Tags
#21earlydays, Being Adaptable, Being Patient, Being Thankful, Experiential Learning, Self-awareness
Hard as this week may have been, I decided to honor my commitment; woke up at 4:30am every week day except for Monday (forgot to set my alarm). Definitely the momentum hasn’t been the same compared to the first five days, as I had to cut down on what I could do to a knee injury. So not as sexy a week as I had hoped for, but important takeaways from it. It is funny how lessons I mentioned in my last blog got tested this week, and boy it wasn’t easy.
Being Thankful: Sometimes it is very easy to focus on those things that frustrate us or those that are negative. I spent a lot of time this week feeling unpleasant because I kept focusing on the negative stuff. But I am being reminded to be thankful and appreciative of the many pleasant and positive things in my life and around me. Being confined in my house has helped me appreciate the legs I always just drag around and never think much about, I have learnt to appreciate the rest of my body that is all functional. And hearing of all the things going on around the world; how many are living in very fear and in dangerous or unpleasant situations not out of their own making, I realize I have so much to be thankful for. I look at my condition and realize there is little to complain about, probably nothing at all, yet there is so much more to be thankful for! So take some time today, this week, and be thankful of your life, your body, your family, friends, experiences, even the fact that you can read this blog (meaning you have internet or technology that works), and all the many things that seem simple, yet enriches your life in many ways which others may not have.
Learning to Adapt: Last week I talked about ‘Planning Ahead’ and how it is key to achieving one’s goals. What has become clear this week is that while planning ahead is in most cases easy, reality can change without notice and it is this change in reality that can be difficult to manage in order to still achieve one’s goals. Each day this week turned out differently; some days harder than others and some days I was in more pain than others. So I had to adapt to the different realities I found myself in each day. I had to find ways of accommodating my plans while acknowledging everything else that was going in. If I needed to sleep to ease pain, I’d do so and then find other ways to get work done or postpone it to another day.
Learning to Manage Emotions/Feelings. Another lesson from last week was about recognizing that each day’s experience is different and learning to embrace it. It’s funny that this week each day was definitely a different experience, especially at an emotional level. One day I’d wake up feeling motivated, and the next I’d be feeling so crappy and frustrated. Was it easy to overcome the unpleasant moments? No! In fact, I did not overcome them. Acknowledging the fact that I was feeling either happy or crappy was a good start, and then I had to find ways of managing the emotions to not get out of control- hard, but doable.
Being Patient: Very hard! I was frustrated this week because I felt trapped being home and unable to go to places or use my legs normally, etc. But if I am not patient, this knee will not heal and I may never do the things I want to be doing. So while it sucks, being patient is the only way. It is hard to be patient in many situations, but if that’s what will get us the intended results, we need to learn to be patient.
You may be asking what I accomplished this week from waking up at 4:30am? Well, I did quite a bit, but right now for me, the lessons (some of which I am sharing in these blogs) are proving to be more important than the accomplishments. I am thrilled about achieving my goals and will continue working towards them, but it is the experience; the journey itself and the lessons in it, that will help me become a better person than I was before.
As others around the world celebrate Thanksgiving this week, it is a perfect opportunity to ask ourselves, ‘what am I thankful for? Feel free to share in the comments section below, it may encourage someone.