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