How to Boost Your Mood During Self Isolation

When one door closes another door opens.

So while our front doors are remaining firmly shut at this moment in time, that then swings the door of the mind wide open.  Now, the door of the mind can open into a land of opportunity or a total minefield of fear and anxiety, so let’s make sure it’s not the latter.

The world is upside down at the moment and it’s wreaking havoc with our own little worlds; business and life is running anything but usual right now. 

If you’re feeling lost, demotivated and fearful then now is the perfect time to stage an intervention with yourself.  

Without the pressure of having to be places and see people, never has their been a better time to sit down, take stock and review where you’re at, where you’ve been, and where you are heading.  

Asses your goals

Do you still want to pursue them? Are they even your goals to pursue or were they perhaps someone else’s that you adopted at the time and have been pushing on blindly with? Now is the time to asses all of this, look at what has been veering you off track – Distractions? Bad habits? Get honest with yourself, recognise and accept your faults and then start creating a plan of action to work through, around or even with them.

Write it all down

Journaling, whether you do it morning or night, is a great way to offload the whirring in your head and process your thoughts and feelings and regulate your emotions.  Having a brain download (as I like to call it) in the morning allows you to gain perspective of where you are at and physically map out how you’d like your day to run.  Downloading your thoughts in the evening gets some of the days tensions and worry out on paper so it’s less likely to keep you awake at night.  Oh, and always write down at least 10 things that you are grateful for, no matter how small or inconsequential they seem – it’s a wonderful way of boosting your mood and gaining perspective on anything you might be feeling worried or anxious about.

Why form a bad habit when you can just as easily form a good one?

Forming healthy habits at this time will keep you in control of your days and paying attention to this area of life management now will put you in great stead for when we come out of this period of isolation – you would have formed the right habits to manage yourself better for many years to come!  

Get Intentional with Exercise

This step is needed more than ever right now with our usual routines disrupted. With a lot of time spent at home and less natural occurring opportunity to be active by generally being out and about, it’s important to schedule time into your days for some form of exercise or movement. There are plenty of resources online for activity, lots of personal trainers and fitness professionals are offering free virtual streaming of workouts and there are plenty of videos on YouTube for specific cardio and strengthening exercises if you want to push yourself towards a fitness or fat loss goal.  We know exercise releases endorphins but finishing a scheduled movement or workout session gives a sense of accomplishment which ripples throughout all our actions and motivates us to complete other tasks.

Re-design your week (and do it in advance)

Planning out your week isn’t just for business tasks, it’s for everything. It’s to keep order in your days and within yourself, particularly when there is chaos outside. Think about how you want your week to look, how much exercise you want to do and when your optimal time of performing it would be; are you a morning person? Or perhaps putting your workout or walk outside at the end of the day would help kerb your heavy pouring of the wine bottle? Make your exercise schedule work for you in the best possible way. 

Plan online meet-ups with friends; morning coffees or evening glasses of wines with the girls are super easy to do over social media apps or Zoom calls. Book your social activity in your diary just like you do your business activities and keep both balanced.

Prep your meals 

Preparing food in advance for the next few days will help you keep on track with your health goals and stop you over eating or picking at the wrong things with multiple trips to the nearby fridge and cupboards all day. Food prep in itself is a great practice in life management because by planning out your meals in advance it encourages you to think strategically with everything else, and having a balanced meal prepped and ready to go for when you need it frees up mental space and energy to focus on other things. Ensuring all your prepped meals are balanced with fresh veggies, balanced carbohydrates and protein will keep your hormones balanced, your mood stable and your body nourished. 

Take time our every day for you

Self care and time out is particularly important for you to take at this time.  It may feel like you need to get your head down and work, work, work to generate income at this difficult time but taking time for your is particularly important for your mindset and wellbeing. Whether it’s enjoying a bubble bath or switching off all communications and settling down to Netflix for the evening, don’t feel guilty or feel it’s wasted time. It’s so important to give yourself this time to allow your mind to fully switch off and have a break so that you can continue to stay on track and thinking creatively towards your life and business goals. Make sure you are intentional with the time you take for yourself, and do it for you.  Me-time should be scheduled every single day in some form or another. 

Motivate yourself 

To motivate yourself for all the above you can set yourself challenges.  I have currently set myself a 5k a day running challenge which is a specific goal and measurable.  My time improves each week and that helps to keep me on track and pushes me onto do it day after day. 

If you are feeling overwhelm then just stop trying to push on with it all. Take a break and write down a list of all the things you feel that you need to do.  You may have 10 or 60 things on the list but whittle it down to 5 things only, I would choose the ones that you are putting up most resistance to and for each one of those things, break it down into stages to reach completion; it may take you 3 or 25 steps to get there but list every single step it will take you to get there and schedule it in to your diary.  It doesn’t matter how long it takes you to get there, it’s not a race, as long as you’ve got actionable steps to take each day with it you will eventually get there and you’ll enjoy the process of moving towards your goals far more than trying to tackle it all at once with lack of focus and direction.

Staging the intervention with yourself and scheduling in the good stuff to your days will restore any order you feel you may have lost and keep your head level and mood balanced.  Paying attention to these things will not only help get your through this period of self isolation but will actually have your thriving during it and then benefits will last long after the lockdown period is over.  

If you fancy a talk or a virtual cuppa then come and say hello over on the gram @femaleentrepreneurassociation

Words by Camilla Collins.

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from Female Entrepreneur Association https://femaleentrepreneurassociation.com/2020/04/how-to-boost-your-mood-during-self-isolation/