Monthly Reflections: April 2017

This month was a busy one but it also gave me a lot to reflect on in such a short amount of time. Here are my reflections for April 2017.

Monday Mornings

The week before the first week of April was a rough one. I was unmotivated and felt like I was in a slump. But as soon as the clock struck midnight on the first Monday of the month, something inside me changed. It was as if there was this new found energy that surged through me.

I was actually able to get up at 7 am and get to class on time is astonishing. I felt more productive than ever. Just ready to see how much I can accomplish in 24 hours. The fact that I was able to get breakfast, like an actual meal instead of a granola bar, is HUGE!

Click here to learn more about how to take back control of your mornings.

I’ve Graduated, Now What?

I published a post that I’m so proud of on how to survive life after graduating college. One night, shortly after publishing that very post, I began to think just that.

What am I gonna do after I graduate? Who do I want to become?

The future is so uncertain and it’s an uneasy feeling.

Not knowing 100% what the next step will be.

Throughout the past four years of being in college, I’ve become so familiar with the lifestyle I created that the lifestyle turned into a set routine.

The new chapter of my life is still unknown but the pen is in my hands. Only I can write my next chapter.

Positive Mindset

If you wake up with a positive mindset, everything will just fall into place. All you gotta do is loom forward.

When times get tough or whenever I’m feeling stressed out, I can be consumed with what has occurred in the past that it became difficult for me to move forward and focus on the present or what’s to come in the future.

I also wrote a post on reflecting each day in a positive way. As long as I can remember, I would always be asked: “What is something good that happened to you today?” “What is something bad that happened to you today? How can we turn it into a positive and learn from it?” To this day as a new adult, I still ask myself this because it’s better to look at the positives than the negatives. With each negative comes a learning experience or a life lesson that we take with us as it makes us grow to become the best version of ourselves.

Support Systems

I’m realizing how important it is to have a support system when following your passion.

When you’re surrounded by positive people that inspire you daily, you tend to exuberate positive vibes/energy. Whenever I talk to good friends,  I tend to be in a better mood and feel empowered.

When having a good support system, it can be life changing.

As a creator, as a blogger, I feel like sometimes I’m alone because I’m doing something that not your typical South Asian is or should pursue, like Engineering or Medicine.  As a digital creative, it can sometimes feel like you’re bound to fail. But since I’ve become more serious about blogging. I’ve met people within the blogging community that have been super supportive and encouraging.

I feel like what I’m doing is worth it. That by following my passion for writing and blogging, I’m making myself happy. I’m thinking creatively and critically whenever I come up with new content. I’m teaching myself all about social media management and digital media. Creating content is becoming an art.

Blogging Doubts

Sometimes I feel like there are not enough hours in the day to get my work done.  It’s crunch time and it’s as if I can hardly breathe when trying to accomplish everything that needs to be done with not enough time to do it.

Along with being overwhelmed with school, the same feeling goes toward blogging as well. I’ve gotten the sense that I should be doing more with the blog and having doubts on whether I could make something of this blog and turn it into a full-time career or do something in this field as a job.

I’ve turned to my blogging mother figure, Raj Thandi of Pink Chai Living and The South Asian Buzz. Bingeing on her content really out things into perspective for me.

As I watched her video called 6 Years of Blogging and Some Thoughts on Feeling Successful, there were three things that she said that really struck me.

1.  Anytime you spend perfecting your craft and improving yourself is not wasted
2. The measure of success is what makes you happy, what moves you forward in your career and creates opportunities for you.
3. Give yourself permission to be happy and give yourself permission to be successful

Reading her posts What Does Self Care Really Mean? and Let’s Catch Up (Over Chai Of Course) made me reflect on why I choose to write a self-care blog and that it’s okay to take some time off to regroup with life

Learning New Skills

“Anytime you spend on perfecting your craft is not wasted” – Raj Thandi

As a creative, I always like learning anything new or exciting that could be beneficial in enhancing my creative skills. Also keeping mind that I am still a college student, money can be tight at times. I like to invest in courses that I know are credible  and will actually work

My favorites are the free courses that are meant for creatives, or specifically, digital creatives like myself.

This past summer, I discovered Brit + Co, which is pretty much a creative’s dream. They have lifestyle articles and post that range from beauty and style to home decor and relationships. The site is flowing with great creative content.

What they also have multiple ranges of classes to enhance a creative’s skills to perfect their art and gain new knowledge on skills that they might not have known ever existed.

The classes are about $20-$50 roughly. But there’s also a page for just free courses that are available to purchase. When I say it’s free, I really do mean FREE. There’s no added cost for shipping because the classes are online.

It’s mostly sponsored by some tech or delivering company. But just because it says it’s sponsored doesn’t mean it’s not worth a look.

From my experience, it’s just courses that Brit + Co. already offer. But only for a limited time, it becomes free to purchase.  Even after, the free period to purchase is over, it’s yours to keep when the prices go back up.

The courses are taught by professionals so you are actually learning from the best.

Social Media Cleanse

I’ve changed my ideology when it comes to who I choose to follow on social media. I unfollowed a lot of people on Instagram due to loss of contact and loss of interest in their lives.

The first reason being because we had lost contact and it was a struggle to always chat and get together in person. I like talking to people face-to-face or in person. If distance or conflicting schedules is an issue then FaceTiming and texting somewhat frequently. It feels good to be updated on people’s lives when they actually tell you rather than via social media. People’s lives are filtered on social media and personally, hearing what’s going on in people’s lives from the source

It feels good to be updated on people’s lives when they actually tell you rather than via social media. People’s lives are filtered on social media and hearing what’s going on in people’s lives from the source gives off a more personal sensation and sometimes you experience it like you were there with them in that moment.

The second reason being that something happened where I don’t have the same positive feelings that I had for that person when I initially followed them on media.

Before and After

Scrolling through social media is what I did when I was bored and seeing people do more exciting things and having exciting lives gave me major FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out).

Call it a social media cleanse if you will. I unfollowed people whose posts weren’t beneficial to me, didn’t evoke a positive or inspirational sensation inside me, and I just scrolled past without a care in the world.

After doing this, I’ve seen a definite change in my outlook on life.

I now follow people whose content makes me think about life with a forward-looking mindset as well as influence, inspire, and motivate me to be a better individual both in my personal and professional lives.

There was a negative side effect of my mini social media cleanse.

A few people contacted me wondering if I was mad at them for some reason because they saw that I unfollowed them.  They took it personally, although it was never my intention to come across as mean, but it made me think.

It is not the end of the world if people unfollow or unfriend you on social media. There are bigger and more important issues occurring throughout the world.

You can have 10,000 followers/friends but out of those 10,000 people, how many of them would come to your aid at the drop of a hat should something terrible happen? Only a handful right? There was a life before social media.

“Use social media to show who you are and what you stand for” – Jessica Nazarali

 The Power of a Nap

It’s the end of the semester and that means it’s final exam season. When finals approach, it’s not uncommon to pull a lot of late nights and all-nighters. I am no exception by only getting 2-3 hours of sleep a night.

This season,  I’m sporting dark circles under my baggy eyes, no makeup, glasses and wearing the same pairs of sweats. The library has become my new home as I become a temporary hermit.

When in college or university, one thing that you learn is that cat naps and power naps become your best friend.

Sure, I could go through the rest of my day but I would have little to no energy to accomplish what needed to be done.

Normally for an energy boost, I would take a 10-20 minute cat nap which would give me enough energy to power through the rest of my night.

If my schedule permits, during the day I will take 2-3 hour naps to just get me through the rest of the day if I end up not sleeping the night before. I woke up feeling glorious, energized and ready to conquer the tasks I had set for the day.