to tackle what's holding you back. Turn this quarantine into something that's feeding you instead of eroding you. Ever heard of the phrase "summer bodies are made in the winter"? Well, your body, face, career, mental health, relationships, whatever it is, can be made during quarantine. It doesn't have to be an empty gap of time in your life that you spent complaining about not being able to do anything. Instead, visualize this as a set-up, or a build-up. A mental hibernation. You've probably taken this time to reorganize your room, washed your car, organized your closet, cleaned your kitchen, finally washed your makeup brushes... now it's time to clean out your emotional closet. You may be thinking all this is a chore, and if that's the case, you're just going to come out of quarantine having wasted months of your life. That's your loss. Growth is painful - that's why the term "growing pains" exists. There's no growth in your comfort zone, and no comfort in your growth zone.
So, what do you miss the most about pre-quarantine life?
Sincerely,
Annesa
Comments
Post a Comment