Writer | Vivek Parikh

Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes

March 9, 2020, started off as a regular Monday morning for me. The news of COVID-19 was just growing at this time, and the announcement from our workplace came out that we are all requested to work from home. A week later, the whole world was in the state of a pandemic because of this virus. At first, staying home all day sounded blissful as I could be more productive and get the time I wanted and was waiting for. I felt I could work on my choreography for my students, focus better at work, etc. A few weeks later, my mind started deteriorating. I started becoming lazy and blaming people for not looking out or checking in on me, having low self-esteem and confidence. It came to a point where I stopped creating and dancing because it made me feel low. 

Pre-Quarantine, the students I was teaching and socializing with friends were my biggest source of happiness, and those activities always helped me clear my head, but because of COVID-19, all of this stopped. It came down to me not having healthy coping mechanisms to deal with my mental stress and thinking. I was feeling that way for at least a month before something clicked inside of me. I started listing out activities I wanted to do with the time I have now. I decided to take it one day at a time and write out various goals and what I want to achieve. Once I started writing out my goals and the steps to accomplish them, I found some clarity in my head. I believe when I started making goals and started executing them; it helped me get that sense of accomplishment that I missed for myself. 

Going more into Quarantine, I decided to take time to read books, which will help me grow my mindset and improve my thinking. The books I read truly helped me change my perspective and perception of my outlook in life. It helped me realize a simple yet profound idea that our perception isn’t our reality. Most of us take the limit of our vision to be the limit of the world. We let ourselves think that we are limited because of people’s opinions, which is untrue. Once we learn to overcome this false perception and overcome that fear that our primitive brain has, we tap into the true potential that all of us are capable of achieving. I decided to practice this idea and changed my mannerisms in a way that I started to consume content, which lifted my spirits and just brought my whole thinking to an elevated level. As I started doing that, I naturally felt a change in my mental thinking and outlook on life.

I slowly realized the consumption of content is not enough. Its execution which helps reinforce positive habits within me; therefore, I started to implement a Robin Sharma concept called the 5 AM club. The premise of this club was essential to make the best of your mornings to help bring a lifestyle change within you and create the life you enjoy living. As I began this journey, the beginning was challenging; waking up at 5 AM when my normal wake-up during Quarantine was 10/10:30 on weekends and 7:59 on weekdays (as I began work at 8 AM) was a huge change. I did feel like giving up, but then there was this quote from Sharma’s book that kept popping in my head every time I felt like giving up, “Once you make a conscious choice to grow when your mind resorts to victimhood, you have elevated yourself. Every time you become more aware of it, you raise yourself identity, self-respect, and confidence. You starve your weaker side and feed your inherent power.” Every morning this quote kept going on repeat in my head, which pushed me to wake up at 5 AM and get my day started. 

My day began with a 15-20-minute meditation, followed by a 30-60-minute intense workout, followed by journaling and ending it with time to read and listen to podcasts to help me grow. As I write this article, I am still in the process of doing the 5 AM routine, and every morning I still have that struggle to push myself to do it; however, seeing the results of how I feel more in control of my emotions, stronger physique and a powerful mindset keeps me going. I realized with my mental health that I still have my thoughts that wander, even have moments of anger, and regret things that have happened in the past, but I didn’t have a coping mechanism to deal with it and resulted in overeating, wasting time, etc. However, once you forgive yourself, permit yourself to live life to the best of your ability, and then realize that the universe/ world somehow gives you direction on the way to go and achieve it and own it. There will still be challenges in that journey of growth, but in order to have stronger mental health remember to be kind to yourself but also disciplined as there is no growth without a bit of pain and as said by Robin Sharma, “Change is difficult in the beginning, messy in the middle but beautiful in the end.” Find what speaks to you, what gets your blood pumping, and take this downtime of quarantine to hone it and make the best use. 

If you stick to it, you will get through it!