Turn lockdown into a personal development opportunity

AS South Africa enters day 10 of a 21-day lockdown, Cindy Norcott, owner of the award-winning specialist recruitment agency, Pro Talent, encourages residents to stay positive and turn this time into a personal development opportunity.

Her daily habit tips are:

• Rest, re-calibrate, calm down and reinvent.
• Have a routine every day.
• If you are working from home, get dressed in work clothes.
• Start off each day with one question – What is my purpose today? What is the one thing that will make today great?
• Write down three things that you are grateful for that you were not grateful for yesterday. This will help you focus on the positives.
• Each day do one good deed for someone else – this will help you take your focus off yourself and your own problems and concerns. This could be a call to someone who is lonely. It could be a small financial donation to a charity. It could be collecting your old clothes and household items for charity etc.
• Do some exercise every single day.
• Pray or meditate every day.
• Write in your journal every day.
• Set your goals for the rest of 2020 and work on this document every day – create a separate page for each of the separate parts of your life: health, relationships, financial, career, personal development, social life, home, family, community, spiritual, travel, hobbies and interests, community.
• Read a business or motivational book.
• Limit TV viewing to a maximum of 2 hours a day.
• Limit screen time on your phone to one hour a day.
• Each day connect with one person telephonically who you would not normally call, in order to check up on them and see how they are.

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• Watch one Ted Talk per day.
• Spend quality time with your immediate family each day, play a game, have deep meaningful conversations.
• Cook together.
• Have a nap every afternoon.
• Stay off sugar.
• Get 20 minutes of sunlight per day.
• Do something creative.
• Spring-clean one small area of your home each day and throw away absolutely anything that no longer serves you. This crisis is a lesson in humility and abundance. Can you find three items per day to donate to charity? By the end of the 21 days, you will have 63 items!
• Be silly, find your sense of humour and laugh every day.

“We are all in this together! Make a decision to be an agent of positivity in this time. Imagine how you will feel in 21 days if you follow this,” said Cindy.

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