Do you struggle with routines and rigidity? Here are six things to help you prepare for and make practical new-year goals and achieve them.

Do you struggle with routines and rigidity? Here are six things to help you prepare for and make practical new-year goals and achieve them.

Posted by Overthinking Aquarian on December 15, 2021 in attainable goals, goals vs. resolutions, goalsetting, growth mindset, new year 2022, new year goals, new year new start, new year resolutions,

Doesn't it feel like 2020 and 2021 got clubbed together and it felt like an insanely loooong year! Aren't you glad, 2022 is just a fortnight away!

One thing that many people, including me, tend to do is expect to have a clean start from the new year. In the euphoria of ringing the new year, we try to come up with new year resolutions. But 80% of the time, these may not last longer than few weeks.

Here's the thing! Things won't magically change just because you are starting with a new page in a brand new calendar. Fitness, diet, Daily routines etc., are the most common new year resolutions one can make. Because in theory, these can be easy goals to attain, but practically and in reality, if you are someone who has struggled with these things before, then probability is that just making a new year resolution will not help. 

"Make Goals, Not Resolutions"

Resolutions are like blind dates, you might not have thought it through, you don't know what you are dealing with. It may or may not click. 

Goals on the other hand are clearly defined objectives that you have thought through and are open to make changes as you go.

I personally struggle a lot with fixed routines. I thrive on flexibility and having rigid goals tends to weigh me down. Instead I have a loose plan with a to-do list and try to strike off as many as I can for the day. 

So if you are someone like me, wanting to have a clean start for the new year, but struggle with resolutions and routines, here are few things we can do.

• Brighten your physical space:
• Declutter and organize your immediate surroundings as per your needs. Having an organized and clean space definitely helps minimize distractions. 

• Lighten your mental load:
• Declutter and leave behind any heavy unwanted emotional baggage from your head. You know it is unwanted, you know it is not worth it. So leave them behind and move forward with only the ones that you really need to work on. 

• Know what works for you:
• Keep expectations practical and do-able. For a goal to be attainable, you need to have a plan - split your goal into tasks and create check-lists to achieve them. Write them down. You don't need fancy planners, just your phone, tablet or computer would do. I personally use google apps (calendar, to-do list, planner etc.,) and have everything synced up on my phone for easy access. 

• What is the nature of your goal?: Understanding the nature of your goal can help you further in knowing what works for you and setting your own expectations regarding time-lines. 
• A lifestyle change like exercise, good diet, self-care type of a goal - These type of goals are not something you want to do for one year and then leave. You are in it for the long term.
• Career/job change or self building type of a goal - These type of goals are achieved once the result is obtained. But these also tend to have time-lines and can involve a lot of external factors.
• Skill building: If you are looking to learn some-thing new or build a skill - key is to set time apart for it and be consistent. 
• Reviving old/picking up new hobbies: Something on the easier side, a form of self-care this is something everyone should try to do as ideally, this type of goal should be free of any stress/pressure.

• The little things matter:
• Focus on the little things that lead you to your goal. Usually, goals are the final result of what we want to achieve and this is what we tend to focus on a lot. But it is more important to focus the little things we need to do that will lead us to our goal.

(For example, if my goal is to wake up early every day, I first need to sleep early the night before and for that, I need to wrap up my day/chores the night before. I cannot expect to wake up at 6 AM, when I have not slept until past midnight.)

• Don't be afraid to reset and restart: It is not easy for everyone to be consistent and work towards these goals every single day. If you falter or stop in between, do not quit. Pause, reset if you need to, but don't be afraid to restart again. You are not in a race with anybody. 

Lastly, Don't spend the last few days of 2021 as the 'end' of something. Rather, treat the last few days as a head-start to a NEW year, new start. Make preparations for any changes you want to make.  

I want to reiterate that it doesn't matter if you want to start on January 1st or February 28th.  The above five tips can help you start fresh any time of the year. If you really want to turn a new leaf, why wait for the new year, when you can have a fresh new start tomorrow? 

 

  

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"The aftermath of social distancing for a year" - A working mom's perspective

"The aftermath of social distancing for a year" - A working mom's perspective

Posted by Overthinking Aquarian on November 09, 2021 in hardtruthofparenting, momblog, momblogger, momlife, whatsocialdistancingdoestoyou, workingmom, workingmomlife,

I am ever so grateful that the pandemic was a mere inconvenience in my life , albeit for an extended period, but still something that did not cause me any personal loss or grief.  As we are slowly moving into some better times after the unprecedented times during the pandemic, there has been this one thing lingering in my mind for quite a few months. - How the pandemic emotionally and mentally affected mothers, more so, working mothers. 

In the peak of the pandemic, worried parents everywhere were trying to find groups to form a social bubble. Well, since both my kids were going to daycare, we weren't really part of any neighborhood social bubbles. As a result, we hardly got to socialize with any neighbors. We even could not meet our own friends who were also social distancing themselves owing to young kids and older grandparents at home. 

Undoubtedly, after a few weeks it got overwhelming for us parents and also my then 4-year-old son who was pretty much bored of seeing our faces day in and day out. Even as a kid going to daycare, my poor little son had very minimal interaction with his peers because kids were asked to wear masks and be 3 feet apart at all times. So imagine my heart break when he used to come home, still with abundant energy, sulking that he has no one to play with - while I was also taking care of an infant. 

It felt like an extremely long period of time where I was struggling as a mother unable to provide the social interactions my child needs, and at the same time, I was myself struggling to find a social circle of my own in my immediate neighborhood. 

Not to forget, I was both physically and emotionally overwhelmed constantly with my kids and the never-ending house chores. After a long day of work, I also genuinely did not have the time/nor any energy left in me, to go out during the evenings to hang out with other moms who came out to the local park with their kids. While I was stuck on zoom meetings, I envied the stay-at-home moms who came out to the local parks in the late afternoon and at least got to interact with other moms while their kids ran around the playground. 

Finally, a year later, the bubble broke and people went back to socializing normally again. But my apprehensions came true - I realized that I missed a lot of interactions in the past one year. Families who were part of these intimate social bubbles for the past year really got to bond over and become friends. And I, on the other hand had to begin from scratch, approach people, get to know them and if possible befriend a mom or two. 

If you are a mom to young kids, you may know how hard it is to make new mom friends. 

Imagine a kid who had good friends in school and a neighborhood and the parents suddenly had to move and the kids now had to leave behind their old school and friends and enter a totally new place and start from scratch - making friends and that too with others who are already a group of friends. 

I felt exactly like that young school kid who despite having friends of her own, had to start from scratch again to make "mom" friends - a.k.a other mom's who had kids of similar age group and somewhat of a compatible mindset.

A year later, I am not exaggerating when I say I am still struggling to find and a compatible group of mom friends.

I really wish it was not this hard to make new mom friends, because at the end of the day we are all moms, with a goal to enrich our kids with good social interactions and win-win if we can genuinely bond and ourselves become friends. 

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Sibling Comparison - A Conscious Parenting Insight

Sibling Comparison - A Conscious Parenting Insight

Posted by Overthinking Aquarian on September 30, 2021 in conscious parenting, mindful parenting, mom with young kids. mommingandmore, motherhood, sibling comparison, sibling relationship, Sibling rivalry, workingmomblog,

Few months ago, it was dinner time. I had a lot of work to finish, I was desperate to wrap up the day and put the kids to bed. My daughter was already done with her dinner. But my son was taking his own sweet time to finish his meal. 

My son has always been a slow eater. It can take 45 minutes to an hour for him to finish his meal. Most days, I let him eat at his own pace. 

But that day, I was already exhausted after a long day of work and I still had more to do. Frustrated, I yelled - “How long does it take for you to finish your dinner? Look at your sister, she is already done. She is better than you!”.

As soon as I uttered these words, I regretted it. “Did I just tell my 4-year-old (at that time), that his 15-month-old sister was better than him.?”. 

I looked at him. With teary eyes and a heart-wrenching sad voice, he said - “No! but I want to be better than Mimi”, and cried. 

My mom guilt raised to its peak. I immediately hugged him and said, 

“I am sorry, I did not mean to say that. You don’t have to be better than anybody!”. 

I tried to console him and explained to him as to what made me angry, but how it was still wrong of me to yell. He got extra cuddles and an extra bed time story that night. 

As a conscious millennial parent, I’ve always been mindful about not comparing my kids to other kids.

But it only just dawned on me, that I should be even more mindful about not comparing my own two kids and pitting them against each other. 

It was definitely a teaching moment!

Both my kids have very different personalities, different eating habits, different strengths and weaknesses. 

They are different people, they just have the same parent! 

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