Do that thing
“I just don’t have the time”. All the sudden abundance of time and we’re doing exactly what we have been. Fretting about the world we don’t know how to navigate. Even when we don’t leave our bedrooms. This seems like the worst time to start. It may never feel like the “right” time to put ourselves in a position to do something unknown. Being a beginner is a concept that we shy away from our whole lives. We get praised for the things we’re good at, so that’s what we do. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. That, or the fear of humiliation even in front of our pets, is enough to keep us comfortable putting off that one thing that could light the spark.
It’s time to brave the uncertainty. The possibility of joy could be right around the corner. We don’t know if we’re good at it, or if we would enjoy it. The worst that could happen is that we’re not good at that thing after all.
A hobby that we’re all guilty of is romanticizing the hobbies and talents we wish we had. Without giving ourselves the chance to experience what that may be like. There’s things we want that are equally in and out of our reach. Instead of solely focusing on the things we wish we could do one day, it’s worthwhile to try it out.
Even if it’s one time, when no one is home to bare witness. The alternative is filling our time day-dreaming about what ifs that will always feel so out of reach. The more we experiment with giving ourselves the chance to be great, the better we’ll be at it. It’s the principle of learning to fail with grace. This is a lot more approachable when the work day starts and ends at home. How cool would it feel to have something new to share when asked what we’ve been up to?
Journal, and journal some more
The last time we journaled could have been back in the 5th grade, the other time the world was ending. We couldn’t go to so and so’s sleepover that everyone else in our friend group was going to. These days, a journal is an invaluable tool for not going absolutely bonkers.
Even with nothing to write about, given 10 minutes, we ended up having a lot more to say then we originally thought. Whether we ever read it again plays no part in the decision. If the concern is privacy, your Notes app on your phone can do the same justice. Something about getting our thoughts down on paper makes us feel like our existence is less messy. The first few entries look lackluster. Yet, the release experienced gives us a place to be our authentic selves.
The human brain generally works in the same way for all of us. Our thoughts are a tangled, garbled mess of emotions and half baked intentions. We don’t even know the reason why we have the reactions we do. Or why it is something sparks us joy. Journaling is a way to be our own friend. The more we journal, the more we see ourselves from a different perspective.
Discovering how we see ourselves can be an enlightening experience. Some things are easier to see on paper than the big black hole that is our minds. Everything that stays there, is bound to disappear into routine. When nobody is there for us, the one thing that will always be there is our journal.
Proving again, that the best friend in the world we got, is ourselves.
Sleep + naps
There’s always people in both camps, side eyeing each other. Both sleep and naps are critical to life in quarantine. One not necessarily more important than the other. Sleep is how we get from day 1 to day 2 to day 3. Everyone needs and could benefit from a good night’s sleep. Good night’s sleep unfortunately are few and far between. Cue in a good nap. Although, when we nap responsibly?
When we’re bright eyed and bushy tailed, the day looks brighter. Or at the very least we’re energized to attack the day ahead. The dark side of sleep and naps is to indulge in them to the point that we avoid the day all together. Part of what makes days blur together is how we sleep through boredom.
Accidently breezing through perfectly valid free time in dreamland. Only to be bombarded by feelings of mediocracy. The nap or odd sleeping hours in itself isn’t to blame. We trip ourselves up by sleeping for the sake of sleeping. We need to treat our sleep with respect and not do it only when we need it or have nothing better to do.
Napping should be done in intervals of 20 minutes when it could be helped. Anything more than 20 minute intervals, push through the day. Or make a full sleeping schedule adjustment. Thinking about sleep as something we respect. Makes it so naps come from a place of self love and care instead of a desperate means of escape. Part of what makes a nap so good is when we wake up feeling brand spankin new. Those naps that make us want to stay curled up in bed do a lot more hurting than helping. Let’s nap responsibly.
Getting to know our own faults
No one should know you better than you know yourself. It leaves room for a sense of victimhood to seed itself. We are capable of giving ourselves more love and compassion than anyone else in the whole world. Part of that love, part of growing into our best selves? Acknowledging that we have room to improve. It’s easier to think of who we could be post-COVID, than it is to fix the things stopping us from doing so.
Thinking all day long about the person we want to be will leave us exactly where we are now. Taking an internal check of our faults helps us look at ourselves from a place of true love. We love ourselves so much we want to set ourselves up to be the best we could possibly be. We love ourselves, so we’re going to set ourselves up to win. How could we know where we want to go, if we don’t know where we stand? Knowing our shortcomings gives us intel. So we could best work around what we can’t control and change what we can.
Around the internet we’ll commonly see that we should be focusing on our strengths, not our faults. What happens when faults are flipped into strengths? Finding strength in our faults isn’t always going to play out in a way where we are in the right. Getting to know our faults means that we have a more well rounded picture of who we are.
More importantly, there would be nobody in the world who could use our faults against us once we’ve acknowledged them. The knowledge makes it so we are better prepared to deal with prying eyes and sharp tongues. There’s not a person in the world who could tell us who we are, that power belongs to the individual.
Yesterday: https://medium.com/@sincerelyyoli/not-obvious-obviously-b714c2460c98
Start here: https://medium.com/@sincerelyyoli/7-day-self-help-guide-quarantine-edition-start-here-9cba073c426c
