Monthly recap : August 2021

I tried my level best to focus on recovery and to get back on track this month, Quiet happy with my progress.

Mental health

• Meditated for 26/31 days.
• Journaled/documented my day for 0/31 days
• Practiced gratitude journaling for 0/31 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 got a promotion in office to a new designation. I also gave 1 very exciting job interview this month that helped push me out of my comfort zone. I tried new things at work and rejoined office after my covid quarantine in a renewed manner. My main focus is on developing a growth mindset in life. This mindset gives me confidence to confront challenges and work consistently harder to become the best version of myself.

Workouts

• Zero outdoor/indoor runs
• Worked out for 20/31 days

Education

• Zero progress with CFA level 1 curriculum. Exam has been deferred to February 15 2022. I’ve ordered books for the new curriculum and I’m all set to give my best for this exam.
• Zero online courses completed in August.

Entertainment

• Completed reading 3 books (my highest record till date) and halfway through 4th book. The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod, Mindset by Carol Dweck and Atomic Habits by James Clear. It’s safe to say that these 3 books have helped me transform my life in more ways than one. They have redirected the course of my life and made me change my thought patterns. I would especially like to give biggest credit to the book “Mindset”. I try to take all decisions in my life based on the philosophies shared in this book. It has made me confident to face challenges head on and not be afraid of making mistakes in life.
• Halfway through Scam 1992 which is a web series based on the Indian stock and money market scam in 1992. I not only found it extremely entertaining but it is knowledgeable as well.

It’s been 3 years that I’ve felt stuck in my professional life but haven’t particularly made any efforts to try new things at work. I’ve always blamed my external environment for everything that was wrong with my career. It came as a huge shock to me when it finally dawned to me that I possessed all the aspects of a “fixed mindset” at work. I was scared of challenges, tend to believe that skill/talent is a limited resource and didn’t trust myself to do better than this. The book “MINDSET” by Carol Dweck opened up my mind to new possibilities and I’m excited to try each one of them.

To new beginnings and growth mindset!

Monthly recap : June 2021

I totally wanted to skip this month’s recap. June has been my worst month in terms of productivity. I don’t know how I managed to spend an entire month in utter confusion and anxiety. I managed to skip all my usual self care activities (meditation, workouts and journaling) for most part of this month. I did have a busy work schedule during the last week of June but that doesn’t explain my unproductive streak for the first 3 weeks. I think I needed a break from my usual routine, I wasn’t able to focus or concentrate on the good parts of my life. I took time to heal and it worked to an extent. I won’t say I’m completely back to my usual self but I don’t feel that anxious and confused anymore. I consider that a huge win.

Mental health

• Meditated for 3/30 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 don’t recollect doing anything special or different this month

Workouts

• Zero outdoor/indoor runs
• Worked out for 8/30 days

Education

• Zero progress with CFA level 1 curriculum.
• Zero online courses completed in June

Entertainment

• Completed reading 0 books (More than halfway through 3 books.)
• No movies/web series

Looking back at my progress this month, I could have easily skipped posting this. But the book I’m reading currently has helped change my perspective at looking things. The book goes by the name “Mindset” by renowned psychologist “Carol Dweck”. The book speaks about two different kind of mindsets that people have “Fixed and Growth”.

I wish to try new things, work hard on myself, focus on learning and growth, not let my mistakes and failure define me, take on new challenges and experience life. That will be my focus in July. Let’s see how this month treats me.

Blogger Interview With Sahana

The one where I got interviewed by my numero uno blogger!!

Thank you so much Pooja (https://lifesfinewhine.ca/) for this incredible opportunity. I’m literally over the moon today to see this post go live.

Life is great!! This is one of the major highlights of my blogging journey!

Lifesfinewhine

I have been a big fan of Sahana’s blog for a while now so I’m very excited to share this interview with you guys Please do take a minute to stop by her blog I am sure you will enjoy it as much as I do

1. Thanks so much for being a part of this interview. Tell us a little bit about yourself and what your blog is about. 

Thanks a million Pooja for this wonderful opportunity to get interviewed by you. This is truly one of the most memorable experiences of my blogging journey. Hello everyone, I am Sahana from https://thesupermode.wordpress.com. I am a Chartered Accountant by profession and work with an Indian private bank. My blog is a reflection of my thought process. I write about anything and everything that goes on my mind. I’m a little inclined towards motivational / inspirational posts and self help as that’s…

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Wish I knew this earlier

“The past is a place of reference, not a place of residence; the past is a place of learning, not a place of living.”

–Roy T. Bennett

Although I haven’t ran the whole course of my life yet, there are some lessons I learnt pretty late. When we are young, we are filled with confidence and optimism about the future and believe that we can move past any challenges in life. However, we end up giving up the reins of our life to fate during the later stages in life. As we grow older, we realise that we could have channelised that high amount of confidence and optimism into something productive and fruitful that would help us be more in control of our life.

These are some lessons I’ve come accross either through internet or bitter experiences or analysing the life led by people around me. Although I wish I knew this earlier, I’m really glad that I’m aware of it now and have worked on it to improve the overall quality of my life.

• Join a sport or participate in that extra curricular event :- I was a big time nerd and truly believed studies are the only thing that I should be doing as a student. I was horribly wrong. I realised the importance of fitness and communication much later in life. Learning a sport helps not just in developing strength and stamina but also becoming more disciplined, learning from our failures and facing challenges headstrong. We live in a very sheltered environment as far as school and college is concerned and have people around to help with our requirements. Once we are thrown into the real world, every new situation seems life threatening and we fail to blend in with the crowd. Learn to make new friends, talk to more people, learn about their experiences, participate in events that force you out of your comfort zone. That’s how you realise that every single person on this planet is dealing with their fear and insecurties and you learn to feel less intimidated by people, especially strangers.
• Be financially independent : It’s very important to chase our dreams and passion and figure out the purpose of our existence. However, we also need to find a way to be financially independent along the process. Unless we have unlimited financial resources left to us by our ancestors, everyone needs to work for their survival in this world. Make sure you incorporate the golden habit of saving early on in your life, learn about financial planning, take advise from experts to grow your corpus, make financially sound decisons when it comes to material purchases, know your long and short term financial goals. Once you feel financially sound, you can take all the big decisions in life with more confidence.
• Make meditation a part of daily routine : We all know the wonderful benefits of meditation however it can take a painfully long time for us to visibly see the changes in our life. Till that time, we are required to meditate cosistently without expecting any instant gratification. And that my friend, is an extremely difficult task. It’s better to think of it as a part of daily routine that we need to follow without fail like brushing our teeth or taking a bath. Yes, meditation is undoubtedly the best tool available within our control which can help in maintaining a sound mental health. And making it a daily routine is the best way to reap it’s rich rewards later on in life.
• Everyday is equally important : Most of the days in my life are a waitlist for the special ones/the D days/an important day to look forward to. We feel happy on these special days and dread to get back to the “normal routine” to be followed on the other days. If we can learn to tweak this mindset, there will be a visible change in our happiness levels. The best way to do this is by maintaining a daily journal. It’s just a 5 minute daily practice that requires you to revisit your day and write down whatever made an impact on you that day. This small practice can help you be more grateful and pull your attention back to the present moment. Document your day, focus on making daily progress, make memories, click pictures, life certainly isn’t about those few special days, everday is equally special.

And that’s all I’ve learned and try to implement in my day to day life to feel at peace and more happy in general. Hope it helps you too!

Thankful, Grateful

Day 29/30

And it’s almost time to end the April writing challenge. I have one more day to go but that’s fixed for my monthly recap so this is final write up. April is my most favorite month of the year as it’s my birth month. I started off 2021 with immense positivity and hope and promised to carry it throughout the year. This month really tested my patience and anxiety levels. I’m trying to fight it with whatever means I can. This month has been my least productive month of all. You might think of me as someone who obsesses over productivity and progress all the time. I don’t know why I’m wired this way, being productive gives a huge boost to my energy levels and instantly makes me happy.

I’ve written for 29 days in row and am really grateful for all the experiences, thoughts, emotions I had while writing my daily posts throughout this month. It has been a long month and I have spent most time of this month slacking. I’d still not bash myself for it. It’s been a tough month mentally and I’m taking my own sweet time to come to terms with it. I do want to get past this slump soon and get back on track. Because having a powerful routine and following it to the tee truly makes me happy. That’s the fact of my life and I need to embrace it.

Thankful for all my blogger friends who took time out to read and comment on my posts. It means a LOT. It encouraged me to post on days when I absolutely didn’t want to. You helped me keep going and now I have a month long blogging streak to my credit. This feels incredible.

One day left in April that I need to utilize well to prepare for a new month and all my goals attached to it. Let’s make the best of it.

Paradigm shift

Day 28/30

I signed up for a “time management course” to learn how to eradicate my procrastination once and for all. Guess who has been procrastinating on completing the minuscule 90 min course, ME! I can’t stop laughing thinking about this.

Anyways, time to get back to serious business. So I did try to make few changes in today’s routine based on whatever I could recollect from watching the first half of this course in an absolutely sleepy state. I made a very detailed hour by hour schedule yesterday for today and the best thing I could achieve from the extremely elaborate schedule was my meditation and workout. I have been off the radar for more than a month now. The plight of our country during the covid 19 second wave and the unexpected death in my extended family has put me in a very distracted state of mind.

There is no one way to calm an anxious mind. Anxiety partially comes from the feeling of losing control of our life. And I wish to tackle this specific aspect to win over my anxiety. Taking control of our life starts from the decision to try and take action. If there’s one thing you’ve been procrastinating on from quiet sometime for no apparent reason, like ordering a thing from your wish list or calling a friend, try and force yourself to do that very thing tomorrow and you’ve begun your journey of reclaiming control of your goddamn life. It’s honestly really weird that it’s our mind who wishes to achieve great things in life and the only thing that stops from doing all that is again, our MIND! How is that even possible?

Now that it’s established that everything that you need to change yourself is in your MIND, what stops you from working on it?

Is there a vision of a new you in your mind? A skill you want to develop, a language a want to learn, a job you wish to get, a life you wish to own? Make a list of all these things. Everything your best version should be doing and break it down into a daily routine. Don’t underestimate the power of compounding my friend! Oh, but what do we do to keep the lure of “instant gratification” at bay?

Apply the 1 level up rule. Tomorrow, make a plan to get 1 level better in your goals from yesterday. For example, one extra rep in your workouts or 1 extra page of your book or 1 extra chapter in your studies. Just 1 level up. It’s a relatively small number so won’t be difficult to achieve. However, every drop counts to make an ocean, this 1 level up progress will make a considerable dent in the progress of your goal. Sounds easy? So should we get a head start on the biggest project of our life? The future me that I would be proud of.

Let’s do this!

Just a reminder

Day 27/30

To the good place

“To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.”

-Thomas Campbell

Day 26/30

To my dear aunt who lost the battle to covid today, hope you are in a better place now and not hurting anymore.

Slowly but surely

“Positive anything is better than negative nothing.”

–Elbert Hubbard

Day 25/30

A pessimistic attitude towards life can suck the energy out of you. Our life is built on hope and in it’s absence we will feel absolutely unsettled. Given the current scenario, it is very easy to go off track and feel helpless. We might feel like we have lost control over our life. Our brain can easily spiral into the wrong direction and give us all the possible reasons to be unhappy.

Our time is limited on this planet, every single second is precious. While it’s practically impossible to make every moment count, we can try and train our mind to see the good in every situation. We can strive hard to live in the moment, write down every thing that we have been procrastinating on for a long time and tick off the checklist one by one, buy those things that have been lying in your wish list since forever, reconnect with old friends, watch a feel good movie. In general, use your time on things that make you happy.

The last 2 days have been emotionally harrowing. Two of my closest extended family members are dealing with this deadly virus. I’m praying that they get well soon and come back home hale and hearty. This situation has forced me to think about how I spend my time stressing over things that never take place, being anxious about my past and future alike, not being satisfied with the way I live my life and treating happiness like an expensive commodity. I do end up allocating a huge chunk of my time in life on things that aren’t fruitful or don’t make me happy. I tend to consistently worry about the implications of my current decisions on my future life and stress about not being able to make the most of my life. Well guess what, even after stressing about all of this day in and day out, I haven’t made any progress on figuring out the perfect manner of living a fulfilled life. It’s high time I stop caring about this and start channeling all my focus on the present moment alone.

Going to make it my life’s motto to live by this rule.

“Be happy in the moment, that’s enough. Each moment is all we need, not more.” 

— Mother Teresa

Move on

“You must make a decision that you are going to move on. It wont happen automatically. You will have to rise up and say, ’I don’t care how hard this is, I don’t care how disappointed I am, I’m not going to let this get the best of me. I’m moving on with my life.”

– Joel Osteen

Day 22/30

I woke up today feeling irritated and frustrated. In the past couple of months, I have gone through 2 specific incidents with regards to my career and personal life that haven’t panned out in the way I want. You wait for a long time for things to work out your way, to encounter something that lights your soul, to experience something that sparks joy. After an excruciatingly long wait, the Universe decided to give me a glimpse of those things. Everything looked perfect on the face of it, it looked like my wishes have been answered, finally! But, turns out it was just a sample or in technical terms, a trial version. The outcome of these experiences are inconclusive. While I’m waiting for the end to be positive, somehow my mind keeps saying that it might not be so.

I’m frustrated but I’m done being frustrated. I’m done feeling like this. I’m done allowing rejections of any kind, to get the best of me. I don’t want to get into that phase of life where nothing and no one make sense anymore. Where I keep blaming my stars for everything wrong that’s happened in my life. Where I stop being grateful about the good things in my life and only concentrate on the ones that didn’t turn out as per my wish. I’m done.

While I’m horrible at the art of moving on, I want to fight back these negative feelings till the last ounce of mental strength and energy. How am I planning to do it? By taking care of myself and showing up for myself, each day, every day.

“With every act of self-care your authentic self gets stronger, and the critical, fearful mind gets weaker. Every act of self-care is a powerful declaration: I am on my side, I am on my side, each day I am more and more on my own side.”

– Susan Weiss Berry

There are many different ways in which one can indulge in self care activities throughout the day. Don’t be fooled by the name “self care”. Though these activities are meant to make you feel better, most of us will easily trade it with lying around and doing nothing. These activities require you to “take action” which is easily one of the most difficult tasks to do when we feel under the weather.

Here’s a list of random self care activities that one can choose from. I won’t make big promises and write down huge self care goals. I’d rather follow them for sometime and share my experience after a month or so. I wish you a happy and healthy state of mind. You deserve the best, you deserve to be happy!