Live now, think later

“Nothing is permanent in this wicked world — not even our troubles.“

–Charlie Chaplin

Finally I got around to write my first post in the new year. I tried drafting this post multiple times this week but owing to my daily office schedule, I wasn’t successful in completing it. It’s finally weekend and I have all the time in the world to publish my first post ofm2021. Is it just me or 2021 feels a lot more hopeful than the year that just went by? Things have started on a positive note and I feel quiet motivated to work towards my goals this year. I struggled with lot of anxiety during the last week of 2020. No matter how I thought about it, my future self seemed unfulfilled and unhappy. These thoughts weighed heavily on my present self and I couldn’t concentrate on the bright side of my life.

With the dawn of the new year, I am trying my level best to build a powerful routine and stick by it. I read an article by one of the members of my favorite band, my lifeline, BTS Kim Taehyung aka “V”. He talked about dealing with depression and his thoughts during this tough phase of his life. Although on the outset, it feels like he is living his dream life, he was still unhappy. He started disassociating himself from his persona, he didn’t derive fulfilment from work that was the source of his happiness before, he was confused as to why he felt this way when everything was going great. The way he got out of this mental turmoil was by jotting down his thoughts about it and he ended up writing and co-producing the song “Blue & Grey“. This gave him a great sense of accomplishment and helped him overcome his depressed thoughts to some extent.

Last week I decided to take the help of a therapist to gain clarity on my mental health issues. The first therapist I talked to told me I need medication to increase the level of serotonin in my brain (short cut much!). I don’t want any dependency on medicines to feel happy so thought of talking to another one. The second one was far more sensible and probably a better listener. She didn’t tell me anything “out of the box” yet I felt much better after the call. She gave me homework in the form of 2 lists, one list of all the things that are under my control in the present and second one of things that made me happy and think about ways to create a career out of it (learn new skills, research on the subject etc.) I’m yet to complete my homework but I still feel a lot better by each day after the call. I guess I just needed an intervention, someone to talk to, someone who listened to my thoughts without any judgement.

This week was crazy hectic! I went to office on all days yet managed to find time out to do things that make me truly happy, 5 mins meditation, 15 mins workout, writing in my journal and studying for my exams. My anxiety has been in check for this week. As BTS V mentioned he felt better after writing his song, it was a big accomplishment for him. This statement hit me hard, the best way to beat anxiety is to “take action” and accomplish a task, no matter how tiny it is. When we are anxious and depressed, we lose interest and confidence to do anything in life, be it old or new. Pushing ourselves to take action is the best way to beat the blues.

The most important goal that I’m forcing myself to stick to is to “take each day as it comes“. Concentrate completely on the day on hand, live each day in the best possible manner, document it, give it importance and focus only on that day. This takes our anxiety off the past or future and diverts the mind’s attention to the present moment. This is helping me as of now. I will share my goals for 2021 soon, looking forward to a happy 2021!

Full stop to self sabotage

“Self-sabotage is when we say we want something and then go about making sure it doesn’t happen.”

-Alyce Cornyn-Selby

I haven’t related to any other quote in a long time more than the one above. To give you a little background, I have a tendency to plan huge goals for myself. get excited about it, be motivated by it, plan detailed schedules around it, YET, not work on it! Sounds absurd right? I managed to break this toxic pattern 2 years back during my weight loss journey. I had to force myself to take each day as it comes and work on my goals everyday. That immensely helped me achieve my weight loss target.

For the past couple of weeks, I have noticed a resurgence of this toxic pattern and it’s not pretty. I had scheduled a long run today, woke up at the designated time, had kept my shoes and clothes ready the night before, yet didn’t show up for the run. My mind gave me various reasons to abort the plan and I LISTENED TO IT. The same pattern accompanies me with my preparation for CFA Level 1 exams to be held on February 21st 2021. I have started studying for it, I utilize my office travel time for it but when it comes to studying at home, it’s a NO SHOW. The other time my mind is engulfed in this toxic pattern is during my preparations for a job interview. I am never able to prepare for an interview beforehand, I just go through whatever material I can scan within an hour or two before the interview schedule.

While wasting my time, NOT STUDYING for my upcoming exam today in the afternoon, my brain finally realized that there’s a toxic pattern in play. I don’t know for sure but it looks like it’s my anxiety acting up, preventing me from working hard so that it doesn’t hurt when I fail. We know our brain’s “survival” mode becomes extra effective when it notices an upcoming threat to our existence. Facing failure is the BIGGEST blow to our self esteem and our brain wants to protect us from it at all costs. However, the results of my hard work is UNKNOWN in the present moment and will be determined in the future. Hiding away from the pain that the end result MAY or MAY NOT have restricts my learning process and GROWTH. While I haven’t been able to figure out a one stop solution to my anxiety yet, switching the purpose of my goals from an ACCOMPLISHMENT mindset to a GROWTH/LEARNING mindset should trick my brain into being less dramatic about the consequences. I’m planning to put this into practice right away and will share my findings in about a month or two. Let’s see how this little change in my thinking affects my life’s BIG PICTURE.

The one with the hundredth

100/100

“Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they’re supposed to help you discover who you are.” 

-Bernice Johnson Reagon

WOW! My emotions are all over the place today. I feel emotional, elated, proud and ecstatic at the same time!! I DID IT!! I completed my challenge of posting an article daily for 100 days. This feels surreal. To be honest, I was very scared of leaving this goal unaccomplished during the initial days of this challenge. I do have the tendency to set huge goals for myself and realize later on that I don’t have the ability or willpower to accomplish it. But this was different. Writing an article on my blog never felt like a task, it was something that helped clear my mind everyday. My day felt incomplete without posting on my blog. Maybe that’s the reason I was able to conquer my irrational fears about this challenge and reached the shore without having to experience any sort of turbulence on the way.

The impact of this challenge on my life

When I started out, I had zero confidence in my writing skills. This challenge forced me to think beyond my limitations and pour my heart out every single day on this blog. I have a long way to go in the field of blogging and accomplishing this challenge is a step in the right direction for me as it helped clear a lot of mental blocks such as :-

• I was worried that I would run out of topics to write about for 100 days. Turns out as long as we are alive in the Universe, we will always have something to share to the world.
• It is not as difficult as my mind made it seem like in the beginning. I started taking each day as it comes and broke down the 100 days into 1 article each day and concentrated only on that day’s article. Thinking of the challenge as a whole can be quite overwhelming, breaking it down into smaller, more achievable goals is less intimidating to our mind.
• I don’t know if my there has been any improvement in my writing skills, but I sure am much quicker and better at putting my thoughts into words now. That’s a big win for me!
• Whether you do something or not, time passes by anyways. It’s better to utilize time to the best of our ability and do everything that our mind can dream of.
• You don’t need to have a particular skillset or extraordinary talent to do something you like. If you are truly passionate about it, you will grow along the way and become better with each attempt. Don’t let the fear of societal judgement hold you back from your dreams.
• You can never know what you are capable of unless you attempt it.

Gratitude to the readers and my blogger friends

I started from square on with about 6 followers and now I have about 160+ of you following my blog. This is the biggest level of appreciation for me and motivates me to continue doing what I love. Thank you for your amazing comments, likes, support and feedback, I cherish them dearly and it fills me up with gratitude and love!! All the bloggers on this platform are superstars in their own right and have the most amazing writing style. I get to learn something new from each one of you. Keep up the great work, you guys are INCREDIBLE!!!

What next?

The challenge has come to an end but this isn’t the end of my blogging journey. I’ll continue to post articles (hopefully daily) for as long as I can think of till I find my niche and a fixed schedule to follow. A heartfelt thank you for all the support and amazing friends I have made here. I am truly overwhelmed!

Run with the wind

#9/100

Many years ago, I was going through Will Smith’s interviews on YouTube on a lazy afternoon. I had watched his movie “The Pursuit of Happyness” and was mesmerized by his performance in the movie. I wanted to understand his personality and ideologies more and would end up watching a lot of his interviews. During one such browsing session, I stumbled upon his award show winning speech which left a huge impact on me.

“The keys to life are running and reading. When you’re running, there’s a little person that talks to you and says, “Oh I’m tired. My lung’s about to pop. I’m so hurt. There’s no way I can possibly continue.” You want to quit. If you learn how to defeat that person when you’re running. You will know how to not quit when things get hard in your life.

-Will Smith

During those days I was completely cut out from any form of physical activity. As a kid, I was never into sports and ended up being that overweight kid who avoided the sports class in school. I never had a dislike for sports or any exercise in particular, I was just not into multitasking back then. School only meant studying for me, I was never part of any extra-curricular activity (a thing that I totally condemn now).

My tryst with running started when my best friend enrolled us into a 5 km marathon about 4 years back. I had never run more than 100 mtrs in my life till that time but somehow had the confidence to complete this run. You can sense my total disregard to the concept of distance and time here. In my mind, 5 km didn’t seem that difficult a target to accomplish. My confidence was crushed when I barely huffed and puffed my way past the finish line in 55 mins on the race day. Although my timing was horrible, this run somehow managed to release a great deal of endorphins in my body and gave me a sense of accomplishment. But that was it, I made unsuccessful attempts to make running into a habit many times after the marathon. I even purchased running shoes and active wear to motivate myself only ending up being stored safely in my cupboard. I just didn’t have the will to wake up early and run during the weekends.

Two years back, I was reunited with this sport when I was rock solid on my resolve to lose weight. I started slow but was determined to be consistent this time. I barely could complete 2 kms in the beginning but didn’t lose hope. I slowly increased the distance of my runs with each passing week and was able to build up the confidence to enroll myself into a 10 km marathon within 3 months.

Today, my love for this sport has completely transformed me for the better. As Will Smith said, it helps us quieten that little voice in our head which says “No” to any hurdle/struggle/change. Running gave me confidence to begin any new task headstrong and just dive right into it. The longest distance I’ve covered in a single session in the last 2 years has been 26 kms. Before the start of each long run, my mind always presents me with many negative emotions and doubts about completing the run. However, I’ve managed to complete every single run target I’ve set for myself and crossed the finish line feeling like a super woman each time.

There are certain habits which you know would work wonders for you yet difficult to imbibe. In my case it was running. I just had to force myself the first month and then it benefited me ways which were hard to ignore. I ran 5 kms after 4 months today because of the lock down and had the most surreal start to my day.