4 Tips on How to stay motivated during the COVID-19 Isolation

 

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Just when we thought that we are ready to start living on the new normal, a new variant of the Covid-19 showed up and make things a little more complicated. While it is true that many portions of the world have lifted travel bans and were now accepting visitors, the threat of the new variant has caused many to stay in their homes. If things continue to worsen, we may see 2020 repeat itself with numerous countries locking themselves and telling people to stay in their homes despite many being vaccinated.

Sadly, there are still many people yet to be vaccinated. Even though the COVID-19 vaccinations are given free of charge, some are still skeptical to get the shots and some have other more complex reasons. For example, in the Philippines, only 46.3% of the population has been vaccinated which puts the remaining 53.7% of the population at risk if they decide to go out. Vaccinations also don’t necessarily mean that you are safe from COVID-19 either, so, for most of the time, you would be self-isolated.

Among the toughest factors to deal with during the COVID-19 pandemic is motivation. Even though this pandemic is the perfect excuse to better your lifestyle, it is hard to stay motivated to continue said lifestyle when it’s all you do every day. As such, here are a few tips on how to stay motivated during the COVID-19 Isolation.

Have a Positive Mindset

In this troubling time where young adults can take a significant dip in their mental health, staying positive is crucial to also stay motivated. Perform simple self-reinforcement practices like self-rewarding after a job well done.

Keep your child’s mental health in check. Allowing them to play online kid games after a stressful online class can help relieve their mental stress.

Candy Fiesta is one example of a feel-good game that my son and I enjoy a lot. It helps us relax and combat anxiety by sinking our minds into the game during our free time. Thus, we include playing games in the family activity too.

Make A Proper Timetable

While this tip is something that you have most likely done even before the pandemic, it is nevertheless an effective method to stay motivated. Having a timetable or schedule for your life can boost motivation by having something to look forward to doing on a specific day. You can also use this timetable to shift activities over to other days and to give yourself some time for relaxing. While this tip is not necessarily enough to motivate yourself, the timetable itself will be your key motivation. Sticking to the schedule you’ve made will help, and reducing the number of tasks you have in the timetable will also leave you to feel more satisfied and content. The most important thing to take from a timetable is that being productive does not mean doing all the important tasks in a day, but accomplishing tasks towards that goal.

Invest in learning a new skill and taking notes of your progress every day

Learning a new skill and seeing the product of your work can be one way to be motivated to carry on every day. The skill can vary from playing an instrument to cooking your meals! My youngest son, for example, has taken up this chance to cook our meals every chance he got. Since then, he has been motivated in learning new dishes and has been cooking a few things with Kimchi as the main ingredient. Each time he failed a certain meal, he would learn from that and change it the next time he got to cook. Cooking is one brilliant way to keep track of your progress, and the more delicious the meals you can put out, the more rewarding it would feel!

Kimchi Cheese Toast prepared by my youngest son

Admittedly though, cooking can be a difficult practice. There are many things to consider, and, if you’re following a recipe, some measurements can be difficult to pin down if you do not have a measuring cup in hand. Thankfully, there are a few ingredient conversion calculators online like Culinary Schools that have all the conversions you need in one page.

Keep setting goals that align with your Interests

Setting up a timetable and learning a new skill can be motivational, but nothing beats than setting a goal for yourself so you can feel extra motivated! Make sure that the goal you create is focused and has a singular path to get there, and that the goal is flexible and aligns to your interests. After all, it can be pretty difficult to achieve a goal if you are not interested in it. However, once you do achieve and finish your goal, set up another one that is even greater or higher than the previous one.