It’s rewind time
Didn’t mean to start this article the Will Smith way (If you know, you know), but another year comes to an end. And perhaps the most eventful year in anyone’s life in a long time. Every year, I would just start the new year with gratitude and thankfulness to experiences that I’ve had, how they’ve helped me grow as a person. But that’s where it ended. This year, I thought maybe I’ll go deeper into all my experiences and how each of those experiences has contributed to my development. And definitely to use this as a reminder of the long way I’ve come from where I was.
Books that changed the year
This year was definitely the one with a lot more reading, introspection and making small changes over a period of time. Given how challenging the times were, some of these books became a constant companion and a gentle reminder that every adversity is a seed to even greater opportunity.
Mindset by Dr. Carol. S. Dweck
At some point during the entire year, I had reached a point where I was wondering what am I even doing with my life, and where is it even going. It became a never-ending loop of questioning myself and then not able to find an answer and a downhill journey from there. This book was definitely life-changing for me, in instilling a strong belief that our outcomes are merely a function of what mindset we hold, that our thoughts are our only limitations
The One Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan
Lockdown, stay-at-home, work-from-home — whatever you want to call it. It has been one of the most dramatic changes in everyone’s life. Humans being social creatures were forced to do exactly the opposite — to not socialise. The change was pretty difficult for me as well. Usually, when one goes to work and gets back home, there is a very clear boundary between personal and professional lives. But when you stay inside all day long, boundaries tend to get very blurry. Simple yet powerful concepts of time-blocking I learnt from this book were a few other game-changers in my life.
The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson & The Practicing Mind by Thomas Sterner
The reason I have both these books under one heading is that to me they taught me very similar concepts. I was always the kind of person when learning something new I would skim through the basics and try to get on to applying it immediately in pretty much every aspect of life. But these two books opened my eyes to the fact that how repetitive application of fundamental concepts over a time is the only way to mastery. And the reason it works is that these actions do not give linear results, but compound over time and give exponential rewards.
And here’s a segue to my previous articles based on my learnings from these two books:
Lockdown experiences
Lockdown surely was a drastic change in everyone’s life. But thanks to what I learnt from the books and a few very influential people around me, these have been the most transformative months of my entire life.
The new normal
Staying inside the home pretty much all day long over a period of time became somewhat claustrophobic and also blurred the distinction between personal and professional life. Combination of these two did make my adaptation a bit challenging.
But a few changes here and there came in a long way. Starting right from simple changes in my apartment like letting in more sunlight, keeping the place clean, organized and periodic de-cluttering, creating solid time blocks and sticking to it, investing more time in personal development through books and podcasts, and finding joys in little things.
Learning to create an encouraging and conducive environment for productivity is very essential.
Home and family time
Once the travel restrictions loosened up, I took a chance and went back home to Chennai to spend time with my family, which too was a transformative experience. Ever since I moved to Bangalore after graduation, the most I stayed at home was for a week. But this time I got an opportunity to stay for a good three months.
Staying up close and personal with parents, celebrating my birthday with them (had been ages since that happened) and plain and simple family time was just the thing I needed to reset a little bit in these difficult times.
A healthier lifestyle
Besides books and my family, if it were not for the healthy lifestyle I follow, lockdown and pandemic definitely would have been harder than it was. I was overweight by a large margin about two years back and definitely started showing up in terms of various health problems. But a chanced meeting with my coach, Abhishek, life definitely took a drastic turn. Since then I have continued to stick to it. Feeling good inside-out because of that surely helped me endure these tough times with more resilience.
And, when you have something good, why just keep it to yourself? Through Abhishek’s guidance, I have been able to help many more people get the same benefits that I did and help them adopt a healthier lifestyle. It was definitely very soul-satisfying to be a small speck of positivity in people’s lives in such difficult times.
Looking forward
Although not a huge list of things to look back last year, but each of them have played a major role in how I’ve transformed as a person, the things I was able to accomplish and a small role in played in many people’s lives. Despite social distancing, this has been the time where I connected with a lot of new people through helping them with healthier lifestyles.
There were very challenging times in terms of various personal events around me, but those were the times that have made me stronger and help me build a better perspective around life. And without a doubt, these have prepared me for what’s coming next.
Filled with gratitude and thankfulness, looking forward to 2021.
The best year of my life.
YET.
