What’s my why?

“He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.”

–James Allen

Day 21/30

When it comes to my career, my motivation to get a new job has never been an advancement in my career. My initial jobs were the ones I desperately sought to earn money. The financial conditions of my family was terrible and I didn’t know better than to get a job. I found one but the job description or company didn’t light up my soul. I cried on my way to office on the second day of my new job as I didn’t like anything about that place. I had to continue because of various reasons but quit after 4 years after I got my current job. My current job is great when it comes to work life balance but I’ve felt stagnant here ever since I’ve joined. There has been no growth whatsoever and I feel trapped here, every single day.

I have been randomly applying to a lot of jobs these days so that I get an opportunity. But the process hasn’t led any results as I was unclear about my “Why?”, the real purpose behind getting a job. This time it’s different. As my family’s financial situation is quiet stable now and I don’t seek shorter working hours anymore, my focus is on learning. I really wish to challenge myself a little, learn new things, motivate my own self.

If your “Why” is intact, you’ll be able to clear through all hurdles along the way. If you have your “why” clear in mind, nothing and no one will stop you from working on to become the best version of yourself.

It’s time for me to introspect, figure out my “Why” and schedule all my activities and tasks to achieve that goal. The Universe will forever be in your favor, if you do this. Trust the process.

Connect the dots

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.”

–Steve Jobs

Day 17/30

A friend asked me a very profound question today, what do you think you’d be doing when you turn 40? I didn’t have any instant answer to this question. Questions like these are so difficult to answer. Life is so uncertain and I fell unsettled most of times. How would I know what I’d be doing 9 years from now. I sure do hope I’m happy, that’s what I aim for each day.

Just imagine a life, where you’d exactly know how your future would pan out. You have seen it, you know what to do to achieve it, you can avoid all hurdles along the way as you know those won’t help you reach the destination easily, you’d be ANXIETY-FREE. Well isn’t that awesome!

But my friend was quick to bring me back to my senses. “Life would be so boring then!”, he said. You wouldn’t have to face any challenges, you’d never experience the emotion of surprise, excitement or happiness as you would have already anticipated the outcome. There would be no joy of working hard and achieving your desired results through your efforts. Life would be meaningless.

As hard it is to accept this, it’s true. We shape ourselves and grow through each obstacle and challenge that we face in life. It’s very important for us to appreciate the outcome of our actions. As quoted above by Steve Jobs, we can only connect the dots backwards. So no matter where you are and what you do, don’t forget to work hard. You have nothing to lose. It will all make sense in the end.

When things seem uncertain

“I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity. ” 

-Gilda Radner

Everything in my life seems uncertain at the moment. Ever since I turned 30, I feel the presence of a ticking time bomb right above my head. I don’t know how much time is left for it to blast but not knowing it makes me want to quit everything and move to a place far away. My mind keeps making desperate plea for clarity and peace.

The past week has been emotionally taxing. I never used to experience any mood swings or emotional upheavals as part of PMS before. However, anxiety has somehow befriended my hormones to give me the choicest of fears to deal with right before Aunt Flo decides to strike with cramps.

In the middle of this mental turbulence, I gave a job interview through the reference of one my closest friends. On the outcast, the job seemed perfect but I just couldn’t convince my mind to take it up. The job timings were odd (from 12.30 pm to 9.30 pm) and I’ve felt mentally harassed and tortured while working in these timings before. It would have been a different case had I enjoyed working in a corporate set up or I was passionate about my career choice. The primary reason I work in a corporate is to make myself and my family financially independent. My “job” and career as an accountant always feels like a routine, is burdensome, stressful and drains me of my energy as it’s far from my personality and purpose in life. Don’t take me wrong, I am grateful for my current life and all the opportunities I have been blessed with. It kills me to feel constantly “unfulfilled” and “unhappy” in life.

Even the thought of working at this new organisation made me feel extremely stressed and unhappy. I knew that I couldn’t put myself through any more mental pressure for the sake of increasing my pay scale. I finally told my friend yesterday that I couldn’t go ahead with the job process. I might have lost out on a great job opportunity that could have made a huge upswing in my earning capacity. However, I couldn’t bring myself to say “yes” to it, believe me I thought about it, A LOT. Surprisingly I don’t feel dejected by it at all. All I feel is extreme “uncertainty” and “anxiety” about my future.

As kids, we never looked for reasons to be happy. Now, happiness feels like the most expensive commodity in my life. I constantly feel the need to prove myself, work hard, go through pain and turbulence to “earn my happiness“. It feels like I’m on a constant wait for something, someone, to change the course of my life and make it better. Is there an end to this phase of my life? I hope there is because I’m EXHAUSTED of waiting.

I have decided to make 2021, MY GLOW UP year! Even if I start the year on a great note, I know for a fact that I WILL relapse back to my depressed self soon enough. It’s not because of the occurrence of a setback or failure, my positivity usually wears off when I realize that I’ve lost control of my life.

For 2021, I’ve decided to take cue from my “weight loss experience” and be “consistent” with my goals, by hook or by crook.

My mantras for 2021 :-

• What this means is that, my focus would be on my efforts in present moment rather than expected results in the future
• I’ve decided to give my best in the present moment, work hard to become the best version of myself and have faith in the UNIVERSE to unfold things in my life, what it considers BEST for me
• Stop fighting against all situations in life and fear that the Universe has turned it’s back on you
• Document everyday, each day is special
• Trust the process, go with the flow.

I guess I’m all set for the new year, are you?

Year in review : 2020

“It Doesn’t Matter Where You Came From. All That Matters Is Where You Are Going.”

-Brian Tracy

And it’s done, the most exceptional year of 21st century has finally come to an end. It’s 31st December 2020 and I’m starting a new tradition on my blog this year on wards. I started this year with a long list of goals in mind. My mental health was in shambles and I didn’t really have the confidence to fulfill any of these goals. I tried to do my best every day but it didn’t lead to any fruitful results. And then an inevitable situation took place, a pandemic shook the world and took over the reins of the entire mankind’s existence. We were scared and anxious yet dealt it with utmost resilience and strength. We learnt new things everyday and became more aware of the priceless blessing that is “life“. I am definitely a changed person by the end of this marvelous year. It taught me a lot, made me focus on the goodness of life, helped me work on myself and adopt a healthy lifestyle and most importantly gave me the gift of “time“. Here’s my 2020 year reviewed.

January

• Participated in the Tata Mumbai Marathon on 19th January and conquered my fear of running a distance of 21 kms at one go. I ran for 10 kms at a stretch at this race and was completely drained out when I crossed the 19 kms mark. I pushed myself to finish the race and have never felt more proud of myself! One of the most liberating experiences of my life!

• My office friend gifted me a box of cupcakes that made my efforts in preparing and running the half marathon totally WORTH it. This just made me feel extremely happy and motivated at the same time.

• I had the opportunity to run another long run, 26 kms on 26th January (Republic day, India). This was with the running group from my hometown and the experience was phenomenal.

• My childhood friend gave birth to a beautiful baby girl on 28th January. I went to see her the day she was born.

February

• Travelled to Mussoorie and Delhi with my friend and had a complete blast. I didn’t want to come back to my daily life and return to work after this mind blowing vacation.

March

• Tried an Ice-cream thali for the first time in my life. Needless to say, the experience was FABULOUS, especially for a desert junkie like me.

• Completed my first long workout of 2020, a 45 min HIIT session. This was a stress buster for me as our Indian Government had just announced a complete lock down at this time. I was left at home without a laptop or remote access to complete my office work. My anxious thoughts ranged from losing my job to being asked to come to work at any cost despite the travel restrictions. I’m glad things worked out well in the end and I started working from home.

• Due to the lock down, the access to my staple comfort food such as ice cream and momos were restricted. I decided to try making them at home with the help of our dear old YouTube. 2020 has made me much more confident with my cooking skills and I am happy with my progress with this very important life skill. Cooking is also a stress buster for me and I tried out a lot of interesting recipes.

April

• I turned 30 this month. I had big plans of celebrating my birthday in Goa which could not see the light of the day due to the pandemic. Contrary to my expectations, I had a pretty awesome birthday, in fact, it is the most memorable one of my life till date. (P.S. I tried baking a biscuit cake for myself which did look like a cake but tasted exactly like biscuits!)

• I re-attempted baking a cake for my mom’s birthday on 27th April and this one turned out way beyond my expectation.

May

• I started to get a little anxious of being called back to office. The cases in India were mounting however the senior management of my organization didn’t really believe in the “work from home” agenda. They started having meetings on finding out ways to call back people to work.

June

• I went out of my comfort zone to record a dance sequence for my choreographer friend’s birthday. I had mentally given up when I first saw the dance steps however I pulled through with a lot of support and motivation from my amazing friends.

• The complete “work from home” situation came to an end when my boss called me back to work (albeit in a rude manner!). I normally use the Mumbai local trains for my office commute which had been shut to avoid the spread of virus. The only alternative was a bus service from a stop which was 10 kms away from my home. I left my home at 6 am on 29th June for my office which starts at 9 am. The bus commute took an exhausting 4 hrs due to traffic in the morning. I reached home around 9 pm that day. I hated my organization for forcing us to travel to office, in the middle of a pandemic without easy travel arrangements in place. Well, I knew that this was a challenging situation and crying about it wouldn’t make it any easier. Music was my savior during this time. I listened to BTS songs on repeat during my bus ride. I experience motion sickness while travelling hence didn’t have any other way to utilize my travel time (crazy 8 hrs) in a productive manner. I also started experiencing episodes of depression and anxiety. Since I didn’t get diagnosed by a professional, I don’t know if I was suffering from depression but all my symptoms pointed right at it.

July

• I posted my first article on this blog after a hiatus of almost 10 months on 17th July (my last article before this was in September, 2019). This was a path breaking step that changed my life for the better. I was reconnected to my first love, writing and it was my constant support to cope up with the tough situations I was facing in life back then.
• I decided to take the most difficult yet BEST decision of my life by entering into a “100 day daily blogging challenge” on 24th July. I honestly didn’t have the confidence to complete this one yet dived right into it as blogging was the only thing that gave me mental peace at that time.

August

• BTS released their song “Dynamite” on 21st August and the world has not been the same ever since. This song felt like a tight hug every single time I listened to it during my bus rides. My bus ride felt a lot less exhausting only due to the existence of this song in my life. Thank you BTS for “Dynamite”
• I gave my first job interview after a break of almost 2 years on 25th August. I have terrible interview anxiety and even the thought of it can send a shiver down my spine. I somehow forced myself to not bunk the interview (I’ve done it on multiple occasions before) and face my fear head first. I GAVE THE INTERVIEW AND FELT A LOT MORE CONFIDENT ABOUT MYSELF FOR GIVING A DECENT ATTEMPT!
• My amazing friend gave me the most incredible gift for my 30th birthday. She sent it to me in August because our country was in lockdown during my birthday in April. I have written an article about it the gift too, it made me immensely happy!! (https://thesupermode.wordpress.com/2020/08/15/surprise/)

September

• My blog hit a 100 FOLLOWERS in this month. I felt blessed, grateful and extremely happy for all the support showered on my blog. I was pumped and motivated to continue doing what I loved the most, blogging!
• My amazing friends showered me with more birthday gifts. I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve the MOST AMAZING friends in my LIFE! Life is good!! 🙂

• My mom accidently fell down at home and fractured her arm. It was a little difficult to manage work and household chores during this time but we sailed through.
• I got an allotted shares in the IPO (Initial Public Offer) of a company. The odds of getting selected were 73 to 1 and I felt extremely blessed to have got the opportunity to get an allotment. I was on cloud 9!
• I hit a total of 1000 LIKES on my blog. It felt SURREAL to say the least.

October

• Had my longest meditation streak on Headspace for 10 days. I have been unsuccessful several times in the past to create a daily meditation habit. Finally started it in 2020 and couldn’t have been more happy about it.

• My sister surprised us with a visit after spending almost 8 months apart. She stayed with us for more than 1.5 months which has been the longest time she has been at home ever since she started working in a different city away from our hometown.

November

• Completed the “100 days writing challenge” successfully on my blog on 1st November. I never thought I could finish the challenge when I jumped into it 100 days back. We can ACHIEVE everything we want if we are CONSISTENT in our efforts.
• Finally got the opportunity to go on a trip for the spinster’s party of my friend to a resort close to my hometown. Had a blast with my friends there, it was one of the most memorable weekends of my life! 🙂

• Got this unimaginable bridesmaid hamper from my friend. It had things I never expected or planned to buy on my own. She made sure we got the BEST possible gifts on this planet and it made us feel extraordinarily special.

December

• For the first time ever, we got a Christmas tree home and had a ball decorating it. My mom casually told me her wish to get a Christmas tree home this year to celebrate the beautiful festival of Christmas and spread some much needed joy and positivity around. There were a lot of hiccups till the point of getting this tree home but we were blessed to get our wish fulfilled right before Christmas eve.

• Completed my second longest run of 2020, a freaking 25 kms in 2 hrs 54 mins!!! I honestly did not think I could attempt another long run after a hiatus of almost 6 months from running practice. This feat reinforced my faith in the phrase “IT ALWAYS SEEMS IMPOSSIBLE UNTIL IT’S DONE“

And that’s it. I just don’t feel like bidding 2020 goodbye. I look forward to 2021 with hope and positivity as always.

Wishing you a very happy NEW year. May this year bring you more and more reasons to be HAPPY!

How I deal with Monday blues!

#74/100

When life gives you Monday, dip it in glitter and sparkle all day.

-Ella Woodward

Okay, I’m still not over Monday morning blues. But the good thing is that they aren’t as frustrating as before. Also I realized that I can make my Mondays better with few tricks to keep my mind busy.

As per my mind, my day is fruitful only when it’s productive. I don’t know if that’s the normal human tendency or if it’s just me, but our society as a whole truly appreciates productivity. I have a version of me in my mind that I truly want to achieve. If I have to do that, I need to cut out the usual negatives (laziness, procrastination, taking time for granted) out of my life. Rest is absolutely necessary. But when rest period becomes too comfortable to let go, that’s a warning sign.

The tricks I use to make everyday fruitful (especially Mondays) :-

Try to wake up early : I’ve specifically mentioned “try” here as it’s still a W.I.P. I have to put extra efforts going ahead to achieve this goal. An early start to the day gives me extra time to complete my ideal morning ritual that gives a good boost to my day. I’m failing miserably at this at the moment. But I do hope to consistently push myself everyday till it becomes a habit. Till then, I’ll keep trying.

Meditate for 20 mins right after waking up : This is the best part of my day at the moment. I absolutely love it. My concentration is very weak at the moment but I push myself everyday to do it nevertheless. Meditation is like a deep rest to our constantly chatty mind. Doing it consistently improves our focus, makes us calm, makes us aware of our thoughts and helps us deal with anxiety better. I’m on a 4 day streak currently and wish to make this a habit too.

Workout for 30 mins : This is the most difficult part of my day. I fight thoughts of skipping my workouts everyday. But once I’m through with it, I feel absolutely charged (close to invincible) to tackle the rest of the day. I’ll try to schedule a hard workout on every Monday. Mondays won’t seem as bad once I’m done with the hardest part of my day.

This is what I do currently to ward off Monday morning blues. I intend to add the below activities to make my Mondays a happy one too.

• Plan ahead. I will note down my Monday schedule beforehand on a Sunday to be mentally prepared for the start of a new work week
• Visualize/Gratitude practice : I’ve done gratitude journaling before without being consistent about it. I truly plan to incorporate it in my daily schedule. These are powerful activities that bring a positive change in our subconscious mind. The benefits of these activities might take long to show but they are highly effective in the long run.
• Sleep early the day before : I don’t know about others but less sleep makes me drowsy and irritable. A proper sleep timing and schedule helps calm my mind.

I’ll try to put everything in practice to the best of my ability. Till then, wish you an amazing new week ahead!!

Bow down, be humble

#49/100

“Leadership is about empathy. It is about having the ability to relate to and connect with people for the purpose of inspiring and empowering their lives.”

–Oprah Winfrey

When I joined my current workplace, the one person I admired the most was my boss. His work ethic is impeccable, is extremely passionate about his work, is polite with his peers and subordinates and has a vast knowledge on any topic. But my admiration for him didn’t take time to turn to loathing the moment I encountered a part of his personality that shocked me to the core. He lacks empathy. Now, sympathy and empathy are two emotions that are extremely crucial to judge a human being’s personality. Most of us are sympathetic and disguise that as empathy. If you are sympathetic, you would listen to someone’s troubles, try to console the person and leave it to that. But if your empathetic, you will imagine yourself in that person’s shoes, lend a helping hand and try to work out on a solution.

My house is almost 56 kms from my workplace. I’ll not even discuss the part where my organisation is gas lighting us into coming to office just because they don’t consider work from home as an effective means of working (the pandemic can’t be used as a reasonable excuse here). It takes 8 hrs each day to travel from my house to my office to do the same work that I can complete in few hours at home. I’m grateful to go through this ordeal only twice a week but the sadist reason behind making the employees suffer in the name of employment is infuriating.

The best way to identify a true leader from a boss is the presence of empathy. In the scenario I explained above, a true leader would have understood the employees troubles, made genuine attempts to listen to their concerns and make an informed decision which favors everyone and keeps the company operations smooth. Instead, my organisation devices new ways each day to make their employees more frustrated and angry. They don’t understand the severity of the situation and make no attempt to do so.

I’m trying to sail through this situation by focusing on being happy and positive to the best of my ability. I wish and have an ardent hope to get out of this mess soon. I don’t know when that would happen but I do know I’ll be much stronger in my actions, thoughts and grit by then. As they say, every dog has it’s day. I’m waiting for my day to arrive sooner than I can imagine. The world can be a scary place sometimes, we can make it better by being empathetic, kind and humble towards one and another. The people helming the decisions at my workplace lack all 3 of these crucial emotions. I pray for their well being when each of the dogs they’ve bruised has it’s day.

Source : Grammarly

Haters gonna hate

#41/100

“You will face your greatest opposition when you are closest to your biggest miracle“

-Shannon L. Alder

I’m sure each one of us has been hurt by criticisms, disagreements, sly remarks in our life. It hurts more when these comments come from our closest friends and acquaintances. Moreover, it completely shatters our heart when we put our heart and soul into something and it’s not appreciated by others. When I was in school, I was fat shamed by my cousins and few ‘so called’ friends. I used to look up to to them a lot and it physically hurt me when they teased me about my weight. I grew up with severe insecurity and low self esteem issues. These incidents left a deep scar and I grew up with a strong belief that I need to be thin to be appreciated. I overcompensated by becoming an insanely submissive people-pleaser. I used to say “Yes” even when my heart screamed “NO”, just because I didn’t want to be left out. Childhood is the most important period in a human’s life. The values and belief system that we grow up with becomes our reality during our adulthood and it becomes very difficult to unlearn and gain perspective from our own experiences.

Then came the changing point in my life, my weight loss journey. Two years back, in September 2018, I decided to give an all or nothing attempt to lose weight. No brownie points in guessing that I considered my weight the biggest hurdle in my life and truly believed that my life would change for the better once I lose it. I toiled hard for 3 months, put my blood (no kidding, fell down once while running), sweat and tears into losing weight. After a lot of hard work, I achieved my goal and couldn’t wait for the world to appreciate my efforts. You’d think my feelings were reciprocated well right? Well, it wasn’t. Only a handful of people recognized my efforts and complimented me, that included my cousins whose opinion I didn’t care about anymore. The larger chunk of comments were about losing “too much” weight, you looked better before, did you stop eating, why did you lose weight? so on and so forth.

I was dejected for a long time but eventually learned that I was wrong to let other people’s comments determine my worth. It took a great deal of learning to love myself bit by bit, every single thought, every single detail, to move past society’s opinions about the manner in which I should live my life. As they say, no matter how hard you try, there will be someone who doesn’t like you. You cannot please everyone. I was reminded about an amazing movie dialogue which goes like :-

“Don’t ever let someone tell you, you can’t do something. Not even me. You got a dream, you got to protect it. People can’t do something themselves, they want to tell you you can’t do it. You want something, go get it. Period.”

-Will Smith from the movie “The pursuit of Happyness”

People who can’t achieve/dream of achieving their goals project their insecurity and disbelief onto others who try hard to work on themselves. What is the point of taking criticisms from such people who don’t have your best interests in their heart? I was reborn as a completely new person after my weight loss journey. Although my initial goal was to get appreciated by the society, today I work on myself for myself. Even if you reach the pinnacle of success, there will be someone who’d try to find your faults and bring you down. Love myself, love yourself, peace!

What’s your purpose?

#20/100

I felt like a motivational guru while asking this question. Isn’t this the hot topic of discussion amongst every motivational speaker? It’ll always revolve around these grey topics which might end up confusing people more rather than helping them. People like me feel motivated at first however when things don’t fall in place even after following all the vague rules listed out by the gurus, we feel more empty and lost than ever.

I’ve read a lot of self help books on various topics meant to improve the quality of our life. I’ve tried listening to my absolutely chaotic inner voice with no respite. I’ve watched videos of many successful people who have noticeably made it big in this world. I’ve tried to list down the common traits that exists in all of them. They keep saying, love what you do and everything else would be taken care of.

People talk about following your passion, finding your true self, doing what lights up their soul, but what about the ones who can’t seem to figure out the source that lets them experience these emotions?

Are you as confused as me in this matter? Should I let you on a little secret that I’ve discovered recently? I really like being happy. Happiness drives me to do better, it lights up my soul and I’m completely passionate about it. But my happiness is not restricted to a single source. These days, I’m learning a new language and that makes me immensely happy and fulfilled. A cup of hot steaming green tea, a sweaty workout session, my 20 minute meditation routine, reading a good book, watching a great rom-com, figuring out new things about myself, learning a little more about people and the world, the list is endless. I experience true happiness when I indulge in these activities.

I guess I might have finally figured out my purpose after almost losing all hope to never discover it in my entire lifetime. Can you see how dramatic I can be about these things? I have absolutely no clue how the future will turn out yet somehow I managed to beat myself up everyday for not finding out answers to these “unnecessary philosophical questions”. Yes, I called them unnecessary. Racking my brains behind these questions stressed me out, made me lose my confidence, forced me to look down upon myself and made me lose a lot of my precious time on this planet.

My purpose on this earth is simple, be happy and do everything possible to keep myself truly happy. I don’t want to bind my happiness with a rule book, I just want to be truly happy as much as I can during my time on this planet.

“Happiness consists more in conveniences of pleasure that occur everyday than in great pieces of good fortune that happen but seldom.”

-Benjamin Franklin