Sneek peeks into my daily journal.

Sharing few pages from my personal diary.

Diary writing can be one of the crucial tools to reflect and instil change in life. It is a method to translate our subconscious thoughts into more structured and mindful conscious communication that has the power of not only establishing communication with the audience but with yourself. It quenches your soul.

Day 1. Being Grateful to Loved Ones. 

Increasing self-esteem requires help from the closed network and friends. I started my journal by performing this important activity of being thankful to people who love you and their presence in your life. This focuses on a more positive attribute of life. Starting with parents, being the constant companions, and I today explicitly thanked them for all the unconditional things they have done for me. I felt great and they also felt happy. I also called my close friends and thanked them for showing me the path and help.

Day 2. Breaking the pattern 

After being grateful, I started with little things like I discarded the old small clothes, started wearing good clothes even inside the house to create positive vibes. I started appreciating more and apologising if I am wrong or I made someone uncomfortable, asking for help whenever I am stuck or whenever I wanted to delegate some work as I realised in this short life you can not do everything for yourself. And I received very good and positive responses. People generally like to help others. Impression management is critically important in maintaining social relationships.

Day 3. Changing the body to change mind. 

Changing the body image and what you feel about yourself impacts the mind due to the body-mind connection. I worked on my eating and sleeping habits. Also started practising yoga by taking help from my mother as she served as a yoga teacher for 38 years and just retired. Took her help in maintaining the diet including the superfoods, replaced the oil with olive oil, practising meditation and control on thoughts. I religiously followed a strict routine and it showed positive results in my Fitbit tracker and in performing daily activities.

Day 4. Recognizing Accomplishments

Life can be hard if we tend to focus on negative events. To increase self-esteem it's imperative to recognize milestones achieved. During my meditation, I thought about all the positive things. To start, I felt grateful for the constant good markings during my masters. Getting As in subjects definitely boosts confidence and it's a loop in itself. I also realised that managing work and studies is not an easy task, especially during pandemic situations. So I focused on how people and friends gave compliments of my hard work and management style. I always took it as a compliment and replied to them-‘You gotta do what you got to do’.

Day 5. Decluttering Life & Mind 

I today learnt the art of minimalism. The concept resonates with my personality and it compliments my vibe. In Marie Kondo style, I today thanked the older stuff which I was not using and kept only those things which brought me joy. This was the hardest activity as letting go of things are not easy. Clearing the clutter made space for meaningful and necessary things. It also affected my mind as I also created a mental space and so I can focus and maintain a few and important things only.

Day 6. Forgetting Rejections 

Rejections can fluctuate self-esteem so drastically and this was the theme for day 6. Remembering my experience of being friends with IIT Bombay people and mentioning them here is important to understand the context. I observed that these bunch of friends constantly seek to improve and learn new things ‘every single day’. They also have this tendency to focus on their own lives. These people avoided thinking for other people and remained fixed on their values which helped in remaining focused on their tasks and life. During emotional times, they combat by either escaping in their studies or being vocal about things. They did not keep things in their heart and never assumed things. Rejections also happen in their life but there is a minute difference which I noticed, they don't give much energy to rejections. They keep calm and remain in the flow. I today inculcated this kind of behaviour and also entertained people if they have some direct concern or need help from me.

Day 7. Wrapping up in boldness 

Today I wanted to achieve substantial and tangible goals in my goal achievements by applying what I learned. After feeling positive about my body, feeling light after decluttering things from life and mind, forgetting rejections, feeling grateful, I accumulated courage and asked one potential match for the date meeting today. I wanted to express my interest in the alliance. I focused on my self-presentation, carefully choosing positive words, mirroring his actions, listening to him carefully. Also communicating that I have high self-esteem, I courageously asked him. He smiled and said yes in return. This was a major self-confidence and self-esteem boost in itself.

Maintaining a diary are writing every day is a form of meditation. It gives a necessary pause in a day during which you reflect and get into that zone. I hope this excerpt will inspire the writing enthusiasts to maintain their own diary.