Why you should honour yourself in a COVID lockdown
It’s just been announced that we are heading into another lockdown till Tuesday in Queensland, another month in New South Wales, Victoria is in lockdown for another week, South Australia has started a 7 day lockdown and all of our other state and territory borders largely have strict border measures in place including quarantining before joining the community freely. Over the past 18 months we have had several lockdowns, we are used to this. These snap lockdowns (especially in the case of Queensland) still come as quite the surprise but we are not novices to how they operate. So how can we reduce the impact these lockdowns have on our mental health? Honour you in the lockdown.
In every lockdown you have been involved in or been impacted by you have achieved something but I’m guessing that in the heat of the moment or the social media storm you haven’t stopped to honour yourself. You haven’t celebrated what your successes were because you were required to react. I’m asking you to celebrate your successes today. If you haven’t celebrated your successes over the past 18 months make today the day you celebrate them all.
In the past year I went from 17 contractors to 27. At one point when I was talking to someone I noticed my mindset didn’t allow me to honour such a great feat this was. I shared with a friend and fellow business owner that I grew by 10 contractors.
’Contractors? Don’t you mean staff?’
I hadn’t really thought about it like that. To me I felt like there was a divide between those who hired contractors and those who had full time staff, probably because I’d heard other people diminish business owners who didn’t have full time staff yet. I didn’t realise how much I had internalised someone else’s beliefs about success and failure. Growing my team by 10 was a massive feat even if I did choose to lay off staff when I dropped my full time teaching role that I stepped in, in 2020 to protect my business. Not acknowledging it wasn’t respecting myself.
This is one example of the many that I have seen over the past 18 months. I’ve witnessed mothers with FIFO husbands and partners who are separated for longer and yet don’t give themselves grace for the amazing effort they put in to be two parents at once when lockdowns robbed them of family time. I’ve heard of business owners talk about how they haven’t made the same income in each month since 2019 yet they’ve pivoted their entire business and opened up a way of working that brought them more opportunities. I’ve known people who worked for employees their whole careers only to see greater stability working for themselves who have absolutely crushed business. I’ve witnessed people take the plunge into investing, learning about it and doing it where they otherwise could hide away their courage.
I think you get my point. You have had a lot of courage, progress and resilience in these lockdowns. Don’t move through this lockdown complaining about what you’ve lost when you have gained so much, more knowledge about yourself, your relationships, your capacity to succeed and adapt, your ability to express love in different ways. Celebrate your success, your progress, share the positivity online & help you feel better about where we are at right now. After all how you respond to situations is 100% in your control, so why not choose joy?
