How I Conquered Self Doubt

I have it; you have it; she has it; he has it. We all have it. Though it may sound like a conjugation exercise, one cannot deny we all have doubted ourselves at one time or the other. Perhaps, much more frequently than we’d like to acknowledge.

Self doubt, undoubtedly, is like a frenemy. A necessary evil. I have experienced terrible self doubt. Situations where I was supposed to go right, I went left. Because I was plagued by self doubt. I now realise that even that turn was a lesson in life. A lot of people want to completely eradicate self doubt. Punch it down to a pulp and stuff it in coffin and cremate it. Sounds a bit too extreme? Not really. Because most of these people are the ones who’ve had to face the challenges and consequences of doubting themselves. Even a child waiting for a ride at the amusement park would wonder if they are of permissible height/weight to get on to a particular ride. We are programmed to be cautious. It is an extreme case of this preprogrammed behaviour that, I think, becomes self doubt.

My personal experience has been going from one extreme to another. Take this blog for example. I started it and I had one person who read my first post. Then word got around amongst our college group, and my friends began reading. Later colleagues and people from across the world read my blog. And it doesn’t matter, I still have the same doubt I had when I wrote my first post. Is this good enough? Am I writing anything sensible? What if people hate it? The same thing happens in all facets of life. What if these shoes hurt my feet? Does this dress make me look lumpy? Bah! So many questions. And I had to deal with it all in my only brain. So much congestion! I finally decided I’ve had enough of this and decided to tackle it my own way.

I realise what I am writing may not reason with you, but read on anyway. If you have anything to add I am all ears. You see, every time I felt a tiny bit of self doubt, I gave it a certain amount of attention. Letting it fester on the other hand was dangerous. When I paid attention to that niggling thought, it became a sort of prudence. I realised I was thinking twice about pros and cons. I was thinking twice about shopping and clicking the checkout button. I was not stopping myself from doing anything though. If I let that thought fester then that would have stopped me. Instead the moment I felt that self doubt was growing, I dealt with it as the cartoons do – I hit it with a hammer on its head until it crumbled.

http://gph.is/XHCvwG

Now I know it is not possible for anyone to just squash their self doubt and completely stop doubting themselves. That is impossible to begin with. What helped me was Mel Robbins rule – The Five Second Rule. (Blog, Ted Talk –TL;DR after the 18th minute.)The principle is that if you want to do something and had the thought, then you do it within the next five seconds. The Mel Robbins principle is helpful in many ways. I have found it most useful dealing with psychologial and emotional stress. I decide to give the problem and the stress five seconds of my life. That is it. After that time, I begin working towards a solution. May be I shall write another post on that sometime later.

What made me write this post? There was a situation recently, which made me doubt myself like I haven’t in recent times. I wondered if I was slipping back into the darker days, and promptly squashed that thought. I gave myself five seconds to think it over and then began to note down pros and cons. I made a decision and stuck to it. Either it will turn out good or it won’t. What matters is that I did not ignore the situation and let an opportunity to act pass by. I acted. Many a time I have come across someone telling me a phrase that we have all used or heard – “I don’t know if this will work for me”. It may be something that they were about to try or a job they interviewed for, or even an exercise routine. No one knows the answer to that until they try it. What stops them from doing it is that niggling doubt of oneself.

I share this post with the world in the hope that you too shall be able to overcome this pestilence within us. We are capable of amazing things, and no one is stopping us more than we do ourselves.

Go forth and squash that self doubt.

Turning 30!

Twitter has become a home away from home for a lot of us. Sometimes one finds hate, and sometimes we find help. We also really nice accounts like @WeRateDogs.  Then there are all the views and opinions and threads that one needs to take with a pinch of salt.

A few days back I stumbled upon one thread. Someone (@Suhail) asked advice from others about turning thirty. And he then posted his observations and findings in a succinct tweet as well. Reading through such threads is a joyful experience by itself.

And I decided to add my opinions to this list as well, but here as a post.

Now, coming to all the advice that he was given. Excercise is important. So is eating healthier. Recently, I was chatting with a friend who wanted to begin working out. She wanted to lose weight, but couldn’t find the time to sneak a short workout in her day. That is the most common reason we all have. Finding time. Finally, we discussed things and decided to actually sneak in a twenty-minute walk each day. And maybe, just maybe, the next day we could make it a twenty-one-minute walk. Hopefully, we could just increment it every day or every other day and get to an hour’s walk. But I do realise that while we spoke so much about getting off our asses, we never spoke about eating clean. Or eating healthy. Even as I write this, I am imagining eating biryani for dinner. I am not saying biryani is not healthy, it’s got carbs and protein. Just add a serving of veggies and it is almost a balanced meal. If one discounts the extra fat that it may contain. Does it matter if I walk two half-hour walks, instead of just one the next day? Perhaps. If turning thirty has taught me anything then it is that one really does not need to deny oneself when it comes to cravings. I cut back on sugar in my beverages. On a daily basis, I do not add sugar to my coffee, tea or milk. But I do not feel guilty about having sweets or icecreams once in a while. I do feel like a sugar bomb exploded in my head, but the high does come down in a while. Have whatever you want to indulge in, but in moderation. That is important.

The next thing on the list is about guarding your time. Me-time is a very important thing. Set aside a particular slot of time every day just for yourself. Sit and paint or meditate or stare at a wall. You could give yourself a manicure or indulge with a face mask or a bubble bath. Do something that involves only you. Something that you do for yourself only! There is also another aspect to guarding your time. There are those say every second we need to live. But then there also those who say, we are dying every second. Time is an entity that does not care for anyone. And we need to especially careful about who we give that precious resource to. If there are people who do not make you feel good about yourself, there is no reason why you need to spend time with them. Toxicity at work is a thing we all have put up with at some time or the other. Restrict the time spent in that situation. Do not linger. Remember that no one, absolutely no one, can give you back that time. You can not take that moment and turn it into a happy one. Be stingy with your time in such cases, and be lavish with time when it comes to good company and self-care.

Then there are two points, about sleep and not caring about what people think. I do feel that these two are quite a bit interdependent. When you stop caring about what other people think, then you tend to sleep better. If you have survived to turn thirty then you already care less about what people think. It may invariably be because you have been hurt by the judgement and hypocrisy. This does not mean that you will not hurt ever again. You will definitely feel bad when you find those whom you care about judge you harshly. But the frequency and intensity of that hurt would have changed for the better. There is also the literal sleeping habit. Early to bed, early to rise adage makes sense for some. One does tend to get more things done as an early riser. But for those like me, nocturnal owls, we function better the other way around. Doesn’t matter what category you fall into, make sure you get 7-8 hours of undisturbed sleep. Mindful meditation helps, in my personal experience.

Start a family sooner. Sigh! This is a recurring statement in the world of a singleton. Again I look at this in two ways. Yes, you need to start a family sooner. And you invariably have. Everyone has a family that we are born into. And then there is the family you form, your friends and loved ones. Do not become that person who has 5000 friends, and not a single best friend. Have a few good friends, people who make you a better person, who encourage you and stand by you through the walk of life. Cherish the person and the relationship. Weed out the ones who just suck time and energy and have no positive vibes. Start building your tribe sooner.

Then comes the ‘family’ family. Of course, there will be people who are happy to become husbands and wives in their twenties. Soon enough they are moms and dads. Works for them and they are happy. But this need not necessarily work for everyone. And when it comes to this topic, there is no right way or wrong. It is an incredible responsibility to be in a committed relationship with someone. And an even greater one to be a parent. Personally, I need to understand that I am emotionally capable of handling all that such a situation could deal for me before I take a step in that direction. When it comes to this, to each his own.

Oh, and stainless steel appliances. I have no clue about them as I do not have any. 😉

 

The Social Media Sabbatical

Everywhere I see, be it Twitter or Instagram, someone or the other has decided to go off the network for a while. There are even those who have deleted their profiles or gone on to reset it. Starting anew so to speak. What prompts them to do this?

Some say that it is because of the torrent of comments/replies/enquiries that they get. Some say it is because of the negativity. Even others say it is because the standards of users have gone down. (There are the select few who say they are genuinely bored of all of it. Let’s leave them out of this.) As more and more people begin using social media, of course, the elite-ness will turn into the average. Just like the general population. But does this warrant an “I’m going to delete my account because it’s gone to trash”? Perhaps. Don’t we all remember Orkut? May that particular network RIP. I also remember some of the people I got to know through Orkut. People I recognise through a profile or a username. People I’ve not met ever. Good people.

And I have done the same with Twitter and Instagram as well. All those people, fellow bibliophiles, Chennaites, CSK fans these are a few of the categories that they fit into. But mostly they’ve all been decent folk. These people who share the same interests as me, whom I do not know personally, have let me learn something new whilst staying nonjudgmental.

Then there are those who allege the downward spiral of a social media network. Or the intrusion of privacy. Well, there is a saying – “you reap what you sow”. In this world of finding everything online, information is the easiest to gather. If I get a name, I can find out what vehicle is registered to them or where this person works and lives, their home’s blueprint and whatnot. So, if you put information out there, expect intrusion. Besides once anything is online, it becomes immortal. That information is there for all for eternity. And then there is the case of standards going down. I honestly don’t like people saying the standard of users has gone down. When data plans and wifi were an urban luxury, there were a few who used these platforms. As the internet, specifically, the mobile internet became more accessible, more and more users registered. It is the goal of every social media platform after all. But does it not sound snobbish, a tad bit at least, to say it is now trash. If someone critiques the technical aspect of an app saying it’s trash that’s different but content being user-generated cannot be called trash. Not everyone can be Oscar Wilde or a fashionista.

When people tend to blame the other users, I began thinking if this is their general mentality towards people. Are you really ok with being part of a select few and look down upon others? Do you really consider the general public a nuisance? I really want to know.

On the whole, though, it is their individual opinion and they can do what they want to. To each his own.

BuJo

I make a list maker. I use plenty of to-do lists and make notations and all that. Previously I used to a diary that I would keep noting things down in. And this practice is more than a decade old. In 2017, however, I switched to the famous Bullet Journal practice. And no I did not buy a fancy book.

Now Bullet Journaling, Bujo, is a bit intimidating, even if it looks very simple. Bujo was to me Cujo in the beginning. There were all those lovely pictures on Instagram and Pinterest that does pique your interest. And you wonder if these people have a better system than you. After doing some research I decided to try it myself. So, I took a new yearly planner and began. This is the sort of normal person dairy that you get as a freebie or off the shelf at any stationery shop. And for me, one such notebook lasts a few years.

Previously, I would just write down what needed to be done, or what I did. This would fill in a few pages, and then with a two-line space, the next day’s would follow. I also had the calendar back up on Google Calendar – so Invites, Tax & Insurance reminders, Bills etc were on there. If I made a payment or shopped that I would note down in my diary. With Bujo, however, my old system was not working. And thus I had to make my own adaptation of the system.

First off let me note that after a year of Bullet Journaling I am good and think that this system is a time saver and has helped me immensely.  And that is why on December 31, 2017, I sit down and write about it.

My Bullet Journal is primarily three sections – A Log sheet, A Study Sheet variation, And a Task Sheet (which is on the study sheet as well). The study sheet(because I couldn’t find a better name) is something I used in college and now I use it to note my day and keep track of the future events as well. A log sheet is a record of habits.

If I want to study a language on Duolingo, I keep a line dedicated to it on the Log Sheet, and mark it in as and when I do it. If I have a particular to-do on a specific date, it goes into my Study Sheet. And all the tasks for the week and the month go into the space around the Study Sheet. This year, I have included a yearly planner as well. Which is basically two blank sheets to be filled with goals and such. 

The Log Sheet

This is my Log Sheet. I have a colour coded system, light blue for health and fitness, green for eating out, dark blue for learning and meditation. So, in the picture, I have walked on most of the days, and learnt Spanish regularly as well. I have eaten out for a couple of days (the green notations) and meditated infrequently. I have also worked out with the exception of a week in between. (You can’t see the brown for vacuuming or the orange for Contact lens usage. Trust me there are a lot of colours on this sheet.)

It is rather simple. But sometimes, it is difficult to take this big book along. (It is not a pocket diary!) And for that reason, I use two apps – Goal Tracker and Loop. Goal Tracker is the one which I use to keep track of things like eating out etc and Loop for stuff that’s good to have as habits – like working out or daily walks. I use this system for everything – from vacuuming to epilating. And it has me floating around in OCD paradise. 🙂

The Study Sheet, on the other hand, is one of the most useful things I have had as a student. It helped me plan like a boss for exams and even everyday lessons. And since I had co-curricular and extra-curricular classes as well, planning was a breeze with this system. So it was only apt that this system would come to my rescue for Bujo. The Study Sheet is actually a simple grid. You can space it out for a month over one spread or two. This picture shows one month planned over a page spread or two sheets, but I usually have one month spread over four sheets.

The Study Sheet

I will normally make notations over the date when a certain thing needs to be done. These will be items that are not covered by my Google Calendar or ToDoist. And if I have completed one of my tasks, from the Calendar or ToDoist then that I note here as well. Shopping/Shipping details gone in here for keeping track. There is plenty of space for me at the bottom of the grid and to the right of it. The space on the right is used for the goals I need to keep or things that need to be carried forward into the next fortnight or the next month. These are the ones with the specific date and time. The bottom is used for planning – stuff like updating blog theme or such. I also use the bottom for setting goals – like not eating out for a fortnight or walking three miles every day for a month. Things that do not a specific date but can happen anytime or all over a month.

At the end of the month, when I plan to set the next month’s Bujo, I refer the months prior and seek what needs to brought forward and what can be improved. If an event or a task has been postponed, then I put it on the grid. If I have walked three miles a day, then maybe I will try for 3.5 for at least 20 days this time.

If you are planning to start a Bullet Journal for yourself, try a low key version and adapt it to suit you. You can use the following links for further info.

• Bullet Journal
• How to start a Bullet Journal – BuzzFeed
• Lifehacker

This has been a new practice this past year and has over time taken a life of its own. Needless to say, I like it.  And all I needed for my Bujo were

• A yearly planner
• A scale and pencil (for drawing grids)
• A set of coloured sketches
• A set of pens – blue, green, red, purple.

That is all it took me to get organised. It is simple and an efficient way of getting organised. I hope you have your goals organised and may you be able to achieve them in the coming year!

Finally, I wish you a very Happy New Year! See you in 2018 🙂 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dreams…

Most of the time I do not dream. But the times I do, my dreams are mostly nonsensical. I once had a dream that my sister and I were on a safari in Africa, and then the animals went on a rampage, and both of us hid under a rock until it was safe to venture out. Of course, it must be said I was binge-watching “Zoo”.

A few days back I had the weirdest dream ever. And for no reason as well. There was a kid, and the kid and I were going somewhere. Only, there was no path, just a foot wide brick wall. We climbed on to it and walked. Unfortunately for us, it ends in a deep, deep foundation pit… I have never seen a hole dug that deep in my life ever. So then, we end up thinking how to cross this hurdle when the brick wall we are standing upon starts to collapse. Only, it is not a brick wall, but a wall of books. Might as well have been a brick, books do weigh a lot together! As we are being buried under bricks/books, they start to crumble into sand. And we are being suffocated under all that sand. That is when I woke up.

And that has been my most weirdest dream of all time. It doesn’t even make sense to me, no matter how much I try to decipher it. Maybe it actually is some thrilling story that I may be writing and would eventually make a superhit movie. Or it could be a video game, like Prince of Persia, and I could end up a millionaire after all.

That is the problem with dreams – you never understand them. And they give up the most upsettingly unreal expectations because of their occurrence. Now that I have chronicled my dream, I may rest assured that I am not going to think about it anymore.

Meanwhile, if you are planning to make a video game – make one with a curly haired, round-faced bespectacled adult female, and a little girl and their trials, and escapes from various accidents. I do expect a “Thanks” or a “Dedication”.

PS I wrote the previous few blog posts on the WordPress App. And while it was convenient, it was a bit of a hurdle as well given the formatting and all. I wish they would make it better soonish!

Update – If one were to believe in coincidences, then my tablet dying (and not reviving despite resusitations) after my experiencing this dream would be one. And that is the reason my reviews of ebooks will have images from the internet.😐

Plans in Place

It’s been a while since I wrote about things not related to my life. I haven’t reviewed anything, or even posted on my Bookstagram/Foodstagram. But that doesn’t mean I’ve been recklessly ignoring them. I have a plan. Or better said, I have a plan that’s perfect for the lazy me and OCD me.

There are atleast a dozen books that I want to post reviews about. I want the world to know that these books are ones that can titillate the reader in you. And therefore I have put them on hold. These reviews, once written will only be posted beginning January. So there will be some steady content. Same for the bookstagram and foodstagram. Photographs have been taken and processed, but kept on hold. The one downside to this plan maybe the loss of a few followers. But then, since I have not been bothered about numbers, that doesn’t count.

So that’s one thing happening this coming year. Also planning to take up the weekly review that I had going and gave up half way through 2017. It was a nice plan but given my mood around June this year, it was best I discarded that practice. Hopefully 2018 shall be better reviewed.

This may not seem like a very important practice or plan considering resolutions, nonetheless it does seem important to me. Because, I do want to start a bit of a prudent planning with regards to the blog. I was a very “as and when” blogger and that’s a good thing. Just writing whatever whenever I felt like, but planned posts are perhaps a challenge themselves. And reviewing what I’ve done the last week is even more difficult I felt. 

Let’s look forward to a more productive 2018!

Impishness

Sometimes, I let out the imp in me. I’m not a naughty person. I was not a naughty baby. But I’ve gotten myself into situations that have sent my mother into superhero mode. There is no other explanation for my surviving playing with red chillies or getting my self caught between cocnrete bars, splitting my chin open while actually doing a split. But other times, mother would give me book or a magazine and I would sit still for hours together looking at it. Maybe I’m better now, all craziness is mostly contained to home witnessed exclusively by parents, and my sister . Sometimes for my bestest of friends. 

Last year I went on rants about the matrimony thing and how in a fit I deleted the profile created for me. Or maybe that rant was on Twitter. But I recently discovered my parents had created another one for me 😱, the sly folk. But now that I know, I have to be in on it as well. I have my doubts, but needs must and I did make a promise to myself that I would give it a try. If for nothing else, getting my mother to stop directing that puppy eyed look towards me is incentive enough.

Anyway, I was looking through profiles and since we need to match horoscopes and all, I have a look at that as well. So completely random strangers are poking around your profile, looking at your photos, getting to know your dietary preferences, and your date of birth and time of birth and all. Last night as I was looking at it, the little imp in me was taunting me… A niggling idea wormed through… What if… 

What if I took to messaging these totally random men on their birthdays, wishing them a very happy birthday!?!

The idea seems a good one. And it will probably get me blocked by such networks for being a general nuisance. I did have a wide evil grin just thinking about it. 😬