Quarantine is the Best Time to Make Yourself a Better Person. Here’s How.
With shelter-in-place orders becoming more common across the country, people are starting to realize the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic. There’s no telling when it’ll end or how long it’ll take for the world to go back to normal. Until it does, you can’t leave your home to go to work, visit friends, eat out or do much of anything else. For most people, it’s an indefinite time when you’re at home either by yourself or with your family.
At first, it might be nice to have a break from the daily routine you’re used to. No more rushing to get ready in the morning so you can sit in traffic during your morning commute. No more frustrating meetings at work or hectic afterschool schedule. You get the chance to truly relax and kick back. But after a couple days of this, you’re likely to go stir crazy! People are active creatures—we need stimulation!
But what can you do? Well, for starters, why not use the gift of time you’ve been given to focus on yourself? Here’s how.
Ask the important questions
Are you the person you want to be? Even people who answer “yes” know that there’s always something about themselves they’d like to change or improve. If you’re going to work on yourself during this quarantine, you need to be honest with yourself about the type of person you want to be. Grab a notepad and jot down a few answers to these questions:
- What’s a skill you’ve always wanted to learn?
- What do you never have time to do, but always want to?
- What are some qualities you admire about other people?
- What things in your life are important parts of who you are?
The goal is self-reflection. As you begin to answer these questions and others like them, you’ll start to get a picture of how you can grow. Spend some time looking inward and asking yourself honest questions about who you are, what you want to achieve and what type of person you want to be.
Set goals and stay focused
There’s no time like the present to start your journey to self-improvement, and you don’t know what tomorrow is going to bring. Don’t say “I’ll do it tomorrow;” instead, say “I’ll do it right now.” Diving headfirst into a new activity, learning a skill or starting your personal transformation might seem abrupt, but you’ll adjust. All you need is a plan.
- Start with the big goal. What do you want to accomplish overall? Make that your core focus and walk it backwards, until you have the steps to get there. “I want to learn French,” for example.
- Ask yourself what you’re going to do to start your goal today, right now. “I’m going to learn 10 vocabulary words in French.” Do this without hesitation today, as the first step toward your goal.
- Look at tomorrow, and the next day. Plan out incremental steps to get you closer and closer to your goal. “I’m going to learn 10 new words and one new phrase in French every day.”
Repeat this process with any goals you have. Committing to them right away and integrating them into your life each day will help you keep focus on them and make sure you’re actively pursuing the betterment that’s important to you.
Make improvement a priority
It’s easy to sit on the couch and do nothing or binge-watch a TV series all the way through in a couple of days. Self-improvement might not be that easy, but it’s immensely more rewarding. When you look back after a few days, or a week, or a month and see how far you’ve come and the steps toward improvement you’ve made, you’re going to feel great about the person you’re becoming. You’ll be proud of yourself.
But this sense of accomplishment and betterment only comes if you stay diligent and make self-improvement a priority. It’s easy to say “I’ll do it tomorrow,” but remember, the future is full of uncertainty. You can only control the present, right now. If you decide to focus on self-improvement each day, you’re actively choosing to make the best of a bad situation.
Sure, there will be days when you hit a roadblock or you’re too busy to think about self-improvement. It’s on these days that you need to remember your mission. Write it on your bathroom mirror, sticky it to your fridge—heck, ask your voice assistant to remind you at the same time each day! Make self-improvement a priority.
Whenever the COVID-19 pandemic passes and life goes back to the way it was, you’ll emerge from quarantine a better person than when you went in. All it takes is a little focus on what’s important: you!
This! And carry your newfound self improvement skills back into the “normal”.
Like!! Thank you for publishing this awesome article.