General Perception of the Situation

Your focus will be on your friends and family and ensuring you remain connected with them and supportive to them during this time. You may have a greater tendency to do this than other people and will make decisions and choices that put the needs of others ahead of your own needs. This may lead you to become worn out, depleted of energy and exhausted if you choose to operate at this level of support for others for a prolonged period of time. Having people around you is important therefore, if your isolation requires you to be away from those you care about, out of their physical reach, you may struggle emotionally, more than the average person.

If your underlying beliefs associated with this lens are limiting in nature it will typically result in you taking your cues for how you should behave and act from others. This will lead you to follow what others are doing. If you hear on the news or through social media that people are buying certain items or acting in certain ways you will follow suit particularly if you perceive the ‘majority’ of people are doing something or if your close friends and family are behaving in a particular way. It will be challenging for you to choose to do something opposite from what the crowd is doing out of fear of criticism or rejection.

If your underlying beliefs associated with this lens are supporting in nature it will mean you will typically display a high level of care, support and thoughtfulness for other people. As a priority you will go above and beyond to address all the needs of family and friends, often regardless of whether they have asked for help or not. Once you have taken care of family and friends you will look more broadly to neighbours and others in your community you could support. And you will tend to do all of this at the expense of your own health and wellbeing which may result in you putting yourself at greater risk of being sick and subsequently unable to help anyone.

Key Questions to Ask Yourself

• What holds you back from expressing what you need clearly to others?
• Assuming you get joy or satisfaction out of helping others, in what way have you considered you are preventing someone from showing you they care about you by refusing help?
• What would happen if you weren’t the one providing support to everyone else?
• How can you teach or guide others around you to be more thoughtful and considerate of the needs of others?
• When did you learn that your needs are less important than others?
• How do you feel you need to compromise who you are in order to be accepted by other people?
• How do you know you will criticised or rejected if you choose to go against the crowd?
• How do you let others know that you matter?
• In what ways do you empower others to take responsibility for their own wellbeing?
• What else can you do to take care of your own needs whilst also being a support to others?
• What is your backup plan if you found you needed to be in isolation away from those close to you?
• If people around you did not rely on you to support them what would you make this mean about you as a person?

Motivational Driver Impact

Your view of the situation and choices you make will be influenced by your dominant motivational driver in the following way:

Your identity of who you believe yourself to be – a kind, thoughtful and caring person – will be directly linked to how well you feel you are supporting others during this time. Your self-esteem and feeling of worth will be connected to the praise you receive from others for caring for them.

During this period you may have a greater tendency to put your thoughtful actions into overdrive seeking out more and more ways that you can do things for people. Your desire to make this period as easy for possible for others will lead to you making it much harder on yourself than you need to.

In your desire to feel needed at even greater levels during this time, you may overstep the mark with people causing them to push you away in their desire to get space. If you fail to listen you will continue to do the very thing causing people to push you away which will lead you to feel disconnected from those you love.

Action Level Impact

Your ability to adapt to changes and the pace at which you will respond will be impacted by your action level result in the following way:

High
You will wake up everyday with a clear action plan of everything you need to do to address the needs of others resulting in you seeking to cram more in to your day and running yourself into the ground. Your actions will include both those you were already doing plus anything else you can think of that may be needed or required.

Medium
You will tend to assess what you are already doing to take care of others and add in additional components where they can fit in to your schedule. You may get frustrated with adhoc demands that others make of you that you have not planned for or accommodated in your schedule.

Low
You may continue doing what you have always done for others and wait to be asked or told of any additional actions or services you can perform. This may leave you feeling like you have let down those you care about because you did not anticipate their needs.

Recommended Action

Write a list of everyone you may need to support during this time. Write down each person’s specific name and underneath their name write down everything you think you they need and everything they may want. From each person’s list mark a maximum of five items that must be done by you. Identify what is on the list that you can empower each person to do for themselves. You will find that by doing this you will uncover growth opportunities for each person that you had potentially been blocking due to your desire to help and please others.

Now write your list. Write down your name and what you need over the coming weeks to ensure your support mechanisms are in place. Against each item identify if it is something you can do for yourself or if you it is something someone can do for you. If you find you have nothing on your list that someone else can for you then identify five people that you are supporting and generate one action they can do for you on a semi-regular basis to help support you.

Some examples are:
Ways in which other people can support you:

• “Childs name” to complete a certain chore everyday
• “Partners name” to make you a cup of tea/coffee everyday
• “Friends name” to text/call you each week for a chat

For items you identified that you will need to do for yourself make a commitment to yourself of when you are going to do them, either regularly or as a once-off.

Some examples are:
Ways in which you can support you:

• Have a relaxing bath once a week
• Find a quiet space in the home to have at least 30 minutes all to yourself everyday
• Make sure you get 8 hours of sleep