Chasing growth

I’ve had a long hiatus from blogging. The reason I couldn’t post regularly anymore is because I sensed a feeling of stagnancy in my writing. I felt that I was writing about the same stuff, time and again and had nothing new to offer to this community. The break was needed and a lot of things happened in my life during this period of 4 odd months that I was away from word press, with the exception of my monthly recaps. I feel much better now, mentally and I consider that a huge plus considering my frame of mind in the last 4 months.

My initial purpose of starting this blog was to write about my thoughts and feelings freely here and gain some mental clarity in the process. Today, I’ve come back here to do the same thing. I’ve had a nagging thought going on in my head for a long time now and I desperately wanted to stop pondering over it. I tried drafting this post multiple times in the last 2 weeks but just wasn’t able to get my thoughts together. It’s Sunday today and I have all the time in the world to complete this post and bring a closure to my thought process on this topic.

Let me start with a question. How close are you with your childhood friends now? I guess this question is relevant to the people who have crossed the major milestones in their lives (school > college > job > marriage). As we grow older and shoulder more responsibilities in life, our priorities changes at times and we aren’t able to sustain the same level of connection with our friends in the same manner as during our teenage or young adulthood days. Some may accept this change quickly and move on with their lives. Others may wait endlessly for things to revert back to good old days and refuse to come out of their comfort zone. The sooner we realize that each and every person we know is capable of change, sometimes into a completely different version of them that we no longer connect to, the better it is for us to prioritize our own growth.

For the longest time, I was upset and hurt at these people who left without a trace, who went from talking about every random thing in the world everyday to finding it difficult to hold a conversation, who only contacted me only when they needed to get some information or work done, whose thought process or ideologies did not resonate with me anymore. There were times when I could see my close friends in pain and agony because of their mindset and negative beliefs and I felt absolutely helpless as my words or actions were of no help to them. It made me feel incapable of providing support, emotionally drained and mentally exhausted. I blamed myself for not being a good friend, not being there for my closed ones when they needed me the most, not being able to help them out of their misery. This also took a toll on my mental health as I felt guilty of not being a good friend or even a helpful human being and I blamed myself for leaving such people in distress to concentrate on my own well being.

However, in the past couple of months I’ve realized that you don’t need to change your core nature, your beliefs in the pretext of helping others. The ones who seek help, will figure out a way of dealing with their troubles (if you no longer serve the purpose) and connect with those who make them feel better in their own right. You shouldn’t blame or bash yourself for not being the one helping them or be upset with them for reaching out to others for support. While they are away figuring out their lives, it’s imperative that you concentrate on your own and make sure that you make yourself a priority.

We spend most of our life in our head, amidst our thoughts. Naturally, we need to ensure that our mind is the most positive and encouraging place to be. Feed the thoughts that foster your growth, keep the negative thoughts at bay, nourish them by being grateful towards our existence and thankful for all the opportunities that have led to our growth in life. There is no one way to lead a happy life but we can figure out the things that definitely don’t add value to it.

Recently I saw an amazing keynote speech by Hal Elrod, #1 international bestselling author of The Miracle Morning. He discussed an amazing rule that he swears by to keep his emotions in check.

He calls it the 5- minute rule.

According to it, when things go wrong, it’s okay to be completely negative–but not for more than five minutes. With this rule, Elrod learned to set a timer, moan, complain, whine, and express every negative emotion he liked during a period of five minutes, and then took a deep breath to say three remarkably powerful words:

Can’t Change It.

“It’s simply an acknowledgement that I can’t change what’s already happened, so there’s no value in wishing it were different,” he explains.

With this, I’ll stop thinking about ways to change the external factors in my life or regret my past actions. I’ll work on taking complete responsibility of my life and make sure to do everything to improve it’s quality. It makes no sense to blame our circumstances for everything that goes wrong as it doesn’t provide any solution or help us with the way forward.

Accept it, own it and hustle harder.

Monthly recap : July 2021

I don’t have much to share in this month’s recap as well. My mom was diagnosed with covid on 13th July and subsequently on 17th July, the rest of the family (including me) tested positive. I didn’t feel like doing any of the self care activities during this time. However, in the hindsight, I truly believe that spending some time on self care each day could have helped me cope up with this demanding phase of life in a much better manner. Lesson learnt.

Mental health

• Meditated for 1/31 days.
• Journaled/documented my day for 0 days.
• Practiced gratitude journaling for 0 days.

Personal Growth

This section is for a new skill or talent that I’ve acquired in this month, tried a new activity or thing that has pushed me out of my comfort zone.

• I handled the household responsibilities and took care of my mom as she was diagnosed with covid a week before us. Although it isn’t a talent or a skill to be talked about, I’m glad I was able to pull through this mentally exhausting phase.

Workouts

• Zero outdoor/indoor runs
• Worked out for 4/31 days

Education

• Zero progress with CFA level 1 curriculum. Exam has been deferred to March 2022.
• Zero online courses completed in July

Entertainment

• Completed reading 1 book – Mint your money by Pranjal Kamra. It’s an amazing read especially for the ones who want to understand the basics and begin their financial planning journey. (More than halfway through 2 books.)
• I watched the season 2 of Never Have I Ever and absolutely loved it. It distracted me from all that was going on at home when we were recovering from covid. A must watch!
• Also breezed through Mimi on Netflix. Pretty mediocre, can be skipped.

Ending on a positive note and hoping that I can start afresh and accomplish the goals that I set for August.

Quest to be best

“Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do.”

-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Day 14/30

I have been following the journey of a fitness influencer on Instagram and it makes me wonder if such people do exist in real life. She seems to be living a perfect life especially when it comes to leading a productive lifestyle. She was quiet overweight when she decided to take things into her own hands by starting her fitness journey. It’s been 4 years that she has been following it diligently and I’m in awe of her. She strives hard everyday to be the best version of herself. It has only been 2.5 years for me yet I’ve fumbled way too many times.

I don’t feel productive whenever I have issues with my mental health. I feel lethargic, lazy and end up whiling away my time doing nothing. This wonder woman works on her goals, ever day with the same determination she had when she started. This gives me hope that we can be consistent in our life. We just need to fight and win against the demons in our mind.

Working on things that don’t provide instant gratification can drain all of our energy. That’s the reason we fall off the wagon more often than we can imagine. We seek immediate reward always. Training the mind to delay gratification is the first and biggest step towards success. Finding a strong purpose will help you stick by your goals.

All things set aside, this wonder woman has inspired me work on myself, truly and faithfully. No excuses, no escapes, sheer hard work to become the best version of myself.

If any of you are intrigued by her story, please read her article below, it’s beyond inspirational.

https://iwillgetlean.medium.com/my-beginner-mindset-a77b02bcf4af

I have a strong desire to know myself in my best version. On a scale of 1-10 where 10 is my best version, I feel like I’m on 2 right now. The journey from 2 to 10 won’t be easy at all but the extremely fulfilling. I want to give it a shot. I did embark on this journey 2.5 years back but I’ve not been supremely focused and consistent about it. It’s high time I do that.

My ‘quest to be best’ begins right now!

Fitness Queen 2021

“If it doesn’t challenge you it doesn’t change you.”

-Fred Devito

In the last week of January, my running group mentor posted about an event called “Fitness Queen” in our group chat. I was quiet intrigued by the details of the event as this is the first time an event like this was supposed to take place in our town. Usually, my first reaction to any challenge is that of anxiety and fear. I am amongst the kind who dive headfirst into any new challenges and learn with the flow. I like to be prepared with everything I do in life. But this challenge was different. I have been working out for over 2 years now and this event was a perfect way to test my level of fitness. I signed up for it right away!

My running group mentor motivated all the women in our group to participate in this event. Her motive was to push us to participate and give our best for the event. She gave us the confidence to aim for a win and kept practice sessions to help us prepare for the event.

We had been given a wide range of exercise/workout types to prepare starting from basic ones such as jumping jacks, skipping, squats, crunches, burpees to difficult ones like pull ups, chin ups and pushups. When I saw the list, I was confident about most of the excercises except pushups, pull ups and chin ups. My arms had zero strenght when it comes to performing a push up and I have been struggling with it ever since I started working out.

The first training session with my running group was kept in the first week of February. It consisted mostly of cardio based activities which I’m comfortable with. My mentor then asked us to try push-ups amd I failed miserably. I couldn’t even perform 1 push-up. I was terribly upset and decided to work on my push up daily from that day onwards. I started with wall pushups and did it daily for over a week till I could safely perform an incline pushup. After a week, I still stumbled while performing a full push up! It was totally demotivating but I decided to keep going. I was happy with my improvement in a week and continued with my practice. The second training sessions consisted of skipping (which I am good at), yoga asanas and ladder drill. I was quiet comfortable with these but what came next shattered my confidence! We were asked to perform push ups (I could do 13 here with a bad posture though!). My incredible group members inspired me beyond measure by performing more than 25 perfect pushups! I was spellbound, I couldn’t believe what I saw! These super humans (who are married, with kids, who handle way too many responsibilies than me!) were INCREDIBLE at push ups! It doesn’t end here! We were asked to do planks next where I gave up afterb 2.20 mins (after a week’s practice!). Some of my superwomen, running group friends pushed through till 5 mins. That day I reaslied I have a LONG way to go in my fitness journey and was extremely motivated to practice harder thereon.

With a month’s practice, I saw good progress in below activities.

Skipping : From 150 skips o 570 skips at one go

Plank : From 1 min to my personal best record of 4 mins

Pushups : From zero to 20 in average form

27th February 2020 (Event day)

The event consisted of 2 rounds, prelimnary and final. I was decent in most of the activities which earned me good points (BMI, Hip to waist ratio, Forward Bend, Squats (47 in one minute), crunches (37 in one minute), shuttle run and sprint). I stumbled in Vrukshasan and lost 20 marks (Honestly, could have performed better in this one, I was negligent!).

I almost lost hope of advancing to the finals as everyone else had done a great job at Vrukshasan. From 17 participants, only 7 were selected to the finals. When they called out the name of finalists, my name didn’t come up in the first 6 slots. I was sad but still prayed to the Universe to grant me this one wish. I wanted to be in the finals! The 7th name was called out and as luck would have it, it was me! The Universe heard me out!

The final round was a circuit drill with started with a 10 step jumps, 1 round of ladder jumps, 10 jumping jacks, shuttle run to 4 different points, flipping a 10-20 kg tyre over a 20 metre stretch, duck jumps over a 20 metre stretch and finally ending with 10 squats!! (Phew!!) The top 3 quickest contestants would be declared as Winner, 1st and 2nd Runner’s up respectively.

I was totally drained after performing the circuit, I overestimated my strengh and underestimated the weight of the tyre. Everyone performed exceptionally well and I was back at my prayers to the Universe to help me win the beautiful trophy!

When the winners of my age category were announced, I waited with bated breath.

The Universe heard me out once again and I was placed 3rd (2nd Runner’s up) in my age category. I was estatic and absolutely delirious on winning the trophy (by now you would have come to know about my obsession with medals, trophies, any accolades for that matter!)

I came back from the event with memories that would last me a lifetime and being extremely happy with my decision to participate in it. I would have lost a great opportunity to challenge myself, work on my shortcomings, understand where I stand amongst my peers and last but not the least, have a great time had I done otherwise!

Moral of the story : Never shy away from trying. There’s nothing to lose, we either WIN or LEARN!

Earned vacation

Almost everyone who knows me or the one’s who I have met recently are aware of the fact that I have an exam coming up in February (specifically February 21st, 2021). It’s Level 1 exam of the Chartered Financial Analyst program which was initially scheduled to take place in June 2020. The exam has been postponed twice already (from June to December 2020 and finally settling on February 2021). Ever since I have registered for this exam, my anxious mind tricks me into believing that I should be studying instead of doing anything leisurely -_-. After procrastinating on it for a dangerous amount of time, I finally got around to start study diligently as the exam date drew nearer. More than the exam, I’m excited about all the time I’ll have on hand after the exam ends which will be EARNED and totally GUILT FREE.

I’ve prepared a Netflix list of all the movies and shows I’ll drown myself in after the exams. I’ve made plans to meet my friends, go for a trip and every other thing that sounds remotely fun is automatically added to this list. This is what’s motivating me currently to study. I don’t know why I feel the need to earn my leisure time by working hard for it. Nothing can beat the bliss of stress free, guilt free, leisure time that we get post a stressful event, according to me.

Yesterday I got a mail from the CFA institute which essentially meant that there is a chance for the exam to be postponed, yet again! Instead of jumping with joy, my heart sank to the floor. I’m really looking forward to give the exam and start living a normal, “not having the stress of an impending exam loom over my mind 24*7” life! My mind is back to it’s anxious tricks and is forcing me to google “Is CFA Level 1 February 2021 exam postponed/cancelled?” every other minute knowing very well that the answer to this question can only be given by the CFA institute. The mail sent by CFA institute states that they will let us know the final decision by February 2nd. That’s almost 20 days away!

Since I have no other alternative anyways, I’m planning on continuing with my studies, possibly in a more serious and dedicated manner. I’m channeling all my energy to give my BEST EFFORT for this exam and pray that it takes place on 21st February. Heck, I’m even ready to make a manifestation circle for it, no matter how ridiculous it sounds!

Desperate times calls for desperate measures! 😀

Since I feel much better now after venting my anxious thoughts here, I’ll go back to studying and hope that the exam takes place as scheduled!

Be fit 2.0 : Milestone 2

#69/100

And it’s time for the second milestone already. I had a fairly disciplined fitness and healthy eating regime during the first half of this month. In the second half, my mother had an injury at home and the doctor had to put a cast on her hand for 6 weeks. Since my routine went for a toss, I had a difficult time adjusting to the new one which involved managing house and office work together. I ended up missing few days of my workouts, couldn’t manage a consistent running schedule and had a multiple stress eating incidents. I’m slowly adjusting myself to the new routine and planning to bounce back on track, stronger than ever.

Here are my achievements for this month :-

Weight :-

Starting weight (10th August) : 62.9 kgs

Milestone 1 (31st August) : 62.5 kgs (Lost 0.4 kgs)

Milestone 2 (1st October) : 61.4 kgs (Lost 1.1 kgs)

Workouts :-

I was regular on most days. On the days I had to go to office, I made sure to wake up early and rope skip. I started with 500 rounds and gradually increased it to 1000 by the end of the month. It helped me clear my mind and gave a great endorphin boost at the start of the day. However, I did miss 4/5 days of workouts after my mother’s injury. Overall, I’m pretty happy with my workout progress.

Meditation :-

I haven’t meditated even once in the past month. I plan on meditating for at least 10 mins right after I wake up so that I don’t procrastinate it throughout the day. This is my goal for October.

Food :-

This month has been tumultuous when it comes to my food habits. I stress ate on many occasions and indulged in a lot of junk food. My water intake hasn’t been up to the mark. I plan on improving it in October

Key achievements :

• Ran twice outdoors, 6 kms in 44 mins on 6th September and 10 kms in 1.14.06 hrs on 13th September.

Goals for Milestone 3 (31st October):-

• Workout 6 days a week
• No refined sugar
• No cheat meals (Fried, processed food)
• Rope skip every evening at least 500 times
• Attempt 10 push ups
• Run at 10 kms every Sunday
• Meditate for 10 mins every morning right after waking up

See you until the next milestone!!

Discipline > Motivation

#68/100

“A great way to develop self-discipline is to make it a habit to do the things you should be doing when you feel the laziest. Every time you feel really lazy, do the opposite of what you feel like doing.”

-Anonymous

I used to chase motivation before. I waited every single day to do a task that truly motivates me and that task never saw the light of the day. Motivation comes very rarely to me. Most of times I have to force myself to do work according to my schedule or requirement.

Mornings are tough these days. I don’t feel like waking up. I somehow feel stressed with my responsibilities at home and work. I feel like screaming from frustration most of the time. I am fighting a battle between my heart and mind everyday. My day is filled with work that doesn’t make me happy. I do get ample time but I feel too dejected to use it fruitfully.

Motivation is a very important factor to lead a productive life. However, it doesn’t work in our favor most of the time. The foolproof way of getting work done is to create a habit out of it. You create a to-do list for the day and get down to strike off every single item on the list. Big goals such as preparing for an exam or losing weight needs your consistent effort over a long period of time. In such cases, you cannot leave it to your will to decide if you are motivated enough to work on it for the day.

I’ve decided to try creating a morning routine which is a humongous challenge for me. I really wish to create a daily practice of visualization/gratitude, meditation and journaling. At the moment, my morning consists of me groggily waking up and zoning out for almost an hour, procrastinating my office work by wasting my time on the phone and rushing through the rest of the day as everything is already delayed by that time.

Since I’m a morning person, I’m contemplating to wake up 30 mins early each day till I’m habituated to wake up at 5 am everyday. I KNOW, SOUNDS INSANE RIGHT? I absolutely don’t find time to meditate and journal once I start my office work. This might be the best manner to squeeze out a little time each day for myself and work on things that’ll help improve my mental health and be beneficial in my goal to become a better version of myself.

I know I’m looking at a challenge that looks too difficult to accomplish. My weight loss was also one such impossible challenge which I succeeded only by being disciplined and making exercise and healthy eating a lifelong habit.

I’ll try my best to live up to this challenge. No better day to start it than the start of a new month. I’ll post about my experience with this challenge at the end of October. Till then, wish me luck!

Getting work done

#57/100

“Over time, grit is what separates fruitful lives from aimlessness.”

-John Ortberg

Life has thrown me a curve ball when I least expected it. I’ve been having a pretty relaxed routine ever since the beginning of our quarantine and grown very comfortable with it. I did my work at my own sweet time and didn’t care about the time that went in vain. I had a lot of things to do in my mental to do list but decided to take it easy and pushed things off to tomorrow that weren’t a priority. Ever since my mom fractured her hand, I am pressed for time. There’s lot of work to do in little time and all I feel like doing is to sleep.

I know that I desperately need to work on my time management skills. If I make good use of time, I’ll be able to get more work done now than ever before. Whenever I feel pressurized or burdened, my initial reaction is to slack. Call it anxiety or sheer nervousness, my fear of not getting perfect results in everything I do, makes me want to quit the situation all together. I tend to waste my time not doing anything rather than utilizing every single millisecond to do my best and not think too much about the output.

I have a lot of work on my hand and the only thing that will help me deal with it is to “Act before I think” or rather “overthink”. I haven’t been following this of late and have allowed my fearful thoughts to take the driver seat. It’s time to take action or else I will be stuck at the same place forever.

I’ve come across this quote many times before “What doesn’t break you makes you stronger!” Now is the right time to prove this quote right. Our human mind is capable of truly great things. Our fear of survival tends to put a lot of limitations on us making it difficult for us to reach our true potential. I really wish to move beyond my psychological limitations and work on my goal of becoming the best version of myself. Let’s do this!

The real test

#56/100

“Be happy for no reason, like a child. If you are happy for a reason, you’re in trouble, because that reason can be taken from you.”

― Deepak Chopra

It is so easy to be happy when things are going well. The real test lies in our efforts to stay happy when things don’t take place as per our expectations. Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been really happy, for no particular reason to be honest. Listening to good songs, watching good shows, eating good food, I sought happiness from these daily basic activities and sort of created a routine out of it. Everything seemed great, I genuinely began to feel a childlike sense of happiness in a lot of things. I didn’t realize that I had created a routine for myself. Any change in this routine could bring me massive disappointment and sadness as I wasn’t anticipating it. That’s exactly what happened!

My mom injured her hand day before yesterday. It’s a fracture and her hand needs to be put under a cast for 6 weeks. Now this comes as a big jolt to my routine as I’m heavily dependent on my mother for everything. Now is the real test of my happiness. There’s a big change in my routine, the exact same routine that was a reason behind my happiness from the past few weeks.

Now is when I need to put extra efforts in being happy under any circumstances. It’s also extremely important to know our “why” (the purpose behind doing anything) before starting any new thing. This “why” makes us focused, dedicated and gritty enough to achieve our goals. My “why” is to be happy under any circumstances, especially during the bad ones. Difficult as it may sound, there’s always a way out.

There’s always a way out

“When someone points a gun at your face, “you take the gun, or you pull out a bigger one. Or, you call their bluff. Or, you do any one of a hundred and forty six other things.”

-Harvey Specter

#27/100

I watched the show “Suits” recently and was hooked till the last season. When Harvey Specter, one of the main characters in the show, suavely uses the above dialogue, the only thought I had in mind was, “Yeah, good for you, you are a fictional character, your writer will always have a way out for you!” I firmly believed that it’s diametrically different in reality. If you have a gun pointed to your head in real life, YOU DIE!

However, after experiencing a bit of life, I have come to realize that this might not be the case always. There have been many instances in my life where I felt like I had my back against the wall. However, with time, not only was I able to get out of the situation, it didn’t really seem as hazardous as I imagined it to be. Over time I was able to completely erase these kind of perilous situations from my memories that once gave me anxiety and panic attacks.

The basic instinct of every human being is to survive, non-existence is our biggest fear. Whenever we face a situation that is beyond our control, our brain immediately sends out fear signals to avoid it completely. But if we get past the initial inertia, we can come out with some way out for every situation. I’m not talking about a situation where you have a gun pointed to your head, I wouldn’t know what to do either. I am talking about the smaller, more relatable situations.

Like, you have been given a project to complete at work and haven’t been finding time to pursue your other interests. Eventually you give up on the hobbies that truly gave you happiness and push yourself to the brink of constant sadness. As you can see, the initial few days of handling any kind of change in your life is overwhelming, post that once you are used to a routine, you can always squeeze time out for your interests.

If you love sports, you can find time for it during your off days if not every day, if you wanted to hit the gym each day, you can resort to home exercises, if you want to learn a new skill, you can download an app or find a buddy with similar interest, you can always find an easier way to fulfil your interests. It’s very easy to blame your external situations for all your inadequacies, but if you look closely, you have the solution to all your problems deep within your mind. You just have to pay attention.

Initially, when I was asked to travel to office which involved a commute of 8 hrs per day, I was very upset to skip my workouts for those days. I really enjoy working out, it keeps me sane and gives me an endorphin rush that can’t be put to words. Today, after giving up on my workouts for several office-commute days, I managed to squeeze in a 10 min skipping session in the morning. It was a small session but made me feel more productive than my usual long routines. It’s because I did something that I believed was practically impossible. The adrenaline rush after completing such tasks is inexpressible.

Do you have any such thing in mind which you have been missing out on? Try making time for it tomorrow and realize the true potential of the human mind.