Some prompts to help you pause & reflect
One thing I’ve been talking to my coaching clients about this week is how our current situation can help us to gain clarity on our true priorities. You see, the general busyness of life can sometimes make it difficult to figure out what truly brings us joy or how we want our lives to look.
Trying to tune into your intuition amidst a busy schedule of meetings and plans and projects can be hard, but right now we’re being given the opportunity to pause and reflect, without the noise of other people’s opinions or a constant roster of events filling our time and minds.
Life is currently anything but normal, and our schedules and routines have all but collapsed. And I think a lot of us are feeling a lot of feelings about that. But the good news is, those feelings are there to teach us something, and if we listen, we can use those learnings to help us build more joyful lives on the other side of all of this. We can use them to rebuild our schedules and routines in a way that truly honours what is most important to us.
And so today, I wanted to share some prompts to help you make the most of this opportunity. They’re designed to help you use this pause to reconnect with your intuition, and my hope is that they’ll help you to use all those feelings that you’re feeling to figure out what your priorities are and what truly brings you joy.
Maybe you want to use these questions as journaling prompts to explore in your own time, or perhaps you want to use them as conversation starters with your partner or family. Either way, I hope they help you to pause and reflect, so that when we come out of the other side, you can rebuild in a way that feels truly exciting to you.
What are you missing most right now?
If there’s a silver lining to lockdown, it’s that it brings the parts of our life that we enjoy the most into sharp focus. Take notice of those experiences or activities that you’re really missing right now, as chances are they’re the things that add most value to your life.
What are the things you’re dying to do once this is all over? Where are the places you can’t wait to visit? What mundane, everyday things sound like heaven to you right now? Jot them all down and keep them close - when life returns to normal, those are things you should be prioritising in your routines and schedules.
Who are you missing most right now?
Same goes with the people you’re missing. Who do you wish you could hug right now? Who’s laugh do you miss the most? Who’s company might you have taken for granted before, but realise how important it is to you now?
Once you have your list, think about how you can prioritise them more once all of this is over. How can you show them that they mean more to you than work or other commitments? How can you move things around in your usual routine to find more time to hang out with those people?
Have there been any events or occasions in the past couple of weeks that you didn’t really miss?
For many of us, our calendars and diaries will have given us lots of reminders of how we’d planned to be spending our time in the last couple of weeks. Consider whether there have been any commitments or plans that you’ve found yourself relieved not to have to attend, and then think about what this information can tell you.
If you felt glad about spending the evening with your kids instead of attending those after work drinks, maybe that’s a sign that your work life balance is a little off. If you’ve been lapping up the quiet time now that all of the social occasions have ground to a halt, perhaps it’s time to think about how you can create a little more space in your schedule. Be mindful of how you feel about those cancelled plans in the coming weeks, and use that knowledge to figure out your true priorities.
What parts of your current set up are you enjoying most?
There’s no doubt that living in lockdown comes with a hefty set of challenges, but I know that for many of us, this experience is providing some silver linings too. Maybe you’re spending more time with your family than ever before, maybe you’re loving the freedom of setting your own routine, or maybe you’re enjoying having the time to read each day.
Take some time to think about the parts of your current set up that you’re really enjoying, and ask yourself how you can use that information to create a more joyful life for yourself in the future.
When you think about going back to your normal routine, are there any parts you aren’t excited about
Finally, if life was to suddenly go back to normal tomorrow, are there any parts that you’d be secretly dreading? Maybe your heart sinks at the thought of your commute, or perhaps you’d feel sad about not having time for a walk everyday. Maybe the thought of sitting in an office all day no longer appeals to you, or perhaps you’d miss the quieter pace of life.
Allowing yourself to think about returning to reality after this period will help you to tune into the parts that no longer feel that great to you, which is really valuable information. Because once you know what you don’t want, you can start to build a life that’s focused on what you really do want.
I hope you found these prompts useful! Of course, none of us would have hoped for the situation we’re in right now, but if it helps more of us gain clarity around what we really want out of life, I think that’s a pretty good silver lining.
