It’s getting scary

“Fears are nothing more than a state of mind.”

–Napoleon Hill

Day 24/30

The covid-19 situation in India is getting scarier by the day. People are struggling to get beds in hospitals, medicines aren’t easily available, test results are taking longer than 2 days, the health care system has broken down, the number of active cases has reached it’s peak, the number of daily cases have crossed all time high. In short, the situation is murky and it’s getting worse by the day.

I don’t want to play the blame game here and try to find out what went wrong. It’s not one single person’s fault. Right now, the situation is so bad that we don’t know how long it’ll take for this dark phase to end. In the last week alone, I must have heard a new case in my contacts (friends and extended family) for every single day of the week. Covid has hit way too close to our home and we are scrambling for safety.

My aunt had been hospitalized because of covid about 12 days back. Initially we were told that she had a mild infection and was stable. As days passed by, her condition started deteriorating. Yesterday, my cousin messaged me saying that she is critical. A shiver ran down my spine, I did not expect this. Most of the cases that I’ve heard till now had a positive recovery rate. I was hoping that it would be the same with my aunt. I took life and the current scenario for granted. I was sure that it would be a mild infection and she’ll be back home soon. Yesterday’s news broke me completely. I am scared. Hoping against hope that she’ll be back hale and hearty soon.

Please don’t take anything in life for granted. We need to be grateful for everything that we have in life. Our time on this planet is limited and very precious. Respond to that message, take that call, listen to those stories, forgive and forget, move past those grudges, don’t let anger and ego ruin any relationship, make time for your loved ones.

Praying that the situation gets better, praying that my aunt gets better.

Please take care of yourself and your loved ones. Eat healthy food, workout, take care of your mental health, wear a mask, stay safe. We are not bigger than this virus.

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!

Consistency > Motivation

“Success isn’t always about greatness. It’s about consistency. Consistent hard work leads to success. Greatness will come.”

-Dwayne Johnson

Day 7/30

As I was binge eating chocolate today, watching videos of amazing fitness influencers smashing their workouts, I thought to myself begrudgingly, “It’ll take me years to reach their level!”. It’s funny how I decided that I might be able to do it, without trying my hand at it. I have been working out for close to 2.5 years now, the intensity and passion in my effort has worn off sharply since the first 3 months of my fitness journey. The first 3 months were intense and I was extremely motivated to lose weight. That was my sole purpose in life during those 3 months. Ever since I lost weight, I have given myself the leeway to give up fairly easily, have no restrictions in my diet, skip my workouts, be indisciplined at times with the only excuse of, “I deserve it this time, I’ll get back on track tomorrow.” And that tomorrow never comes.

It’s easier to be consistent than wait for our motivation to support us in our goals. The journey towards achieving our goals is set on a long, winding and difficult path. If we wait for our motivation to help us scale this journey, we might have to take frequent breaks and delay the journey by a couple of years. However, being consistent and working on our goals everyday, in the best way possible, shows definite results over time. The wait is excruciatingly painful but can be borne by frequently rewarding ourselves on achieving our daily tasks.

Also the best way to be consistent is to make a habit out of it. Force yourself to stick to a schedule for at least a month or till the time it feels weird when you skip it. Once this is achieved, being consistent is comparatively easy. There are many ups and downs in every human’s life. As I was talking to someone close to me today (the most talented person I know), I understood how negative thoughts can absolutely DESTROY a human being. I know she is capable of GREAT things in life however her mind has total control over her actions. Her negative self talk flares up, especially during important events in her life and clouds her judgement. She ends up losing a lot of great opportunities to take her life to the next level and witnessing this physically hurts me. I realized from her experience that I do not wish to give the negative thought process in my mind any attention and DO WHAT’S BEST TO TAKE MY LIFE TO THE NEXT LEVEL, always! I want to be clear on what I want to do and be in life. Right now, I’m on the brink of losing everything to negativity. I wish to change it, FOREVER.

Is it possible,

• to never succumb to negativity?
• to have total control of our mind?
• to use our mind to our advantage, always?
• to make the best choices for success in life?
• to be in sync with the Universe?
• to ignite our motivation when we need it?

I don’t know the answers to these questions yet but I wish to learn them soon. I’ll start with self introspection and understanding my short and long term goals in life. Once I have these written down, I’ll devise a daily routine that helps me work on all of my goals, brick by brick, each day. The most important aspect is to be CONSISTENT at it, by hook or by crook.

Let’s do this!

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!

Becoming unstoppable

#62/100

“Who you are today is not who you have to be tomorrow.” 

–Zdravko Cvijetic

Okay, so there have been few inconsistencies in my life of late. My routine has undergone a 360 degree change. I’m incredibly blessed to have a mother who understands the importance of having a stable mental health and doesn’t force me to do things I don’t feel like. Yet, I know I’m not giving my best. She has fractured her hand and needs complete rest at the moment. I am currently overwhelmed with the responsibilities of the house as well as office at the same time. I have been doing a terrible job at both since the day I took the responsibility.

I have the tendency to consider myself a victim of every uncomfortable situation that I’m put through. My initial reaction is to blame every person/thing that I consider responsible for being the reason behind my misery. My way to cope up with such situations is to do nothing about it. Since I’m a perfectionist, I take a long time to do any work that is expected of me. That makes it difficult for me to manage a lot of work at the same time causing me to procrastinate everything till the last moment.

But I’m really tired of finding the easy way out in all the difficult situations of my life. I always waste time when I have a lot of it. The minute I’m supposed to do something that I don’t wish to do, I’m reminded of all the work that I could have done in that time instead. My defense mechanism goes overboard to make me feel absolutely terrible at times.

So I’ve decided that this time, I won’t pick the safe route. I’ll get all work done, in the manner that I’m supposed to do, to the best of my ability. My mom is my biggest inspiration in life. Her grit and positivity always shines bright on me. The way she has handled all the difficult situations in life can be a rulebook to ones who get scared of it. She gets motivated to work harder when things don’t go as per her wish. I’ve hardly seen her disappointed with failures. She takes every mistake as a learning lesson and challenges herself to do better next time. This is exactly what I’m planning to do.

Cheers to a new challenge. If I can deal with all the brick backs life throws at me and end up learning something new in the process, won’t I become the person that I truly want to be? Be truly unstoppable! Let’s do this!!

Good news, bad news

#55/100

I used to be a very cowardly and superstitious person before. It took a lot of understanding, reading, listening and soul searching to overcome my fear of the unknown. I can’t say that I’m completely over it yet, but I try my best in every situation to think practically before coming to any conclusion. I try to question every tradition and custom and do my own research to find out the source of these practices.

Today started on a great note. I had applied for an IPO (initial public offering) for a company which was oversubscribed by 73.3 times. In layman’s terms, the odds for landing an allotment for this IPO were 73:1. The system is lottery based, there is no particular criteria to land an allotment for such IPOs, it depends totally on your luck. People tend to apply multiple lots through separate accounts to land up getting at least one lot. Even after going through so much trouble, many people tend to get nothing. I applied for one lot and to my pleasant surprise, got allotted!!! The universe is in my favor today, it has been in my favor for a long time now. I got allotted for shares that were vied by 73 other people. I shared the news with my closed ones and somehow started worrying about being the lucky one here. I couldn’t shrug off a feeling of uneasiness after being truly happy with my luck.

A while later, I got a phone call from my mom in the afternoon saying that she had slipped and injured her hand. I was very worried but she assured me that she wasn’t in pain. Why did this happen today of all days when I was celebrating my good luck?

I don’t understand why I still tend to be scared of being too happy. I don’t know if others too feel the same way. My friends do. They fear the “evil eye“. I know it sounds really old fashioned and lame. Even I used to believe in it before. We fear people’s attention on our happy times, a good relationship, prosperous life or any success for that matter. We fear that bad times will follow good ones. However, when we are going through a low phase, we believe that the phase is never ending and there’s absolutely no way out of it. Why does the mind behave in the exact opposite manner when we are happy? Why is being happy considered a luxury?

Over the years I’ve become extremely stubborn and gritty with my beliefs. Nothing good came to my life by being fearful and superstitious. So now I behave in the exact opposite manner and don’t care what happens. I go with the flow, take life as it comes and learn from my experiences, the good, bad and ugly!