The ‘stay at home’ message is starting to lift across the UK. That means we can see our friends and family again (outside), and I hope everyone is feeling some kind of optimism for what lies ahead. This is the eighth and final article about staying positive and productive through lockdown. However, now we are on the out; I thought it best to look forward and not backwards and give you some tools to hit the restart button and live a healthier and happier life, starting today.
My name’s Zach Berwick, and after ten years working in the health and fitness industry to help people improve their wellbeing, I wrote this book to put down on paper what I’ve learned to share with others. I will give you the key takeaways from a few chapters to help you on your journey post-lockdown.
If you haven’t been your best during the lockdown, that is fine. Most of us haven’t, as it is hard to shake the feeling of constantly being fed up. With the sunshine blaring and the lockdown easing, now is the time to come back stronger, healthier, and give yourself a fresh start.
Wake up early and chase your goals
Maximising the hours in the day starts with the morning. During lockdown, you may have been waking up later, but now is the time to get back to a routine and start setting your alarm earlier, so you can achieve more in the mornings. If you’re not commuting still, that is even more of a reason to get up earlier. You could learn a new skill, plan effectively for the day ahead, meditate, or exercise before your workday starts. Are you willing to sacrifice a little time in bed to work on something greater? Now is the time to set yourself some goals and go after them in the morning before your day starts.
Focus on personal development
We have lots going on in our lives with work and family being at the centre, but neglecting your own personal development can lead to problems further down the road. Always make time to work on yourself, as the better skills and knowledge you possess, the more you can help the people around you. Self-love can play a massive part in the way you connect with others and your view of the world. It teaches you self-awareness, and true fulfilment can never come from chasing another person’s dreams.
Personal development helps you live a balanced lifestyle, so if you currently neglect this, start to plan what you want to achieve and then get to work. Now is the chance for you to restart because it feels like our lives are about to restart too.
Live healthier to achieve the body you deserve
If you’re anything like me, then the fridge visits whilst working from home have become more frequent, especially through the long dark winter nights. Some of us have kept to a strict diet, and others haven’t. Now is the time to put that behind us and start fresh from this week. Living healthy can mean many different things: feeding your body with the proper nutrition, getting more exercise, and drinking more water.
We all deserve to feel good and look great, and we can make the right lifestyle choices to achieve this. Your goal might not be to look completely ripped, but you might want to lose a bit of weight for the summer. The time is now to start that journey, so the responsibility of living healthier is on you and no one else.
Appreciate the difficult times you face
When you’re in the thick of a bad situation, it’s difficult to see the light and understand how these times can benefit you. Understand that hard times build resilience and prepare you for things in the future. You would have made an untold amount of character through the last couple of months, and that will stay with you forever. Be proud that you got through another lockdown and feel optimistic about better times that are coming. The more you can be grateful about the bad times, the more you will shrug off anything negative that happens to you in the future.
Use how you feel at the moment as a building block to press the restart button and attack your goals with everything you have. Yes, life is unpredictable, and many things will happen to you that are not in your control, but you can always control how you feel. Let’s look forward now, not backward.
Having a winners mindset
Now you have built up resilience, it is time to adopt the right mindset to tackle anything ahead of you. Separating yourself from others and making marginal gains in the areas of your life that are important to you will require you to have specific characteristics. If you feel as though you lost that magic spark during lockdown, you are not alone. The time to get it back is now. Be passionate about what you want to achieve, and you will produce more results. Increase your work ethic, and you will find more success. Keep to a structured routine every week to maximise your productivity, and above all, keep a fantastic attitude no matter what you’re going through. You can create anything you want, and now is the time to go after it now that brighter days are coming. Have a think about the areas you want to improve and get to work today achieving them.
Sometimes in life, we feel as though we are just going through the motions, and it can get quite repetitive, particularly through a lockdown. We all need a chance to reinvent ourselves, and even the most successful people go through this process to shake things up a bit. Hitting the refresh button can be a great tool to say goodbye to the past and be excited about the future.