My journey of making mistakes, trying, learning, failing, and standing back up

I hope this inspires and helps you to break the barriers and take daring first steps in your life, to live the life you’ve always wanted to.

Here’s a confession: I’m writing and publishing a blog on my page literally after one year. But that’s not the confession, what I thought would be a month or two-month break from blogging turned out to be a year and I am surprised.

Initially, I needed the break as I was taking my one-month-long treatment at a medical center in Kerala during the months of October and November.

Though my time there went very well, it completely changed the moment I reached my home. I have wanted to shift my home or even move alone for my work in a PG, but being an introvert with peak OCD, I knew sharing the home with flatmates is not an option for me.

The unexplainable phase:

I am calling the months of November to February unexplainable because I am truly not able to explain it to myself.

The moment I returned home after the treatment, my mood changed almost instantly. It was as if the house didn’t want me to be happy or relaxed. I was not able to follow any instructions as my Doctors suggested. I knew I badly wanted to move out of my home and live somewhere, but where, how, and when was a big, fat question mark. You see, when you are a 26-year-old single woman, you have only so many options in your life.

I started shutting away from everyone. I used to work, focus on my freelancing and coaching business, then watch Netflix just so I won’t hear my own thoughts. I was slowly slipping into depression again. My work as a Students Success Coach at HustlePost Academy, the students, and Saloni are the only things that kept me sane throughout the period.

I spoke to my parents and convinced them about my decision to move out. Initially like any good Indian parent, they didn’t understand me. But slowly as they saw how helpless and restless I turned out, they understood that I needed a change.

My parent's house, where I have been living since 2006 felt like a devil's trap for me. That’s the main reason I wanted to shift to another district to do my PG, which in itself turned out to be a nightmare (It’s a story for some other time).

So once they agreed, I started my house hunt on the internet on platforms like no broker and 99 acres. All my effort to vain, I was not able to find a good society isolated from the city in my budget. One day my dad decided to do the house hunt the OG way, and he came back home with 4 options.

I picked the apartment I am currently living in and since it’s 30-minute away from Chennai, I am loving it. I needed this peace and calm in my life so badly. Except for kids playing in the park and swing, there is silence most of the time, at least when I close my windows.

In this 2 bhk house, I have set one room as my Home office and the view from my office is so freaking good for a Chennai apartment.

I am grateful that this change happened to me and my parents for accepting and helping me move. They also did a small puja before moving in, you can watch it here.

So, then what happened?

I moved into this apartment in February 2022 and I loved slowly settling in the place. I had expected a month-long time for myself to adjust to the new normal in my life.

But I didn’t count for all the time recovering after the surgery. So, a few months before and after my surgery I was too tired to cook and do the household chores. But I have been cooking since 7th grade and my OCD really helps with household chores. As both my parents were working, I learned cooking to feed myself and my brother when my parents reached home late.

I could cook both breakfast and lunch for 4 people in just about 1 hour 30 minutes normally. But after moving out, it took almost 3 hours to cook for me and do the basic chores to keep my house clean. I was shocked initially but understood my body needs time adjusting and I have to give it.

So just like that March also passed, and by April I started slowly taking time for my business and launched a workshop. Fast forwarding now, I launched an upgraded version of the workshop just last weekend and it was a success.

Happy moments!

In between my friend visited me a couple of times and we had a good time here, cooking, eating our favorite food, arranging bookshelf and color coding it, watching movies, and gossiping. We even made a full South Indian Tamil Taali and enjoyed it all by ourselves. We also then decided not to cook like this at least for a year, a girl can only cook so much in a year :p :D

Thanks to this online space and lifestyle, I was also able to meet my online friend Ashlesha Nayak. We knew each other via HustlePost Academy and we vibed well from start. We then decided to take the student coach conversation to friendly conversations and exchanged numbers.

Started chatting and talking, to realize we both love similar things in life, similar shows on Netflix, and man, we even almost share our birthdays. She Nov 6 and me Nov 7, guess who was born on Nov 5? Yupe, our mentor Saloni. That was an exciting reveal and I was happy to almost share my birthday with these amazing women.

During our conversations, Ash (that’s how I call her, too lazy to use the full name :p) mentioned she is also looking to move to another city, her hometown is Orissa. I invited her to stay with me for a while and she booked her tickets to Chennai before leaving for Delhi.

Thank you, Universe for listening to us keenly. Absolutely loved spending time with her, visiting places in Chennai, mostly to eat and talk. We even took a small trip to Mahabalipuram and enjoyed our 2 day stay there. I didn’t want to focus my time shooting videos, so here are a few clips from our time together.

Though we felt sad when she had to leave, we were so damn grateful for this lifestyle which made it possible for us to become good friends with total strangers and become a family. As she was also in the southern part of India, our culture and traditions were almost similar and we loved cooking and treating each other to our traditional food. I made Sambar for her and she made Dalma for me, my new favorite and comfort food. We have made plans to travel places and are in the process of manifesting them strongly now.

She visited me in the month of July and August, I closed my eyes for a while and we are now in October. Time and life are strange sometimes. Enough with backstories now, let me share a few lessons I learned along the way with mistakes I made.

Every time I made a mistake, I became a better version of myself:

1. When I underestimated my healing time, I learned how to listen to my body.

2. When I planned my whole month and couldn’t take action early, I learned I need to give the time my body demands to heal.

3. When I hired an intern and kept accepting excuses and project delays just because I don’t want to be strict, I learned in order to grow my business I need to be strict at times, not harsh or unprofessional but strict and professional.

4. When I kept on working even on Sundays without taking a break and realized that I am able to be focused and productive, I learned taking care of myself should always be the priority.

5. When I didn’t give myself a break and was overworking, I learned taking breaks is not unproductive but the best way to recharge my batteries so I can be 10x productive the next day.

The way I have planned to implement my learnings:

1. The first thing I did was journal. I didn’t care or bother about what I was writing, I just kept on scribbling, I wrote what would my ideal day look like, I wrote about one mistake I was making repeatedly and how to avoid doing that, and action steps to take. I wrote a few pages and I felt light and gained clarity.

2. I then instantly opened my Notion (I plan my entire life here) and went to my Goals Tracking sheet. I listed down all the goals I have this last quarter of 2022 and the kind of year I want in 2023.

3. I made an extensive plan and a roadmap for my personal and business goals including my client goals, the kind of result I aim to give them, etc.,

4. I made a plan for my upskilling goals, listed down the courses I want to learn from and finish this quarter, and made a roadmap for the same.

5. I decided that every Saturday will be my CEO day, i.e.when I will focus and work on my business both backend and frontend tasks.

6. I decided to take Sunday completely off, a day for self-care, solo movie dates, meal planning and grocery shopping, expense tracking, and maybe a little upskilling and cooking my favorite dishes.

7. Setting and taking my rewards seriously and gifting myself with a reward that I planned after completing each milestone, and no, not ordering junk food but maybe ordering books and more stationery items :P okay, maybe a little junk food :D but rarely I promise. My health is my priority to me. It should be yours too :)

Changes in my business both coaching and marketing:

1. The first and exciting change is, I have finally done my rebranding. I don’t want to just stick to a few colors but I really like calming and silent pastel colors. I am working on my tone and content too.

2. Stay tuned for a brand new website with new and useful offers.

3. Working on creating something really useful for you guys, planning to keep it absolutely free so everyone can use and benefit from the resource.

4. I have also finally started working on my newsletters, and you will get an update on the same soon. If you want practical and useful tips to become a better person, then look out for my newsletter.

5. I am also working on creating systems to help my clients with the best service in coaching and marketing. I am happy with my plan and progress so far.

I can’t wait for everything to work well & seamlessly this time and to see them all launched.

I am sharing this blog with you in the hopes that, if you have been going through a rough phase in your life, buckle up, good times are your way.

When I needed a complete break, I took it, but other times I kept on showing up doing the bare minimum. Acknowledging that every day will be different from the previous one and the same applies to productivity as well, I was able to stand up back every time I had a fall or a roadblock.

Wishing you the best,

Here’s a small tip: I have been loving working along watching these study with me videos. You can try them too if it would be helpful.

Meet you next week, Until then,

Singing off,

Your good friend,

Abinaya