Hello everyone!

1.5 months of 2022 are almost over, can you believe it?! Recently, I started a podcast, whoo whoo, and I actually released the first and second episodes! The technical first episode was an introduction to the podcast, and the trailer on Spotify. But the actual first episode was me talking about monthly goals and meditation!

We love goals. We love creating a list of things we want to accomplish and watching ourselves actually become the person that we dreamed of being! But how do we stay accountable on these goals? There have been so many times when I create resolutions only to ditch them within a week. Lately I’ve been using the concept of monthly goals! Successful goals are often specific, difficult, value-based, and measurable. So the beginning of every month, I create a few categories of goals, and list 2-5 goals under each category.

For example, two of the categories I have are Mental Health and School. One of the goals under Mental Health is to every day write one thing I’m grateful for! Then for school: My fellow students know that going from entirely in-person classes to online classes is no walk in the park! At GW, all the classes are recorded, which means even though there’s an attendance policy, missing the classes are not as fatal to your grade as it would have been in a traditional school year. Naturally, in the Fall Semester, I spent the last two weeks before exams, binge watching every class for all 6 of my classes, and let me tell you, as someone who binges a lot of tv, it was NOT fun. So every month this year I’ve been trying to catch up on recordings for classes that I miss at a fairly regular basis. (Spoiler: It’s not going as well as I’d hope BUT at least I’m not in as bad as a place as I was before!) To keep track of my progress, I’ve also made a habit tracker, and feel free to email me at coffeeandcheckins@gmail.com if you’d like the template of the excel sheet that we made! Hooray for progress!

But now there’s another problem: being mindful. I don’t know about you, but the problem with me is that I never really enjoy where I’m at, nor do I have any way to measure how far I’ve come. To quote Miley Cyrus, it’s about the climb, but it’s hard to remember that in the moment! It’s one of those things that people say after the fact: “oh the journey was great!” But when you’re actually going through the journey, the last thing you think is: “Yeah, you know, I really love this suffering I’m going through right now! THE JOURNEY! WOW!” All you want to do is fast forward to your destination. How many times have we been guilty of saying that? “I wish I could fast-forward time to when I’m xyz.” Or the one I’m always guilty of: “If I can get this next thing, then I’ll be happy.” But then we get that next thing, and we find a new object of our happiness.

Maybe I’m wrong, maybe you’re all a whole lot more enlightened than I am and don’t base your happiness on external achievements! But for me, I’ve become more mindful through the practice of meditation. Maybe those of you listening to this episode are master meditators, or maybe you’re the way I was and thought meditation was an interesting concept but “it’s not for me.” 

A lot of people already know the scientific benefits behind meditation, as there are thousands of studies that show that consistent meditation actually rewires your brain, and being mindful helps reduce your stress, improve your sleep, increase your focus, and improves your relationships. Like wow, sign me up!!

There are a lot of great apps and YouTube videos out there, and I’ve tried a lot of them. Right now I’m mostly using Headspace and 10 Percent Happier! Obviously I’m no expert, but I wanted to share something that I think has really made a difference in my life, and I am interested to hear if you decide to try it out! And maybe it’s just not the thing for you, and that’s totally fine! But maybe it’ll change your life! What if we each spent a few minutes each day to be grateful and to sit down and say: “I am grateful for what I have, and this moment and where I am right now, is exactly where I’m supposed to be”?

Hear more about creating resolutions and goals you can actually complete, having accountability when it comes to growth, and about my newfound love for meditation (Thank you Ten Percent Happier!) on my latest episode of Traversing the Twenties.

If any of you want a free 30 days to Ten Percent Happier, please message me via Instagram or email me at coffeeandcheckins@gmail.com indicating you’re interested in a guest pass for 10%! Most recently, after my relaxing weekend, I started doing the Ted Lasso Challenge, which is all about kindness and being curious and not judgmental, which is something I think we can all benefit from.

I don’t get any benefit from this content except sharing my love for this app and how it changed my life

Also I would be remiss if I didn’t wish my friend Katie happy birthday!! Happy 27th Birthday Katie!! I hope it’s the best one yet! 🙂

Until next time!

xo

Sandhya

If you liked this post and want to go through 2022 with me, then please click the follow or subscribe button! Feel free to connect with me through this platform, twitter, my coffee and checkins Instagram, my podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or Amazon Music, or or email me at coffeeandcheckins@gmail.com! If you have any suggestions for blog posts or anything you’d like me to write about, please let me know  🙂❤