Featured
In recent times, as a result of the global COVID-19 pandemic, huge numbers of people around the world have been experiencing radically changed working situations and daily schedules for a prolonged period of time.
In particular, one key consequence of the pandemic has been that people have been stuck at home for a long period of time, both in personal and professional contexts.
For some people, working from home and being more “home-based” in general have long been personal dreams, and it’s certainly the case that many people have begun their own home-based entrepreneurial projects during this time, too.
For many other people, though, being stuck at home over a prolonged period of time presents a number of different issues and challenges that can undermine personal well-being, and that could seem to stunt personal growth in a range of different ways as well.
When it comes down to it, though, the fact that you are stuck at home for a long period of time doesn’t mean that you can’t experience significant personal growth – either with regards to expanding your professional skill set and opportunities or with regards to things like getting into better shape or preparing for more personal adventures, either.
Here are just a few tips for growing as a person when stuck at home
Take steps to sharpen up your professional skills and consider the future of your career
In what has been dubbed by some as “The Great Resignation,” huge numbers of people have found themselves significantly reevaluating the overall cost of their professional lives during the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, and have decided that they would rather pursue different professional avenues and opportunities than the ones that are currently engaged in.
As a result of this, opportunities for professional skill development and retraining have been highly in demand, and many people have found that the time is now right for them to personally expand their professional horizons, and to explore different professional avenues and paths than those which they have previously been acquainted with.
Seeking out Mentoring Software and other services and programs that can help you to sharpen up your existing professional skills, or to pick up other professional skills altogether and to change the direction of your career, maybe a great way of pursuing growth when stuck at home.
On a day-to-day basis, a huge amount of the average person’s time is spent on their work – yet, significant numbers of people report that they are ultimately unhappy with their professional lives, and find their jobs unfulfilling and unrewarding as well.
Even though the idea of “personal development” is usually put in a separate category to “professional development,” anything that you can do to make your own professional life more meaningful, purpose-driven, and fulfilling, will have a positive influence on your life as a whole – and, likewise, having a professional life that ultimately brings you down is going to almost certainly undermine your own personal well-being in other areas.
Fortunately, today, undergoing effective professional training online, for many types of job and career sectors, is highly achievable. At the very least, seeking out professional training or retraining opportunities via the web can serve as a first step to transforming the nature of your professional life for the better.
Get started on a home-based fitness program
For many people, the idea of personal growth and development is innately tied to things like physical fitness, and taking up – and sticking with – a consistent workout routine and exercise program.
All too often, though, people end up over-complicating the process of working regularly and sticking with a fitness routine for a prolonged period of time – and believe that they need to go to the gym and use half a dozen different machines for each muscle group, in order to achieve success.
While there may be some benefits to training in the gym, or participating in a group exercise class, however, the basic fact of the matter is that it’s more than doable to get in shape at home and to find a home-based fitness program that helps to bring out your best and to keep you feeling physically engaged on a regular basis.
There are many great benefits to keeping up a regular physical exercise routine, and to living a more physically active life in general.
Obviously, there are very well-documented and noteworthy health benefits associated with regularly exercising – but it’s also the case that being more physically active in general can help to consistently put you in a better state of mind and a better mood, and can even make you sharper when it comes to doing your work.
Regular exercise is also associated with higher confidence, and greater overall energy levels on a daily basis.
So, what do you need to get in the best shape of your life while stuck at home?
Surprisingly little, actually. There are many different guides out there for progressing with a purely bodyweight training routine, where the only item of equipment you might need is some kind of pull-up bar – but even that can be switched out with various workarounds.
If you prefer the idea of working out with free weights, getting a basic adjustable dumbbell set and a bench should be more than enough to take you a long way indeed.
Then, of course, there are always yoga routines and similar forms of physical activity to keep in mind, too.
Work on developing more balanced daily routines and habits
Regardless of what it is you want to achieve in life, there’s a good argument to be made that a major part of the secret of overall success is to be found in nurturing the kinds of daily routines and habits that help you to excel and to consistently move in the right direction, moment by moment.
Occasionally, there will be one big action or project that will completely transform your life, lead you to the perfect career, make your fortune, or help you to connect with your dream romantic partner.
For the most part, though, personal growth will depend on the smaller things that you do over and over again.
When you are stuck at home for an extended period of time, this can be a perfect opportunity for reflecting on your habits and ensuring that you come up with a daily routine that helps you to consistently take meaningful strides forward.
Generally speaking, habit experts tend to advise that you should make the process of forging a new habit as straightforward and comfortable for yourself as possible, while also finding opportunities to make the process more innately motivating, as well.
An example of how to do this could be to use a habit tracker that you find fun and engaging, starting off with only a modest number of habits to begin with, and making your habits as easy as possible to perform at the beginning, too.
So, instead of setting yourself a habit such as “workout hard for two hours,” begin with a habit more along the lines of “do 10 minutes of moderate exercise a day.”
What you’re initially trying to achieve is to get the habit entrenched. Once it’s in place, then you can make it more challenging.
One of the great things about habits is that they naturally tend to take less willpower to carry out than actions that you have made a conscious decision to pursue moment by moment.
For this reason, trying to be highly ambitious when setting yourself new habit targets, such as with regards to exercise, can be counter-productive. When the habit has “settled,” then you can take advantage of the fact it is quite automatic and easier to stick with as you increase the intensity.
