5 Steps To Get Your Life Back On Track

These 5 steps to get your life back on track are not googled or picked from anywhere else, they’re all self-discovered. Yes, this blog is my story of how I lost track of what I wanted to do in life and how I got back on track by doing the things I did for the last month.

But, to begin with, my dear readers, I hope you are doing well. I’m happy to be back to my favourite place and one good news for you, you’ll see more blogs from now on.

So, if you remember I had written a blog titled – 9 signs your life is going off track. I had promised you at the end of the blog that once I get back on track I’ll be sharing my journey with you.

As committed, here I am, sharing my story with you. But before that, if you want to read my previous blog you can click here. I’ve experienced all the nine points that I’ve mentioned in the blog.

So let’s begin with the story (I’m excited than you are) and I’ll give you one step at the end of all points that you can apply in your life:

1. Rediscover yourself

I’ve been blogging here since 2018, whoa! it’s been around seven years since I started shraddharane.com. (This is one of the many reasons I love writing. It gives you so much of clarity. If I hadn’t sat to write this blog I would have never realized how much time has passed writing in this space).

Also, to be specific, I have published 196 blogs making a whopping word count of 1,67,743 which equals 3 novels. And all the blogs are available free for you to read. I feel this is the best part about blogging – you get a deep insight into a topic with just one click and, that too, for free. It’s like a win-win situation for you as a reader and me as a writer who’s fond of writing and sharing things.

In 2020, I published my first book – Monday Mornings Done Right. Due to the pandemic, it was published as an ebook.

In 2021, as the sales were good, my publisher announced the release of the paperback version. It was a dream come true for me.

In 2022, I published my second book – My Brave Lady.

In between these two books, I’ve published three ebooks/short stories on Amazon –

Mrs Rao, An Age-Old Love Story

Home Quarantined – A story of hope, inspiration, and kindness

First 365 Days In A Marriage – A collection of musings

Step 1:

It’s evident that I’ve invested a lot of years, effort, patience, and dedication into building all my above assets. Similarly, if you had invested your whole life into something you loved, go back in time and revisit all your achievements and most importantly, the things that gave you sheer happiness and a feeling of accomplishment. This is your first step towards getting back on track in life.

2. A life-changing event

I got married in 2021 and it changed my life to a great extent. The shift from a nuclear family to a joint family wasn’t easy. Additional responsibilities proved a hurdle in my writing routines. New people hijacked my life. Festivals were the major distractions, but something I couldn’t compromise upon. Ever-changing circumstances and a constant dip in energy levels, all joined hands and led to my writing take a backseat.

I did write blogs once in a while but one blog took around a week or sometimes two to be written and published. Sitting for hours at a stretch felt like a luxury. Before marriage, I wrote one blog in a couple of days – one for brainstorming, and the other for the actual writing.

Step 2:

Discover what went wrong in the past months or years that led to you going off track. In my case, marriage happened (not that it was wrong) which was an inevitable part of life at that moment. But it certainly was a life-changing event which badly affected my writing schedule.

3. How I got carried away

I couldn’t write long-form content but I definitely couldn’t stop creating. And so I shifted to short-form content. That’s when I started my Instagram journey. Before marriage, I used Instagram to promote my books and blogs. But post-marriage, as I got less time in hand, I started creating reels on random topics and gradually started telling stories through my reels.

As I got a good response, I began improvising on my reels by giving voiceovers, recording good videos, etc. Then someone told me I should also add captions and I took that feedback and started adding captions to my reels. I also bought a cheap mic to record a better voice.

My reels started going viral and people genuinely loved my content. I was creating a lot of content daily on both my Instagram pages. I learned to edit videos and studied how to use Instagram to make my content reach. Deep down I knew I was being carried away by this fancy visual content world. But I kept lying to myself that I was on the right track.

I also went a step ahead and against my values and bought a flagship phone for making good quality reels. As there was no immediate help on how to Instagram, I took up a full-fledged course on it.

To my surprise, I also started podcasting on Spotify. Both reels and podcast episodes took a similar kind of effort – writing scripts, recording the voiceover, editing the voiceover/ video, and a lot of my time and energy. The entire process would exhaust me to the core and I would fall asleep in no time at night, hence skipping my reading sessions.

Step 3:

Lately, I realised it is very easy to get carried away from your goals in this fast-paced life where you have a glamorous platform like social media. I am a very classic example. Being an engineer, and someone who was extremely passionate about writing, I had to put everything I had into learning the new skills. I built my assets over 5 years. Despite that, I was carried away in the past two years. ‘

I realized I made excuses for not having time and moved to an easier resort to reach my audience. Little did I know that I was not adding any value to my real audience but squashing them down and changing my way of communicating with them which was initially blogging.

This, shraddharane.com, my blogging site, and the reader base I created here was my thing. Not the viewers of my reels on Instagram whom I merely knew.

If you, too, deviated from your goal, it’s time you look back to see your “why”. To analyze what gave you the most happiness and to understand if you’re taking the shortcut towards success.

4. Who am I?

Somebody once said, “It’s okay to make mistakes, but it’s not okay to not admit them”. I have made a lot of mistakes in my entire life. But I’ve always shown the courage to accept my mistakes and fix them.

As I mentioned earlier, marriage isn’t just an event. It’s a sharp turn you take in life. The turn that has the power to change your life. Juggling with the new challenges, daily, both mentally and physically, I made these three major mistakes:

a. I stopped promoting my work

b. I de-prioritized my writing and reading sessions

c. I distracted myself and moved to Instagram to stay visible

I don’t have a solid reason for the above mistakes, but a couple of incidents came as an eye-opener to me.

I was doing good at creating reels. Just like my blogging journey, my reel creation journey, too, showed an exponential growth. One day, one of my new friends declared me a – Reel star. Though it was a genuine compliment, I felt deeply offended. But I said, “Thank you”, to him with a smile.

As he was a new addition to my life, he had no idea about my writings. He was just being sweet by complimenting my latest work.

The next incident was just a few days later, where my old friends, too, addressed me as a reel star.

I wanted to scream at the top of my voice and tell the world that, “I am a writer for God’s sake. Will you stop calling me a Reel star?”

But who was to be blamed? It was me alone.

Step 4:

So, once you realize that something is amiss, go back to your mistakes. Take a break, sit and ponder on the mistakes you’ve made that led you off-road.

Ask yourself this question – “Who am I?” And you shall get your answer. Just be honest and true to yourself while you answer it.

I got my answer the hard way after people forgot that I was a blogger and writer first and not a reel star.

5. Happy realization

Do you know why I was unhappy creating reels or to be precise short-form content? Because it took away my freedom to express or share every little thing that I wanted to. The time durations put limitations on my writing.

Unlike, blogs and books, reels or any other social media content did not help me put everything to paper which resulted in me feeling incomplete.

I would often feel like Aisha Banerjee from Wake Up Sid, when she says, “Lagta ke kuch kum hai”, when she tries to write an article for the magazine.

But this happy realization of mine came after talking to my best friend – my husband. He would always make fun of my newly developed obsession with making and posting reels on Instagram. But I would turn a deaf ear to him.

I ignored his nudging, until one day, I decided to go off Instagram for a while as the content creation got overwhelming and would suck the energy out of me.

Today is the 17th day of my Instagram detox. This break has helped me realize all of the above things. When I discussed the same with my husband, he said, “Happy realisation”.

Step 5:

Stop doing whatever you are doing for some time. Take a break. Make some alone time to think about your goal, your ‘why’, and your way of working.

This break will help you realize a lot of things that you couldn’t see when you were continuously running around doing all the stuff.

My Instagram detox was my break, a much-needed one.

Dear reader, I hope you are happy to have me back. I am very happy to have found the lost road to my destination. 

I will try my best to give as much time as possible to my writing and share some valuable insights with you as I have done over the years. 

So, for now, I’ll take your leave and will see you in my next blog. 

Till then, take care! Bye bye.

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