Changing Your Mindset to Match A Rapidly Changing World

if you told me a year ago that i would

spend the next year stuck at home

i would have called you crazy little

that know that’s exactly how the last

year’s played out

i remember the day i found out about the

shutdown it was a week before i

scheduled spring break and as soon as i

heard that we were gonna get four weeks

off

my natural reaction was excitement it

was like four unscheduled spring breaks

i then watched as those four weeks

turned into six then those six weeks

turned into the rest of school year

it was turned into summer and here i am

a year later

the quarantine i initially dismissed as

a four week spring break is still in

place

and the copa 19 pandemic has completely

transformed the world

i know that due to the pandemic many

students have been attending school

virtually

and i know firsthand that the virtual

school experience is nowhere near

the traditional school experience in a

time where it feels like the world’s

been flipped upside

down and everything is changing so

quickly it can feel impossible to try to

keep up

this is exactly how i felt at the start

of the school year

the concept of sitting in zoo meetings

for six hours straight

had never truly registered with me until

this year started

and i was exhausted trying to understand

everything in online school

and keeping up with the silence all

while trying to ignore the global

pandemic in turmoil that was happening

right outside

i struggled at the beginning of the year

especially with time management

i find it much easier to manage my time

while in physical school

because in virtual school i just felt as

if i spent my whole day sitting on my

desk every day

and it was just a cycle of going through

the motions i know many other students

have

probably gone through the same thing as

i did and that got me wondering

how do people get out of these types of

slumps and adapt to these completely new

circumstances that seem to change

daily i started looking into how i could

fix my struggles with time management

and i found this really cool concept

called the pomodoro technique

essentially the pomodoro technique

focuses on short 25 minute intervals

of highly concentrated work with no

distractions and short breaks in between

each work interval

i decided to try out the technique and

also started using a planet to track

what i needed to get done

on a daily basis the technique and

planner helped me get on track

but it ultimately wasn’t able to change

the one thing that played the largest

role in my issues with time management

and productivity

my mindset during this whole pandemic my

mindset to that point had always been

just get bugged up by and go through the

motions and you’ll be set when spending

against

this mindset was what was causing me to

struggle with time management not my

work strategy or not having a planner

every day when i woke up my outlook on

everything was just get on zoom go to

class do your homework and then repeat

the process

looking back at it i realized that my

entire outlook and perception of things

that were happening in my life

were all based around my mindset but

how could i change my mindset it’s not

like i could just flip a switch and i’d

be back in a groove and all my problems

would be

fixed i started researching how i could

approach fixing my mindset and i came

across the concept of reframing

the idea behind reframing is that one’s

frame is one’s outlook on life and

provides a context for one’s thoughts

and actions and changing your frame can

impact how you interpret

and react to an experience my frame up

till this point had been that covey 19

was a roadblock stopping me from

achieving my goals

but the more i looked into reframing i

began to understand that this frame was

what was holding

me and millions of students around the

world back from our goals

the thing is it’s incredibly easy to

lose yourself to the noise and just be

overtaken by the events happening in the

world

as students our frames have been extra

heavily shaped by our environment and

surroundings

so it makes perfect sense that this

pandemic completely flipped us

along with the rest of the world on our

heads but now that we understand that it

is our friends that shape our mindsets

and behaviors the question is how we can

actually do the reframing

it all starts with the underlying issue

that caused the initial frame shift

which

for many is the pandemic many people

myself included have considered the

pandemic as a time where it’s imperative

to solely stay afloat

and to focus on going through the

motions

this state of thinking is what drives

our actions and ultimately

our drops in productivity so what if we

started to think of the pandemic as an

opportunity to grow

and become more skilled spend time on

things that we’re passionate about

and then come back stronger than ever

once the pandemic ended

after all the pandemic has arguably

presented us with more time than ever

before

and we’ve all picked up many skills

throughout the epidemic

for example our familiarization with

technology has quite obviously improved

greatly

which will eventually help us succeed in

an increasingly technological world

in addition our ability to strive during

such unprecedented times

shows that the sky truly is the limit

once the pandemic ends

and the thought is comforting to say the

least all in all while we must recognize

we are facing unprecedented times it’s

crucial that we don’t let this

realization negatively shape our mindset

thoughts and actions that we seek the

light even in such dark

times where it feels incredibly easy to

get lost in all the noise

let us all be aware of our frames and

what we truly want to get out of

pandemic

because as author wayne dyer once said

if you change the way you look at things

things you look at change thank you