I think I can speak for us all when I say that the year 2020 has thrown a wrench in our plans, no matter how mundane or monumental they were. For example, I thought that on one chilly night in mid-March, I would be returning to work the following day. That I would wake up at the crack of dawn, hop on the bus, and make my way through hordes of people and cars and noise on the way to my office in Manhattan. The sun would shine upon the commuters, the tourists, and the locals – each of them envisioning a distinct plan for themselves going forward.
It’s currently August of 2020, and I have not returned to my office since that once ordinary day in March.
In the five months that have passed, life has shifted beyond belief. The crowds that lined the streets in major cities turned into ghost towns. People that we used to see on a weekly basis: our friends, co-workers, classmates – even the familiar face of the bus driver – have been replaced by copious amounts of solitude. There has been more time than ever before to reflect on life and the constructs that hold it together. We’ve had long-overdue discussions about the injustice that permeates our society and what we can do to correct it. We’ve fell in and out of a state of hopelessness when turning on the news. We’ve felt progress being made within us one day, and a complete lack of momentum the next day.
During this time of great uncertainty and change, I have found myself questioning the beliefs about myself and the world that I thought to be true pre-pandemic. It got me thinking about the short-term and long-term plans for my life that I assumed would make me happy, and how I’ve begun to feel less certain about them now that the state of the world is so up-in-the-air.
While these past few months have rightfully been overwhelming and nerve-wracking, they have also been liberating. In a way, this year feels like a blank slate that has endless potential to be built upon. By rolling with the tides of this pandemic, we have found a newfound power within us; that we can rewrite our stories at any point by simply thinking about ourselves differently.
It’s definitely easier said than done, but others have successfully made this mental shift by following some key steps. Scott Mautz used to be entangled in thoughts that he “was never doing enough,” despite running a multibillion-dollar business and becoming a successful keynote speaker. It wasn’t until he saw Harvard professor John Sharp’s TEDx Talk about changing limited personal beliefs that he began to make the shift within himself.
Mautz suggests being cognizant of your thought process when you feel a limiting belief start to play through your mind (such as, “I’m always unlucky when it comes to ____,” or, “I’ll never be as successful as ____.”). Then, instead of being hard on yourself when you have these negative thoughts, replace that self-deprecation with self-appreciation. I will admit that this step has been incredibly challenging for me in recent years, and it wasn’t until the COVID-19 lockdown that I began to be kinder to myself about the repeated cycle of negative and limiting thoughts in my mind.
This shift, for me, was the key to seeing progress in changing my thought patterns. In the past, if I would think a certain thought about myself or a situation that I knew was not beneficial for me to be ruminating on, I would combat it very negatively. I would tell myself to stop thinking about whatever it was that was upsetting me and just move on, but then found myself getting stuck on the same thought soon after that. I’ve realized that the key is to let yourself feel whatever emotions come up naturally, and question them objectively, not critically.
If a good friend came to you to ask for life advice and expressed uncertainty and self-deprecation, would you be even more critical to them, or offer them an alternate perspective to restore their self-confidence? Hopefully, the answer would be the latter, and if you can do that for someone else, you have the capacity to show the same patience, love, and understanding to yourself.
As I sit here and write this, I reflect on how different my life looks now compared to how I pictured it would play out when the ball dropped this past New Year’s Eve. I’m not where I thought I’d be, but for now, I’m where I need to be. I’ve found simple joys that I would have never had the time to explore pre-pandemic. I’ve changed my perception on my home state and have explored outdoor landscapes that have taken my breath away. I’ve had more vulnerable and genuine talks with my friends and family than I’ve had before. And, most importantly, I realize that my life can play out in a multitude of ways going forward.
As much power as I feel the year 2020 has taken from me, I now challenge it with the growing mental strength that I’ve developed in the midst of this global crisis. Some days are tougher than others, but I no longer beat myself up over my hardships. Instead, I let myself feel them fully, and I remind myself that I am still capable of creating a beautiful future. It all starts by changing the way I think about myself.
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