The Art Of Being Alone

One of the biggest mistakes we make while trying to improve ourselves is that we focus on everything at once.

We try to hit the gym every day, make a gratitude list every day, eat healthy every day, and the like. And focusing on everything at once drags us down to a level where we find ourselves giving up on everything and later accusing ourselves of being a failure. You cannot change everything at once. And if you try to, you will just burn yourself. You will make the journey toxic and suffocating for yourself. And even after working so hard, when you don’t get results in any of the areas, you just give up on everything. And what does that do? It lowers your self-respect. You start thinking that you can never achieve anything good in life.

The catch is to focus on one thing at a time.

Why?

Because changing one thing in your routine is easier. It easily sinks in. And when you start seeing the result in one area, not only do you feel happy but your self-respect increases too. You get the confidence for trying to improve more things in your life.

For example; In 2020, | resigned from my job in the hope that | will become a successful freelancer. | tried and failed. For months, | didn’t get a single client. | was depressed and had no means to pay my bills. That was the time when all my college mates were earning great money, having vacations, and buying stuff with their own money. | was jealous and | just wanted to prove to myself that | am moving forward.

So, | started writing on Medium which is a platform for writers. | didn’t have any hopes from Medium. | just wanted to prove to myself that | am doing something *at least.* | had the goal of writing one article every day. 10 months later, | had 10,000 followers. And that wasn’t enough. |received so much from my audience that it boosted my confidence. | started viewing myself as a loved writer. | always believed in the power of words but after receiving so much love on Medium, | started believing in the power of MY words. And that’s how | ended up writing my first book, “The Wounds of My Words.” It still feels like a dream. An illusion. If someone had told my 10-year-old version that | will be an author one day, my little version would have laughed. In fact, if someone had told me in 2020 that | will be an author one day, | would have become even

more depressed that you are making fun of my situation. | didn’t consider myself a good writer. But

now, oh God, | cannot believe | am writing my second book.

It all happened because | made one decision two years back. And it wasn’t just a decision. It was an action. One action every day for 10 months transformed me from an under confident writer to a loved author.

| want you to do the same. Forget about big sudden changes. Forget the hope of magic. Take out that list you made earlier (about what you don’t like in your life right now) and pick ONE BIG ISSUE from that list.

What do | mean by one big issue?

Well, back in 2020, a lot of things were going wrong in my life. | wasn’t in good shape. | had skin allergies all over my body. | didn’t have any idea where my career was going. And all of it dragged my mental health down. See, you need to understand one important thing here.

People will ask you to work on your mental health as if it's homework from your school teacher. Your mental health is a result of the current state of your life. If something is going wrong in your life then mentally you will feel stressed, depressed, or anxious. The bigger the issue, the more stressed you will feel. In my case,

my career was my biggest concern. My second job was quite toxic and my boss used to yell at me every now and
then. She used to say that | can never make it as a writer. | was doing the work of an intern there. And when | left my job in the hope of a brighter future just to find myself struggling to get clients, my boss’s words started ringing in my head like an alarm. | started believing her words as truth. | started questioning my worth. And all of it made me depressed.

After reading over 200 books, if there is anything that | have understood, its - action is the cure of almost everything.

So, | decided to jump on Medium. Now, you know how the rest of it goes.

You will find a lot of flaws in how you are living today. There might be a bunch of things that you don’t like about your life at the moment. But you need to understand that you are not a magician. You cannot make everything work at once. You need to become an essentialist here.

Choose the ONE BIGGEST ISSUE you are facing in your life right now. What is that ONE thing which keeps pulling you down? What is that one area of your life that makes you feel anxious and stressed? What is that

one aspect of your life that makes you feel stuck in one place?

Identify that ONE BIG ISSUE. In fact, this one big issue can be the reason why you don’t like to be alone. You know that aS soon as you are alone, your mind will send you notifications of what’s wrong in your life. You know that when you are with yourself with nothing to do, your mind will pull you back reminding you that your life sucks.

You will feel the itch to change and improve everything at once. But remember that you are a human. You cannot focus on multiple things at once with similar efficiency. When you are focused on improving one thing, not only it becomes easier to measure your performance but you also feel excited. You don’t feel the pressure of changing your world in one day.

Now, | would suggest you close the book for a while, and take some time to identify that ONE BIG ISSUE because next, we will discuss how you can work on that one area.