Introspection – Revisiting Priorities and Life Goals

If there is one thing we introverts like doing, it is thinking. I’ve spent countless hours imagining stuff, working out hypothetical scenarios, dreading imaginary disasters.. you get the picture I am sure. However if there’s one thing I’ve found genuinely useful and learnt to enjoy, it’s regularly revisiting my life goals and priorities.

It has always seemed slightly tragic to me when people rue the choices they made in times past. Everyone of us has some advice for our past versions, courtesy hindsight. We know ourselves better today than we did five, ten or twenty years back. We are usually more confident in our skin, have a better idea of where we’d like to go, and a better sense of how the world works. That is natural. Yet I don’t want to be the woman who achieved a much greater financial success at 45 than she dreamed of, but has no clear memories of her son’s early years. I don’t want to be the woman who sighs at 50, rubbing her aching, swollen knees, and wishes she had not given such a low priority to her own health while she was young. I don’t want to be the woman who at 60 wishes she had developed some of her hobbies enough to have something interesting to do today.

If you can identify something you may come to regret badly five, ten, twenty, forty years down the line, then it seems to me that that potential regret should make it to your list of concerns. You need to figure out who you are today, what makes you feel happy and excited today, what your short term priorities are, and align them with your long term vision of your life. You need to continuously and regularly be aware of what you ask from this life. Identify those aspects in life which will guide you throughout life. And you need to adjust them as and when required.

I think I’ve identified my basic life goals. I wish for myself and my loved ones to be healthy and happy. That’s pretty much it at the core.

Now here’s where it gets interesting. If I want to make these the guiding principles of my life, I need to know what makes me happy and excited today. Which futures scare me? What can I do in the short term that will increase our present and future happiness and health? Which behaviours and habits should I try to incorporate in (or weed out of) our daily life?

As I keep trying to answer these questions, over time certain themes emerge. It would be difficult to be healthy and happy without a minimal level of financial security. That means I need to pay attention to our finances and my career. Which for now might mean evaluating if I need to learn that new programming language, or switch companies. Strained relationships would definitely make our family unhappy. This makes me think more in the direction of what kind of a home atmosphere and family dynamic I want to promote today. Which tendencies in myself do I want to avoid. Maybe I need to listen more, judge less quickly, cultivate patience…

You see what I mean? If you know what you want in you life, you can ask questions to yourself that will help you figure out the areas you should be concentrating on today. These exercises of course involve attempts to chart a course with minimal inputs. But in any case you need to decide on today’s actions based on your understanding and wisdom today, not your advice from five years later. This approach works well for my mental peace, and I no longer feel quite so overwhelmed with things after one of these sessions. I just need to remember that these are tentative plans, and should be re-evaluated whenever new inputs arrive, or whenever something disruptive happens.

This way I hope to avoid serious regrets later in life. I know that’s probably overly optimistic, but it’s better than having no plan and trusting to luck…

What do you think?

The link between visualisation and being more self-aware.

Over the last few weeks, the term visualization technique has been coming up a little too often while browsing the net. For those needing a bit of simple explanation, it essentially says that one can achieve goals, success etc in the ‘real’ world by visualizing it over and over and believing in it. Now I can’t quite swallow the idea that just visualising myself getting fitter would do one bit towards making me fitter if I don’t put in the effort needed. I need to consistently exercise in the right way, eat right, and not give in to laziness and temptation too often. Just imagining myself as this lean toned lady isn’t going to help.

Honestly, I’m slightly ashamed to tell you that I did just this when I was preparing for my engineering entrance exams the first time round. I’d waste time daydreaming/imagining how amazing it’d be to go to class with intelligent, curious people, be taught by seriously awesome professors, live in a hostel (ok childish I know but I was not even 17 then!) and learn different new skills, . It didn’t work out like that and I essentially tanked my examinations. I wouldn’t say the daydreaming was the only factor, but the dismal results really opened my eyes to reality. Wishing for a thing doesn’t make it happen all by itself. You need to put in the sweat, blood and tears that it needs. You need that focus, that energy and that attitude a lot more than you need prayers and positive imagery.

I wouldn’t say that prayers and positive visualization don’t have their place. They really help with reducing nervousness and increasing confidence. They also probably serve as motivation to many people. What I don’t believe is that you just need to believe something will happen and it will. That’s too simplistic and all discussions on this topic should make that clear 🙂

Now that the caveats are out of the way, I still think visualization is a pretty nifty trick. Pretty much everyone is running after success. Trying to visualise that would actually force them to think about what success means to them. What do they see their life as like once they’ve achieved that mythical success? Do they see themselves giving celebrity interviews to Times magazine? Their restaurant consistently in the best restaurants lists of the country? Holidaying in the Alps with their family? What?

The popular culture is sceptical of introspection, but I sincerely believe you need to build a genuine model of yourself over time. That’s the basis for everything. You are unique in this world and who you are, what makes you feel happy or excited, what your fears are, what fascinates you, what values drive you, which professions and lifestyles inspire you, all of it will affect your life. It’ll affect others in your life, your partner, your friends, your family, your colleagues… It’ll affect how you approach goals, how you measure success, and what makes you happy.

Visualization, to me, is like a trick forcing me to distill some aspects of myself into words, images, and conscious thoughts. And every time I do it, I may discover a new piece of knowledge about myself. All this focus on ‘self’ probably sounds very selfish (haha), but it isn’t truly. I sincerely believe that the better you know yourself, the better you can empathise. You have a better idea of the kind of motivations that drive people. How even someone basically good can experience destructive emotions. Being self-aware makes you more forgiving of people, and more willing to give them the benefit of doubt.

And it really helps you see the bigger picture in terms of your life, and how it interconnects with so many other peoples. How various factors sometimes make it turn in surprising way. It lets you see the hand of your parents and mentors in your values, behaviours and personality.

Ok this is going off track. I had intended writing about visualization, not singing praises in the cause of being self aware 😛 Better stop before this post ends up somewhere even weirder.

First Taekwondo class – Yay and Ouch!

I had mostly given up on taekwondo classes due to lack of interested people. Now it seems I had been too quick to have lost hope. I met the trainer while returning home from office and he told me 2 more women had shown interest and we will be meeting up to decide timings, frequency etc on Sat morning. ‘Oh good’, I thought. “Maybe this will work out.”

And it did. First trial class was on Sunday morning 6-7. Now I am not really a morning person, but I’d like to be. So I got to the society park at 6 all eager to start. I basically collapsed after 15 minutes. Couldn’t even handle the stretches and the generic exercises. I was dizzy and there was a weird rushing noise in my ears. So I rested. 10 minutes rest (just trying to catch my breath), then attempt to follow along for 5 minutes and then again try n catch my breath. It wasn’t pretty at all.

But never mind. I am doing this for myself. For an exercise averse person like me, I think I have done pretty well in coming back to my pre pregnancy weight (Not to mention I’ve been lucky as hell), but the stamina is just not there. So though I’d like to shave off another 3-4 Kgs off, I am more concerned with the lack of stamina and an exercise routine that feels doable. I know from the last time I tried taekwondo (that was way back in college.. more than 5 years back now) that the first day experience was not exactly a surprise. It was however slightly worse than last time. That time I managed to last for half an hour I think… 

Anyway, I know that things will improve after around 5-10 more classes. I’ll be able to feel myself making progress on my fitness related goals. So even though the muscles throughout my body are twinging and hurting, I am hopeful. Yay for a fitness activity non-exercisers like me can get behind 🙂

Cheers

The last 2 Weeks

This seems to be turning into a bad habit. I guess It’d be more precise to say that this is a habit which I haven’t been able to get past. I again took too long to return here. But I shouldn’t be too hard on myself, it was a space of over 3 weeks last time and this time it’s 2 weeks 😛 Maybe the posting interval will eventually come down to a few days… I hope to be able to post at least weekly eventually.. Let’s see how long the process takes 🙂

I don’t have much updates to post though. I did meet up with a very good friend of mine from college. I had to attend a cousin’s wedding out of town, and decided to turn a social obligation I wasn’t much looking forward to into an opportunity to catch up with her. Do you sometimes feel that though we don’t really talk about anything profound when we meet friends after a long time, it still feels so nice to just chat about random stuff.. 🙂 So good times in all.

The stay at my cousin’s wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, mainly ‘coz Minion was along this time 🙂 He had so much fun exploring the new place (while I was practically shadowing him to stop him from sending some knick knack crashing to the floor). Many of my relatives met Minion for the first time there and he was most assuredly a hit.. He toddled around, danced a bit on DJ night, made cute faces and followed pretty girls around 😛 That’s not to say he wasn’t cranky at all, or didn’t fuss, but considering that it was a new place with lots and lots of strangers, he coped remarkably well.. Ok enough boasting about him 🙂

DH couldn’t attend the wedding though he did manage to make it to the engagement the previous day (Arranged marriages in India often hold the engagement ceremony just a day before the wedding). Minion and I stayed there for 3 full days and returned home only about 2 days back. A nice enough break from work.

Work’s slow this week so mostly working on Secretaire. Aim to post soon about that in more detail soon..

Cya