Coronavirus crisis: 5 ways coaching can get you through it
We’re living in very uncertain times. COVID-19 has disrupted daily life around the globe. We are all stuck at home, unable to follow our usual routines like going to work and seeing our friends and family.
To distract ourselves from the anxiety-inducing reality out there, we tune into social media and read the news. But what do we experience? Our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram feeds consist of post after post about the coronavirus. The news is broadcasting about the virus non-stop. The coronavirus is all anyone can talk about these days.
Don’t get me wrong, this is a completely normal reaction to an extraordinary crisis. Nevertheless, there’s a danger of getting stuck in a downward spiral of negativity.
Here are 5 ways coaching can help you avoid the negative mental implications.
1. Coaching can help you tackle fear, anxiety and stress during this time of uncertainty.
Right now, we’re all scared, anxious and stressed about what the future will bring. It doesn’t just affect sufferers of mental health diseases, or those more prone to mental health problems. It’s all of us. That’s because the fear of uncertainty is universal. I’ve never met anyone who embraced uncertainty with open arms. Have you?
We’re also chronically unprepared for facing uncertainty. No one ever taught me what I should do when I feel anxiety arising within me during an unexpected crisis. Never, not at school, university, or during my career, have I ever received training for dealing with these harmful thoughts and emotions.
In these uncertain periods, we all need to arm ourselves with techniques that have been proven to work for coping with anxiety and stress. Coaching can provide you with exactly that arsenal of mental weapons and armor to firstly protect yourself against the damage, and secondly, to fight back.
2. Coaching can provide you with a productive and healthy pastime.
Since many of us are confined to our homes, we crave distractions to take our minds off of what’s happening out there at the moment. We can turn on the TV, but we’ll just see depressing news about the virus over and over again.
Watching Netflix is an option, but after a few hours, we feel unproductive and lazy. What should we do with all this extra time?
Doing an online self-development course or getting online coaching can fill up that time with an activity that is both productive and good for your mental health. It’ll feel great to be moving forward, learning, and developing both personally and professionally.
What the best pastime activities are for you is a challenge to find out. A coach can help here.
Some other interesting resources about protecting your mental health during the coronavirus crisis are here by the BBC and here by the British Safety Council.
3. Coaching can give you ideas for how to balance out your life during this crisis.
Two likely scenarios for daily life emerge as a result of the COVID-19 situation:
1. You fall into a state of inertia, i.e. not doing anything productive, struggling to find purpose and meaning, basically living in a stupor.
2. You go into overdrive, trying to make the most out of the extra time you have, doing all the things you couldn’t before, and head towards a burn-out.
None of these scenarios bodes well for your mental and physical well-being in the long run. If the coronavirus crisis only lasted a week, you’d probably be fine. However, experts all over the world are warning that this could go on for months.
For this reason, you need to have a longer-term strategy in place for structuring your daily life. A coach can guide you in this process and help you establish a new routine that balances out all 4 of the most important life dimensions: physical, mental, social, and spiritual.
Your new routine could look like this:
8:00: wake up
8:05: morning meditation session
8:30: breakfast
9:00: start work from home
12:00: home workout session
12:30: lunch
13:00: continue work from home
18:00: talk to friends/family online or entertainment (reading, Netflix, social media)
19:00: dinner
20:00: personal/professional development, e.g. online course, coaching
21:00: relaxed down-time, e.g. reading
22:00: sleep
Of course, this example schedule is not customized for you, so it’s not in line with your personal values and priorities. Here’s where a coach could step in and make sure your new routine suits you as a person and your unique circumstances.
4. Coaching can provide you with perspective when you’re in danger of spiraling.
The coronavirus crisis is to be taken very seriously. There has been a serious loss of life and a massive negative impact on many people so far. Nevertheless, it should not be blown out of proportion in relation to our own lives.
It’s very easy to gain a sense of impending doom and go spiraling down to a dark place where you feel like the world is going to end any day now.
A coach can help you regain perspective on the implications, short-term and long-term impact of this event on your life in particular. They can provide you with ways to look beyond what’s happening right now.
5. Coaching can set you up for a successful, happy and balanced life after the crisis.
There will be a life after coronavirus. I know it sounds dramatic, but it can really feel like this is the new normal and will be henceforth. That’s not the case. There may be changes, but regular life will resume.
This is the perfect opportunity for reviewing your usual habits and routines. Are there any things you’d like to do differently after the crisis? Were you looking to change jobs before the virus hit? Did you want to incorporate mindfulness in your life? Thinking of exercising more? Reading more?
Why not start now? Get a coach to set you up with a new life plan that will help you achieve success, happiness and balance on your own terms.
