5 Ways to Get to Know Yourself Better in Quarantine

As the nation stares down the barrel of the COVID-19 outbreak, leaving citizens strapped to their households for an indefinite amount of time, it has left many of us with an abundance of time to spend with ourselves. Perhaps you are learning for the first time how well you actually know yourself or realizing that you still have growing to do in your self-relationship. Whether you are continuing to work from home or laid-off with ample time on your hands, this quarantine presents a unique opportunity to build a stronger relationship with yourself and your immediate environment. Check out my top 5 Tips on How to Get to Know Yourself Better in Quarantine and my personal stories below:

1. Archive Photos

   • If you are anything like me, you probably have thousands of photos over the years that need sorting. Not only will archiving photos help you become more digitally organized, it can also serve as a great trip down memory lane. Try to be really specific about the way you organize your photo library. I always suggest breaking things down by year and then by special occasion. It can be an extremely eye-opening experience to see the ways you have physically changed or even the people you used to surround yourself with. Archiving your photos during quarantine can help you pass the time and pay special tribute to how far you have come.

2. Journal

   • Keeping a journal can be an effective way of getting your thoughts out of your head and building a positive communicative relationship with yourself. Quarantine is the perfect opportunity to discover your ideal method for journaling. Personally, I find utilizing voice memos to be the easiest way for me to continuously journey. It allows me to chronicle my thoughts in a free format, while also talking to myself out loud so that I can really hear my thoughts. Sometimes, saying something out loud can better reveal your tone, and why you might be feeling the way that you do.

3. Practice Meditation

   • Meditation is often recommended for anxiety sufferers (like myself) and as a common practice in quieting the mind. Avoid becoming stir-crazy by practicing peacefulness and developing a sense of awareness. I typically only attempt ten minutes of meditation at a time. I try to meditate to something that is already soothing to me (like a specific song or television show as background noise).

4. Curate Quality Self-care

   • At this point, I can understand if the word self-care completely turns you off! While it is overused, I find that many people are failing to curate quality self-care and are instead, practicing self-care habits that are not serving their immediate needs. In order to cultivate quality self-care habits, you have to first take an accurate account of what your needs are. For example, while I enjoy watching, what I would consider to be a lot of television, practicing quality self-care means implementing a shut down hour, where I disconnect from watching shows and focus back in on myself before the end of my night.

5. Practice Follow Through

   • How well do you follow through on something you have put on your task list to accomplish? Utilizing quarantine to test our your follow through skills is a great way to learn about yourself and your threshold for keeping promises to yourself. Click below for 5 Ways to Build More Follow Through.