Awareness Archives - Mridula Singh

Awareness November 14, 2023

What is a Growth Mindset and how to cultivate it?

The word Growth Mindset has finally made its way from the lanes of personal development to mainstream corporate life. You may have heard it recently buzz in your organization comms. However, whenever such a word is popularized, its meaning gets distorted.

For a lot of people Growth Mindset can mean that they have a positive outlook towards life and are open and flexible with their approach towards change. While these maybe be good things to adapt this doesn’t necessarily mean that you have a growth mindset.

Definition of Growth Mindset by Dr. Carol Dweck

The growth mindset is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts. Although people may differ in every which way in their initial talents and aptitudes, interests, or temperaments, everyone can change and grow through application and experience.

In brief, Individuals who believe their talents can be developed (through hard work, good strategies, and input from others) have a Growth Mindset. Whereas, a person with fixed mindset believes that their Intelligence and Talents are innate gifts.

Most of us have a mix of these two mindsets, we may embrace ‘Growth Mindset’ in few areas of lives and ‘Fixed Mindset’ in other.

How it changes your approach towards life is where one mindset is based on Proving yourself the other encourages Learning. If you believe that you are naturally talented and cannot cultivate new talents, then you will simply keep looking for challenges only to label them as Failure or Victory. Whereas in Growth Mindset, you see these ‘Failures’ as ‘Room for Improvement’.

How to Develop a Growth Mindset

Self-Reflect

Assess your current state in life. Do you view yourself as an individual with a growth mindset? Figure out which mindset currently rules your life and which areas of your life can benefit from a growth mindset.

Seek Feedback not Validation

Do not seek validation for your skills and accomplishments from others, instead focus on people who can provide you constructive feedback. It will help you in improving consistently. When we look for validation, we end up taking up things or indulging in activities which we do not enjoy.

Embrace Challenges

When we are in our comfort zone, we see each challenge as setbacks.

Start seeing these challenges as opportunities, to learn and grow more. Enjoy these challenges as a problem-solving activity. Try things which you have never done before, take up activities that are new to you. It will help you in developing more trust and resilience in yourself.

Add ‘yet’ to your vocabulary

When discussing your achievements or growth, learn to use the word ‘yet’. Cultivating a growth mindset means understanding that your weaknesses and strengths are not fully developed yet. There will be areas where you lack not because you are inherently bad at them, but because you have not mastered them yet. It’s about believing that with enough practice and perseverance, you can achieve anything you set your mind to.

Focus on Efforts, not Outcomes

Measure your success by the efforts that you put in. It is the process that matters more than the final product. The process teaches us, gives us an opportunity to self-reflect and work on our mistakes and improve ourselves. It is important to know that defeat is not everlasting and every time you try to reach for something beyond your current state, you enhance your capabilities and knowledge.

Embracing a growth mindset can be a life changing decision. You can try implementing it in different areas of your life be it personal or professional. However, we can only know if something works for us when we try it. Personally, it has been useful for me as it helped me take risks and attempt the activities that I was never confident about.

Do experiment with the tips mentioned above, and feel free to share if you find them applicable in any specific area of your life.

Awareness June 2, 2022

Blame and Unhappiness

Not everything wrong in our life is our fault. We all come from different privileges, backgrounds that we have no control over, and some things that we cannot choose.
During our time on earth, we get hurt multiple times, face misfortunes, and have also been taken advantage of. Sometimes, we get into the trap of blaming other people for our miseries or the challenges that we are facing. It is okay to identify the root cause of your problem and also the people who cause them. But blaming circumstance or people for where you are in life gives them too much power over your destiny.

It is convenient to shift the responsibility for our failures to the horrible boss in the office, or a toxic family environment. While these situations do have a prominent effect on our lives, we still have some power to change the situation that we are in. It is easy to blame and shrug off the immediate responsibility that we have on ourselves but if we keep repeating the same story for a length of time, then we put ourselves in the danger of staying stuck in these toxic environments forever.

We convince ourselves that we have no control over what happens in our life as it is pre-written by our circumstances. We tell ourselves a story because it is easier for our minds to stay stuck in the known and comfortable. On the other hand, if we take responsibility for our problem, we will also have to take action, and blaming others is much better than blaming ourselves.

We are scared to step into this unknown territory of taking action. By blaming others, we are only hurting ourselves and the potential happiness that we can have. Blaming paralyzes us to take even one step further from our situation.
If we try looking at it from distance and acknowledge the mess around us, and take just one step to fix our little corner, we might end up solving our entire problem.

The goal is to not give our power away to situations and people. We are capable of changing the things around and inside of us, we might have to shout out for help, but that would also be a step that would take us in a new direction. If you feel stuck in one such circumstance in your life. Following actions may help you in becoming free.

Set an Intention to stop playing the Blame game

It is easy to point fingers at others when things go wrong. We see it in our work and personal life when something goes wrong, and people start looking for a scapegoat. Most of the time, people are looking to protect themselves by shifting the blame.

Take your power back

This means taking action on the things you can control. If you are going through a mentally tough situation, consider asking people for help or just own the bit of the problem that you can solve.

Pay attention when jumping on the blame wagon

Be aware the next time you start to shift the responsibility of your life to someone else. It is not that people are not horrible or toxic, but protect the corner of your sanity by bringing your awareness to yourself.

Find Empathy

Sometimes, it is hard to find forgiveness or recover the time we lost. Try looking at things from the other person’s perspective it will ease the pain that you experience. Find empathy for yourself if you acted out and went wrong at some point in time. Our relationship with ourselves dictates all the others, do not expect perfection in every situation from yourself.

Hope this piece helps you in seeing your life in a better light and take action to make it more amazing than it is today.

Awareness January 2, 2021

A year in review: 2020

2020 will be a year that we are going to remember for a long time. Many people lost their livelihoods, their lives or their loved ones. The uncertainty of events was like never before. It was tough to imagine that this fast-paced world of ours will come to a halt. We discovered our resiliency and another reminder that we don’t have anything under control. Though this year brought its own challenges and turmoil, there are somethings that I am absolutely grateful for.

The much needed slow down

It felt like we were always going from one task to another, with so much in our heads. This year was all about reflection. The way we live each day and what are the meaningless things that we should get rid of. There is a rainbow on the other side of the storm, and 2020 was all about that saying. The slow down made me cherish my relationships more. Work from home was a blessing in disguise, which helped me connect to myself and others around me. The pressure of being productive all the time was off, and I embraced the slow mornings and joy in little things.

Embracing life like never before

I always emphasize living life fully, finding a purpose, and dedicating our days to the things we love. But, after losing two of my close relatives, I had to look deeper into what life is for. It made me question things, to introspect on where I am spending my time. Losing my grandfather was like a reminder to finally grow up. Since I am now a part of the second generation of our family and that was a scary thought. Though I was well aware of the fact that people come and people go but it was not easy to process this and finally letting go of the childhood that was an important part of my upbringing. Then recently I lost my aunt who fought cancer with a smile on her face for four years, nothing lasts forever, and her passing shook me and made me rethink all the things that I have been putting off. Though people never stay in our lives forever, our memory of them does. There is a lot to learn from everyone we meet and she in her own way taught me hundreds of things. We can still smile and feel happy that we got to know them at all, we can smile with tears in our eyes. Grief doesn’t always mean suffering, sometimes it just is.

You cannot take things for granted

One thing that 2020 enforced was to not take time, circumstances, and situations for granted. Take that leap, write that book, and create the music that you have been waiting for. Tell people that you love them. We can never take time for granted, and we all know this very well now.

Working with what we had

I worked on a short movie with my husband, which we shot with a GoPro. Though we created multiple unfinished movies throughout the lockdown we managed to post at least one of them. It was great knowing that we didn’t always have to rely on expensive to get started. What is in your mind needs to find a way to come into the world.

Started our online Business

One of the endeavors we have promotes yoga and wellness (Citta Space). During the lockdown, we found out that a lot of Yoga teachers were not able to make any income due to their coronavirus, as most of the people avoided having any external contact. This was another blessing in disguise, and we started providing online yoga classes through digital media. The response was overwhelming, and it was exciting to see so many customers prioritizing their health during this hard time. We continued our Online Yoga Classes from April till October and it was an experience I would have never wanted to miss out on. It was a great experience to provide service see results in a few months.

Life in its complexity is beautiful

Though there was chaos all around, it was amazing to see so many people helping others out during this tough time. A lot of people created something new with their time, many people around me took their hobbies seriously. Every challenge we go through leaves something beautiful behind; sometimes, it is courage, resilience, and a chance to be a better version of ourselves.

I am so grateful that we all stayed connected through the internet, and we were all in this together, which helped in making this otherwise tough year, easier. We started taking more care of our mental health than before.

Wishing you all good health, mental wellbeing and good relationships for the next year.

Awareness October 8, 2020

How Guilt free eating changed me?

Guilt free eating can change us mentally and physically. We don’t always love our bodies. In other words, we rarely do. I could love myself a little more if I were few Kgs lighter, wouldn’t that be perfect? And I have been willing to treat my body as an experiment by trying one diet after another. Constantly reminding it, that it is not good enough.

After all, what’s wrong with that, everyone I meet has a new diet tip to share with me. Surprisingly, these tips do not seem to work. How many of us can relate to feeling guilty after a hearty meal? This Guilt is more menacing than it sounds. It caused me to eat less, pushed me to skip meals deliberately. Until I realized that it definitely is not working, instead I would feel bad about my body and lower my self-esteem. Hide further, instead of embracing myself. There were times I would not feel hungry at all because of all these experiments that I was performing on my body. I never realized that feeling guilt after eating is not a good thing.

Since hating my body was not working, I decided to love it the way it is. A simple act of eating guilt-free changed my body so much that it started feeling lighter in almost two weeks. And after following it for a few months, I am at a much healthier place than before. Not only my body, I feel much more peaceful in my mind too. My process is explained in the following steps

1. shunning constant reminders of being ‘not enough’.

How we talk to ourselves is extremely important. If most of our self-talk is criticism about how our bodies ‘should’ look, it makes it difficult for us to have a healthy relationship with our bodies. Therefore, we would repeatedly spiral out of healthy eating habits. Becuase we treat them as a cure for our physically unfit bodies, instead of including them in our lifestyle.

2. Get rid of short term diets

I can’t even begin to name the weird diets people undertake to lose a few pounds. The challenge with these diets is once we stop the diet, our body gets back to where it was. Moreover, the most challenging part is getting the feeling of being hungry back. Our hunger sensation almost dies because we are always controlling our eating habits, we don’t get to know how hungry we are, and that can also lead to under or overeating.
These constant changes in diet keep putting the body in low energy state and will often lead to binge eating because of hunger sensation that died a long time ago. Some people feel comfortable having one meal a day and few feel good through intermittent fasting, these are good only if you can sustain them for the long term.

3. Eliminating guilt from diet

It was one challenging ingredient to remove. Every time I would eat until I was full, I would feel this guilt that I am deviating myself from my physical goals. This weird stress that I will have to start all over again because of one unhealthy meal was devastating to my self-esteem. Every time I would feel this way, I would go back to abandoning my current goals and plans and postpone them further. It is not a healthy state to be mentally, or physically. I decided not to feel guilty at all about how much I ate. For a few days, I ate a more than I normally would, but gradually I shed to a more sustainable diet. Guilt free eating helps us getting more control of our bodies.

4. Get the natural hunger back

Keep yourself well-hydrated. We are not talking about the hunger pangs we get after dieting or starving ourselves. We want to focus on hunger natural to the body, which guides us on being full or tells us that it is time to eat. The best is to follow your feelings. Whenever you feel hunger pangs, have water, and if you still feel hungry, then it is time to have something to eat. It may be hard to figure in a few days, but you will feel more attuned to yourself once you figure out how you feel hungry. It also helps with emotional eating as we are more mindful towards our hunger sensation.

5. Compassion towards the body

There is always a fine line between I want to achieve a definite fitness goal, and I am not good enough until I reach that goal. I went a little on the unhealthy side. I would halt my plans for even clicking a photograph until I was ready. Finally, removing guilt from eating also helped me in having a healthy relationship with my body because I was not ashamed of it. Yes, there will always be goals to be better than I am right now, but for that, I don’t have to hate the place I am presently at.

Awareness March 22, 2020

Quarantine and productivity crisis

The entire world is stalled right now. We never presumed that we could land up in such a situation where gyms, offices, transport, and restaurants would be shut for days. Here are my thoughts on the productivity crisis during quarantine one of the major feeling I’m overcoming at present.

While governments and researchers are trying to make things better, most of us are either working remotely or not working at all.

This could have been our ideal getaway from the daily hustle. Where we did not have to work towards anything and relax at home. Since, we did not plan for this, some of us are left feeling unproductive, even the ones who were waiting for a break to work on some projects or ideas.

We are wired to work and move from one task to another. So now, when we see this sudden change disrupting everyday lifestyle, we don’t know how to function. I spoke to many people during this time, and everyone is feeling the similar guilt of being unproductive during quarantine.

In times like this, most of us are overwhelmed by the news and the numbers of increasing cases and deaths. Therefore, it is okay to let go of the pressure of being productive.

laziness during quarantine creating productivity crisis

You do not have to read every book on the bookshelf right now.
You do not have to produce more content.
You do not have to start that hobby.
You do not have to create something new.
You do not have to work out each day.
You do not have to finish all your pending chores.
You do not have to exercise more.
You do not have to cook masterpieces.
It is okay to slow down and not feel guilty about it.

While there’s a list of activities that I can share, to make the most of these days (and I might), but Hey! You don’t have to make the most of it.

Stay positive, take care of your health, these are the only things that matter right now. You don’t have to be creative for the sake of it.

Create art when you feel aligned with the feeling of creating it.

Don’t let the pressure of being productive make you feel worse during this time. We are all in this together, and we are all uncertain. But, we will get through this.

Be patient with yourself and your craft. Don’t force yourself to be creative or productive.