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.

Would I be any different?

“There is no paycheck that can equal the feeling of contentment that comes from being the person you are meant to be.”

-Oprah Winfrey

I’ve had a tough childhood and have always considered this as a good excuse for all of my failures in life. For the longest time, I have blamed my father for not giving the rest of our family the means to do well in life. I still do this at times when I feel frustrated or stressed for not having things under my control. There is a nagging thought I have every single day and that’s my lack of efforts in living life to my full potential.

I always believed that my childhood experiences have shaped my personality, the good, bad and ugly. While I’m proud of all of my accomplishments, I’m fairly unsatisfied with the importance of career in my life. While growing up my family faced a lot of financial crunch, I took up my current profession and job to give a comfortable life to my family. I never wanted to experience financial trouble ever in my life. That was my sole motivation to earn a degree and look out for a job. As soon as I achieved this purpose, my life felt empty and directionless. I started hating my profession, job and everything related to one of the biggest aspect every human’s life, my career.

I have spent a lot of time blaming my father, my childhood, our family circumstances for not being able to achieve better things in life. I have also conveniently BELIEVED that my life would have been a lot different if I had the privilege of experiencing a comfortable childhood. That was far more easy for me than taking responsibility for my life.

Come to think of it, I don’t think my life would have been any different with a better childhood. I would still be the same person, with the same level of motivation and ambition in life, maybe even less as I wouldn’t have a solid purpose to dream big. I probably would have ended up doing nothing great in my career and led a comfortable life handed over to me by my wealthy father. WOW! This realization just hit me hard! My inability to achieve my full potential cannot be attributed to my childhood! It’s because of my half hearted attempts, my laziness to plan and chase my goals, it’s all ME!

Now that I know this well, I want to know what I’m truly capable of. I want to realize my full potential. I want to be the BEST in what I do and keep learning new things in life till the end of my existence on this planet. I’m truly pumped up and excited to start this new chapter in my life. I will share my journey, learning experiences and achievements here. Eagerly looking forward to see how life looks like on the other side of regrets, self sabotaging thoughts and all things that bog me down. I promise to utilize every ounce of my strength to fight the demons of my mind.

Be Fit : Milestone 3

The third milestone is here and I feel pretty happy with my efforts made for fitness in October. I managed to stick to a daily meditation and gratitude journaling routine which is something I had been struggling with a long time. I’m not focusing on the results from this routine at the moment. I am focusing on doing it consistently to make it a habit so that I can reap it’s benefits in the long term. My running schedule took a hit this month, I was pretty lazy. I have slept through the alarms each week and was pretty disappointed with myself. I tried to make up for it last weekend and was extremely happy to push my limits for a 7.7 km run on Saturday followed up by a 10 km run on Sunday. My goal is to be consistent with my running schedule in November.

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)

Milestone 3 (2nd November) : 60.5 kgs (Lost 0.9 kgs)

Workouts :-

I have been regular with my HIIT workouts/skipping routine during the weekdays however slacked off during the weekends.

Meditation :-

I tweaked up my meditation routine to do it first thing after I wake up in the morning. This has worked wonders for me as I haven’t skipped it even once for the past 25 days. I currently have a 25 day streak on Headspace and that makes me very happy.

Food :-

Although I ordered takeaways on many occasions, I am pretty satisfied with my food habits this month. Ever since I started meditation, I’ve noticed a slight decline in my food cravings and mindless eating habits which is great! My water intake has been up to the mark as well.

Key achievements :

• Ran twice outdoors, 7.68 kms in 52.38 mins on 31st October and 10.14 kms in 1.11.46 hrs on 1st November.

Goals for Milestone 4 (30th November):-

• Workout everyday
• No refined sugar
• Limited cheat meals (Fried, processed food)
• Rope skip every evening at least 200 times
• Attempt 10 push ups
• Run 5 kms on Saturday, 10 kms on Sunday every week
• Improve my running pace, 5 kms under 30 mins and 10 kms under 65 mins

See you until the next milestone!!

The ultimate goal

#99/100

“One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory”

-Rita Mae Brown

I just completed watching the series “The Good Place” on Netflix and I loved most part of it. One of the genres of this show is philosophical fiction and I’m drawn to everything that is connected to philosophy. Few of the dialogues and situations shown in the series were so profound, it blew my mind. The show touched on topics such as existential crisis, happiness, ultimate goal, moral obligation, life and death, sadness, mediocrity, growth and every single topic that raises questions that don’t have a well defined answer attached to it.

Almost every human being feel the emotion of sadness and experience all the negative feelings in life. This is caused as they fear an end to their existence without having the chance to experience everything that life has to offer. However, have you thought of what would happen if all problems and limitations are wiped out from your life? You can fulfill any dream you can possible imagine without having any conditions attached to it. Sounds blissful right? Almost like paradise? Does this seem like the perfect life you wish to live? Turns out, this kind of life isn’t ideal either. Even if you can do whatever you wish to do, once you have gone through all the experiences you’ve possibly imagined, what will you live on for? You might become happiness zombies if there’s absolutely zero inconsistencies in your life. Life can get boring really fast once we stop having a reason to live for.

The struggles, pain, sadness though difficult to experience, give meaning to our life. We find a new purpose, a better goal to aim for, a reason to wake up in the morning each day. Another great thing about human life is the innate desire to become a better version of themselves, every single day. Since we have a finite timeline on earth, we desperately wish to make it extraordinary and try everything possible to do it. If these things are handed out to us on a silver platter, life won’t have any meaning attached to it anymore.

The next time you face a problem, don’t curse yourself into believing that you are being punished for something. You face a problem, analyze your best possible options, try again after each failure and find the solution! Life makes sense because of every single element that makes up for it, the happy moments, sorrows and hardships are equally responsible for making our life truly exceptional.

What keeps you on your toes?

#96/100

“Embrace uncertainty. Some of the most beautiful chapters in our lives won’t have a title until much later.”

–Bob Goff

Someone asked me this question today and it got me thinking for a long time. He meant it in a professional perspective but I couldn’t think of a sensible answer even after pondering over it for a while. Currently with my on going job profile, the thought of getting back home keeps me on my toes. Writing an article on my beloved blog keeps my mind busy. Thinking about the distance of my next long run makes me happy. Completing my work quickly so that I have time to catch up on a book or show gives me motivation to speed up. But nothing even remotely related to my profession or job keeps me on my toes.

When we spend more than half of each day for most part of our life on building a career, it’s very important to enjoy the process enough to think of upgrading our skills in it. We shouldn’t be thinking of different ways to get out of the office rut to really start living our life. I feel each day should be balanced with our work and every other thing that sparks joy in us. Each day has a role to play in building our personality and life, it doesn’t make sense to move forward in life in a robotic manner.

I have many areas to work on with respect to my profession and career that I am aware of. I also enjoy studying and learning new things. Yet, at work, I end up wasting my time waiting for the day to end. I really want to change this routine. My work and profession is the reason I have achieved most of my childhood goals. It has given me respect and financial independence which matters means a lot to me. It is payback time now. Time to stop taking my job for granted and work hard to give back to my job and profession in the best possible manner. It could be in the form of learning a new skill or task, dedicating a fixed time everyday to learn something new, check out opportunities for improvement, upskill and reskill wherever needed and strive hard to become the best version of me, at home and work. Every single day is beautiful, I wouldn’t want to neglect any day that makes up the beauty that is ‘life‘.

Always prepared

#93/100

“Thorough preparation makes its own luck.”

-Joe Poyer

I don’t have a long post today. It’s already the end of Sunday and I feel rather unaccomplished for wasting my just another weekend. I know I have the potential to achieve my goals yet I restrict myself most of the times to do my best. I had planned few things this weekend which included resuming my running sessions. I overslept, yet again. I also had a reading target in mind and watching few educational videos which I have been procrastinating on since ages. I don’t really know why I am unable to effectively manage my time everyday.

My current goal is to channel all my energy on developing effective time management skills. I desperately wish to accomplish this. The first 3 months of my weight loss journey in the year 2018 were the most productive time of my entire life. I managed to get a lot of work done in those 3 months and was extremely proud of my achievements back then. The only difference back then was a crazy determination to achieve my goal. I wish to get back to the same level of willpower and grit in my life to do well. Enough of lazing around.

Next week on Sunday, November 1st, is the last day of my 100 days challenge. I am thrilled to have reached this far. I wish to end it by challenging myself to get out of my comfort zone and work hard to upgrade to a better version of myself. Starting this very moment, I will use every ounce of my mental and physical strength to LEVEL UP!

Ironical situation

#90/100

“Nothing is better than having a great friend to work with, so you can vent to each other to make the day go faster.”

-Anonymous

I am a shy and introverted person by nature. I have tried and engaged myself in limited social interactions throughout my life. I have a close knit group of friends who know me best and put up with my absence or lack of prompt replies. I am really grateful to them though it can get really annoying at times. I’m trying to be better at keeping in touch with my loved ones.

However, when it comes to my workplace, social isolation is my biggest fear. I start out slow as always, but end up making some great connections at work who teach me new things, motivate me to do better, make me laugh and in general help keep my happiness at a soaring high level at my workplace. I don’t have a team in my current organisation which means I had absolutely no one to talk when I started working at this place. The first 3 months were painfully slow and boring. I wouldn’t lie if I said that I used to count every single minute till the end of each and every day in office. Slowly I made few friends at office who made me lose track of time which was all I wanted at that time!

When I rejoined office after the lock down this year in June, I was worried because my closest office colleague hadn’t joined back. But I still had the colleagues who sat around my office bay area to keep me company. My colleague who sits across my desk has been a constant support throughout my running journey. He kept motivating me to sign up for a half marathon with him and it’s safe to give him all the credit for my first successful half marathon attempt this year.

Yesterday, I came to know that the entire bay across me have shifted their desks to a new location. To term this event heartbreaking is an understatement. I’ve been left all alone at my desk again. Life at this workplace has come a full circle for me as the situation has reverted exactly back to my initial period at this place. I have no one but my work to keep me company now. I know that I can visit them at their new location, but the situation is different than sharing the same office bay and having them around throughout the day.

This looks like the biggest sign from the Universe nudging me to make genuine efforts in finding a new job. I will try my best to overcome my anxiety related to situational changes and the accompanying procrastination so that I can find a job that makes me feel fulfilled and happy. It’s time to move on!

Change is the only constant

#83/100

“It’s never too late to be who you might have been.”

– George Eliot

I was talking to my colleague today and ending up learning a lot of things from him in what started off as a casual discussion. There has been a lot of changes in my office recently. The colleague I was talking to is a sales professional who handles a clientele belonging to a particular sector in the industry. The changes I was talking about relates to shuffling of these sectors and the client base in the process. While other sales team handle sectors and clientele that have been part of the organisation since a long time, my colleague used to handle a sector that was newly introduced in our department. He along with his teammate were responsible in setting up the sector from scratch and building the client base.

I asked him if he was upset that his sector was taken away or if he had any apprehensions about the change. His answer just blew me away. He said, “Not even a bit. I would have had a regret had I not been able to give my 100% to my work. I sowed the seeds, watered the plant diligently and was blessed enough to enjoy the fruit of my labour. Now, I seek a change in the routine, a new challenge, a new adventure.!” He also asked me if I see myself working in the same organisation 6 months down the line, although my reply is a glaring NO, I chose not to comment. If you cannot see yourself working in the same place even for the next 6 months, what is the point of being so attached to the work you do? I was astounded by the clarity and ease in his replies.

I still remember my attitude towards work in my previous organisation. The attrition rate was very high causing a lot of team shuffles and changes in work profile. I dreaded it every single time. I was too comfortable with my daily routine and couldn’t bring myself to test my skills in a new and challenging environment. Basically, I had zero confidence in my ability. I have outgrown this phase however still haven’t been able to develop a thick skin to any big change in life like my incredible colleague. He did tell me it takes time and patience, all I can do is work on it consistently.

That is all I can do. Work on my skills consistently, learn whatever I wish to learn, be attentive in the present moment, do what makes me happy, make time for myself and celebrate my life. I might not be able to predict any big changes in my life but I can be prepared by striving to be the best version of myself, each day, every day!

Interview anxiety

#81/100

A job interview is not a test of your knowledge but your ability to use it at the right time.

-Anonymous

“Hi, we’ve scheduled your interview for Monday at 4.30 pm.” I begrudgingly say yes and mentally prepare myself to experience a highly stressful time till the end of the interview. If I have 4 days till the interview, I think about it every millisecond of the 4 days and wish for the misery to end as soon as possible. If I were to rank my biggest fears in life, attending job interviews would sit comfortably in the second position right below public speaking, giving it a very close competition.

I don’t know what it is about attending job interviews that makes me so anxious. It could be the stress of knowing every technical aspect of the job, dealing with the embarrassment of not being able to answer a question, the expectation of creating a great first impression, the fact that we are being judged on the basis of our behavior and answers or the self loathing that follows after the end of what you would consider a “bad interview”.

Over the years, I’ve become better at coping up with the anxiety of attending a job interview. I’m less critical of myself and have gained more confidence to deal with the stress of attending an interview. Yet, I’m never able to prepare well and keep pushing the learning bit to the last minute. I don’t know why I do this, I tend to waste my time till the last hour and frantically rush over whatever little I can study at the last hour. Let me list down few techniques and my experiences with such situations to help people like me to turn their anxiety into something productive.

• Set out your intention : Write down or mentally note the reason behind attending the interview. It could be to gain interview experience, earn more salary, the desperate need to change your current job or just a career switch. This would help you focus better on the preparation and give you a solid reason to counter your fears.
• It’s never as bad as I think : As scared as I am to attend job interviews, the actual ones turn to be much easier and manageable than my fears about it. Before the interviews I imagine the interviewers to be the meanest people on earth who throw extremely technical questions at me and judge me if I don’t answer them. This has never happened till date and I’ve been interviewed mostly by warm and humble humans.
• Take a deep breath : My heart tends to race extremely fast right before and during the first few minutes of the interview. One technique that has helped me calm down is taking deep breaths. It gives my mind a breather as well and acts as a slight distraction for my mind from it’s racing thoughts. While taking the deep breaths, I try counting them so that I can divert my mind’s attention to my breathing. It works pretty well for me.
• Prepare : Anxiety is a constant state of fear of the unknown. The best way to deal with such fears is to face them, head on. I’ve cancelled numerous job interviews before just to escape the ordeal of attending them. This has only caused my fear to multiply. I always feel much better and a little proud of myself after attending an interview, despite the outcome. It’s always helpful to take time out to prepare as much as you can before the interview to give yourself a much needed confidence boost. As you attend more interviews, you can find out areas where you can focus more on and be well prepared the next time.
• Reward : I tend to celebrate after attending every job interview as it’s I consider it a big accomplishment regardless of the outcome. There are times when I get disappointed with my performance and tend to beat myself up for lack of better preparation. Nevertheless, every interview ends up being a great learning experience and should be viewed as one.

My goal for the next job interview would be to get over my anxiety and push myself to prepare well for it well in advance. Hope to share a good interview experience whenever I have a next one!