When I was in college, I had a friend who decided that he wanted to really dig deep and improve as a trumpet player. He moved into a friend’s basement with two months of food, shaved his head, and practiced the trumpet for 8 hours a day, using the rest of his time for meditation, reading, and deep listening. It was utterly transformative-he literally came out a different person, a vastly improved musician, and a more focused human being. Years later, he still talked about that time reverentially.
I’m not suggesting that we need to shave our heads or be monastic. That said, many of us are finding ourselves at home, relatively isolated with extra time on our hands, so I think we should ask the question of how we might make best use of that time to feel good, reach our goals, improve ourselves and serve others. What might seem like a prison sentence could also be a gift.
With that in mind, here are Ten Strategies for You to Thrive in the Coming Weeks and Months.
1. Set a Routine: Take Control of Your Life
One of the challenges of being at home without many of the usual structures to define our day is not letting hours (let alone days) slide by without anything to show for it. Most of us will still have some structures to follow-online classes or work, family, etc.-but there is a good chance that we have much more time and wiggle room and many less railings to keep us on course.
With all that extra undefined time, we have to create our own structure, or we’ll go off the rails. While the Dude of Big Lebowski fame is an adorable funny character, the reality of padding around in your bathrobe all day drinking half and half out of the carton is actually pretty depressing. It might feel good for a day or two, but it quickly gets less rewarding and feels more like you’ve lost control of your life. So take control!
As I like to think of it, we have a creative opportunity to create the architecture of our days.
With that in mind, ask yourself:
What would a perfect day look like?
What would I do on a perfect day?
What would I not do on a perfect day?
When do I work best, and when is it harder for me to focus?
When am I more creative and when am I better at mindless tasks?
With all those answers in mind, create your own schedule and do your best to follow it. Set it and Forget it. Write it up on the wall. And GET AFTER IT!
2. Set Some Goals: Who Do You Want To Be 2-4-6-8 Weeks From Now?
This has the opportunity to be a transformational moment, or this could be 2-8 weeks of bad sleep, kitten videos, goldfish, and tiktok escapism. We don’t know how long this will last, but we do know that you have at least two-three weeks of a more open schedule. And we do know that it takes approximately three weeks to start to build a new habit. So . . .
Ask:
What skills could you walk away with?
What habits would you like to build?
Could you build a website? Write a book? Start a business? Reach a Push-Up personal record?
From getting in the habit of making your bed, to telling your family that you love them, this is a chance to shape yourself. Given what we know about neuroplasticity, whatever you do, you are training yourself to practice that. If you make your bed daily, you wire your brain for that. If you avoid work to play video games, you wire your brain for that. So be careful about what you do: Practice Makes Permanent. The great news is that you have a say in the matter, if you choose to.
3. Create some kind of Mindfulness/Breathing Practice: Take Control of your Physiology and Emotions
These are anxious times. No one really knows where this will go or what will happen. A certain amount of anxiety/fear/frustration makes sense, but you don’t want to let it define you in a destructive way.
In addition to creating habits and goals that put you on a generative path, a daily mindfulness or breath practice can help tone your attention and focus, lower your anxiety, and generally shift you toward positive (rather than negative emotions). Science shows us that by practicing mindfulness, we strengthen the pre-frontal cortex, which helps us to control attention and reaction. Science also shows us that a slow, controlled exhale is the best tool we have to relieve anxiety. In other words, pay attention to your breathing.
A mindfulness practice doesn’t have to be complicated. I always recommend box-breathing as a simple starting point. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ReBrmLxcE0
Other practices can include counting your breaths, or loving-kindness meditation:
Counting Breaths: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUOUidfOpJ0
Loving-Kindness Meditation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-d_AA9H4z9U
Vipassana Meditation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbw0s_MoHOQ
4. Journal: Reflection is an Opportunity to Steer the Ship of Your Life
Reflection is the secret sauce for a life of personal agency. When we reflect, we revisit our experience and learn more about what we did right and what could be better. When we reflect, we think in larger, longer terms that help us to envision our goals and reach for them. Reflection helps us to know how we feel, what we’re thinking, and it also helps us to generate new ideas.
With that in mind, it’s great to start each day with a journaling ritual. Before checking email, Instagram, the NY Times, etc. When your mind is clear and your day is an open book, you can create a pattern of action, not reaction.
Personally, I start every day by journaling on the following:
1. Things I’m grateful for.
2. My personal mission statement (coming up with this is a great exercise)
3. Revisiting Goals for the coming season, year and decade.
4. Goals and schedule for the day.
It takes about five minutes and makes all the difference. Sometimes I’ll also journal on things like: How I Want To Feel, What Would Get Me Really Excited Today, Who I Can Serve Today.
You can find all kinds of journaling ideas online. Here’s a good one: https://tim.blog/2015/01/15/morning-pages/
5. Move: Inhabit your Body, Switch on Your Physiology and Your Brain
As human animals, we evolved to move, not to sit motionless in comfortable chairs staring at screens under fluorescent lights for hours on end. And we didn’t evolve to only exercise in a gym for 50 minutes once a day. We evolved to constantly fidget and shift and walk around. Science shows us that our brains work better if we are moving and blood is flowing.
This isn’t to say that we need to do anything fancy, elaborate or groundbreaking: Just get up and move, every 30 minutes or so. Walk. Do jumping jacks. Pushups. Dance! Get barefoot if you can. Get outside a few times a day if possible. While it’s great to do more structured, intense exercise most days, it’s equally important to just move around. If you watch any elementary student, they have that instinct. You should also. Plus it’s way more fun!
6. Read: Introduce Yourself to New Ideas and New Worlds
There’s a reason why Bill Gates reads 50 books a year, why Warren Buffett spends 60% of his day reading, why people like Oprah and Barack Obama are obsessive readers. Reading fuels curiosity, introduces you to new ideas, helps you to live in a bigger world with more potential. Reading helps you change your mind about things and imagine new possibilities. As they say, you don’t really start getting old until you stop learning. Keep learning: Read.
Here are a few books that might be useful during this transformative time:
The Obstacle is the Way-Ryan Holiday
Rising-Dispatches from the New American Shore-Elizabeth Rush
The Future is Faster Than You Thing-Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler
Lifespan: Why We Age and Why We Don’t Have To-David Sinclair
One Long River of Song: Notes on Wonder-Brian Doyle
The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles-Steven Pressfield
7. Cultivate Community: You’re Not in This Alone.
Obviously, this is a tough one. We’re social creatures, but in a time when we’re supposed to practice social distancing, how to be social? The answer is that there are many ways to do this: phone, text, social media, and maybe some limited one-on-one in-person time. Reach out to people you haven’t talked to in awhile, play games with people online. Join an online bookgroup or fantasy football league. Join a relatively troll-free forum to talk about your favorite type of classic car or knitting project. Want to make someone’s day? Write them a letter.
8. Get Sleep: Fuel Your Life
It’s funny how sleep is so often overlooked. Sleep is when we secrete growth hormones for growing and healing. It’s also when we cognitively integrate learning. It prevents depression, heart disease and inflammation, helps our immune system . . . Plus you just feel WAAAY better.
And Yet . . . . So often sleep is overlooked. With a little extra time on your hands, now is a perfect time to prioritize sleep. Instead of binging on Netflix until all hours, do the following and you’ll feel AMAZING:
1. Avoid screens for two hours before sleep (maybe a good time to read)
2. Maintain a regular sleep schedule: Try to go to sleep and wake up around the same time every day.
3. Avoid caffeine after 2PM.
4. Keep your phone and other technology in a different room from where you sleep.
How many of us go through our lives perpetually sleep-deprived? Here’s your chance to fix that.
9. Serve Something Greater than Yourself
All the research is showing that deep life satisfaction doesn’t come from moment-to-moment happiness, but from a sense of meaning. https://buffer.com/resources/happiness-is-not-enough-why-a-life-without-meaning-will-make-you-sick This can come from overcoming challenges, and often as not, it comes from a sense of meaning.
With that in mind, think about what is important and meaningful to you, and then find ways to serve that cause or those people. Deliver food to your grandparents. Take care of your pet. Be a good friend. Support a political or environmental cause you believe in. You’ll be living for something greater than yourself, and, as a result, you’ll feel greater, and better, yourself.
At this moment in history, there are lots of people and causes that could use help. Roll up your sleeves and get to work. Be a good person.
10. Don’t Let Perfect Be the Enemy of Good
So often, if we try new things only to make mistakes, or get distracted, or feel like we’re not doing it well, so we give up. As a result, we don’t ever make any progress, and we judge ourselves as failures.
On the other hand, almost everyone who is good at something was willing to grind away at it, to accept their imperfections on the road to progress. Even if they were only improving incrementally, all of those increments add up over time.
With that in mind, be kind to yourself, but persistent. Whether its sleep, building habits, mindfulness, journaling, developing a movement practice-all of these things take time. You’ll fall of the wagon. You’ll forget. You’ll do it wrong. You’ll find yourself at 3AM eating ringdings and bingewatching old Dolph Lundgren films. No worries. Just start again tomorrow and do your best, remembering who you want to be. It’s better to get 30% of the way to your goal than to get 0%, so give yourself credit and keep trying. If you can improve 1% a day most days, that’s pretty amazing progress over a year.
