Consistency & discipline is not always kind

It's been a painful uphill battle of trying to regain my confidence, find reason to take on each new day and feel comfortable in my own body + mind. But I'm starting to see the light -- some hope, if you may.

This comes after a year of reading books, listening to talks, attending classes, watching shows, meeting practitioners, journaling and so much more. All to try to figure out the point in life. It's mostly been a task to convince myself that life is worthy, and that I'm worthy of life.

I could write endlessly about the past year (and I probably will, try and stop me), but what I feel need to be said today is that the traits of being consistent and disciplined aren't always the answer.

I'm a sucker for self-help tips and listicles, you know the ones that give you a succinct blow-by-blow of what you need to start doing to be happier. Pure sucker for that shit and proud of it. Many of these listicles are repetitive by nature because how many ways can you describe how to peel an apple, right? The one advice I felt I haven't connected with in a long while is that in order to see results, we need to be disciplined and regular because we are creatures of habit, it's necessary to keep on keeping on, regularity makes the task easier, etc.

All that's good advice perhaps for most people, but for those who struggle to keep the pace -- I just want to make it known that you're not alone and you're not a hopeless excuse for the space you take up. There are seasons in life when you're a raging machine and discipline for everything courses through your pores. I've been that person. I've also been that person where that very same disciple just doesn't stick no matter what you try. And that is normal. You've given it a few tries, you failed and beat yourself up for not being a disciplined bone bag yet again.

In my case, the thing that is truly has not stuck with my for the past year is regular exercise. I used to be a daily yoga girl. Sometimes even twice a day. For the life of me, I can't conjure it back into consistent existence. Then I allowed myself to realise that I'm a different person every single day. Some days, my body feels the need to move. So I move. Be it a ridiculous dance, basic stretching, just jumping up and down and shaking - whatever works at that time and place is what I'll take. Some days, I need to write pages and pages in my journal. So I do it. Some days, I need to stuff my face endlessly. So I do it. Some days, I need to doom scroll. Ah who am I kidding, that one I have the disciple to do any day.

Sometimes, kindness lies in not following the blow-by-blow of other people's advice. It's the same principle behind "don't knock it till you've tried it". You've tried it, likely multiple times, but there's no grip. And it's hard to say you have no discipline just because of that one thing you can't seem to push yourself to achieve every single day. How about focusing on the things that you are disciplined about -- maybe it's that you feed your pets the very moment you wake up every day? Or that non-negotiable thing you have about all the dishes being done before bed every day? Or that taking a shower is a consistent thing you cannot shake? Tweak the narrative in your head just a touch. Be kind to yourself whenever you can.

The Failing Kind

It's 2023 and I find it appropriate that I'm vomiting this 2 days after what's known as World Mental Health Day. I didn't bother looking up this year's theme or focus because who has the space for that. But I'm guessing what I'd like to write about is not too far from general mental health discussions. I'd like to talk about failure.

I applaud people's wins and achievements as loudly as the next person. Ok I lie, I'd probably cheer louder than anyone in the room. Here's the conflict: can we applaud, accept and admit failure the same -- because damnit, it's hard to fail too. You work super hard, put in all your effort but end up failing. Can you still flash a genuinely happy and fulfilled smile? I know I can because I did.

I recently tried my hand at learning something new. This one's a little out of the ordinary because I opted to take a 3-day course outside Singapore. Freediving is all the chatter in my monkey mind (I dramatically blame an early mid-life crisis for this fascination), so I thought heck I'll give it a go. I'll make space to drop the juice dets in a later post, but long story short, I failed the course terribly. Yet I was elated because I tried hard and gave it my best shot. To be completely frank, I was genuinely happy midway through my confirmwillfail course. It was unusual but pure liberation.

This cued the start of my cascade of unashamed admissions of failure. It's as if I've waited forever to be able to flat out say (with full confidence), "I failed". After said failed course, I started taking a realistic look at my daily life. Hot damn, my list of daily failures is impossible for any PR spin. I fail multiple times on the damn daily. Take today for example: I failed at staying awake during what was meant to be 'meditation time', failed at having a healthy breakfast (fully sweetened tea and a deep fried samosa isn't healthy right, just checking?) & failed to shave my woolly mammoth legs. Those are the failures as of 3:45pm, just you wait -- the day is young! It's not intentional, if that's what that little voice in your head is saying. It's real. And I like it. This is an interesting place and time where I'm both confident and scared enough to embrace my daily failures. Can I take that as a win? 😜

*PS: Wrote the crux of this post in my handphone notes on 12 October 2023, edited for clarity and published today

That Kind Barista

Been falling off the wagon with trying to limit my spending at coffee houses. A little compulsive with the lattes recently.

Nice baristas lessen the guilt a bit. Just a nice amount of eye contact and sing-song way of letting you know when your drink's ready can make an impact on the rest of your day. Being nice back really helps too.

My kind of way to start the day.