How Has Covid Changed You?

If we consider March 2020 to be the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, we have gone through 30 months of world-wide disruption, death, sickness, fear, and denial. Even if you don't believe the Covid-19 virus is real or any worse than a cold, it can't be denied that a lot has changed.

Not only has the workplace been shaken to its core, countless personal lives have been turned upside down. Although many consider the pandemic to be over, the Covid-19 virus and its impact on how the world works at both the international and individual scales is continuing to be felt.

How has the Covid pandemic changed you? As you read this article, give some thought to what has changed in your personal and professional life. See if you can find the ways in which growth has occurred or enlightenment has been found.

Knowing what you know now, if you could go back to the beginning of 2020, what would you do differently in your life?

Have your priorities changed?

If you could ask someone who lived through the Great Depression how their attitudes about money and financial security changed, you'd learn that their priorities were shifted in a huge way. Saving money for a rainy day became far more important than spending to satisfy the desires of the moment.

Have your priorities changed to this degree because of the impact of the pandemic? Do you value family and health more than you did before? Has the value you place on personal freedom become a higher priority, even above the health and safety of others? Give thought to what has become important to you and what has gone by the wayside of irrelevance in your life.

Do you know more about yourself?

We often learn about ourselves in a deeper and more meaningful way when we go through hardship. Pandemics and the damage they cause can be surprisingly cathartic to many people. We may discover our weaknesses as much as we discover our strengths. Being challenged to overcome obstacles, especially those completely out of our control, can reveal hidden tenacity and strength within ourselves that we never knew existed. It can also reveal unimagined fears. How can you take what you have learned about yourself over the past 30 months and turn that into a personal growth opportunity?

Have your career goals stayed the same, shifted slightly, or changed completely?

Data indicates approximately 70% of people are disengaged in their job. When the pandemic struck in early 2020, many lost their jobs while many more had to adjust to new ways of working. Taking care of sick loved ones or children out of school meant total career changes for many. Still others have been forced to take a hard look at their occupation, including a shuffling of priorities between the health of themselves and their family, paying the bills, and even their own happiness and sanity.

Because of these changes, both voluntary and involuntary, have your vocational priorities changed? Have you adjusted your career goals because of what you've been through in the pandemic? Or has your career path been confirmed in your mind and locked in as your ideal path?

What has the pandemic confirmed that you already suspected?

Sometimes disruption reveals truths we suspected were there but weren't verified. Has this happened to you? Did you learn something about yourself and your priorities that prior to 2020 you might have only guessed at?

Give some thought to your attitudes, preferences and priorities that you held before the pandemic struck. Compare those feelings to how you see yourself and your place in the world today. Which feelings and thoughts remained the same or perhaps grew even stronger and with more resolve within you? Knowing what remains through hardship can be profoundly insightful in your effort to better understand yourself.

What would you do differently if you could go back to Spring of 2020?

Knowing what you know now, if you could go back to the beginning of 2020, what would you do differently in your life? Would you make changes in your personal life? Perhaps save more money — or stock up on more toilet paper? Would you change something in your job or even your entire career?

We can't go back in time but we can take some lessons from our experiences. Thinking back to what you've gone through over the past 30 months, what insights and wisdom can you glean from all that has transpired in your personal and professional life?

Through adversity we grow.

In what ways have you grown because of the pandemic?

Most of our personal strength of character and mind comes from the challenges we've faced in our lives. Not all of these challenges need to have been met with success for us to grow from it. In fact, some of our best lessons come about from the mistakes we make (or if we're lucky and at least a little bit smart, we can learn from the mistakes of others).

Thinking back to the person you were 30 months ago, how have you grown because of all that you've gone through in the Covid pandemic? In what ways are you a better person now than you were then?

Did you learn any new skills during the pandemic that you likely never would have attempted otherwise?

When resources get scarce, people adapt. When opportunities for entertainment or travel go away, we adjust to meet those personal needs in other ways. During 2020, people bought a lot of flour and other supplies to make bread at home. Tens of thousands of people took up guitar, or got into cycling. Impacts from that sudden demand are still being felt today — just go to your local bicycle shop and try to buy a new bike to see what I mean.

What skills did you learn or activities did you take up during the pandemic that never would have crossed your mind otherwise? Were they out of necessity, or were they things you've been thinking about but you grabbed the opportunity to finally take the first step?

In what ways have your relationships changed?

When things get tough, especially when travel or interpersonal contact becomes restricted, relationships can be impacted. We might find out that friendships and family connections take on a new level of importance. We might also discover that being confined at home with a certain person isn't all its cracked up to be.

Working from home distances us from the in-person connections we may have previously enjoyed with co-workers at the office or job site.

This can radically alter how we interact with others. Those in the dating scene have had to come up with new ways to meet new people, and perhaps altered their priorities of what they value and look for in a partner.

When you think about how your relationships and the way you go about engaging with others have changed through the pandemic, give some thought to how you see yourself in that context. Do you still want the same things? Do you present yourself in different ways? Do others still see you the same way, and if not, is that a good or a bad thing from your perspective?

Do you see yourself in a new light?

Going through the pandemic not only alters how we see the world and those we share it with, but it can also change how we see ourselves. Isolation reveals new insights about ourselves that may or may not be positive. It can also bring to light a changed sense of priorities and how we value our own happiness, health, and even our sanity.

When things are easy and routine, most of us don't spend a lot of time in deep introspection. We don't ask ourselves in a deep way, "Am I happy?" Going through hard times and challenging experiences may preclude the time or opportunity to ask that question, yet we somehow seem to find the answer within us.

Do you see yourself differently than you did before the pandemic? Do you have more clarity about who you are and what makes you happy? Have your personal priorities changed, either about yourself or about how you view and value others?

How has the Covid-19 pandemic changed you?