It can be frustrating and even depressing for entrepreneurs to not making money during these times.
I am one of them.
Let me clarify that I earned most of my income by teaching women to swim.
The moment swimming pools were closed, the source of my income was gone too.

While some businesses manage to pivot, I could not see how I could teach swimming without a swimming pool.
As a result, I became depressed for about a month.
Throughout that month, I was battling my inner demons every day. I even broke down in tears several times because I couldn’t deal with the mean, nasty voices in my head.

While I struggled to maintain my mental health, I had flashes of my past in which I had successfully handled my demons without breaking down.
I asked myself, “What happen to me? How come I cannot deal with it this time?”

It turns out I was out of practice.
I forgot that I shouldn’t buy into whatever stories that the mean voices had said about me regarding not earning any income.
Stories such as I was a failure, worthless, and useless just because I was unable to make money, etc.
The moment I chose to stop buying into the stories, I took back my power.

I also realized it was pointless for me to mull over the fact that I was not earning any income from teaching swimming.
I decided to accept that I would not be earning any income during the pandemic.

At the time of writing this post, it is coming to 5 months that I haven’t earned any income from teaching swimming.

Do I feel restless for not earning any income?
Once in a while, yes.
Whenever I feel restless, I reminded myself to be patient. I understand that the situation is not permanent. All that I can do is wait until things are back to normal.

This week, the government has announced that public swimming pools will be open starting next week. I admit that is good news to hear but the government has imposed several restrictions.
The pools are only open three times a week, only 30% of capacity or less than 50 people are allowed in at one time, each person has only one hour, and the pools are not open at night.

With the current restrictions in place, I am not yet able to teach swimming. The biggest issue that I have is almost all of my clients are available at night only since they are working during the day.

I will have to wait a bit longer for the government to lift all the pools’ restrictions before I can start earning from teaching swimming again.

Are there lessons for me to learn from these experiences?
I would say yes.
I learned that when I am not conscious of the voices in my head, that is when I am most vulnerable mentally.
I learned that I need to practice being conscious every single day. When I don’t, that is when I easily succumb to the mean voices in my head.
I learned that I need to address what is it that bothers me right away instead of ignoring the issue so I could prevent it from escalating and causing pain later on.
I learned that when things are not working the way that I had expected, I need to shift my focus. Instead of focusing on I don’t make money, I focus my attention elsewhere.
I learned that I need to be patient when there is not that I could do to change my current situation.

The funny thing is I have learned all these lessons before.
I have encountered situations that had let me learned the exact lessons.
I guess all of these experiences is to test me whether I remember them or not.

The gift of COVID-19

Despite not earning any income, I was still able to remain productive throughout my days. While some days I managed to do a lot, some other days, I didn’t do much, I spent my time binge-watching tv series.

Since I am not teaching swimming, I have been focusing my energy on finishing my book and creating content for my other business.
I have spent two months on rewriting my old ebook and completed a developmental edit on it.
I also took the time to update my other website that had been begging for a facelift. I finally have a fully functioning business website for my healing services.
As I am not earning any income from teaching swimming, I decided to open up my schedules for private one-on-one healing sessions.

I have to say that I probably wouldn’t be working on my book and created new healing programs if there was no pandemic.

I am finally able to appreciate how the COVID-19 pandemic has sparked my old projects that needed to be birth into the world.

I am forever grateful.