The Month of Beginnings & Lessons

Dear Diary,

(You don't know how good writing "Dear Diary," after a long time of not writing it makes me feel..)

The month of January has been.. A lifetime.
I've been through so many things this past month, I officially feel like it's been a lifetime.

I completed one month and ten days as an HR Learning & Development Associate in Gulf International Bank.

I even have my own desk now!

We've been having different courses for the first month in GIB, going from Communication Skills and Team Building to Banking and Finance. And so much more.

I've had a number of life lessons in the past month as well, here are the most important ones (In that prioritized order):

Dear Lulu,

1. Be Assertive.
   Being strong-willed and assertive does not necessarily mean unkindness; it does not have to have a negative meaning.
   Being that means being confident.
   
2. Don't Over-Analyze Things,
   When you're an analyzer by nature–like me–and you become too aware of the people around you, it becomes something like a curse. It'll be exactly like this: you're a computer and you're functioning automatically. And you're switched ON. All the time.
   
   What I learned from this is that it's true. I am an analyzer and I am the type of person that pays extra attention to details. But that doesn't necessarily mean that I have to analyze everything about everyone.
   
   And, something valuable to help me stop my automatic analysis, STOP VOICING YOUR ANALYSIS. [and that is step one]
   
3. Find Yourself–create yourself–Be yourself and Be Confident About It,
   Some people tell you to be yourself, but once they get a chance, they start trying to change some things about you to fit their standards and their criteria of how a person should be. Tailored to their specific liking.
   
   I learned to see myself through my eyes and not through the eyes of others. (no matter how much I like/love them).
   
   Being yourself could be hard sometimes. Especially if you are different and are in a society with cultural fundamentals that doesn't really accept anything out of the ordinary. And that is one more reason for you to be yourself. "Satisfying people is not even an aim to be reached."
   
4. Be Present,
   I read a book called 'The Present' by Dr. Spencer Johnson.
   This book is 103 pages long–yes, it's a very short one. But in those 103 pages, you find the lessons of a lifetime.
   This page could summarize the lessons in it:
   
   
   * That doesn't mean that I am actually "Present". It means that I'm enlightened and that I'm working on it.


5. "There Are No Bad Days, There Are Challenging Days." –DadI learned that a bad day is a day wasted.
   But a challenging day is a day that left you with important lessons.
   
6. Manage Your Anger, (Be calm and calculated)
   I don't have anger issues. But I discovered that when it's the wrong person at exactly the wrong time, mind you, I will snap and it won't look beautiful. And, for me, the most important thing I've learned from this is that, mostly, I'm the only one that'll actually be affected by my anger. Others would be affected, but not as badly as I would.
   
   * The way I've come to learn this lesson is that I had to be stuck with an inconsiderate and mean instructor that fails to do his job well AND he raised his voice at me in front of my colleagues. Needless to say, my reaction wasn't very "calm and calculated".

–

This past month, I read two books, went back to learning French in my Duolingo app, I read two pages of Qur'an daily, most of the days, I preceded my prayers over all my usual mundane interests and fixed my sleeping hours (mostly).

I also kept going back to my "before I go to sleep, I just want to say" Diary post. And, surprisingly and satisfyingly so, it helped me a lot.

So, for me, that was a great and a promising beginning, because I didn't do everything. Just like I predicted. And that gives me the ability to check myself and see where my weaknesses lie and try to strengthen them. Because, then, I'll see progress.

But, I think that the most important thing that I have learned is this:

In order for you to be who you're meant to be in the future, you have to go through what you're going through in the present. At this very moment. No matter how bad and frustrating it feels.

But the secret key to this is LEARNING from it. Learning from every single second of it.