How To Get Out Of Your Quarantine Rut

Life right now feels a lot like the twilight zone or a dystopian teen movie plot. There is an invisible enemy that is coming to murder your grandparents, and people with preexisting respiratory or auto-immune conditions.

The only place you are allowed to go is outside or to the grocery store, and if you do, you are encouraged to wear a mask and gloves. The whole world is playing a game of freeze tag, social distancing, and self quarantining, and there really is no end in sight.

So how are you supposed to stay healthy?

To be perfectly honest, I have no clue. Nothing I learned in my Bachelor's degree prepared me to deal with this brand of uncertainty. Some people think social distancing measures will continue until a vaccine has been created and distributed (12-18 months from the start of the pandemic), while others seem to believe that we could be back to normal by June.

Who knows?

Maybe it would have been better to intentionally expose healthy individuals between the ages of 20-40 to vaccinate a good part of the workforce and only shut down the world for two weeks. Or perhaps we have taken the best course of action possible to protect our less healthy populations. Whatever we do, I think one thing is clear, you are either going to be exposed to coronavirus before or after the vaccine, and some people need a vaccine.

As an unemployed, self-employed individual, I can tell you that life has become quite different. My whole business is in person, I have an online presence and blog, but it doesn’t pay the rent. I no longer see clients, prospect new clients, or do much work at all.

I have been writing, but my motivation is at an all-time low. I still work out but not nearly to the levels I did while seeing clients, I’ve gained around ten pounds, and we still are trending upwards. I know I’m not alone, as there are millions of recently unemployed people; everyone is facing trying times.

I have been getting a lot of my time wasted by people trying to get me to join their Multi-level marketing scam or pay them to be a business coach. It is interesting how every service designed to help me is a pay to play situation. Instead of bettering myself, I have been eating junk food and playing video games.

The point is, I’ve fallen off track. I recognize that, and it is time to do something about it. It’s been about three weeks of trying to wait out Coronavirus, but it seems as though I cannot afford to do that either mentally or financially. So for all my unemployed or otherwise unmotivated people out there that are trapped in their tiny apartments, what can we do about it?

Here are my first steps, if they resonate with you, I hope you’ll try them. However, if they don’t seem like your cup of tea, do whatever makes you feel is productive.

Set an alarm for the morning AND bedtime

Pre coronavirus I hadn’t seen 2 am on a clock since college. Nor had a seen all of the hunger games, divergent, or twilight movies. My first step to getting back to normal life is going to sleep and waking up at a reasonable hour. That means something different for everyone, although, you don’t need to be in your bed for more than ten hours. Pick a time and stick to it, a consistent schedule is the first step to returning to productivity.

Action Step: Do it right now, set two alarms, one for waking up and one for preparing for bed.

Put things in your calendar

And then check your calendar daily. You know, like an adult normally does. Make it a rule of thumb that if it is in your schedule, it is a requirement. It doesn’t have to be anything of note to be put in your calendar. It can be anything, meditate, workout, write, clean the kitchen, or cook. Just write it down, pick a time, and do it then. Make it something you can actually accomplish and then accomplish it. We need to start with a lot of little victories to build back up to being a productive member of society.

Action Step: Put one thing in your calendar for tomorrow and do it.

Take a walk

Even though you are strongly encouraged to stay indoors during social distancing, remember that you are an animal. An animal that does not thrive in captivity. You need to move to stay mentally and physically healthy. You need adequate vitamin D levels normally to keep healthy, but now more than ever, vitamin D is essential. Coronavirus kills primarily by attacking the respiratory system, and Vitamin D has been found to help protect against acute lung injury.

Action Step: Walk Outdoors for 30 minutes a day, but stay away from others.

Call a friend or loved one (especially an extrovert)

Your extroverted friends are probably bored out of their minds right now. Zoom calls are not nearly as uplifting as genuine human interaction. A lot of people need help right now, and they aren’t getting it. Everyone over 70 is essentially in prison, 20 million people have recently become unemployed, and a lot of people have lost loved ones. I’m guessing you can either use some support or know someone who could. Call them, don’t text, and ask them how they are doing.

Action Step: Call one person a day or play games online.

It is time to get your groove back. In my opinion, motivation is a product of momentum. If you are sitting on your couch for 16 hours a day right now, it would be a real challenge to hop right back into regular life. Yet, if you start doing easy, little productive things daily, you will begin to feel like a normal human being again. From there, you can work on your master plan for world domination or read a book that has been on your list for the past five years. Remember, that in a month or a year, this too shall pass.