End of 21 Day Challenge
20 days back, I set a goal to write an article a day and share it with readers. It was with the thought that sharing would also confirm the commitment from my side. It helped. Next day till noon while I had not been able to write a single word, some people pinged saying that they were waiting for the article. It was enough to trigger the process. After completing the write up it occurred to me that I could do more. I could have more goals which I could share and turn it into a larger social experiment. The additional goals were removing excessive sugar intake, doing 100 suryanamaskars at one time and meditation. The response from the readers and people around was beyond all my expectations.
The writing was done on mixed subjects. Some of the subjects were based on my own field of work i.e. agriculture and farming, but in this interlinked world, I think these subjects are of concern to everybody. Before doing this as a challenge, most of the subjects were in my head and I had not dealt with them explicitly. The writing helped me to develop better clarity of thoughts. Readers also shared some interesting information, their own thoughts, points for improvement, and suggestions for further work.
Doing 100 suryanamaskars at a time brought some different challenges, as it required getting up early and spending considerable time on it. Although I could reach it, I think more practice and perfection was needed and that gave scope for lot of extra work. The larger impact of this particular goal was that some readers also started on it. Some reported that their original goal was strengthened because of it. One reader reported that she was able to motivate her son to do Suryanamaskars after reading the article.
Another goal which I initially thought was the most challenging one was reducing excess sugar. In fact it turned out to be simpler. Since I have been regularly following a diet plan that requires me to have only two meals a day, it was simpler to avoid any extra sugary food between those meals. It used to require continuous reminding for remaining away from sugar but since I was not visiting anybody and remaining at home most of the times there was no question of social pressure. It caused a small problem which was overcome eventually. My wife had made laddoos and I had already firmly told her that I was not going to eat them. She prepared special sugarless laddoos for me which I ended up eating them with chutney.
Meditation was tough one. I had only set a goal of doing meditation. I had not defined for how long, when during the day and how. Since it is a process goal and not something where you reach a certain number, I think these points were important. I have to work on these points further. One interesting part of the meditation is paying attention on the moment where you are in. It might be just sitting, watching, eating or working. Like you try to focus on breath, you will realise that the thoughts of the past or the future will always try to take over the present moment and that moment is elusive.
While maintaining physical distancing, people seem to be very busy socially. They are connecting through video chats, their messages are buzzing continuously and the work from home is being done in addition to the work for home. May be all this could drain out the batteries so instead of looking outward what others are into, it will be good to switch off and turn inwards for a while.
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The writing was done on mixed subjects. Some of the subjects were based on my own field of work i.e. agriculture and farming, but in this interlinked world, I think these subjects are of concern to everybody. Before doing this as a challenge, most of the subjects were in my head and I had not dealt with them explicitly. The writing helped me to develop better clarity of thoughts. Readers also shared some interesting information, their own thoughts, points for improvement, and suggestions for further work.
Doing 100 suryanamaskars at a time brought some different challenges, as it required getting up early and spending considerable time on it. Although I could reach it, I think more practice and perfection was needed and that gave scope for lot of extra work. The larger impact of this particular goal was that some readers also started on it. Some reported that their original goal was strengthened because of it. One reader reported that she was able to motivate her son to do Suryanamaskars after reading the article.
Another goal which I initially thought was the most challenging one was reducing excess sugar. In fact it turned out to be simpler. Since I have been regularly following a diet plan that requires me to have only two meals a day, it was simpler to avoid any extra sugary food between those meals. It used to require continuous reminding for remaining away from sugar but since I was not visiting anybody and remaining at home most of the times there was no question of social pressure. It caused a small problem which was overcome eventually. My wife had made laddoos and I had already firmly told her that I was not going to eat them. She prepared special sugarless laddoos for me which I ended up eating them with chutney.
Meditation was tough one. I had only set a goal of doing meditation. I had not defined for how long, when during the day and how. Since it is a process goal and not something where you reach a certain number, I think these points were important. I have to work on these points further. One interesting part of the meditation is paying attention on the moment where you are in. It might be just sitting, watching, eating or working. Like you try to focus on breath, you will realise that the thoughts of the past or the future will always try to take over the present moment and that moment is elusive.
While maintaining physical distancing, people seem to be very busy socially. They are connecting through video chats, their messages are buzzing continuously and the work from home is being done in addition to the work for home. May be all this could drain out the batteries so instead of looking outward what others are into, it will be good to switch off and turn inwards for a while.
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