A huge hello from Team PY and welcome to our End of Month series, “Coffee Meet @ PY”, where we’ll grab a new conversation every month. This month, we’re writing about why you’re doing better than you think. Consider this to be your safe space where you can add in your own views and instances, pitch in with your experiences and let us know we’re not the only ones who feel this way. We’ll be adding these conversations to our Mental Health category and keep these open for discussion. Having said that, let’s begin!

2021 was difficult for all of us. We’ve witnessed people at their worst, physically as well as mentally. We’ve watched people lose their paths and dreams and goals and ambitions. Even watched people lose themselves, struggling to rediscover their identities. We’ve watched people lose loved ones to the virus, and also experienced this loss ourselves.

However, things changed. And we’ve recovered, even grown a lot over the last year as individuals. And this is where we’re choosing to track our progress, with our PY Community, with you. Hop on!

What were we doing a year ago?

Ri’s version of doing better:

“On a professional level, I think I was holding myself back. I wanted to do so much and I had goals and ambitions that I wanted to reach. Constantly trying hard to be on track, but I couldn’t bring myself to make the first actual move. I wanted to apply to investment banks and explore my opportunities in analytics, just didn’t think I had enough knowledge base to do so.

I wrote on an on about how people should be following their hearts when it came to a career. And yet, I couldn’t do the same for myself. This year, situations changed and I was compelled to exit my comfort zone. Giving telephonic interviews and putting myself out there really helped. Landing an amazing job and a great learning curve just followed. Today, I’m better at taking risks and taking the first move. It’s not something I’ve had to learn the easy way. Sometimes my learnings don’t go in a linear trend and I might not be doing or learning exactly what I want to. Even on such days, I’m still aware that I’m growing as a person. I can see it, envision it every day.

On a personal level, I believe I’m a very practical person and there’s got to be hard logic behind everything I do. My therapist disagrees, quite rightfully. I am an emotional person and this year I’ve connected with how I actually feel. And I’m glad I did. Last year, I was blaming my situations for where I was. This year, I’m owning up to them because I’ve realized that you cannot hold on to what happened to you. You cannot change the situation you were in when you made a decision. All you can do to course correct is decide how to alter your path ahead in order to accommodate your perception of where you want to be. That is exactly what I’m doing this year and I couldn’t be happier about it.”

V’s version of doing better:

“Honestly, this time last year, I was just passing my time. I had a bunch of certifications in hand but I resisted on my job search. I cannot even remember myself from a year ago. Looking back only makes me realize how much I’ve grown. Spending my time scrolling through Instagram, my days just burned up. I changed that, I shifted my focus to LinkedIn and I have spent comparatively lesser time scrolling social media the past few months. My views about productivity have definitely changed. Planning things were just not my strength, I was more of a go-in-the-flow person. Now, I prefer to blend planning with spontaneity and instinctive thinking.

At present, my life is faster and better-paced; and trust me, this does not come with age. I’ve spent days waiting for opportunities to come to me, but time doesn’t help with anything. What helps is the risk you’re willing to take and the clarity on what you really want in life. My two cents – take the first step and go all in, take your chance, give it a shot. All of the anxiety, all those jitters, they disappear the moment you’ve taken your first step. Now you’ve to take the next, you have no choice; you’ve already begun. You might land somewhere else or you might take another path. But you’ll never do that until you take the courage to begin your journey in the first place.”

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A few days back, we didn’t realize we had come so far across. 2022 us is not the same as 2021 us. However, we failed to recognize how much of us has changed over the span of one tiny year. We were unsure of how much progress we had made, maybe even doubted if we actually made real progress or not. But we have and we know it now. We enjoy how we are spending our time, we own it. We’re inspired by what we are currently doing and we love the people we are around. We have been nothing but a notch better than what we were a year back. Most of all, we’ve become risk-takers and adopted the approach of getting what we set our eyes on; not holding ourselves back for time to take a decision on our behalf.

We know you might not be feeling the same right now. You’re probably not happy with your job or your life or your relations or something else. Maybe, you’re scared of not having grown this year. But you have, we know you have! All you’ve got to do is reflect a little on the tiny aspects of your growth. You might not have made a huge leap last year, but you’ve surely moved a wee bit ahead.

You’re doing better than you think, especially if you’ve managed to take your first step.

Maybe you picked up the phone and called someone you’ve wanted to talk to. Or set up your professional profile to better your chances at cracking that interview. Maybe you simply accepted your drawbacks and decided you’ll work it out in 2022. No matter what you’ve done, small or huge, give yourself credit for it.

This year, let’s undoubtedly focus on all of the bigger things we’re going to achieve. However, let’s acknowledge all of the smaller things that have made us “us“. Let’s not set goals below our appetite but let’s also appreciate how further we’ve come along. Every tiny step is important, every tiny growth is still growth. You’re doing better than you realize. It’s not long before the world is yours to take over.

Here is a link to Lifehack’s 12 Signs You’re Doing Better Than You Think You Are. It’s a fun listicle that you might want to read and introspect if you liked our post.

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An update our January resolutions: I wasn’t really sure about failing at it, but I had a hunch. I couldn’t drink two liters of water every day. However, I’m going to try my luck at it in February. Apart from that, I’M ON TOP OF THE WORLD for being able to stay vegetarian for an entire month AND ALSO managed to plan my next vacation this month. 2 out of 3 is not a bad score, right?

To know more about the challenges we’ve taken up this year, you can visit our earliest post titled Challenges for 2022: Breaking down 30 Resolutions [Part 1]. You can take up the challenges yourself and track your progress on the FREE printable we’ve created for you. Find it under Resources marked as 2022 Challenges – 30 Resolutions in 12 Months [Plan Printable. Follow us on our socials to stay updated about posts going live every Wednesday at 9 am.

Tune in next week for our upcoming post // Book Review | The Weight of a Cherry Blossom, wherein we’ll write about experience with this amazing title by Shruti Buddhavarapu – can’t hold the excitement, stay hooked!