A Week of Wins • 20 July 2015

One of the suckiest things about starting projects is that you are reminded – at almost every turn – of how close you are to failure. This is even more pronounced when you have a tendency towards perfectionism (also sometimes called "illusions of grandeur" and "ambition").

Given my proneness to starting all kinds of shit in all aspects of my life, you can imagine how familiar I am with this affliction. It manifests in all sorts of ways: I suddenly feel like it's a bad idea, that I want to give up and shut it down, that I'll walk away from the project and start something else and clean-slate it, or just simply a bottle of wine paired with a generous helping of self-pity on a weekend.

To fight these waves of negativity, I've taken to listing down my "weekly wins", to remind myself that I'm not a (complete) failure. These little wins add up to one giant Band-Aid that I cover my first-world wounds with.

For the week of 20 July 2015, I won the following:

1- Running 6km in 42 minutes

This was a happy accident. I normally run a pitiful 3km in 35 minutes, but last week, for some reason, the running gods gave me a shot of running cocaine and I was able to cover almost double the distance in the same time. I'm hoping it wasn't because my Endomondo app was malfunctiong, because that would suck. 

2- Baked fish

Not very long ago, the only kind of cooking I knew to do was making a cheese sandwich (not even grilled, because that was too complicated). I completely won at life when I discovered the wonders and supreme ease of baking fish. I also didn't die of self-food poisoning afterwards, so that's a double-win, you guys.

Thank god for the internet. I don't know how anyone learned to cook without a homemade Youtube video with bad sound guiding them through each step.

3- Made a new friend!

I met the lovely Asma Qadah in person after meeting her online through my blog exactly a year ago. She was nothing like I expected; it was such a rich experience to, after a couple years of "explaining" my background to every person I meet in Malaysia, finally not have to, because our lives ran parallel to each other's. (Asma grew up in Makkah.) 

4- Another Sidebar launched!

This blog went through a content overhaul in the past month, but it wasn't until last week when I finally took the first – and most important – two steps towards making it into a reality. The idea of making the jump from just being my personal diary into a display case of other people's writing has been – in the words of my super support group Khayra – incubating for the last couple of years, and finally just "giving birth to it" was supremely painful and scary but also liberating.  (Read more about the jump here.)

5- Doing a fitness test

... which I failed miserably, but at least now I can finally stop lying to myself about my fitness status, so that's a win. 

While it's true that I did a good job of prioritizing my fitness a few years ago by starting and sticking to a progressive and sound fitness plan, I have not been committed to it. I slacked off in the last year, sometimes only working out once or twice every few months (hah!). I've got the basics down, so whenever I do workouts, I usually have good form, but I am so, so weak. 

The fitness test was made of 3 main parts: cardio, strength and balance, all of which put to test my core, my endurance and my overall strength, all of which I failed. I am due to check back in with the gym trainer in 2 months. I will take this win.

The next time you're getting a case of the blues, why not try inviting your own list of weekly wins to the pity-party? It makes it a blast.