10 Things You Can do to Make Your Life Better while Physically Isolated

1) Create a Healthy, Supportive Routine

When we feel powerless or helpless (as so many of us do at the moment), one EXTREMELY easy thing to do is to create a routine or schedule.

While we’re all stuck in anxiously waiting at home, it’s easy to lose our sense of time. Days can begin to blend into each other. A routine can give us an anchor and greater sense of control over our lives. And if you have children, creating a routine is especially important to give them a sense of normality.

This routine or schedule can be as simple as:

  • 7am – Wake-up
  • 8am – Breakfast
  • 10am – Exercise
  • 11am – Talk to friends
  • 12.00pm – Lunch
  • 1-4pm – Learning or a home project
  • 5pm – Make & Eat Dinner
  • 7pm – Talk to close family
  • 8pm – Reading, Journaling
  • 10pm – Bed

Be sure to include food preparation, social time, exercise and outdoor time and some learning or creativity so you get some benefit from this challenging time.

It’s also important to recognize weekends because it’s too easy for weeks to blur together. So, make a looser schedule for your weekends. For example, you could include:

  • Sleeping in/later bedtime
  • Brunch
  • “Treats”
  • Movie night with popcorn
  • A virtual happy hour with friends or colleagues
  • A larger project, perhaps some art, craft, gardening or home redecoration.

So, create a routine for a sense of control and mastery over your environment and life circumstances. Reclaim what power you can over your own life, because with all this uncertainty it’s important for you – and especially important for children – to have predictability. My personal morning routine is pretty wild but might be some great to get you motivated!

2) Build Your Physical Strength, Fitness Levels or Flexibility!

Building your physical strength is powerful and health-boosting! Not only is physical strength and flexibility life-affirming and good for our health, but feeling more physically powerful actually helps us feel more empowered and less helpless in life too!

So add some physical activity into your schedule – as little as 15 minutes daily. Maybe by the end of this you’ll be fitter or even be able to do 10 (or 100!) press-ups!

There are many options to boost your physical strength and health. Here are some ideas:

  • Take up a yoga practice – excellent for strength-building, flexibility – and calm! There are lots of online options. Here is one with everything from 10 minutes for beginners to an advanced practice. Sarah Beth Yoga on Youtube has more (free) yoga videos than I can count
  • Learn do a press-up or push-up. Then see if you can get to 10 (or more – depending on where you start)!
  • There are so many online fitness classes on Youtube – for beginners, experts – with equipment and also with no equipment whatsoever. Head over to my Youtube channel for some great options to choose from or checkout my Fit Blitz Body Weight Only – 14-Day Fitness Challenge.

REMEMBER: BEing stronger = FEELING stronger and more in control! And building your PHYSICAL strength or fitness = REDUCED feelings of helplessness!

3) Learn with Non-Fiction Books:

Use this time at home to educate yourself with non-fiction books. There is so much to be gained – like self-confidence, negotiation skills, health (sleep, nutrition), how to have difficult conversations and much more.

What keeps you up at night? There’s probably a book about that! What do you wish you were better at? There’s probably a book about that too!

Here are some book ideas to get you thinking:

  • Be more productive or creative with my brand new book, “The Healthy Habit Handbook” available in softcover, ebook or audiobook. Some other great titles include “The Now Habit” by Neil Fiore or “A Whack on the Side of the Head (How You Can Be More Creative)” by Roger Von Oech and “A Whole New Mind” by Daniel Pink.
  • Think (or rethink?) how you live with books like “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” by Michael Pollan (also available in a young reader’s version), “Slow Food: Collected Thoughts on Taste, Tradition, and the Honest Pleasures” by Carlo Petrini, “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America” by Barbara Ehrenreich, “Doughnut Economics” by Kate Raworth.
  • Get personally inspired with “Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts” and “The Gifts of Imperfection” by Brene Brown, or “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor E. Frankl.
  • Up-skill yourself with “Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most” by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, Sheila Heen.
  • Learn about the human mind with “Blink” by Malcolm Gladwell or “The Whole Brain Child” by Daniel J. Siegel MD and Tina Payne Bryson, PhD.
  • Get healthier with “Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams” by Matthew Walker PhD.
  • Be more confident and discover your strengths with “The Confidence Code: The Science and Art of Self-Assurance – What Women Should Know” by Katty Kay and Claire Shipman” or “Now, Discover Your Strengths (How to Develop Your Talents and Those of the People You Manage)” by Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton.
  • Finally, read memoir! Choose someone you admire, get inspired and learn how other people think – and live their lives.

Reading one book will expand your mind, reading several of these books is going to make you more interesting, help you learn new skills – and maybe even make you more employable too!

4) Gain a New Skill with Online Learning:

There are so many opportunities online to gain a new skill and they’re growing by the day!

Grow your personal or creative skills or choose a new skill to learn and take back to work with online training providers like Coursera or Udemy.

My brand new self-paced Healthy Habits course might be just what you’re looking for if you have struggled to create new habits and if you follow the principles here you will have success, no matter what your specific goals actually are.

If there’s a skill you always wanted to learn, search for it. But be sure to read the course descriptions thoroughly, check reviews if there are any – and check money-back guarantees as you need to!

And with so many learning options ranging from FREE to tens of dollars to the low hundreds of dollars, there will be something out there just perfect for you.

5) Explore your Life Vision:

Rather than watching endless news streams, you can choose to focus on a bigger picture – your future. What do you want from the rest of your life? What would you be disappointed you did NOT do? Where do you envision yourself in 10 years?

Having a clear vision of how you want your life to be is a powerful motivator. A vision helps us work towards our goals, take action and make change. Soon, we’ll all be super-busy again – and a vision might be just what you need stay focused!

Here are 5 questions to ponder or journal around to go deeper:

  • What do you desire or yearn for in your life?
  • How do you want to feel?
  • What do you really, really want to be different in your life?
  • What would have happened in 3 years time such that your life is spectacular and you feel magnificent about yourself?
  • What’s your dream for this lifetime? Imagine you’re 90 years old and looking back over your life; what did you do that made you proud and happy?

TIP: Remember to think possibility not probability! Don’t limit yourself and your ideas because you don’t believe something is likely. Instead believe it’s possible – and even if you don’t get all the way there, you may get close – or even find something better along the way!

And if you’d like some help with creating a vision for your life, I’m offering a free Unlock The Handbrakes Discovery Coaching Session, valued at $150.

Lastly, if you like guided meditation, treat yourself to some calm with my 21-Day Meditation Challenge for 3-weeks of guided practice, starting from quick 3-minute daily practice and building up to a cool 20-minute session.

6) Be in the moment:

In THIS moment you are OK. You are safe. Take one day at a time. One hour or even one breath at a time if you need to.

This tip is about being super-present, not thinking ahead or remembering the past, but practicing BEING.

This is a PRACTICE – meaning you will have to do it over and over again – bringing yourself back to the NOW. Over time it gets easier, and it’s a great skill to have to take back to “normal” life.

So when you notice you’re worrying, feeling twitchy and want to pick up your device and find out what the “latest” is about the COVID situation, say to yourself, “It’s OK. In this moment, I am safe. In this moment I am OK.”  You can also add or say, “In this moment, my children/husband/family are safe.”

EXTRA TIP: Reduce or minimise how often you watch and read the news! And DON’T read or watch the news (or articles about COVID-19 or similar) just before bed!

I find daily affirmations help me stay focused on the present and give thanks to the beauty of a simple moment. To help you find clarity, honesty and positive, my Positive Affirmation Card Decks are a simple yet useful tool to use in your daily routine to spark a bit of gratitude.

7) Help Others

Helping others is empowering and makes us feel better. Here are a few ways you could help others.

  • Check in on a neighbour or friend and see if they need anything. You can do this by phone, or in person, remembering to maintain a 6 feet distance.
  • Offer to get someone groceries if you’re going.
  • Help someone less technically savvy learn how to use Zoom or WhatsApp or whatever they need to get online.
  • Host a virtual get-together with your regular friends.
  • Reconnect more deeply with friends or relatives who have moved away.

Head on over to the Healthy Habit Heroes Facebook group and share what you’ve been doing to help others in a post!

8) Live Your Values

When we know your values, we understand what motivates and drives us. When we build our lives around our values, we create a life that is meaningful. Finally, when we align our actions with our values – we’re being truly authentic. It’s a very satisfying and fulfilling way to live.

And living your values could be the single most important thing any of us can do right now.

Here’s an exercise you can do:

  • List your values on a piece of paper or in your journal.
  • Give each value a score ___ / 10 as to how well you are living that value in your life now (where 0 is not at all and 10 is full-out).
  • For the scores that are 8 or more – great!
  • For the scores that are 7 or less out of 10, ask yourself, “How could I express this value more in my life right now?” “What could I do differently or approach differently, so that I feel good about how I live this value in my life?”

For example: You have a value of creativity, but you’re only managing to ‘go through the motions’ right now and your score is 4/10. Ask yourself how you could be more creative during this time – whether it’s cooking, gardening, art or writing or helping your kids do something creative, or even watching a documentary about someone creative you admire…

9) De-Clutter

I bet you have some organizational things on your to-do list (like going through winter clothes, sorting out toys to donate or tidying the laundry closet, garage or shed) that have been on there for a while. Use this isolation period to get them done!

Getting organized and de-cluttering allows us to exert some control over our lives – and therefore feel less helpless! Plus it’ll feel amazing just to have it done.

Organize your closets, your garage, your books, your photos, office, kitchen equipment. Whatever needs organizing. Or perhaps you need to go through your receipts or file your taxes!

  • If you need some inspiration (and great clothes-folding tips) you could watch the Marie Kondo series on Netflix!

A simple 3 Step Method to go through your stuff:

  1. If you’re keeping it, be sure to DECIDE where it will “live” from now on.
  2. If you’re not keeping it, create two piles:
    • Things to DUMP
    • Things to DONATE (and if relevant to pass on to specific people).
  3. When you’re done, put each pile into bags or boxes, and then once this crisis is over you can get rid of what you no longer need.
  • TIP: You don’t need to do any of this ‘in one sitting’, do an hour a day – you’ll be surprised how much you get done if you keep it up for a week!

10) Send “Real” Snail Mail Letters or Cards

Go old-fashioned. Who doesn’t love to receive a lovely card or handwritten letter in the post box! Rediscover the lost art of letter-writing and make someone’s day.

Yes, you could send an email appreciating someone, and that’s great. But imagine your recipient’s face as they pick up that hand-written card in the mailbox.

Wondering what to say? Write from the heart! Here are some ideas to get started:

  • I really appreciate having you in my life because ________.
  • I love hanging out with you when we ________.
  • I’ve realised that you bring ________ to my life.

Wrap-up

So, which of the above ideas resonated with you? The areas I am focusing on are de-cluttering my life and helping and connecting others by creating a range of isolation-proof fitness, weight loss, habit change and coaching programs.

Believe you have the skills and power to tackle this situation and you will! Choose to make the best of a difficult situation and no matter what – you’ll find a way.

This current and strange COVID-19 situation will end. And when it does, you’ll be proud you made the effort to learn something – whether it’s about yourself, fresh knowledge, a new skill – and who knows what else!