I’m not just an extrovert, but an extreme extrovert

When you start a new job, your company usually makes you do a personality test to determine the best way for you to collaborate with others, identifying your strengths and weaknesses. The very first company that I worked for did this and then plotted out our personalities on a four by four graph. The extrovert personalities were demonstrated in the top right box in a cluster not far from the axis. There was this one outlier point in the very top right edge of that box - that outlier was me, and that’s when I realised I was an extreme extrovert.

I love to go out with my friends, much more than my extroverted friends. I gain an immense amount of energy from being around others and find that is when I am most happy. I am often relied on by friends to be the person that brings everyone to the dancefloor to get the party started.

Then self-isolation happened

It was around mid-March and I had just arrived back in Mumbai from the opening of spring break in Miami where I was fully thriving!

Upon my arrival, I was advised to do a 14 day self-isolation period, which I did happily, in order to keep my family (who I lived with) safe. 11 days into my self-isolation, India introduced a very strict country-wide lockdown and I have been in home isolation ever since - 87 days and still counting!

What it was like in self-isolation

I have never lived alone. To be alone for 14 days was extremely difficult, especially for someone who is happiest around people. I am also somebody that cannot sit still - I lead an incredibly busy life due to my work and personal nature and this keeps me satisfied.

So, when this was all taken away (no work, no going out, no seeing people) and the world had literally stopped functioning, this hit me pretty hard. There were days where I was feeling so low and lonely that I did not get out of bed. I felt trapped in the four walls of my bedroom and I desperately just wanted to see the faces of my family members who were on the other side of my door - but I couldn’t. I’m not going to lie, it seriously bummed me out.

I had to make a change.

After a few days of crying myself to sleep, I realised that the only person that could get me out of this bad vibe was me. I was fed up of feeling this way. I wanted to be my happy, productive self again.

Key things I did to raise my morale

At first, I was tired all the time. I had stopped exercising so my blood pressure dropped, I became light headed and had to sleep this off - spending a significant amount of hours of the day in bed. In order to raise my blood pressure it was important to do exercise, but with limited floor space in my bedroom, it was difficult to work out properly. I downloaded tik tok and started doing fitness and dance challenges to help improve my blood pressure, these required very little space, gave me something to mentally focus on, and gave me a chance to do a bit of cardio. I instantly felt more energised, which lifted my mood almost instantly.

I was surrounded by so many unnecessary things in my bedroom. As I felt trapped in this room, the presence of these items began to annoy me. I decided to colour code my wardrobes and Marie Kondo the f out of them. I created donation piles of things that I never wore/used anymore that others could appreciate, I threw away expired cosmetics that I had hoarded for no good reason and most importantly, I cleaned every single surface, which is so important during covid-19 times! This newly found clean empty space and the feeling that I now knew where everything was kept in my bedroom, was oddly pleasing.

As an extrovert, I get a huge amount of my energy from spending time with others, this is what I missed the most in self-isolation. Instead of feeling sorry for myself that people had forgotten about me during this time, I actively reached out to people to stay in touch. The Houseparty app saved my sanity. I played online games with my friends while seeing their beautiful faces. It kept me entertained for hours and I felt less alone. My 96 year old grandma even downloaded the app so that she could see my face and do yoga - that’s how easy it was to use.

I started to make a to-do list of things that I had always wanted to do but never had the time to do, due to my busy life. Then I forced myself to get out of bed and do them. You can find my to-do list in my blog post: A busy girl’s guide to surviving lockdown.

Love watching shows with your friends and discussing them? Yeah, me too. This is why I downloaded Netflix Party, an exclusive add-on for the Google Chrome web browser, that launched during my time in self-isolation. It allowed me to chat with my friends while watching Netflix tv shows together. It synchronises all your devices so that if one of the watchers pauses/plays a show, it is paused/played on all of viewers’ devices, so you can all watch at the same time.

As part of my to-do list, I identified a bunch of new skills I wanted to learn that would make me better at my job and that helped me improve my hobbies. For example, I took a digital marketing class to help me understand how to market Sublime Life better, and as I love photography, I decided to take Natalie Milo’s photo editing course to create those aesthetically pleasing pictures for the gram!

In self-isolation you typically aren’t seeing people (unless on video chat), which meant for me that I wasn’t putting on make-up on every day! This was a HUGE benefit for my skin. It also gave me the chance to use all the beauty products that I had bought and never had time to use. This made me feel great as it meant that I could justify my shopping purchases!