Five-minute challenge:
Pretend to be a tourist or a child, and observe your surroundings through a fresh perspective.
That is a challenge from Happier App by Gretchen Rubin – the author of the Book Happiness Project that I’ve read a few months ago. I happen to be at a co-working place and decided to move around, and observe the room.
As I’m writing down my thoughts, I’ve come to the realization that I have visited so many new places and yet I have forgotten a lot of details. I think it’s because I did not observe the place thoroughly — just enough to take an Instagram-worthy photo.
It also applied to my observations about myself. Journaling nowadays feels like just a routine to me, no more than that. It has lost its meaning to make me understand myself better.
Journaling
In 2021 I learn to observe myself better through journaling. I joined a journaling workshop with mengenaldiri.id, started my journaling journey and took it seriously because I feel helpless at that time and I want to get out of that feeling. It was dark.
With that journey, I experience my best self. I could never imagine that I will have a routine for my day – it change my MBTI from INFP to INFJ because now I love routines and schedules! I used to hate routines and feel like it’s just getting in my way to explore the world, but now I find new perspectives on how making routines will help me to be able to explore more.
I started to work out and take care of my health seriously because I have GERD and there’s no turning back unless I change my lifestyle. I think I have the highest self-esteem during this time compared to my whole life!
Life Is About Changing
On June 2022, I move from Surabaya to Jakarta. I see myself as a person that adaptive and ready for new adventures, but I can’t deny that a few months before my move I feel the uncertainty starting to eat me alive. I start to doubt myself, my decisions, and my work.
But then, once I move to Jakarta – It’s all good. Everything’s under control and I even make progress on my workout routine and move it into the morning routine. It really was a big win for me, because find it quite difficult to wake up early.
The Wave in Ocean Life
After a month In Jakarta, there were some unexpected big changes in my life that kinda shake up my routine and brings my self-esteem down. I’m still in denying phase where I thought that I have to protect the status quo but the conditions are different now. I try to fix the new problems with the old methods, it is frustrating.
This five minutes challenge brings me to this reflection that I can’t fix new problems and challenges with old methods. I gotta find a new way to fight this battle. I know that there’s never a single solution to problems, and yet here I am stuck with the old same solutions. Hahaha.
I do have to approach life with a new perspective.
New Year, New Perspective.
VERONICAKUDO 
Leave a comment