Don’t let the lockdown be a let-down

What I’m doing to keep myself mentally and physically positive during Covid-19.

PART 1

I know, I know…. everyone has their own opinion on what you should or shouldn’t be doing during this time. I don’t want to be that guy…. But I did want to share with you some of the things that I have been doing to keep myself sane. Here’s how I’ve stopped the lockdown being a let-down for me.

As a personal trainer I’m normally responsible for keeping forty adults focused, positive and physically fit, 6 days a week. My working hours are normally from 5 am until 9 pm which any rational person would say was crazy (rightfully so). But this is what I enjoy. My passion in life is to help people; to see my clients reach their goals and fulfill their potential.

When the lockdown happened, my life like everybody else’s flipped upside down. It definitely took me a good week to process everything that was happening.  I vividly remember writing out a ‘battle-plan’ on how best I could help my clients during this time. I wanted them to be assured that I was there for them and that I understood that everyone was going to have different needs.

Thankfully my clients have been amazing and I have tried to do everything I can to support them.

It then became very apparent, very quickly that I was going to have all the time in the world…. So what do I do now???

Don’t let the lockdown be a let-down – what do I do now?

Being pragmatic is something which never came naturally to me, until I became a business owner. I realised that I have all the opportunities in the world to be successful as long as I’m proactive and not reactive. Planning is front and centre in my business life and now it was time to apply that to my personal life.

Planning comes in the form of a list for me. A check list of what I want to achieve and do. I started planning my week ahead. This would make sure that I was filling my days with a balance of work and play.

I realised that I have to embrace what my life is right now. I have the chance to spend more time with my family, to catch up on years of sleep, to start a new hobby, to have a lie in and not feel guilty about it, to work on my physical imbalances and to enjoy having time to myself.

There is no right or wrong answer to what you should/shouldn’t be doing right now but we do have the choice of embracing this with positivity or negativity.  I’ll always choose to be positive but I also need to have a routine. Something which is going to keep me productive, happy and focused. If I don’t have a healthy routine then I know me and it will not be pretty. I’m an avid over-thinker, I worry when I am stressed I will become anxious and that is the last thing that I want or need to be.

So I split my weekly planner into 4 different categories; Work, Exercise, Nutrition and hobbies. I’ll tell you more about how I’ve approached those categories tomorrow.

How the rest of the team are getting on:

What I’m up to – more about this in Part 2: