Srishti Kumari

Tag: showing up

  • Getting Ready Helps Me

    And I am definitely happy for this change

    Photo by nikhil uttam on Unsplash

    Since the arrival of spring this new year, I have started doing one thing, and it is helping me a lot internally in showing up every day. And that thing is “getting ready for the day”. Nothing fancy or fashionista type. Just getting ready.

    So, what I have started doing is as soon as I wake up, within 2-3 hours, depending on the exercise duration and assistance in house cleaning and cooking, I get ready.

    I bathe, do my haircare and skincare, put on my clean and colourful clothes according to my mood, wear a few pieces of jewellery, and apply my favourite shade of nude lipstick and a small bindi on my forehead. It goes well with my Indian/ethnic attire, which I am frequently wearing these days.

    After getting properly ready for the day ahead, I usually express my gratitude to the universe for having my back and always helping and loving me unconditionally.

    This morning thing of getting ready intentionally and thanking the universe for all the blessings in my life kind of just shifts the whole body language and energy inside me. My mind gets the message that now I am ready for the day, and I will sit and work in my study for a good few hours. It helps in carrying on on the days when I feel I can’t do much. Even reading a few pages of a book on such days counts as something done. Getting ready helps me in achieving those small things with a relatively better state of mind.

    I have started getting ready for myself. For my work. For my growth. For the future me. I show up for my future self. It helps me in taking small steps every day in the right direction.

    I didn’t know that getting ready intentionally, and thanking generally, when done intentionally, can be really effective. For me, it is working quite well. Especially in terms of energy that I feel inside. It is definitely a lot healthier and more positive as compared to the days when I used to wake up late and start reading or watching podcasts in my pyjamas. The effect on mood is real.

    And I am happy that I started this at the right time. Spring, I think, is the best time for us as well to gain momentum and really change the things we need to change. It works.

    What about you? Have you started doing anything that has changed your approach towards your day and work in particular? I would love to know any such stories. Please share them in the comments below.

    Happy living.

    Take care.

  • Tenacity

    An Old Reminder

    Image by Abhinav Anand

    Tenacity – A new word, an old reminder.

    “Tenacity is a quality that we could all do with; that is, the ability to continue to do something for longer than might be expected. In other words, don’t give up easily. Finish that project. Complete that task. Finish that race even if you are coming in last. Stick with your ambitions; work towards them. Hold on to life, to that steep mountain slope. There’s always something you can do.”

    The above paragraph is from the book “How to Live Your Life” by Ruskin Bond.

    A few days back, I picked up this beautiful, cute little book to re-read. The first time I read it was a few years back. I picked it up and started reading this beautiful piece by one of India’s most-loved authors, which opens with a letter from the author himself.

    The colourful pages, beautiful fonts, amazing illustrations, and creative designs make the reading far more joyful and immersive.

    Ruskin Bond has shared nuggets of wisdom in this book. It truly feels like a letter from your grandpa on how to live your life. It has the warmth, love, practical advice, and inspiration to dream big and live your life fully as long as you are alive here.

    Among all those beautiful pages filled with tips, lessons, and advice, this one particularly resonated with me the most this time. It happens. As they say, we read a book for the first time every time we read it again. This time, it felt like I was reading this particular page for the first time. I read it slowly. I paused. I re-read it multiple times. I thought about it. And then I knew it was meant to come across. I needed this. I needed this reminder.

    Tenacity. Just a little more push. A little more showing up. A little more faith in your journey to keep going towards your dreams, your truth, every day.

    I enjoyed rereading this amazing piece this time, and I know I will reread it again someday for sure. Till then, I am holding onto tenacity. I am holding on to life, beautifully.

    What is that one book you read or reread recently that talked to you like mine did? Share your stories, please.

    Happy reading. Happy living.

    Take care.

  • The Gift of Being Unseen

    Or, thoda kam seen

    Photo by Swello on Unsplash

    You know, yesterday, I was going through my LinkedIn, and I read a post that really made me think and see things a bit differently. This post came in my feed because I am following someone who writes and publishes regularly on LinkedIn on various topics, in various tones, and I love her writing as a reader.

    Yesterday, she had commented on this post – the post I am talking about, and that’s how I got to see the post on my feed.

    And the gist of the post was, what I got at least is, you know, we crib about not getting enough likes, weak online presence, and shallow engagements online, and then we try to change our content strategy to fix everything. But what if, instead of taking this online dip negatively, we start enjoying the algorithm changes (if you believe that’s the case for the dip anyway).

    Let’s say you are posting on LinkedIn regularly and still seeing the numbers not going upward. Fine. Now, while you are cribbing about it and thinking of stopping posting, what if you take this as an opportunity to experiment? Right now, you can tweak, modify, audit, edit, try new forms, and sizes of content aligned with your brand. You can, for a few days, just take it lightly and have fun with it – see, the experiment will make you free from control, and it will eventually allow you to be more creative, flexible, and better with your work.

    I can understand that your clients’ account is your job, but experimenting with and trying the second method will only strengthen the understanding and expectations for both parties.

    Each changing point, each feedback is a data point. And data points change. The willingness to try, the curiosity to understand the gaps in storytelling, combined with the courage to take the risk, can bring the good, better, and maybe best in the long term.

    And if it’s your personal account, and you are trying to build an online presence, visibility, and a credible and premium personal brand online, then please go ahead and take risks. Numbers will go up and down. Even people with 4 lakhs and 5 lakhs followers sometimes lose lakhs of followers in a month. That’s totally fine.

    Your clarity, your creativity, your depth, your thought process, your ideas, your story, your history, your vision, your work process, your unique ways to keep going and taking pause whenever you need – in short, it’s you and your values that are going to attract those 100 true fans and the superb community you deserve. And when they show up, each like, dislike, impression, views, dips, everything will make sense to you.

    Till then, just focus on finding your voice – your unique, original, incredible, powerful voice and narratives you have to share with everyone. The rest will be taken care of.

    Happy experimenting. Happy exploring.

  • Some Days, I Feel A Bit Clueless

    And maybe that’s okay.

    Photo by Laura Chouette on Unsplash

    Some days, like today, I feel a bit clueless. I mean, I have my tasks to do. My to-do task list for the next 10 days is kept in front of me. And I know the importance of this work very well.

    I have to write, prepare, and schedule a few – actually a lot of pieces for my blog, write a few medium articles, prepare a good amount of LinkedIn pieces, and all of this has to be completed on time. All of the writing, editing, proofreading, scheduling, publishing – everything is part of my plan to make my writing, my stories, my articles more visible online to create a valuable and reliable personal brand for myself in the long run.

    And this bigger picture and purpose make it even more important for me to show up. But I feel that “no two days will ever be the same” is actually a reminder for me. You know, I created 9 blog post pieces and 1 LinkedIn post – a total of 10 stories just the day before yesterday. And I can’t tell you how amazing I felt. I gave myself the freedom to just write the stories that come to my mind for the blog you are reading now, and boom! I happily, very happily, wrote nine stories in a single day – within 8 hours. The drafts have been saved, and I am editing and publishing them with each coming day.

    But yesterday, I didn’t feel that energy. And the maximum I managed to do was to edit two drafts and publish them. And, I am fine with it. I still have the next ten days to complete my tasks, and it’s fine.

    But today, oh god! Today, I have opened my laptop at 3:30 pm – sooooooooo late! And that too, after convincing myself enough that there’s no need to make it perfect, just show up! And that is what I am doing right now. Just showing up.

    And if you will get to know that this particular writing is the third one in my effort to show up today, and I have already scribbled and saved two drafts, then maybe you will understand the power of showing up. At least I am convinced by the power of just showing up. Good work, better work, best work, excellent work, extraordinary performance – everything will come, once you make it a point to show up. Show up unprepared. Show up with confusion. Show up with half-baked stories. Show up with a clueless feeling you have with you since morning. Just show up.

    Maybe you were clueless because some days, life decides to make you show up first and let the cluelessness fade away in the light of the day. Maybe. Who knows!

    That’s why I think, some days, it’s ok to feel a bit clueless. I think our cluelessness comes to softly nudge us towards something better. And for me, it was to show up. It was, for me, to open my laptop and write six pieces – six personal stories/ blog pieces/ blog posts without too much thinking, and see, it’s been 1 hour and 20 minutes, and I am already about to finish my third story.

    Yeah, only drafts, not the edited, proofread, polished one. Just drafts. And that works.

    Taking small steps every day to build the life, career, finances, and everything of your dreams sometimes may also feel like this. Just remember, you are only feeling clueless. You are not clueless. Go to your why. Go to your what. And figure out your how for today. You can do it. I believe in you.

    Show up happily. Show up peacefully. Show up cluelessly. That’s okay. Just show up!

    Take care.