3 Lessons I learnt in May

I can't believe that today is the last day of May. May be it is! 

Reviews are scary at times. But they help us face the reality.

Reality of May:

In the last post, I mentioned two things which were my priority for May – Meditation, learning Tamil.

Meditation:

The only improvement in it was I did it twice a day. Apart from the morning Pranayamam, I was meditating in the night before I went to sleep. Meditating in the morning was easy. Because after a good night's sleep, the number of thoughts which bombard the brain are lower. But in the night, the entire day's happenings kept revolving in my head. It seemed impossible to let each thought go. I was trying to train myself to meditate in the worst case scenario. To deal with that, I kept my diary beside me and dumped every thought which kept passing in my head. That helped in cooling the heat of thoughts. I could meditate with less disturbance after that. 

Meditation calmed my brain a little before sleep. I could fall asleep immediately after that.

Sadly, I could not feel much improvement in quality of meditation. I didn't know if I spent even a few seconds thoughtless or not. But at this stage of meditation, I don't think it is really important to buy a devise and measure the quality of my meditation.

I shall continue this for the next month. But this time I will concentrate more on quality.

 

Learning Tamil:

I speak a few sentences in Tamil everyday with my friends now. They correct my mistakes. But I have not really learnt a lot of new words. Watching movies was just like revision. Even though I was not doing any deliberate practise from the words of movies, they helped in passive learning. Unseen advantage of watching movies was, I was getting my daily dose of laughter. 

Apart from the two I prioritized, other areas which were continuation of April:

1.      Exercise: I followed the same routine. Haven't changed anything in it.

2.    Writing: I did terribly in this when it came to writing blog posts. I started a few articles but couldn't finish them at all. 

3.    Reading: I spent 17 hours on reading this month which is one hour lesser than last month. But I read two really good books.

4.    Waking up: On the days I was tired, I forced myself to sleep more. Otherwise, I was able to be awake by 6 daily.

Lessons learnt this month:

Whatever I have written above are for the days I stayed at home. But when I was on vacation, by default I discontinued routines for a change. But the vacation taught me a lot:

     

      One: Small habits can be continued wherever you are: 

     I was still doing elevate even on vacation. Because it just takes five minutes of my time.

      Two: Don’t break a habit without making a plan on coming back: 

     After I came back from vacation, I found it tough to catch up with my habits. I had lot of other pending work which occupied my mind all the time. I have learnt that I need to plan on the work I will have to handle after a break and how I will get back to each habit. This is a useful lesson for the next vacation

     

     Three: Vacations help in discovering yourself: 

     Productivity is not about working for 365 days. I have been more productive and happier after returning from vacation. It also helped me discover myself. Plan your vacations along with your work.

Goals for June:

1.      Art: 

     Lately, I have ignored painting or sketching or zentangles. My art material looks at me with a sad face whenever I clean my room. I want to spend just ten minutes on zentangles everyday to start with.

2.    Writing: 

      I am unhappy with the progress I have made in writing. This month, I am going to complete all the half written articles and publish them.

3.    Exercise: 

     I will improve my exercise routine by adding a few new exercises. It not only increases my exercise time but also makes it interesting.

That's all folks!

How did your May go? What are your plans for June?

Plan right away.

Happy planning!

5 Daily Routines which will make you a better person

Days come. Days go. 

What has changed? 

Have you increased weight because of unhealthy habits? Have you lost weight due to stress? 

Is your life stagnant?

Whatever it might be. It is never too late to see a stark improvement. I am sharing my favourite picture for you to feel inspired.

Are you ready for this?

I have 5 simple routines for you to try for the next one year. You can see the change in 30 days but in long term you will have improved by 37.8 times. Here they are:

6 Lessons learnt from sticking to resolutions in April

April is gone.
Here comes May.

How did April go?

What is April teaching May?

Last month I introduced you to the idea of Monthly resolutions. I declared my resolutions for April. Was I able to stick with all of them?

The one thing I wanted to change: Wake up at 6 AM

The one thing which I could do diligently was waking up early. I did not use an alarm to wake up early. So in the first week, I was waking up as early as 4:40 for the fear of not waking up by 6. But slowly I could convince my brain that it can wake up by 6 without oversleeping.

I give the credit of this success to public accountability. I felt accountable for the promise I made.

Good : I could tap into my natural alarm clock and did not depend on external alarm clocks.

Bad : I was not getting enough sleep as I was waking up early irrespective of when I went to sleep.

The other things I wanted to improve:

Physical Fitness:

On the days I exercised, I could do 25 push-ups by pushing myself a little more. But I had to discontinue exercise due to my knee pain. The pain became worse that I was afraid to do any sort of exercise. But later I realised that there was not much harm in doing knee strengthening exercises.

Good: On the days I did not exercise, I made use of the time for cooking. I also learnt five new yoga postures which helped me to strengthen my knee. I gathered back the courage to exercise within a week.

Bad: I did not exercise for a week for the fear of hurting myself more. I should have taken an expert’s advice without taking such a long break.

Meditation:

I am not happy with the progress I made. I sat for the extra time but I was doing that with great difficulty. There is a huge scope to improve on this.

Reading:

I spent 18 hours on reading last month which is more than my target of 15 hours a month. The books I completed are:

The one thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan

Do the work by Steven Pressfield

Re-awaken the giant within by Tony Robbins

The books I am reading right now are:

Talent code by Daniel Coyle

Never Split the difference by Chris Voss

Writing:

I failed terribly in this. I find it easier to stick with writing an answer a day on Quora but the same logic does not work for writing a blog. I need a writing prompt for blog. I should also be equipped with enough practical knowledge on it to write. For the practical knowledge, I need to do the experiments first. The faster I improve myself, the better my posts get.

I realized that the target I set for myself was unrealistic. I will stop putting a target on the number of articles and only work on improving the quality of my articles.

Course:

I was on schedule for the first week but missed the schedule in the second week as my laptop was not working. The internet speed was too slow to watch it on my phone. But I plan on finishing the course on time by doing it 30 minutes a day for the next 10 days. Catching up is more important than complaining.

Lessons learnt:

• ·        Concentrating on only one thing definitely brings the change (Waking up)
• ·        Public accountability helps (Waking up)
• ·        Obstacles are there all the time. It is about how quickly you can get rid of the obstacles.            (Exercise & Course)
• ·        It is okay to set unrealistic targets. That is the only way you will learn what realistic is.             (Writing)
• ·        When you love something, you tend to over perform. (Reading)
• ·        The tougher it is to do, greater is the resistance. (Meditation)

Plans for next month:

The one thing I want to concentrate on this month is Meditation. Apart from that I will spend 5 minutes watching a Tamil movie and learn the conversations. The plans of April will continue as it is.

How did your April resolutions go?

What are your plans for May?

Comment below.

Happy planning for May!