Turning 40

Hello hello! How are you all doing?

I am posting on Moments of Solitude after almost three years. However, if you’re familiar with my struggles with writing, I am happy to report that that era of my life is over. Like really, finally over. More on that later.

I am here today as I am celebrating my 40th (40th!) birthday and it feels like a good milestone to reflect and capture some thoughts on how life has been in the last few years. As I sit here, I am inevitably reminded of my 29th birthday, when the journey I am currently on began.

Turning 29

Exactly eleven years ago, on my 29th birthday, I wrote a post called Turning 29. That post came on the heels of a major life crisis where most areas of my life seemed to be falling apart. The crisis led to a wake-up call and in retrospect, was one of the biggest turning points in my life. Here’s a quick summary of the main lessons I learned around my 29th birthday eleven years ago:

• The importance of taking responsibility for my own choices and actions and allowing other people the judgment-free space to do the same
• To focus on what was in my control
• To pay attention to my thoughts and feelings and how they were shaping my life

Each of these lessons has stood the test of time and I have continued to live by them in the past eleven years. It's not that I don’t slip up and fall back into old patterns, but I am almost always able to bring myself back from frustrating situations to a place of empowered choices.

Major Life-changes in the Past Eleven Years

My life has changed significantly since the time I turned 29. Here’s a quick recap as some of you may not know all of this:

• I got married in 2013
• Siddharth and I moved to the US in 2014. I left my corporate job in India when we moved. 
• I went on to study positive psychology and started a coaching and consulting business in 2016 (this is what I currently do for work)
• We had two kids (both girls, aged 5 and 2 as I write this)
• We moved to Canada in 2020 for Siddharth’s PhD
• I discovered that I am meant to contribute to greater peace in the world (starting with helping people be more at peace with themselves and their lives.)
• I spent much of 2022 working with a spiritual teacher who helped me make progress on things I had been stuck on for years.

Most of these are significant life changes. Some of them I have written about in the past. But there are three of them I want to call special attention to: motherhood, writing, and spirituality.

Motherhood

Perhaps the one thing that changed my life in truly unexpected ways was becoming a mother. I had always wanted to have kids and yet was unprepared for what motherhood actually entails. Many of my ideas about who I was and what I wanted went out the window soon after my first child was born. I have spent a lot of time in the past few years grappling with and coming to terms with my new identity as the mother of two girls. They've already taught me so much and helped me grow by leaps and bounds. I am sure there's a lot more to come and I am excited and nervous at the same time. 

There's a lot to say on the topic of parenting but I won't get into it right now. I will likely explore this topic through my writing on other occasions. Who knows, I might even write a book about it some day! We'll see.

Writing

That brings me to the other most significant thing that has happened recently: I have finally been able to set the writer in me free. Ever since I started this blog in 2010, I have lived with this tension of wanting to write but not wanting to write at the same time. Whether or not I was doing any writing, the struggle was always present. There were times when I felt like I had figured it out, but I hadn't. Until finally, towards the end of 2022, I got to the root of what was going on and was able to resolve my inner conflict. I wrote a post about how it all happened. If you are curious, you can read it here. And yes, I have been writing fairly consistently in the past few months. No more inner conflict, no more drama, no more torture. Just writing.  

Spirituality

At 29, I had embarked on a spiritual path that transformed my life. For a long time after that, I wasn't following that path consciously, even though I kept getting called to it. But in 2020, when I realized that I wanted to help others be more at peace, I was faced with an uncomfortable truth: I was not at peace in my own life. While things were great on many levels and I had everything I had once wanted in life, deep down I knew that I wasn’t living the life I was meant to live. 

My dissatisfaction included areas of motherhood and writing, but there was more. A part of me felt disconnected from other people. I wanted to cultivate the qualities of love, compassion, and forgiveness in my heart, but I couldn't really access them. My heart felt closed-off. This is what actually led me to seek out a spiritual teacher. In working with him, I found everything I was looking for right inside of me. It was just a matter of having the orientation and the tools to access it all. While the journey has had its ups and downs, I have come to accept it all as a part of living well.

For the past few months, I have been infusing various areas of my life with spirituality. It informs my relationship with myself and others, how I look at my business, how I relate to money, and so on. I am still relatively new to this way of life but in some ways, it doesn't feel all that new. This is the path I started on at 29 and I am grateful to be back to it. 

Turning 40

As I sit here at the end of the day on my 40th birthday, I feel immense love, gratitude, and contentment. I know I am on the path I am meant to be on. I know that what's coming my way in the next decade of my life will be some combination of beautiful, messy, heart-breaking, wonderful, joyful. Because that's what life is about. Experiencing and embracing the highs as well as the lows. Learning, growing, evolving through it all. I feel more ready for it than I have been in a long time.

As I close this reflection, I want to take a moment to thank the long-time supporters of this blog. You've been on this journey with me from the beginning. Thank you for sharing how my writing has resonated with you. Thank you for encouraging me to write more. Your support has always meant the world to me. And I finally feel ready to write my heart out.

Much love,

Yashi

P.S. If you want to receive my writing more frequently, I invite you to sign-up for my newsletter on my website. While I may occasionally capture notes about my evolution as a person on Moments of Solitude, I want to keep things simple and write in one place. The website currently feels like the best fit. Hope to see some of you in there! And if you don't feel like signing-up for another mailing list, I get it. There's too much email in the world! I hope our paths will cross in other ways :)

A Promise

On my birthday in April 2020, I had an important revelation about my life's purpose. I was reading a book just before going to sleep. The author posed a question that I had encountered dozens of times before this but never had a clear answer for. 

The question was: When you die, what would you like your epitaph to read?

Before this point in time, whenever I came across a similar question, I would ignore it and move on. It was too abstract. I didn’t know what I wanted my life to stand for. There were so many things I wanted to do and be in life - how could I capture everything in a few words or sentences?

When I read the question this time, though, four words immediately floated in my head: “Her presence brought peace.”

Now, this may seem like a simple incident to you. But for me, it was life changing.

You see, five years ago, I had left an established corporate career in search of work I was more passionate about. On that journey of self-discovery, I came across Simon Sinek’s TED talk on the power of why. When I reflected on what my why was, I realized that what I valued most in life was mental peace. All that I ever did in life was ultimately towards that end. However, until now, peace had simply been a personal value for me.

But recently, when the words “her presence brought peace” came to me, I realized that peace was no longer a personal pursuit for me. It’s the reason I am here. In that moment, I knew that I am meant to work towards bringing greater peace in the world. And while I have already been working towards bringing greater well-being in the lives of my coaching clients for the past few years, this newfound awareness about my purpose has renewed my commitment to my work in a profound way. 

Frankly, I don’t know what form my purpose will take in the longer term. But for now, I know that in my work as a coach, I want to more intentionally work towards helping people be more at peace with themselves and their lives.

Why?

Because I truly believe that a big part of greater peace in the world comes from greater peace in the hearts of people who inhabit it. In other words, inner peace contributes to outer peace.

How?

Imagine, for a moment, that you were completely at peace with yourself. All the things you don’t like about yourself, all the shortcomings for which you beat yourself up, all the failure and shame and regret that you are carrying with you, imagine that you were able to make peace with all of it. You were able to forgive, accept, and love yourself. Unconditionally.

Would you then:

• Spend time comparing yourself with others?
• Feel the need to prove yourself in any way?
• Want to exercise power over those who don’t have it?
• Take your anger and frustration out on other people?
• Want to harm someone – including yourself?

I genuinely believe that when we are at peace with ourselves and our lives, the answer to all of these questions is a clear no.

And so, this is my promise to you and to myself: from this point on in my life, in one way or another, I will be working towards bringing about more peace in the world.

Yours, in peace

Yashi 

Life Update: July 2017

Hello there! How are you all doing?

It's been a while since I posted anything here. While I have written a significant number of assignments during this time, I haven't been active on this blog. I was motivated to write this post for two reasons:

1) I miss writing this blog. It has been an important part of my journey over the past few years and for the time that I have been away, I have missed it. 

2) I have realized that apart from being a personal blog for me, Moments of Solitude also acts as a way for many of my loved ones to stay updated on what I have been up to. On a recent trip to India, a surprising number of people have asked me about this blog, thereby inspiring me to start writing again.

Now, given my previous track record on this, I am not making any promises of writing regularly. Let’s just take it one post at a time, shall we? 

This post is based on the three most frequently asked questions I encountered during my recent trip to India.

1. So, what have you been up to in the last couple of years? 

As the regular readers of my blog would know, I left my corporate job in India and moved to the US with my husband almost 3 years ago. I was on a journey to find and do work that would make me come alive, and at the time, was posting here quite regularly about the progress I was making. Through this journey, I discovered the field of Positive Psychology and joined the MAPP program in September 2015. 

In some ways, I feel like I entered an entirely different life with MAPP. Everything was new and exciting and overwhelming, and it is only now, almost a year after completing the program, that I am beginning to get back to the rest of my life. 

More on that later, but as of now, here’s a quick snapshot of what I have been up to in the past couple of years:

- Finished the MAPP program in August 2016. In that year, I met some truly wonderful people, learned about the science and practice of happiness, and wrote a final paper on the importance of self-awareness in our quest for well-being.

- Got trained and certified as a Life Coach. Started my own Positive Psychology based coaching business. What do I do in my business? In a nutshell, I help people lead happier, more fulfilling lives, using the science of human flourishing. 

- Started teaching Positive Psychology. I fell in love with Positive Psychology almost as soon as I found it, and it has become an integral part of my new career. I apply it in my own life and my coaching all the time, yes, but I also teach Positive Psychology in various forums. I went back to the MAPP program as a Assistant Instructor, became a Teaching Assistant for UPenn’s Positive Psychology course on Coursera, and I also started a Meetup group to share all that I have learned about living a happy life in the past couple of years.

2. How is life otherwise?

Overall, life is good. Siddharth and I are still happily married and no, we don’t have kids yet. I still love living in California. After visiting India in June this year, I am currently filled with a renewed sense of gratitude for the wonderful weather here. I do miss home, though, especially because most of my family and friends are there.  

The past year in particular has been a mixed bag, primarily because it was the first year of me running a business. Of all the things I ever wanted to become when I grew up, an entrepreneur wasn’t one of them. To be honest, I still think of myself as “a reluctant entrepreneur.” I became one because the other options weren’t offering me what I wanted. This lifestyle has its pros and cons and I still feel lost sometimes. I don’t know if this is it for me for the rest of my life, but as of now, I am all in. 

I continue to be an early riser. At an average, I get up around 6 am. My goal is to get closer to 4:30 or 5 am. I have also gotten more disciplined at eating healthy and exercising regularly. 

Like I said: Overall, life is good.

3. Do you miss the corporate world?

If someone had asked me this question a couple of years ago, my answer would have been a clear and resounding no. I was really tired of the corporate world when I left my job, and thought I was done for good. But now, having been away for a few years, and especially after running my own business for over a year, I have realized that there are pros and cons to everything. There are a few aspects of the corporate job I miss, and a few others I don’t. The thing I miss most, though, is being a part of a team.

Running a one-person business can be isolating, even for an introvert like me. In the past year, there have been times when I have really longed for the kind of team spirit I felt when I was working at a full-time job. I definitely miss that. Then, there is the trade-off between flexibility and financial stability. At this point in my business, while I have full control over how I spend my time, my income fluctuates from month to month. Sometimes, I miss the regular salary I earned until a few years ago.

Would I ever go back to a corporate job? Honestly, at this point, I don’t know. In the past couple of years I have learned that flexibility is one of my biggest values, and right now, I don’t want to trade that for anything. If that changes in the next few years, we will see.

So, that's about it. I know I said this blog helps my loved ones stay in touch with me, but strangely enough, I feel more in touch with myself right now, after writing this post. I shouldn’t be surprised, though, because that’s what writing almost always does for me. No wonder I have missed writing this blog.

Hopefully, I will be back with another post soon.

Why Do I Write?

Why do I write?

I often get asked this question.

Oh, no! Not by other people. I am no famous writer.

I get asked this question by myself. 

By a part of myself, to be precise.

Do you have parts to yourself?

Parts that question you, your dreams, your capabilities?

Parts that tell you what you can’t do and why?

And then, the parts that have the answers?

I have so many parts to myself that I often lose count.

Take this one, for example.

The part of me that’s forever critical.

It is never satisfied, no matter what I do.

“You’re not good enough. You never will be.” It tells me.

And I want to curl up in my bed and cry all day long.

“That’s nonsense!” Retorts another part.

This one is wiser, kinder, gentler.

It knows that I am human and forgives me my mistakes.

“You are capable of so much!” It says.

And I find hope again.

There’s a part of me that worries too much.

“What if?” is its favorite question.

“What if you fail? What if your dreams don’t come true?”

It thinks it must prepare me for the worst.

It is afraid of being hurt - like it has been in the past.

Even as I write this, a cynic in me is raising its voice.

“Wait a minute, wasn’t this supposed to be about why you write?

What are you doing, rambling on about nothing of value?”

I am dumbfounded. It is right. What am I doing?

My heart sinks a little.

Another part comes up to my rescue, however.

“Sometimes, you write because there is nothing else you can do.

It doesn’t matter what, it doesn’t matter whether it is any good.

What matters is that your heart’s content come rolling out.

As words, or as tears, or as both. Like they are doing now.”

Everyday, hundreds of times, I watch these parts fight with each other.

They are all me, I know. Or may be none of them is me.

May be I am more than all of them combined.

I know I have the power to choose which part to listen to.

But sometimes, it is really, really hard.

May be that’s why I write. Sometimes, at least.

The process of writing has the power to heal.

It gives a place for these voices to say all that they want to say.

Until they are tired and ready to let go.

After which I feel free to do what needs to be done.

The Writer in Me: Revived

“Yashi! Will you be my client?” The coach asked me.

It took me a moment to process this request. Me??

I was attending a coach training program in San Rafael, California, along with 25 other participants. At the beginning of our training, all of us had committed to being a client for demonstration purposes whenever called upon to do so. I didn't know it then, but had quickly learned that being coached requires courage. And, being coached in front of a bunch of people requires much more courage. In the past few days, I had seen several other participants get coached and bare their hearts and souls in front of other trainees. I had sat in the audience, admiring their courage and vulnerability. And being the delusional optimist that I am, I had somehow assumed that I would never have to sit in front of the class getting coached. Clearly, I had been wrong.

I agreed, of course, and walked up to the front of the room. The coach knew I had a topic in mind because she had asked all of us to come up with a “meaty” topic - something we really wanted but were struggling to achieve.

The coach and I settled down at the front of the room, 25 pairs of eyes staring at us, waiting to see what was in store.

“So, what is the topic that you have in mind?” My coach began.

“Well, the topic is that of writing. I have always loved writing and really enjoy it, but, for the past two years, I have been struggling with creating a consistent writing routine.”

If you are a regular reader of my blog - you know exactly what I was talking about. Again and again, in the past couple of years, I have set goals to write regularly, made promises to post on my blog consistently, and have failed invariably. All this has been extremely frustrating for two reasons: first, as some of you would know, I hate breaking promises. And second - my intense desire to write combined with my acute inability to do so has kept me in a state of perennial inner conflict. If I really wanted to write so much, why was it so difficult for me to do so? I wanted to solve this issue once and for all - to either decide that I don’t want to write as much as I say I do or to act in a way that was consistent with my words. I really did need coaching with this topic.

My coach began asking me questions about what made writing so important to me, what was it that I wanted to write about, how did it align with my purpose in life, what my ideal writing life would look like, and what was it that I needed to do to get to where I wanted to be. For those of you who don’t know much about coaching, this is how the process works. By asking powerful questions, my coach was compelling me to think about my why, about the cost of me not taking any action, and about the pointlessness of the obstacles I had unwittingly placed in my own path.

Ten minutes later, I heard myself committing to write an article of 1000 words on the same day, and to share it with my coach the very next morning. This was over and above the other commitments I had for the evening (which were a lot). One of the participants later told me she would totally support me if I decided to feel “unwell” in the evening. Another one shared that she almost yelled out a resounding “no” on my behalf. Even for me, under usual circumstances, this commitment would have seemed ridiculous. I, who needs a specific kind of time, space, and state of mind to really get into the zone of writing, churning out 1000 words just before bed when I was half-asleep? How on earth was that going to happen?

But, you know what, I did it. As tired and exhausted as I was, I still wrote the first draft of that article before I went to sleep that night. And, it felt fantastic.

I didn’t share that draft with the coach, though. The next morning, I told her I had written the first terrible draft, but that I would edit it and send her the revised version. I also promised my batch of 25 that I would share the final article with them. And I am going to do it. Not just that, several weeks have passed since then and I have written something or the other every single day. I didn’t write so consistently even when I was participating in NaNoWriMo - a challenge that required me to write 50,000 words in a month.

So, what happened? What exactly shifted in that ten minute coaching session that enabled me to bring about a behavior change so quickly? Well, three things, to be precise:

1. First of all, I broke some myths about my writing process. Unlike what I had always believed, I don’t necessarily need a particular kind of time, space, and state of mind to get into the zone of writing. I wrote 1000 words in 20 minutes that day, even in a half-asleep state - and even though the first draft was really bad, it had enough content in it to become meaningful and coherent upon revision. 

2. Secondly, the coaching session helped me break down a vague goal - building a regular writing routine - into a specific one: to just show up and write everyday - for 30 minutes. That’s all. No setting the scene, no creating a space, no having a specific topic in mind. Just showing up and rambling on for 30 minutes. It also helped to have an accountability partner - someone who was counting on me to fulfill my commitment.

3. Finally, and I think most importantly, this exercise helped me gain clarity about why is it that I want to write. I realized that I want to use writing as a tool to help others and live a more meaningful life. To be clear, this was a major realization for me that happened over a period of several days and not just in that ten minute coaching session, but the session did bring everything together for me.

I have been thinking quite a bit about the topic of writing since the day I was coached almost six weeks ago. There are so many other lessons I have learned about myself and my writing process that this topic requires a post of its own. However, I want to conclude this post by sharing my current destination on my journey as a writer. Even though I didn’t post much on my blog, I have written more in the past year than ever before in my life, thanks to a ton of academic writing required for the MAPP program. I have also received encouraging feedback from my instructors and classmates, which has enhanced my confidence in my writing abilities. Finally, the coaching session described above has been instrumental in connecting the dots for me. Today, more than ever before, I feel that I am on the verge of finding my voice. The writer in me seems to have been revived with a new sense of gratitude, hope, and purpose.

2015: The Year That Was

Even though the season of yearly reviews has come and gone, and I am more than three weeks late in posting this, I still want to write about how 2015 was for me, particularly because it was a very special year.

“Plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”

- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Never before in my life has this statement held as true as it does for the year 2015. I began the year with very specific goals and plans about what I wanted to do - many of them I didn’t end up successfully executing. However, the process enabled me to achieve things I didn’t even have on my list - things I wouldn’t have imagined possible at the beginning of the year. The year 2015, without doubt, was one of the BEST years of my life.

What I Had Planned: To lose 13 pounds through regular exercise that was also fun.

What I Actually Did: Trained for and ran my first half-marathon. It was fun at times, but very difficult at others. Even though I lost only about 6 pounds this year, I am fitter and healthier than ever before.

What I Learned: That sometimes, the thing that is holding you back, is all in your head.

What I Had Planned: To start making a living from my passion (which I initially thought was writing)

What I Actually Did: Realized that I was actually passionate about helping people become happier (and writing was just a means to do that), came across the field of positive psychology, learned about the MAPP program a week before its application deadline, applied and got through, and began one of the most meaningful (and fun!) periods of my life. Didn’t make any money - ended up paying more for education, but boy, is it worth it!

What I Learned: To trust the process - one of the key themes in the MAPP program.

What I Had Planned: To write and post regularly on this blog.

What I Actually Did: Ahem. This has been my most embarrassing failure in 2015. After repeated promises of writing and posting regularly, I consistently failed to meet my targets. However, I did an enormous amount of academic writing this year - which has been helpful. But, that does not take away from the fact that I didn’t write as much as I would have liked to - and I hope to do better on this front in 2016.

What I Learned: That it takes immense discipline to write on a regular basis, and that I have a long way to go in this regard.

What on Earth is Positive Psychology?

First of all, wait a minute. Let me get this straight. The first semester of MAPP is already over? Wasn't it yesterday that I went back to school? Even 2015 is about to end? And I have not written a single post - a single post - on positive psychology so far? And I haven't posted anything in almost four months now? Despite my goals of writing and posting consistently? This can't be true, can it? Except that it is. Time flew faster than it ever had, I wrote little else apart from theory papers, and I ignored this blog even after having so much to write about. Sigh. I have made and broken enough promises about writing this year to be afraid of committing to anything now. So, as of now I have decided to just go with the flow with regards to this blog.

The irony is that for the first time in my life, I haven't had a shortage of content to write about. And yet...But, before I start ruminating again, let me begin. And I shall begin from the beginning. The title of this post reflects the nature and the tone of questions people ask me when they learn that I study positive psychology. What is positive psychology? What do you mean "positive" - is the rest of the psychology negative? Oh, isn't this the field with the yellow smiley face as its logo? In this post, I will share my perspective on these questions, based on what I have learned in the last three months.

Let's begin with a thought experiment. Imagine that all the problems from your life have vanished. You have perfect relationships, all the money you could have asked for, a job you love, a boss from heaven, and there is nothing that is not working in your life. How would that be? Would you like to lead such a life?

If you are anything like me, you will be bored to death just by imagining such perfection. 

The good news is, that is NOT what positive psychology is about.

Now, imagine that your life is filled with failures, challenges, and pain. Nothing good ever happens to you. You are miserable all the time. How does that sound for a life?

Terrible? Of course.

Thankfully, that is also not what positive psychology is about.

The truth is: life is messy, but it is also wonderful. We are awful at certain things, but excel at others. We are often driven by fear, but also have the capacity for enormous love. Positive psychology is the scientific study of how human beings can live their wonderful, messy lives in the best possible way. It is not just about the yellow smiley face. It is not a field of study as opposed to "negative" psychology. It is a new branch of psychology that focuses on the good things in life. It attempts to answer questions like what makes life worth living, and what actions can we take to lead better lives. And it does it using the principles of science.

Does positive psychology have answers to all the life's questions? Not really. It is a new field of study, and there is a long road ahead of it. But I think it is a worthy endeavor and I love being a part of it.

Back to School

About a year ago, when I decided to quit my comfortable, well paying corporate job to look for my passion, I wasn’t sure what exactly I was going to find. I had some notions, but things were uncertain. A part of me thought I was insane. But there was another, bigger part that was sure I could not spend my life doing what I was doing, and needed to look for something different. It helped that I was moving to a new country, and I started this journey looking forward to new beginnings.

Not surprisingly, the last one year has been one of the most phenomenal ones in my life. I have had so much fun doing things that I always wanted to do - learning new things, exploring new places, getting to know myself better, and reading...oh, just reading for days at length. But it has not all been a piece of cake as well. There have been times when I have been plagued with self-doubt and fear. On some days, I have been tempted to take up a job just like the one I had quit. And there have been instances when I have wondered if risking my established career for a vague dream was worth it, or if that small part of me that had called me mad was right, after all.

However, I was fortunate enough to have a few things that kept me going. My husband’s unwavering support, for example; a community of people who believed in my dream, because they were at various stages of living their own crazy dreams, and knew it was possible for me to live mine. And more than anything else, my why - the reason I was doing this, the justification for risking it all. Like I had mentioned in this earlier post, almost all my life, I have sought peace. At the time, I was not sure how this would translate into a career option for me, but the idea had been seeded. Over the next few months, things became clearer, and I realized that after having learnt how to have more peace and happiness in my own life, I wanted to help others do the same. This finding led me to positive psychology, which is the science of human flourishing. As I read more about the field, I knew that this was the best place for me to be, because it aligned beautifully with who I was and what I wanted to do.

As the next step, I wanted to learn as much as I could about positive psychology. And that’s why, I am absolutely thrilled to share that I am now a student of the Master of Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP) program at University of Pennsylvania. I will be spending the next year studying positive psychology, and though I am not sure about what exactly will I do with what I learn in the course, I am fairly confident that this will also become clear in the next few months.

For me, it has always been easy to look back on life and see the big picture of why things happened a certain way and what I learnt from them. And when I look back on the last one year, one lesson that stands out is that sometimes, it is important to remember just why you decided to do anything in the first place, and then stand by it. In retrospect, you will find that it all makes sense.

Building a Habit

As mentioned in my previous post, one of the key things that I wanted to do in 2015, was to build a daily writing habit. But I didn’t do too well due to reasons already mentioned in the last post. The good news is that I have written pretty regularly in the last two weeks, using what I learnt from a wonderful book - The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. It shares insights about how and why habits form, how they can be changed, and the science behind it. 

The biggest lesson that the book taught me was that “willpower is a finite resource.” As long as I relied only on my willpower to push myself into writing everyday, I was going to exhaust this resource and give up sooner or later. What I needed was to make writing a part of my routine, a habit - so that I did not have to think about or decide if and when to write. I needed it to become as automatic as brushing my teeth in the morning.

Here’s how it works, as per the book: all habits follow a simple loop (called the "habit loop,) which is made up of three components: first, there is a cue (e.g. my leaving the bed in the morning with an unpleasant taste in my mouth); then, there is a behaviour (my heading to the bathroom and brushing my teeth); and finally, there is a reward (the feeling of clean teeth and a fresh mouth.) The days when the act of brushing my teeth gets delayed, I feel unhappy because I crave that fresh feeling. This craving is what drives my habit loop of brushing every morning. I never ever have to think about whether I should brush today or not - it just happens on its own. It’s a habit.

So, for building a writing habit also, I needed these three components. Here’s what I have been doing for the past couple of weeks:

1. The Cue: Every morning, when my husband leaves for work, I see him off and then head to my desk. I love this time, because I feel a strong sense of purpose and am ready to get to work - which can range from taking courses to writing something to reading. This is a routine - something I do almost every weekday. And it occurred to me that this was a good cue - as soon as I close the door after my husband leaves for work, I can write with full concentration.

2. The Behaviour: Yes, writing, of course. But, there are too many distractions that are ready to pounce on me the moment I switch on the laptop. Facebook updates, mails, bill payment reminders, whatsapp messages...there is a lot that needs to be paid attention to. But, before I do any of this, I want to write. The solution? I put my phone on silent for half-an-hour, close all windows on the laptop, and open just one document where I can type. And then, I focus on writing.

3. The Reward: The immense satisfaction I get from doing this. The craving for this satisfaction drives this habit loop.

A couple of other things need to be mentioned here. First of all, I have brought my daily target down to 200-300 words a day (as opposed to 1000 words a day that I set at the beginning of the year.) This is much more realistic, and I have since learnt that it is important to start small when trying to build a new habit. Once I able to meet this goal for a couple of months, I will look at increasing it. Secondly, my cue is something that happens on weekdays only. So, as of now, I am targeting writing five days a week. 200-300 words every weekday - simple.

It has worked for a couple of weeks already, and I hope to keep it up.

Mid-term Review

Seven months of the year have passed, and since old habits die hard, it is time for a slightly delayed performance appraisal for me. Unlike in my corporate job, I don’t have a boss who will do this with me this time. I also have no one else I can blame or credit with what I have done so far this year. It is all on me. 

In March, I had identified three main themes that I wanted to work on in 2015, and those will be the focus of this review.

1. Making the World a Happier Place: 

Progress so far:

As time passes, I realize that this is what I would like to do next in terms of my career. I could work in the field of Positive Psychology or with a non-profit that helps people lead better lives, but I want to be a part of something that genuinely helps people flourish. I completed one of the courses that I was taking online, have read a couple of books, and am considering joining a certification program in Positive Psychology in the next few months. My self-rating on this goal would be a 3 on 5 - as ideally, I should have completed the other course as well, and read more books on the subject.

           

The Plan for remaining months:

At least one book on the subject per month. Complete the other course which will again start in September. 

2. Writing: 

Progress so far:

I have made progress with the book - the proposal has been sent to several publishers and I am now waiting to hear back from them. The goal that I have missed terribly is writing on a regular basis. The 1000 words a day was just not happening, and discouraged, I have hardly written anything in the last couple of months. I have also realized the fatal mistake I had made in setting this goal. When I set it in Jan 2015, I just wanted to build a regular writing habit. I thought that by specifying how many words I wanted to write, I would have a specific and measurable goal and it will keep me on track. But the problem was that I was aiming for too lofty a target too soon. 1000 words a day became such a humongous goal for me to achieve, that despite genuine efforts, I could not keep up with it. And after a point, I just gave it up. What I needed to do to build a habit was to start small - with, let’s say - 100 or 200 words a day. After being able to sustain that for a couple of months, I could have looked at revisiting the target. But starting with 1000 words a day was liking sitting for high school exam in second grade. I had set myself up for failure. On this goal, I would rate myself a 2 on 5 - long way to go.

The Plan for remaining months:

Having learnt my lesson, I will focus on building a writing habit with the target of 200 words a day. I should be able to post more regularly on the blog if I am able to build this habit.

3. Health and Fitness

Progress so far:

I have taken a big step with the half-marathon training, and it is helping me a lot. I ran 9 miles (over 14 km) on the last two Saturdays! It would have been unimaginable just a few months ago. I have also made some changes to my diet, and am including a lot more fruits and vegetables in it. This is working out pretty good, except that I did miss a few days of running while I was traveling. I would say I am a 4 on 5 on this goal.

The Plan for remaining months:

To continue doing what I am doing, and try to miss fewer days of training.

That, then, is the update on my goals so far. I am working on building a writing habit and will share more on that in my next post.

Night Owl to Morning Bird

“Umm...err...I never thought I would ask you this, of all people - but - you know, I am struggling with keeping up with an ideal routine lately - I don’t get up as early as I would like to, and am unable to find time for exercising - something I would like to. Since you seem to have worked out a solution for these things - and I know for a fact that you have been an epitome of laziness almost all your life - are there any tips you can share with me?” - One of my best friends asked me this question a while back, with considerable consternation.

I had to smile. This was the second person in one week who was asking me something on the line of - how do you get up early and exercise on a regular basis? And like my friend rightly indicated, it was not only ironic, it was unthinkable a year ago. But the fact is, after exemplifying extreme laziness in the thirty years of my personal life, things have changed for me, and to be honest, I am incredibly proud of this. This does not mean I don’t have my lazy days anymore. But now, such days happen once in a while, instead of every weekend.

Now, there are various reasons why this has happened, and this is not an overnight phenomena for sure. But I don’t want to delve into the depths of these reasons in this post. In a nutshell, things changed because my priorities changed - I wanted more time for myself, and more out of my days, and I realized that getting up early was the only way I could make it happen. And gradually, I worked towards becoming an early riser (I am still perfecting this method - but I am much better at it now than ever.) In this post, I share my tips for rising early on a regular basis.

1. Realize That it is All in Your Head: For almost all my life, I believed that I was just not a morning person. And therefore, it was impossible for me to get up early and be perky on the same day. But once I decided that I wanted to become someone who could happily rise early and go about her day - lo and behold, I could become one. Now, when there are days when I feel sleepy at 9 PM - I can’t help but imagine how my past self would have been horrified at the thought. Sleeping at 9 PM? Get a life! And my current, supposedly wiser self, smiles. I do have a life. It just starts early in the day.
2. Do It Backwards: Accept that to be able to get up early in the morning, you will have to sleep early at night. Obvious, right? Not really. I have met several people lately who want to get up early, but are shocked at the thought of sleeping early. If you don’t think you can go to sleep earlier than you do at present, then don’t try to wake up earlier than you do - because it is unfair to your body. It needs the rest - respect that need. You would have an idea whether you need six hours or eight to feel fresh - use some basic maths and deduct the number of hours you need to sleep from the time you want to get up. For example, if you need eight hours of sleep and want to get up at 6 AM, then you should be asleep by 10. You may even have to go to bed with an hour’s buffer - in case you read or toss and turn in the bed for some time before entering deep slumber.
3. Have Something to Look Forward to: If you hate exercising, and that’s the first item on your list the moment you get up, chances are you will have a strong urge to go back to sleep even if you do wake up at the desired time. Like my friend - she said she continued to sleep for longer because she felt she had the time and nothing better to do. But she would feel bad later for sleeping meaninglessly. So I suggested she schedule an activity which she really enjoys - as the first thing she would do after getting up early. And she almost jumped with joy. “Yes!” She said - “I can paint in the morning - I never get the time to do that during the week and I really enjoy it!” You can decide what works for you - I am sure there will be some activity which you wish you had more time for. You can use it as an incentive to get out of the bed.
4. Stop Using an Alarm: There was nothing that drove me crazier than the persistent ringing of my alarm - as if it was the alarm’s fault for ringing at the exact time I had set for it to wake me up. I would repeatedly snooze it till the time when even a minute’s further delay would cause me to get late for whatever I had to do. It was extremely annoying and stressful, and I invariably woke up grumpy, at having been yanked out of my precious sleep. For the last year or so, I have tried to do away with the alarm as much as possible. Except for catching an early morning flight, or other such early appointments - I try and wake up on my own. When I was beginning to do this, I reminded myself there was a time when there were no alarm clocks - and people still got up and went about their business. I also remembered a tip my grandmother gave me when I was a child - of telling my pillow when I would like to wake up - and let it do the job instead of an alarm clock. I think the idea is that our bodies have a clock of their own, and our minds can be trained to follow instructions. After some initial experiments and a few days, I realized that if I trained myself, in due course, my eyes would automatically open at the time I wanted to wake up - irrespective of the time I went to sleep, without the external intervention of an alarm. Now, I may choose to go back to sleep when that happens, or I may choose to get up - but I will wake up at the required hour or a few minutes here and there - for sure.
5. Do It Gradually: If you wake up at 8 AM on a regular day, and suddenly want to rise at 5 AM - it may be too drastic a step. Try and take smaller steps, inching towards your goal. So target 7:30 or 7:00 at first - depending upon how much you want to push yourself. Try and do it for a few days or weeks. And once you find yourself automatically opening your eyes at 7:00 AM several days in a row, you are ready to move to an earlier hour - if that is what you desire.

All these steps have helped me convert to a morning person from a night owl. I now enjoy my mornings and look forward to them. There is one last piece of motivation that I share with people close to me - those who have known the night owl me - that if I can do it, anyone can do it. You just have to really, really want it.   

Run, Yashi, Run!

I was running with all my might. Despite being breathless and tired, I could not give up. Everyone was watching me, and I had to finish what I had started. I wanted to look around and see how the others were doing, but that could slow me down. Instead, I kept going as fast as it was physically possible for me to go. As I finally reached the next runner, and handed her the thin wooden stick being used as a baton, I almost collapsed with relief at having made it. She took the stick without much reaction, and off she went, continuing the relay race. My eyes were following her as I cheered her to run faster, when I realized that she was far behind the other teams, and we were definitely going to lose. Because of me. We were ahead when the baton was handed over to me. I had slowed down our team, despite my best efforts. And there is little else that weighs down a ten year old than being the person solely responsible for his or her team’s loss at the school’s annual sports event.

That’s my earliest memory of ever participating in a race. After this experience, and a couple of others, I simply pegged myself as a non-athletic person. I was too thin, too low on energy, too weak. And I definitely could not run or be good at outdoor sports. So, throughout the rest of school, I spent the sports period talking to my friends, promptly felt faint during Physical Training (PT) sessions, and participated primarily in carrom competitions during the annual sports meets that followed. On a dare, I did volunteer to participate in a tug-of-war when I was in high school (and believe it or not, my team won it!) - but I heard more jokes than cheers about my being on the team. In fact, I myself was mighty surprised at being selected in the first place, and distinctly remember the resigned face of my sports teacher when he had called out my name. I guess he was desperately short of people.

As a result of this mindset, I did very little physical activity till about twenty nine years of age. The fact that I was naturally thin meant that I did not need to exercise even for the sake of vanity. I was always on the other side of the weight spectrum, frustrated about the lack of weight gaining advice out there. But somewhere around my twenty ninth birthday, things began to change. My health kind of broke down, and as I lay sick on the bed for almost a month, I felt a need to change my outlook towards my health, and make it a priority. It’s funny how years of nagging (from people wiser than you) can’t convince you of something you realize within a few weeks through your own mistakes. That’s what happened, and I found myself resolving to eat better, exercise, and generally take care of my health. The fact that years of eating junk food had considerably widened my midsection by then made the need for exercising even more acute.

Over the last three years, I have experimented with various forms of exercising, including gym, zumba classes, swimming, and running. But I don’t think I have ever truly challenged myself. Perhaps that’s why despite three years of more or less regular exercising, my weight has remained constant, and so has my waistline.

In the last few months in California, I have frequently heard of/seen people challenging themselves in various ways. Some run marathon after marathon, some cycle for over five hundred miles in a few days, some comfortably hike up hills with an infant on their back (frequently overtaking me as I pause and pant at every meter of elevation gain.) Ever since I came here, I have often found myself wondering - if they can push themselves to such an extent, why can’t I do it just a little bit? And after much thought, I have concluded that once again, I am restricted only by my own beliefs. If I truly want to, I can do any of those things.

That’s why when I heard of a marathon training group which claims to get even couch potatoes running a marathon, I decided to believe them, and enrolled myself in their half-marathon training (yes, I do not have the heart for a full-marathon yet.) The race is in October, and the training has already begun. I had an interesting first day, more on that in a separate post. But I am happy to say that I am truly thrilled at having taken this step (with enormous support and cheer from people around me.) Back in school when I was dejected over having let my team down in the relay race, convinced that I was not one who could run, I could not have imagined that one day, I would be doing this.