Your Ideal Life in the New Reality

In this second post on Designing your post-COVID reality, I'm going to share about your ideal life and the new reality. In the last episode, I talked a little bit about spending time being intentional post-COVID. About how you want your life, business, and family to look like. Today I'm going to focus on life and what your ideal life could look like in this new reality.

I'm going to share what I'm planning to keep and what I'm planning to let go of. If you haven't read the post for Episode 67, go back and take a look at that. In that post, I share a framework and four questions to ask yourself, as you are trying to figure out what you want to keep in your life.

Four questions to ask yourself when thinking about your ideal life in the new reality 

You might be worried that things are going to go back to the way they were before. However, you need to be intentional about making sure that it doesn't.

So think about the four questions asked in the previous post:

• What did you love pre-COVID?
• What did you love during COVID?
•  What did you hate pre-COVID?
•  and What did you hate during COVID?

Think about what you what your life to look like in this new reality.

My ideal life in the new reality

I keep thinking about post-COVID, but in reality, I don't think there will be such a thing as post-COVID. I don't think it will go away completely, especially with the vaccination rates as we have them.   think  And so I think that it's going to be in the background. Hopefully, at some point, it'll just become the flu.

Jeff and I, and even Erik, are natural explorers. We like to do new things. Which was hard to do during COVID. And now that we live in Florida, there are so many things that we want to explore and do.

Exploring in a safe way 

And so trying to do that with COVID as a backdrop, we need to think about how to explore safely. For us, when the numbers start to spike up, we're wearing masks again in the grocery store. Because we want to keep Erik and us safe. And even though we are personally vaccinated, we're still wearing masks. I liked not getting sick during COVID. So wearing masks is something that is going to stick around for us. I missed hanging out with people.

Grocery Shopping 

I was never a big fan of shopping and so I love curbside pickup and grocery delivery. So I'm going to try and do that as much as I can. 

House cleaning

One thing that I missed during COVID was having somebody come in and clean our house. I only do it once every two weeks and then we keep up in between. But that was something that as soon as we felt safe enough to do again, we hired someone to come clean our house twice a month.

It's not as expensive as you think. If you’re self-employed, especially if you are a bookkeeper, you can pick up one extra client a month and pay for somebody to come in once every two weeks. The scale of what you would pay versus the time you would save makes it worth it.

It takes Jeff and me about four hours to clean our house. And frankly, I am not very good at it.  But these two ladies come in twice a month and do a phenomenal job. They do stuff we don't do, like all the sliding glass doors and all that stuff. So just the amount of time that it frees up for the two of us is remarkable.

My ideal life in the new reality means getting healthier

I made the decision that I wanted to get healthier.  So I've walked a lot. I'm watching what I'm eating. And when I look at my numbers, I'm probably in the best shape I've been in since maybe college. I'm pretty happy about that. So Jeff and I are being intentional about getting into better shape.

So working on being healthier is something that is going to stay. When I journal every day, I always write down that I like being fit and active in Florida. I love what it feels like to have the energy to move around. To be able to do the things I want to do and have the energy to do them. Being able to run around with Erik and get on the floor, or in the pool, is great.

Make sure you take time to celebrate when thinking of your ideal life in the new reality  

Some people look at me and think I've got a long way to go in being healthier. But I've come a long way. And I think that we need to celebrate how far are we’ve come. Don't wait to celebrate until you get to the end. Your working on it, and you've made it part of the way that you've come from somewhere. So take some time to celebrate that piece.  If you haven't sat down for a while and acknowledge how far you've come, you need to do that. 

Your kids and your ideal life in the new reality

Erik and us during the new reality

For us, many things did not change when COVID hit. Erik was home with us. We were working from home. Things got busier, but they didn't change dramatically. For many of you, it was a dramatic change. But we just had to make minor tweaks.

Erik wanted to be around little kids. So when we move to Florida, we enrolled him in a summer camp at a Montessori school.  He loves it. And we noticed that he's picking up more around the house. One thing that was lacking during COVID was that socialization with other kids. And as we have settled in here, having him go to school was helpful.

I still want to homeschool. But I don't know what that's going to look like. I need to find a group so Erik can be around kids more. Erik is so extroverted. And he needs that high level of engagement and socialization.

Be willing to pivot

One thing that we learned during this time is that you have to be willing to pivot. You have to be willing to change the plan.  So acknowledge that you can pivot and that you should pivot when you need to.

I'd love to know what are some things that you want to take with you into your life in the future and what are some things that you don't? You have the opportunity now to leave those things behind.

Take the opportunity to say, "No, I'm not doing that anymore because of COVID." So if you hate saying no, you now have the opportunity to say it. Let me know how you're going to use your COVID card to create the ideal life in the new reality.

Some things might be aspirational. Get out your journals and write those down.  That kind of thinking will serve you well as you move forward.

Stay tuned for next week's post. I'm going to talk about your ideal business and the new reality. I'm going to do a little bit of forecasting in that post. And talk about some things that I think are going to permanently change. And some things that I think are going to go back to "normal."

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