Nishtha Gehija

If you do really really good work and really care, it is impossible to replace you.

No matter what you do or where you are.

You could be a street cleaner.
Or a CEO.
Or a tennis player.
Or a corporate employee.

It is almost impossible to bring someone exactly like you.

Think of Sachin Tendulkar. Or Roger Federer. Or Shah Rukh Khan.

They all are the hallmarks of their industries. There may be and there are better cricketers, tennis players and actors than all of them. However, that does not deny the fact that the best was and still is the best.

Be that best one, for whatever you choose.

It may not be the easiest journey, my friend. But I promise it is going to be worth it. Because you showed up to be yourself in a world where everyone wants to be like “that one who does not do any work and still gets through.”

“Can we get on a call?”

“What are you planning to do with your life next?”

“Do you know what they did to me?”

Focus is an asset. Not to be wasted on the trivialities that don’t matter.

PS: Saying the above once a blue moon is a call for help. And perhaps allowed. Saying the above more often than not is a sign of lost focus.

Don’t do that to yourself. Ever.

If you need someone to remind you to do YOUR work

If you need someone to follow up with you

If you need someone to tell you that you must do what you should have already done

If you need someone to tell you to be accountable, over and over and over again

If you need someone to beg at your feet to do the right thing at work, every single time

You might succeed in life. However, how will you ever succeed in front of the person in the mirror?

We have been working with an agency for almost 2.5 years.

They have done pretty decent work in the past, with few cracks here and there.
And those cracks have been persistent.
However, the errors persisted, after multiple feedback.

So we hired an inhouse person, to work on the same project.
And we kept giving both of them equal work.

Over time, we have hired another inhouse person, to distribute the work of the agency.

The agency people are very hard working, however, they are not willing to change or learn from their mistakes.
Which eventually cost them a ticket price of Rs. 1L+ per month.

It turns out, there is no other alternative to learning and growing.

Even if you think there is.

There isn’t.

And I truly hope this excites you more than it scares you.

I am going through a tough phase of life lately.

Something that will eventually weed out – like all tough phases do.

However, what I have learnt is that if you have a dysfunctional family, it is best to not tell them your problems.

Deal with it on your own.
Live your life your way.
Solve your problems.

But that’s it.

Live your life.

The dysfunctional family will try to make you make tough decisions.
They will think you are right and everyone else is wrong.
They will want you to be with them, because since you are having problems in your life, no one loves you as much as they do.
They will always think it is your problem, and no one else’s.
They will have zero concept of boundaries.

Love them all you can.
But have your own boundaries.
And what you tolerate.

1. When you pitch to people, speak on emails.
2. When you have decided, get on a final call.

Most of us do continuous back and forth on phone calls because we want to sound important.

The reality is, we are lonely and not clear. Which is why we resort to calls instead of emails/texts to communicate in the initial back-and-forth phase.

Be clear on what you want. And you have won already.

PS: I am not anti-calls. Calls are important. What’s more important is knowing what is important when, and choosing to do that.

The no. 1 thing will take you forward.

Period.

Self care is a responsibility. Not a luxury. A gentle reminder.

You could be disciplined towards your body yet undisciplined towards your work.

Because building a good body is often a sign of letting out aggression. And a method of seeking validation. Most people would sign up for that discipline.

However, a fit body is not always a sign of a disciplined mind and a disciplined human.

There is so much to the true taste of discipline.

Showing up.
Falling down.
Getting up again.
Over and over again.

Discipline is not a sport of only the physically fit.
Discipline is also a sport of the emotionally fit and strong.
Discipline is also a sport of the one who is ready to let go of themselves in order to make themselves better.

Discipline is power for those who choose it.
And slavery for those who don’t use it.

If you had to ask me my profession, I’d say: “I am a writer.”

But, I am also a Content Manager.
And a Team Manager.
And an HR.
And an Operations Lead.
And also, Content Curator.

Also, a good friend (hopefully).

Recently, when I decided to make a career move from Content Manger to multiple other hats – Content Writer, Content Manager, a colleague asked if I regret the decision of two years back from going from a specialist writer to a generalist Content Manager.

My answer would be no.

When Michelangelo was asked to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, he said to the Pope: I am not a painter, I am a sculptor.

However, eventually Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel, that became a masterpiece.
It ruined his eyesight in the process.
And his health.

However, he was an artist.
A dedicated human being, far beyond being a human being.
Someone who personified dedication, depth and commitment to art, and also to go beyond who you describe yourself to be.

Which is what, I chose to do as a Content Manger, beyond being a writer.

And it was the right decision.

Life stages:

Stage 1: My world shattered

Stage 2: Should I try to get my world back?

Stage 3: No, not really

Stage 4: Wow, I can create a whole new world

Stage 5: I am glad that world shattered.

Even though I’ve been irregular off-late, I have been writing daily.

Just that it is on another computer.

Which I keep away from the internet 🙂

Overall, facing resilience in the midst of a life that looks good but is far.

And that is also fine.

We all learn.

Meanwhile, gotta go for a nature walk.

See you tomorrow 🙂

1. No matter how good you are, your boss will replace you once they find interest in someone else. They are not bad. They are just exploring. People replace their spouses. You are just a colleague.
2. Always love people beyond their work. Human beings are awesome.
3. Less work. More recreation.

The bad habits to be removed

The good ones to be created

Only for one person.

Stop living someone else’s life. Make it yours.

…if people are not throwing stones at you.

Your innocence

Your peace of mind.

Your vulnerability.

And of course, your health. Physical and mental.

The hardest job in the world is the one that you are in right now.

Because the moment it becomes easy, you will move on to figure the next hard job.

Not to get famous.

Or to increase your followers.

Or to show it off to your friends and colleagues.

Rather just for yourself.

So that you know you showed up. And a lot of the times, it is more than enough.

1. Sleep at 9 pm.
2. Wake up at 3 am.
3. Work on the new book.
4. Get energised.
5. Workout daily
6. Dance on “Rangi saari” and “Jhoome jo Pathan” to have fun.
7. Rinse and repeat. 🙂

I was once in a phase of life where I had become very emotionally dependent on a close friend.

If there were any random success in my life, I would reach out to her.
If there was any failure I was going through, I would reach out to her.
If there was any problem I was in the middle of, I would again reach out to her.

And she would, like a very good friend – lend her ears, listen patiently, and even offer solutions whenever I asked for them.

Calls with her had become a feel-good button, that I could click anytime and my mood would get better.

However, over the time of a couple of months, this feeling started to wane.
I started realising a lot of times that she wasn’t there for me emotionally.
She was rude, emotionless, and maybe tired of me.

I honestly don’t know what happened there. In hindsight, I of course know that I should not have been so much dependent on her emotionally.

I kept convincing myself that this is just a thought, she might be in a bad phase herself that she won’t be comfortable sharing, and I would subside the feeling.

During this time only, I came across another big challenge of my life and reached out to her.

The only difference – this time she made it verbally clear that I need to find my own footing. I just wished that she did not do this rudely.

And that, lead to an internal breakdown.
It almost felt like abandonment.
Someone who was like a part of your emotional home, someone who once called you one of your closest friends, someone who not only was there for you in your thick and thin rather also said that they are there (and meant it), now just left me emotionally alone.

Was I too much dependent? Maybe.
Did I trust her more than myself? Maybe.
Did I stop being the source of my own happiness? Certainly.

Thus, I started introspecting.

The first few days were spent in thinking of how could someone be there for you and then leave immediately? Okay, even if they left, should they not have communicated? Why this cold behaviour?

It almost felt like a part of me shut down because now I would think again 100 times before being vulnerable.

When so many thoughts were good enough to not make a change, I began my healing process.

I was scheduled to go to a meditation retreat (thankfully) a week later, which helped me let go of a lot of my emotional baggage.

I spent almost 10 days there, which even made me reflect on how when I would come back to the real world, I would make a change in the way I approach life.

Here are the realisations I had about that friend:

• You are not the centre of their universe. That friend visibly has a huge social life as well as work life, and they are not going to give so much in a relationship.
• Maybe this was their way of making me better. I would certainly not use a “stop-talking-and-become-emotionless-approach” towards anyone, however, this is what makes us different as human beings. Emotionless was their weapon. As much as I didn’t like it, I had to deal with it.
• No matter how “bad” another human being has become, we still have the power to heal the relationship through our thoughts. I consciously started looking at every thought I created about that friend, and purposefully translated it into an empowering one.

But you know what, in all this healing, I felt a part of me was lost.
Like broken romantic relationships, if the love was pure, that person’s exit also closes a door of your heart forever.

Then come very good people (like this friend) and they are there to make you vulnerable again. When they leave again emotionally, it feels like a personal loss.

Not a loss of that person.
Rather loss of self.

The part of me that used to be chirpy.
The part of me that used to come alive.
The part of me knew that I mattered.

All this while, that friend and I were in touch – sharing work updates, sharing life updates, hanging out in groups, etc.

A couple of days later, that friend and I get on a call, and she shares a list of 7-8 positive changes she noticed in me.

And my response (in my head) was:

So what do I do?
Stop healing myself?
Abandon myself like you did?
As if I was left with the option of reaching out to you.

She even said at the end of that call that she was there, should I need something.

I almost wanted to tell her to speak her truth, but then I realised I should speak the truth to myself and not expect her to be there.
Maybe this was just her way of “forgiveness”.
Maybe she didn’t care, and this was just a formality. That’s also okay.
Maybe she actually wanted to be there. I didn’t know. Nor cared to know anymore. This was the person who had taught me to be vulnerable emotionally, and this was the person who was intently curious about my happiness.

The truth, my friend, is that people will come and leave. Sometimes, while being an active part of your life.

But no one is coming to save you.
No one is coming to be there for you.
Only you, and only you, are going to do that.

It’s hard, but if it were easy, you won’t be holding this book in your hands right now.

But the bad news is that you are in this alone.

Which, if we were to give it the right meaning, it is also the best news ever.