Mind & Body

Finding Inspiration After A Heavy Few Months

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Many of us have had our lives radically altered in the last few months, and mostly for the worse. A global pandemic is a difficult thing to deal with, and some people have had it impact them personally. Even if this is not the case, the societal interruption it has caused, and continues to cause, is a measure we all need to plan for. 

So, how can we find inspiration after a heavy few months? How can we return to our natural optimism or willingness to move forward with care and diligence after suffering such a blow? Well, and this is not a dismissive point in the least, it turns out that this is what people are best at. All throughout history, we have had our difficulties and our challenges. The human spirit is more than able to overcome and to move on to better days, but inspiration is the force that leads us there.

Without coming across as overly cinematic or narcissistically philosophical, we hope to explore a few measures by which you can find this inspiration yourself. Sometimes, reminding yourself of the potential you have can help you get through the hard times, and now is as good a time as any to make that fact known:

Your Own Enjoyment

The worst thing we can do after such a period of disruption is believe we have to act as a champion, moving to every task we have and dominating it or making no mistakes. You might join a gym (if they are open once more) and work out hard that morning, then come back and put overtime in at your office, then eat perfectly at home, then meditate for just the right amount, then work on your novel, and so on and so on. While it can be worthwhile to slowly ramp up the productivity you previously had, forcing yourself to be perfect and come back to normal life as if nothing happened will just leave you feeling burned out. It can even add to your stress and make you feel like not even making use of your renewed freedoms. This can be tough, but moving towards a gentle, progressive focus, even if that’s meeting with friends bit by bit, can be important.

Social Warmth

It’s important to return to your social groups or to see your family as appropriate. Lockdown and social distancing has deprived us of our ability to connect with other people face to face (at least to some degree), and so making the time for others can be important.

It’s the simple things that bring people together. You needn’t have to plan an extensive road trip or consider heading out of town for a week in order to fully connect with them again. Simply cooking for them can be a worthwhile and beautiful experience, one that you will share and celebrate. Social warmth of this nature can also help us express the challenges we have faced, or be more honest about what we’ve learned during this time. Social warmth can also mean giving or receiving help to the point you’re most comfortable with. Speaking to your elderly relatives and visiting them more, for instance, can help you make the most of your time with them now you see just how precious time with those we love really is.

Finding A Project

Finding a project to help us gain confidence and work through problems can help us take our minds off our careers (which may have been affected), or the difficulties we have all been through. Something like this can help us escape into a productive hobby, and move forward to learning something new. A refreshed attitude or substitute like this can be a big aid. Instead of playing computer games so often, for instance, you might decide to learn how to apply your hand to woodworking. Learning about wood, how to carve, measure and cut it, how to use this for practical DIY applications, this can be a rabbit hole you fill your time with, something that keeps you organized and intelligent.

Of course, woodworking is a highly specific example to use. It may just be that you wish to paint more, or listen to more inspiring podcasts, or write a short story. The point is that while many forms of productivity have been taken away from us, be that our jobs, our ability to attend the gym, or our time socializing in regular venues, we can find something that helps fill that void and busts stress. For instance, if you’ve been made jobless, spending time looking for a job all day can be demoralizing, and you can apply to 20 in the space of three hours. When you find a better outlet for your remaining time, you can come back to the person you were before this challenge hit. In other words, it helps you once again train your spirit for normal life.

Revivifying You 

Three months in lockdown can take the mojo out of anyone. It can be nice to return to caring for yourself, your appearance, and taking pride in who you are. Simply going for a haircut can be a step in the right direction, especially as most people need this right now. However, reviving you can also mean treating yourself. For some, that may mean investing in new clothes, or browsing the Atomic Blaze smoke shop, or becoming fitted for a new pair of excellent glasses.

Societal milestones like this can also serve as personal milestones. There’s no reason why you can’t come out of this lockdown refreshed and better than you were before. Of course, this is not to dismiss the personal challenges you may have gone through, which could be numerous. However, using this a fresh chapter, investing in your first steps, and moving forward with a kind of learned confidence can help you truly believe in yourself. If there’s one thing more powerful than a global pandemic, it’s self-belief.

Developing New Hobbies

Developing new hobbies can also inspire you. In fact, it might even give you the means to renew your life and activities with care. For instance, if you know that the local tennis club is opening and offering spots for new members, giving this a go could help you meet new people, get exercise, and develop your flexibility once more. It’s a new experience that helps you feel a sense of novelty and also allows you to learn. These are little efforts, but they can make such a profound difference on our overall mindset and how put-together we feel. Furthermore, like a snowball running down the alps, this momentum can build and get larger to the point where you feel a renewed passion for other things. 

New hobbies that take you out of the house, even if that’s just trying your hand at photography in the local park, helps you feel better. So far all of the advice we’ve given has been geared towards recommending you a course of action, and that’s so important, because the first step must always come from you. If you’ve been sitting in playing video games for long spans at a time, or have burned through ten Netflix series since lockdown started, it’s very easy to sustain that low-energy state and feel like it’s going to stay that way forever.

But you don’t have to think this way. You can kickstart your physiology again if you get it moving. Sometimes, that can be hard to do. But if there’s one thing we should have all learned from this pandemic, it’s that the things we take for granted should never be taken for granted.

Take It Easy

If you took all the advice in our post thus far, you’ll be moving at breakneck speed learning new activities, meeting new people, exploring the world, and outdoing yourself. That’s all for the best of course, but remind yourself to slow down. Inspiration can be found while still preparing to preserve your safety and the safety of others. Be sure to exercise good hygiene and wear the masks you are provided or purchase. Learn about hotspots and try to educate your friends or family in these matters. We’re not out of the woods yet, and sometimes being inspirational can inspire yourself, even if that means setting a great example for how a good citizen should act after lockdown has lifted.

Realize Your Strength

We’ve all been through a lot. Remember, this was a big deal, and it is a big deal. If you’ve come through with a sense of motivation, or you’re even reading this post to see how you can make the most of things despite the difficulties you have encountered, you are much stronger than you think. Take solace in that fact, because it’s not something to be dismissed out of hand. If this doesn’t give you inspiration, then it’s unlikely you’re thinking about it deeply enough. It’s okay to give yourself a little credit from time to time.

With this advice, you’re sure to find inspiration after a heavy few months.

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