The pandemic caused problems beyond the sickness experienced by millions. Financial markets were hit hard, jobs were lost, and events were cancelled. Perhaps the longest effect still to be seen is the mental health ramifications.
We all learned so much over the last year. There are some important lessons I learned that would have been great to know pre-pandemic. In this post, I am going to discuss a few items that I would tell myself to stay resilient before the pandemic if I could go back in time.
Don’t Worry About Things You Can’t Control
During the pandemic, fear, anxiety, and depression skyrocketed. For me, there was a lot of fear in what seemed to be happening all over the world. Many clinical psychologists that I work with teach that a lot of anxiety we have can come from worrying about events we can’t control.
Turn Inward and Shut Off the News
It sounds easy to stop worrying about things we can’t control but in practice it’s very tough. My next piece of advice to myself pre-pandemic would be to turn inward and to turn the news off.
Turning my focus internally would have shut off a lot of the extra noise going on in the world. The “News” organizations certainly turned panic up a few notches. Turning inward spiritually would mean for me to turn off the news.
I imagine myself living on an island with connection to the outside world. How much more peace would we have had if we never heard any of the news. The pandemic wouldn’t even be a thought on our brain. While it’s not realistic to live on an island, the concept of turning off the outside noise is a powerful one I wish I would have told myself.
Paint More
A 3rd thing I would have told myself is to do more activities that I enjoy doing. Painting is certainly one of those activities. I was so anxious that I didn’t pick up a paint brush until just last month. You’d think that myself and many others would be doing these kind of activities but for me, if I’m in a place of having a “cluttered mind,” things like painting don’t happen. Painting for me is a place that I am in contentment with my life. I don’t have the feelings of YOLO when I paint, and the outside world disappears. Oh how I wish I would have painted more and refined my craft!
Invest in Tesla / Crypto
This last one is more of a joke but if I had the power to go back in time, I’d definitely tell myself to invest a lot of money in Tesla’s stock and Crypto. These skyrocketed and made some people a lot of money.
Final Thoughts
I certainly did some things right during the pandemic, like starting my new mental health professional directory. But I missed opportunities to turn inwardly and to turn off the noise. I have been aware of these things for a few months now, but not following them has taken it’s toll. It’s time for us to heal from the pandemic. In my view, mental health awareness has never been more important and the pandemic took a toll on our collective mental health.
My name is Anthony Bart, I’m the owner of BartX Digital. We operate DentalX, TherapistX, and Therapybypro. I’ve been an entrepreneur since 2017. I’m a huge small business advocate and enjoy working with small business owners.
I wish you the best of luck in your journey!