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COVID-19, or coronavirus, has had a massive impact on mental health worldwide. In reality, very few people around the world have actually contracted coronavirus, however, almost everyone has had to deal with mental health issues arising from self-isolation.
Working in coaching I have been fortunate enough to help a lot of people through the pandemic, largely because everything I do is online, so my coaching clients do not have to travel. As a coach, I have also been fortunate enough to know how to deal with issues arising from isolation myself.
As people, we are social creatures. While some of us do prefer our own company for a while, there is a level of human contact that we need, along with a level of external change that helps us clear our minds and stay sane.
COVID-19 lockdown has triggered a lifestyle change that very few were prepared for.
For those who cultivated a daily meditation practice years ago, or even months potentially, this crisis has had far less of an impact. Though for those who have never engaged in personal development, COVID-19 has brought on another crisis, that of mental health. With stress and anxiety rising high due to restrictions now in place. Without mental flexibility, or capacity that enables release of stress, plus resources for bypassing anxiety and fear, many people within the population have come to seriously struggle.
These simple tips, which have helped various coaching clients and myself, through various challenges over the years are here now to help you ease yourself through the coronavirus pandemic, and come out with a better state of mental health than you might have otherwise had.
Online Coach Tip #1: Focus Forward
From a coaching perspective, most people know that keeping your eye on a goal helps with achievement in a big way.
From a coaching perspective, that forward focus also helps keeps morale high. That positive focus helps align your mind and activity in a way that has you become more easily able to flow in the direction you wish to go.
So during challenging times, such as now with self-isolation because of coronavirus, having that forward focus, keeping your eyes on what you’re heading for. That light at the end of the tunnel, will seriously help you keep in a positive mental state. Thus able to come through all this self-isolation challenge in a good way.
Online Coach Tip #2: Sense Opportunity
Stop dwelling on what you feel you have lost. There is an opportunity here and now in the present. Take the time to reassess. Allowing yourself time for working out how changes brought on by the pandemic can actually benefit you.
For some who were thinking about setting up a side business, this is an ideal time to be working on it, and breathing life into building it up. Do you have to start getting clients? No. You could start building a website and working out what direction you want to go in. This is especially opportune for those who lost their jobs dues to coronavirus.
It is also a time to gain new skills. With being home, having little else to do, enrolling in online courses that hone, or expand your skillset can expand your opportunity for the post-coronavirus time. There are numerous websites that deliver high-quality online courses, many related to work and business, though some are related to your other passions in life. Whether learning programming would help you professionally, strengthening accounting skills would be good, or even just learning a masterclass from a top chef so you can cook better. There is an opportunity for fresh learning and skill improvement available to you right now.
Online Coach Tip #3: Cultivate Calm
One particular skill worth learning and honing right now is meditation. Being able to meditate can help you through a diverse range of situations. Having been introduced to meditation back in 2004 by my NLP teacher and mentor David Shephard I have been able to cultivate a practice that has helped me through numerous challenges in life.
When I first started meditating I had a great deal of free time. I was going through a life transition, and working out my direction in life. While I wasn’t on lockdown, I was largely confined to my home due to other factors. I took a good chunk time then to focus on meditation, which enabled me to really move my practice along. To the point where people were asking me to teach meditation in addition to coaching them.
There are a great many resources available, both free and paid, which can help you cultivate a really good meditation practice. With the amount of time on your hands, give yourself a few sessions of guided meditation each day, start working on other meditative practices, learn Ha breathing, and you will help yourself through the mental health challenges brought by COVID-19, you will also give yourself a resource which can help you in daily life through into the future.
Coach Yourself With Mindfulness Through These Self-Isolation Survival Tips Daily
These are fresh habits for most people. Yet they have the power to help you really come through the challenges of COVID-19 self-isolation with ease. Forming fresh habits is as easy as you make it. At base they are all thought driven, and while for some changing thinking seems hard, there is nothing to physically do, just be mindful and establish what is basically a supportive pattern that can really empower you.
Being mindful is always good, hence why so many successful people do practice mindfulness. From a coaching perspective, I always recommend that my clients use mindfulness in order to empower themselves more effectively. So be mindful, mindful of your thoughts, flow with these coronavirus self-isolation survival tips, and you will help your psychological health in a great way. Plus you could also coach yourself into developing some great habits that enable you to achieve far more of what you want in life, long after the coronavirus pandemic slips into history.
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