Lockdown 1 Year On
Tuesday 23rd March 2021 marked 1 year of being in lockdown. In this blog post, I share with you what was going on with me, my thoughts, my feelings and what the future looks like. This blog is also an expansion from my social media post about my lockdown which you can watch by clicking here if you’re on Instagram or here if you’re on Facebook.
Let’s rewind back to the 23rd March 2020. Boris Johnson had announced that the UK was to go into full lockdown. We had to stay at home, work from home if possible, not meet up with Family and Friends and do our bit to not put any extra pressure on the NHS. I’m not the only who will be saying this but never did I ever imagine in my lifetime I would experience anything like this. I understood it was a possibility but never thought that it would actually become a reality because of the way we’ve come on in healthcare and science over the years.
WORK
I’m self employed, married to my wife of 4 years who was 9 months pregnant at the time of the announcement. I’d managed to Transition my clients to remote training via Zoom which meant I was able to continue their training whilst being in lockdown. It meant a lot of my clients at the time had to invest in fitness equipment, some had no equipment which initially provided some challenges to programming but I was able to get creative and come up with fun/challenging workouts for them. So things hadn’t really changed for me early on.
However after 2 more lockdowns, one by one my clients were starting to feel the affects of the pandemic themselves and I had a lot of people bring their training to a halt which then affected my monthly income. It wasn’t until the 3rd lockdown that the pandemic had crippled my business and I wasn’t sure if my business would survive. It got to the point where I took myself away from social media because all I kept seeing was people doing well, feeling how I wanted to feel. You see the thing with social media is that you only see a persons highlights and not the full picture. This is something I preach to my clients but something I had forgotten (it happens to the best of us). I would position my posts to make it seem like all was well but that just isn’t realistic or healthy. So now with my social media posts (both on the feed and in stories), I’m trying to be as transparent and honest about life.
I’m grateful to those clients that have still continued to carry on their training with me, they’re one of the highlights of my week and I love training them. Currently I’m combining my remote training sessions with a part time job and that’s keeping me going. The aim is to drop the part time job and focus on the Personal Training when gyms open again. The time away has given me the opportunity reassess my work goals and this will be my motivation going forwards.
THE BABY
So I mentioned above that my wife was 9 months pregnant with our baby boy ‘Elijah’ and he came into the world on the 18th March 2020. Despite what was going on in the world, he was the pride and joy of the pandemic. Yes I wasn’t working nearly as much as I would have liked but the pandemic was a blessing in disguise as it gave me so much more time to be around and bond with him and I’ll never ever forget that. He’s currently 9 months old now and absolutely thriving. Everybody tells you how hard it is to be a parent but nobody can tell you how hard it is to be a parent during a pandemic.
Having a routine has definitely helped us as parents. Initially when Elijah was born, we didn’t have a great routine. We would miss his cues for when he needed sleep, we struggled to get the basics done from day to day. We finally said “enough is enough” and got him into a routine that not only suits him, but us too. We do all we can to support the boy during the day but we now have the evenings to ourselves to watch tv, eat dinner etc. when he’s asleep-which has done wonders for our physical and mental wellbeing-sleep deprivation is a beast!
MENTAL HEALTH
Mental Health is no joke!
II’ve always been the type of person to keep things bottled up and hide my emotions. I’m constantly at war with myself in my head about everything e.g. “am I a good dad, good husband, am I a good PT, what if I can’t make enough money to support my family?” It got to a point in lockdown 3 where I gave up. I had 0 motivation to do anything…..I didn’t even want to shower, I over-ate loads because I felt sorry for myself, I was putting on a brave face for my clients during their virtual sessions all the while struggling inside. Had it not been for my faith and Emma, things could have been so much worse. Emma’s always challenging me everyday to talk about how I’m feeling, she’ll keep chipping away until I crack (she’s stubborn like that but I am deeply grateful). We’ve started to do this thing where we ask each other how we’re doing but we ask that question twice (‘no really, how ARE YOU?’). Definitely do this with your loved one as normally they’ll really tell you how they are.
My mental health could be better but I am doing my very best to take the positives out of this situation. Here in the U.K we have the vaccine rollout in full swing and I think around May/June I should get my first jab. Gyms are to reopen from the 12th April and fingers crossed on the 21st June, all lockdown restrictions will end so there’s light at the end of the tunnel. This gives me hope and I’m sure a lot you hope too, so rather than look at things in a negative way, each day that passes things will get better and better. Let’s hang on in their that little bit longer.
WHAT HAVE I LEARNED FROM LOCKDOWN?
- Talk to someone - don’t keep things bottled up inside, it’s not good for your mental health
- Routine - routine will help you feel like your life has purpose (I’m not saying it doesn’t). When I have things planned, I don’t sweat the small stuff too much
- Stay in your lane - don’t worry or focus about how good things are for other people especially on social media. You’re not seeing the full picture and Facebook/Instagram would have us believe that life is all roses and sunshine.
- What I want in life - what I want in life has changed a huge amount. I have a baby boy to also consider now in every decision that I make. I know where I want my career to go and I have hopes for what the future will hold. I have to make small steps in life that move me closer in the direction that I want to go.
- Support your locals - i’ve also learned to support local businesses during the pandemic. I haven’t spoken about this above but as a self employed person, I know first hand the struggles businesses are going through. Sharing posts, recommending businesses and getting involved with local businesses will be doing them a massive favour. Forget these celebs who have it good, go support your local heroes.








