A friend and I were talking recently about all the things she wants to do.

She wants to go out more. Meet more people. Maybe even go somewhere by herself.

And almost immediately, every possibility came with a reason why now wasn’t quite the right time.

She’d never done it before.

It might be awkward.

She needed to get out of her comfort zone first.

Maybe one day she’d just force herself to go.

One day.

Someday.

Eventually.

I found myself telling her: if you keep waiting for all these conditions to be met before you start doing the things you want to do, you could spend your entire life waiting.

And somewhere in the middle of saying it, I had the deeply irritating realization that I was talking to myself.

Because I have a very clear picture of the woman I’m going to be one day.

She makes videos.

She’s a published author.

She moves around the world.

She does the things she says she wants to do.

She is, conveniently, always somewhere in the future.

Apparently, I’ve been waiting for her to arrive.

There’s a name for this

I recently came across an idea Chris Williamson talks about called the deferred life hypothesis.

The basic premise is painfully simple:

You start treating your current life as the bit before your real life begins.

Jungian analyst Marie-Louise von Franz wrote about something similar decades ago, calling it the “provisional life”: the strange feeling that this isn’t quite real life yet. What you’re doing now is temporary. The real thing is still coming.

Writer Gurwinder Bhogal has called a related idea Deferred Happiness Syndrome: the sense that your present reality is merely a prelude to some better future.

Different names.

Same dangerous little word:

When.

When I lose the weight.

When I make more money.

When work calms down.

When I’m more confident.

When I leave this city.

When I find someone.

When I get my shit together.

When I’m less anxious.

When I feel ready.

Then I’ll start living differently.

And the fucked-up thing is, it doesn’t necessarily look like avoidance.

Sometimes it looks like ambition.

Sometimes it looks like self-improvement.

Sometimes it looks incredibly responsible.

You’re not avoiding your life. You’re working on yourself.

You’re preparing.

You’re building.

You’re waiting until you can do it properly.

Except the conditions keep changing.

You make the money and discover there’s another number.

You lose the weight and find another thing about your body to fix.

You get through the difficult month and another difficult month appears.

You achieve the thing that was supposed to make you feel like you’d finally arrived, and within approximately five minutes, your brain has moved the finish line.

Your life remains permanently under construction.

I think I’ve done this more than I realised

For a long time, I kept talking about wanting to be sober.

And as I write this, I’m 24 days clean.

Do you know what happened on the day I finally started?

Nothing particularly cinematic.

I didn’t wake up transformed.

The resistance didn’t disappear.

I didn’t suddenly become a person who never wanted the thing she was trying to stop doing.

I just started having to deal with the resistance instead of treating the resistance as evidence that I wasn’t ready.

And I think that distinction matters.

Because we have this fantasy that Future Us will somehow find all of this easier.

Future Me will make the videos because she’ll be more confident.

Future Me will put herself out there because she’ll be less afraid of looking stupid.

Future Me will have discipline.

Future Me will know what she’s doing.

Future Me is apparently an absolute fucking machine.

Meanwhile, Current Me is supposed to prepare the premises for her arrival.

But there is no clean handover.

There is no morning on which Future You walks through the door and says:

Thanks babe. I’ll take it from here.

It’s still you.

So, are you deferring your life?

I don’t think the answer is to abandon every responsibility, book a flight and start screaming YOLO at people.

Some things genuinely have prerequisites.

You may actually need the money before you quit the job.

You may actually need to heal before entering another relationship.

You may actually have responsibilities that limit what you can do right now.

The question isn’t whether you have constraints.

The question is whether you’ve turned those constraints into entrance requirements for your entire life.

A good place to look is at the sentences you keep making with when.

When ______ happens, I’ll finally ______.

Write a few down.

Then look at the second half.

Does the first thing genuinely have to happen before you can do the second?

Maybe you can’t move countries tomorrow.

Can you start living like someone interested in the world today?

Maybe you don’t feel confident enough to go somewhere alone.

Can you go somewhere alone while feeling awkward?

Maybe you aren’t ready to make polished videos.

Can you make a shit one?

Maybe your body isn’t where you want it to be.

Does that actually mean you can’t wear the dress, take the photograph, go to the party, swim in the sea or let yourself be seen until it is?

There is a difference between a real constraint and a condition you’ve placed on your own participation.

I suspect a lot of us know the difference when we’re forced to look at it.

You probably won’t feel ready

This might be the part I’m learning in real time.

Doing the thing doesn’t necessarily remove the resistance to doing the thing.

Sometimes you just become a person who can move with resistance in the room.

Twenty-four days haven’t magically removed every thought, urge or negotiation from my head.

But twenty-four days exist.

And they exist because, twenty-four days ago, I stopped asking a future version of myself to do something the current version of me could begin badly.

Maybe that’s the way out of a deferred life.

Not blowing everything up.

Not trying to become fearless.

Not suddenly living every dream you’ve ever had by Friday.

Just noticing the places where you’ve quietly said:

Not yet.

And asking whether not yet is actually true.

Because one day is a very seductive place to live.

Nothing is awkward there.

Nothing goes wrong.

You’re thinner, richer, calmer, braver and mysteriously better at everything.

The only problem is that you don’t actually live there.

You live here.

And however unfinished this version of your life feels, this is not the waiting room.

This is it.

My Mind Is Full Of Dead Stuff

Ideas
I buried
before anyone else
had the chance to kill them.

Versions of myself
I never gave enough time
to become real.

Dreams
I wrapped in white sheets
and lowered gently into the ground.

Each one marked
with a neat little headstone.

Not good enough.

Not ready.

Not yet.

If I’m honest,

they were never buried
because they lacked potential.

They were buried
because I was afraid.

It is easier
to let a dream die in silence

than to watch it
struggle to live out loud.

So I became
both the mourner

and the murderer.

One day,

I, too,
will lie beneath the earth.

And perhaps
I’ll meet them there.

The poems I never wrote.

The conversations I never had.

The woman I kept promising
I’d become
when I was finally ready.

I wonder
if they’ll recognise me.

Or if they’ll simply point
to the rows of headstones

and say,

“This is where we waited for you.”

So today,

I try something new

Today,

I try something kind.

Instead of digging
another grave,

I begin planting flowers

In the graveyard of my mind.

Love,
Poojaa

For the longest time, I thought weed was helping me become the person I wanted to be.

It made me feel more expressive. More thoughtful. More creative.

I’d put on music, make coffee, open my journal and spend hours thinking about my future.

The business I wanted to build.

The videos I wanted to make.

The books I wanted to write.

The woman I wanted to become.

Looking back, I wasn’t lying to myself.

I genuinely wanted all of those things.

The problem was that somewhere along the way, I started confusing imagining my future with building it.

Getting high let me indulge the dream for longer.

And that is a dangerous thing.

Because imagining the life you want can feel strangely similar to creating it.

Your heart races.

Ideas flow.

You can almost see it.

You feel inspired.

Hopeful.

Alive.

Until you wake up the next morning and realize...

Nothing actually moved.

I had spent years rehearsing a life I wasn’t living.

For a long time, I thought weed was my biggest problem.

Now I don’t think it was.

Weed was just the place I kept running whenever life asked something difficult of me.

Whenever I had to face rejection.

Or loneliness.

Or uncertainty.

Or the terrifying possibility that maybe I’d put myself out there and people wouldn’t care.

Lighting up became easier than finding out.

It wasn’t destroying my dreams overnight.

It was postponing them.

Quietly.

Patiently.

One negotiation at a time.

“I’ll start tomorrow.”

“This week’s been stressful.”

“Just tonight.”

“After this I’ll stop.”

Every excuse sounded reasonable.

That’s what made them so dangerous.

No single decision ruined my life.

Hundreds of tiny ones slowly shaped it.

I think that’s what scared me most.

Not that I was making terrible decisions.

That I was becoming someone who could always explain them away.

For years, I’d make these grand promises to myself before going to bed.

Tomorrow I’ll wake up early.

Tomorrow I’ll record the video.

Tomorrow I’ll stop smoking.

Tomorrow I’ll finally become the woman I’ve been talking about becoming for years.

Morning would come.

I’d negotiate.

I’d lose.

At first, breaking those promises didn’t feel like a big deal.

Until I realized every broken promise was teaching me something.

Not that I was incapable.

That my own word didn’t mean very much.

That realization hit me harder than any craving ever has.

Because once you stop trusting yourself...

Everything becomes heavier.

Every goal feels impossible.

Every decision takes more effort than it should.

You begin looking for motivation because you’ve stopped believing commitment is enough.

You wait to feel confident.

Inspired.

Ready.

You keep waiting for a future version of yourself to arrive and save the current one.

I did that for years.

Sometimes I’d convince myself that moving countries would change everything.

Or that making more money would.

Or finding the right routine.

Or buying the right notebook.

Or reading one more book.

Anything except sitting with the uncomfortable truth.

Nothing was coming to save me from the conversations I refused to have with myself.

The strange thing is...

The weed wasn’t even enjoyable anymore.

It had become familiar.

Predictable.

Automatic.

It wasn’t giving me anything new.

It was simply protecting me from discomfort.

From the discomfort of starting.

The discomfort of being seen.

The discomfort of making videos after saying I’d make them for four years.

The discomfort of posting something imperfect.

The discomfort of discovering that maybe I’m not as good as I hope I am.

Those feelings terrified me.

So instead of living my life...

I lived in my head.

And there is something profoundly lonely about a life that’s only ever lived internally.

Your imagination becomes richer than your memories.

Your plans become bigger than your actions.

You spend hours arguing with yourself.

Creating stories.

Winning debates that don’t matter.

Meanwhile, your actual life quietly waits outside.

Eventually I realized something.

I wasn’t afraid of failing.

I was afraid of finding out.

As long as I stayed in my imagination, every possibility stayed alive.

The business could still become huge.

The videos could still be brilliant.

The future version of me remained perfect because she never had to exist in reality.

Reality asks something imagination never does.

Evidence.

That’s when everything started changing for me.

Not because I suddenly became disciplined.

Not because I hit rock bottom.

Not because one motivational video changed my life.

It was much quieter than that.

It was the accumulation of hundreds of disappointing conversations with myself.

One day I realized I wasn’t just wasting my potential.

I had stopped trusting the person making promises to me.

Me.

And that hurt.

More than losing money.

More than losing time.

Because if you can’t trust yourself...

Who exactly are you supposed to lean on?

Around that time, I started reading more about how the brain learns.

One idea kept returning.

Your brain doesn’t become what you intend.

It becomes what you repeat.

Every time I escaped discomfort, I taught my brain that discomfort was something to avoid.

Every time I reached for weed instead of sitting with whatever I was feeling...

I wasn’t just making a decision.

I was strengthening a pathway.

Eventually the escape became automatic.

Not because I lacked discipline.

Because my brain had learned exactly what I had taught it.

The hopeful part is that the opposite is also true.

Every time you stay.

Every time you keep your word.

Every time you let the craving pass without feeding it...

You’re teaching your brain something new.

You’re collecting different evidence.

Not dramatic evidence.

Ordinary evidence.

The kind that quietly changes who you believe yourself to be.

Today I’m thirteen days clean.

I wish I could tell you everything has changed.

It hasn’t.

Some mornings still feel heavy.

I still overthink.

I still have moments where escaping sounds incredibly attractive.

The difference is that I don’t automatically believe those thoughts anymore.

I’ve started realizing that discomfort isn’t an emergency.

Sometimes it’s just life asking me to stay.

And every single time I do...

No matter how ordinary the moment looks...

I trust myself a little more.

That’s become the reward.

Not perfection.

Not productivity.

Not some magical feeling of finally having it all figured out.

Trust.

Because self-trust changes everything.

It gives you courage before confidence.

Action before certainty.

Movement before motivation.

People often ask me what helped me quit.

The truth is...

I stopped making the goal “don’t smoke.”

The goal became,

“Be someone whose word means something.”

Smoking simply stopped fitting that identity.

I don’t know whether I’ll ever completely stop thinking about it.

Maybe I won’t.

But I know this.

Every promise I keep today makes tomorrow’s promise easier to believe.

I used to think freedom meant doing whatever I felt like.

Now I think freedom is no longer being controlled by every feeling that passes through you.

I used to think courage meant not being afraid.

Now I think courage is staying in the room after fear arrives.

And I used to think the hardest part would be quitting weed.

It wasn’t.

The hardest part was becoming someone I could finally trust again.

Maybe that’s what we spend our whole lives doing.

Not finding ourselves.

Coming home to the person we kept promising we’d become.

Come home now,
Its been a minute and I miss you:)

Talk soon,
Love Poojaa.

I’ve been thinking about something lately.

Most of us don’t have an information problem anymore. We know we should sleep earlier. We know we should reply to that email. We know we should apply for the job. We know we should go to the gym. We know what will make our lives better.

So if knowledge isn’t the problem... what is?

I think knowing has become a substitute for doing.

We write the to-do list, but that’s not the act. We also have to do the to-do list. And somewhere between writing it and doing it, something happens. We think. We plan. We reschedule. We colour-code it. We put it on a pink slip. And none of that gets it done.

Only doing it gets it done.

Resistance doesn’t announce itself

Here’s something I’ve noticed: resistance rarely shows up as stubbornness. It shows up as a lawyer.

“Let’s do it after lunch.” “I need to think about it a little more.” “Maybe tomorrow I’ll have more energy.”

It always has a convincing argument. And the more important the work, the stronger the argument gets.

I used to think that meant I needed to fight harder. Push through. That’s what everyone says, right? Successful people always fight through resistance.

But I’ve realized something different.

I’m not the best commander, but I’m an even worse slave.

What that means is: I don’t respond well to force—either from outside or from within. The “just push through” narrative has never worked for me. And I don’t think it works for most of us, not the way it’s usually framed.

But here’s what does work. Here’s what I’ve been discovering:

Action gives you information that thinking never will.

You don’t go to the gym because you’re certain you’ll enjoy it. You go because only after going do you learn whether today’s resistance was fear, laziness, exhaustion, or simply momentum waiting to happen. Thinking cannot answer that. Action can.

This is the part people miss.

We spend 10 hours thinking about sending one email. We rehearse it in our heads. We predict every response. We negotiate with ourselves about whether it’s the right moment, the right tone, the right time.

And then we send it. In under 10 minutes. And the world doesn’t end.

The resistance wasn’t protecting us. It was just a lawyer, making a case.

What actually changes things

Here’s what I’ve actually been doing that works:

I remove the negotiation.

Not with harsh discipline. With structure.

I write things I want to do. Not as wishes. As decisions. This is happening. This is not a maybe. This is a yes.

Then I don’t analyse my way through it. I don’t think my way through it. I don’t talk my way through it.

I do it.

Stephen Covey once asked a writer, “Do you only write when inspiration strikes?” The writer said, “Fortunately, it always strikes at 9 a.m.”

That’s automation. That’s removing decision fatigue.

You don’t negotiate with yourself about whether you feel like going to the gym if you’ve already decided that at 6 a.m., you’re going to the gym. You don’t negotiate with yourself about whether you feel like writing the newsletter if you’ve already decided that Tuesday is newsletter day.

You just go.

Because talking about it, planning about it, scheduling it—none of that is the act. The act is showing up.

And here’s why that matters: this is how you build self-trust.

Self-trust doesn’t come from thinking about yourself as someone disciplined. It comes from being someone who does what she says she’ll do. Even when she doesn’t feel like it. Especially then.

Because the feeling comes after.

The thing nobody says

We will decide how we feel about it after we’ve done it.

Not before.

Not during.

After.

You won’t know if you actually enjoy the gym until you’ve gone. You won’t know if the email matters until you’ve sent it. You won’t know if you have something to say until you’ve started writing.

The resistance you feel right now? It’s not information. It’s just noise.

The real information comes from action.

So here’s what I’m asking you:

What’s the one thing you’ve been thinking about doing and not doing?

The one thing you tell yourself will be good for you, and yet you keep postponing?

Don’t think about it more.

Don’t plan it more.

Don’t negotiate with yourself about the best time or the best way.

Open the page. Set a timer. Show up.

Do it first.

Decide how you feel about it after.

Because you’ve already decided it matters. The only thing left is the doing.

And that’s always been the answer.

The only thing that’s ever changed is our willingness to stop thinking and start acting.

And I think there comes the point where there is nothing left to “think about” but Accept only doing the thing gets it done.

So let's zip… for our own good and get it done.

What are you getting done? Tell me:)

Talk soon,
Love Poojaa

I ended a three-year coaching relationship this month.

He was my first client. The only person willing to believe in what I was building when I didn’t yet know what I was building.

And I let him go.

Not because it was easy. Because it had stopped being real and became heavy. Like weight-lifting, useless kind. The sneaky energy drain that leaves you exhausted without effort.

We gotta keep a tap on that babe.
Sometimes, somethings are simply not worth the trade.

The Cost of Staying

When I raised my rates, something shifted. The work which had once been energizing became heavy. Like a constant justification and un called explaination to defend my worth, slowly leaving me feeling worthless.

He resisted. I adjusted. He pushed back again. I bent further.

This is the trap: you stop defending your value and start negotiating it away. Each time you say yes to something that doesn’t serve you, you train yourself to tolerate more.

I watched myself apologize for my own worth. I watched myself offer things I’d promised myself I wouldn’t. I felt the weight accumulating not in my calendar, but in my nervous system.

The coaching became about managing his disappointment, not creating transformation.

And I knew: this isn’t a business relationship anymore. It’s a cage I’m choosing to stay in.

The Voice That Almost Trapped Me

Before I said no, my brain made the case:

“Its difficult, yes. But he’s stable. He’s income. What if you lose him and can’t rebuild? What if your bigger goals stay dreams?”

It sounded reasonable. Protective. Like wisdom.

It was scarcity. Pure scarcity.

I used to love this work. Real transformation happened. Aliveness happened. But somewhere along the line, the energy cost exceeded the creative value.

That’s the signal you cannot ignore: when what you’re giving costs more than what you’re creating.

That’s when you leave.
Even if it’s scary and even if it hurts.

But it is essential, and doing that for yourself is an act of kindness you deserve. And baby, only you can put your foot down, and when you do, stick with it.

It will change you. In ways you can’t see it.
And you need that evidence to start trusting yourself again.

The Pattern I Keep Recognizing

This is the third time I’ve chosen myself over “security”.

I left American Express at a peak. Good salary. Promising future. But something inside had gone quiet.

People thought I was reckless. “Why walk away when you’re doing well?”

I took a backpack to a different country, to earn in a new currency. Terrified and alive at the same time.

COVID locked me alone in Dubai for three months. It was brutal.

But I got through it anyway.
And got to meet a side of me that I didn’t know existed.
I hadn't allowed her to be. I was busy drowning her in the “should haves,” “could haves,” “no one does that,” “everyone does this” useless mandates.

Only to learn, some women aren’t meant to be tamed but meant to run wild, to show what the other side could look like.

And looking back at every big choice, every obstacle, every risk I took I’m not ashamed. I’m proud.

Because I learned something about myself: I’m someone who chooses aliveness over comfort. Who chooses growth over stability. Who leaves when her soul stops being fed.

Not when things fall apart. When they stop being real.

What Happens to Your Vibration When You Choose Yourself

Napoleon Hill understood this: you don’t attract what you need. You attract what you are.

When I was clinging to that client for income, I was broadcasting desperation. “I need this. I’ll accept anything. The alternative terrifies me.”

That vibration attracts exactly what it vibrates toward: more difficulty, more boundary violations, more depletion.

The moment I said no truly no, with no hedging something shifted.

The anxiety dissolved. The heaviness lifted. I woke up light.

And here’s what matters: lightness is magnetic.

The million-dollar business I’m building towards won’t come from desperation.
It won’t come from clinging to people who drain me. It will come from becoming someone whose energy is clear enough to attract the right clients, the right opportunities, the right energy exchange.

Your vibration is your advertisement.

The Evidence You Give Yourself

When you make the hard choice and actually keep it when you don’t rationalize your way back something happens inside.

You prove to yourself that you can be trusted.

Not trusted by someone else. Trusted by you.

Every time I’ve chosen myself, the world didn’t end. It shifted. I survived the gap. I actually thrived in it.

So now, when doubt whispers its reasonable arguments, I have proof. I have three years, three major decisions showing me: You’ve done this before. You can do it again.

That’s not arrogance. That’s evidence.

The Girl Who Keeps Leaving

Maybe there’s something in me that simply cannot stay in cages. Even comfortable ones.

Or maybe I’ve learned something essential: the greatest investment in your future is knowing when to walk away.

Not from anger. From clarity.

Not to punish. To protect.

The girl who keeps leaving isn’t running away from something. She’s running toward the version of herself who knows her worth and won’t compromise it.

That version? She attracts.
And remember, if you're sad or disappointed, add more lipstick and attack.

What have you been rationalizing your way out of?
Tell me:)

Talk soon,
Love Poojaa

Do you lie down at night thinking about how morning would be different?

How you’d be different.

Like, start the day right.

And then the extra laze is just a little extra clingy.

Hard to let go of.

And then you watch yourself go.

And then you go: let’s dive in. We’ll start tomorrow.

I’m writing this to tell you how close I am to lighting up right now.

I really could.

No one stopping me. No one would even know.

And we would still work. I know how to make it work even when I’m danked up on dank.

But here’s the thing.

I would know.

No matter what I’d say to the world, or to myself.

I know I didn’t do what I said I would. Yet again.

I don’t necessarily want that to sit deep in my body or my mind.

But I don’t wish to brush it off either.

Because that swing dance of knowing, not knowing, pretending not to know.

That’s the heaviest thing I carry.

And I have learned, and I try to remember, that if you wish to fly, you gotta take yourself lightly.

I admit I wish to fly.

I will also admit I’m a tad bit lost about where to start.

The age old paradox.

So much to do, hence doing nothing.

So here’s what I’ll start with.

Something.

Writing like this feels nice.

And maybe this is a way of hiding yet again.

But something about this hiding tells me it’ll reveal aspects of me I’ve been wanting to let out.

I was busy numbing.

Something tells me I’m now in a position to make space for her.

Something about this concealing makes me want to heal first.

In this rush to conceal, when did we forget to heal?

Now don’t get me wrong.

Healing can feel heavy. Like, oh god, trauma, oof.

But it’s sneaky in real life.

It’s not only the big catastrophic moments that get you.

Somehow it seeps into the daily.

Into the ordinary Tuesday.

Into the morning you couldn’t get up.

A friend called me yesterday.

He’d read what I wrote. He said he liked it. Really liked it.

And honestly? That one call meant more than any number of likes ever could.

Because sometimes in your true expression, people get it.

Two heart strings going, ting. In sync.

But baby, don’t hold your breath for it.

That’s the byproduct.

The true work lies in the expression itself.

That’s the end in itself.

Expression. Depression.

Notice how close those words are.

When you’re depressing, you’re compressing. Suppressing.

The parts of you tied down in your body, needing an out.

The parts you slowly, quietly, sometimes unconsciously discarded.

Because you learned: too much, too sensitive, too cold, too silly, too whatever the fuck.

Here’s what I’ve learned.

The dark, wicked parts of you need an outlet too.

We’re so busy cutting them off.

Isolation. Secrecy. Shame.

But these shadow parts need integration, not elimination.

Carl Jung spent his life on this.

The idea that what you disown doesn’t disappear.

It just goes underground and runs you from there.

So I invite you in.

Integrate the parts of you that you disowned.

Because that hole? It’s what makes you whole.

And maybe, just maybe, we all need that untamed, unfiltered, slightly wicked side.

To feel alive.

To stop being too damn comfortable.

That’s where the real flying starts.

Talk soon,
Love, Poojaa

Fifth of July, 2026.

Sitting on my terrace. Struggling.

I haven’t written a diary entry in a while. I wanted this diary to not just be a diary, but to have a purpose. Something I’d like all my writing to have.

A purpose.

But what the hell even is that when I’m purposely feeding the very thing I wish to eliminate?

Why am I still wanting that joint even when I don’t want it?

What a fucking dangerous pool this is.

That I am contributing to my own suffering.

That I can’t control me.

How out of control even am I?

And what does being in control mean for me?

The fact that I’m writing this means I’m currently not feeling it.

So let’s start there.

Not being in control looks like this:

I’m not writing.

I’m not publishing.

I’m not engaging.

I’m not working out.

I’m not cleaning up.

I’m not resting

I’m not doing what I want and when I mean to.

I say I want this life.

Then I go out and act the exact opposite way.

My wants don’t change into behaviours that get it done.

Why?

Here’s what the science actually says.

When something feels unfamiliar, even when it’s good, even when it’s exactly what you want, your nervous system treats it like a threat.

It doesn’t distinguish between danger and discomfort.

It just knows: this doesn’t feel like home.

And it pulls you back.

The escape route your brain offers feels like relief.

A joint.

A scroll.

A nap.

Anything that returns you to the familiar state where the dream stays safe and untested.

Because here’s the thing about dreams you haven’t acted on yet: they can’t fail.

They stay perfect in the dreaming state.

The moment you move toward them, they become real.

And real things can disappoint you.

So your brain, trying to protect you, keeps you dreaming.

And dreaming feels good.

Until it doesn’t.

Now let me hear my own internal narrative.

The one I usually avoid.

Why do you fight so hard not to do the things you want to do?

Because it’s scary.

And I get it. We need a little thrill. But not when it becomes bone chilling. Not when it renders you incapacitated.

For me, the hiding looks like hash and weed.

It lets me indulge the dreaming state and excuse myself out of action.

In the moment it feels like softness.

In the long run it’s suffocating.

It’s been suffocating for a long time.

And yet.

When I look at the sky, at the artistry of the universe, the whole colour burst at sunset, bouncing from cloud to cloud, I can see it.

A different life with every bounce.

Cloud one: I’m a creator living in Bali.

Cloud two: I’m conducting getaway retreats in Thailand.

Cloud three: I’m on a billboard in New York City, walking down the boulevard, singing California Here I Come.

You see how that gets me to cloud nine?

And I’m left wondering: why do I resist feeling this again and again? What is so scary about the gap the hash exposes? Why go back when I want to leave?

Here’s what I know.

The gap between knowing and doing isn’t a willpower problem.

It’s not a character flaw.

It’s not evidence that you’re broken or weak or not meant for the life you want.

It’s your nervous system doing its job, keeping you safe inside what it already knows.

The way out isn’t to fight it.

It’s to make the unfamiliar feel familiar.

To inhabit the cloud nine version of yourself so consistently, so vividly, so repeatedly, that your brain stops treating her like a threat and starts recognising her as home.

That’s the work. Not the hustle. The identity shift.

I don’t wish to escape anymore.

I wish to stay.

Sober by choice.

Clear by choice.

Present by choice.

Ace mode. Hot, rich, luxury, fun era.

Let’s go.

Talk soon,
Love Pooja

I came back from one of my dearest friends’ wedding feeling electric. People said things about my work that landed. I felt seen, I felt good. And then the exhaustion hit.

Not the wedding kind. The kind that comes after you finally let yourself rest and your body just collapses. Three days of running on adrenaline, and suddenly I’m home, sitting at my desk, and there’s nothing left.

The laptop opens. The list stares back.

Newsletter. Podcast replies I haven’t answered in days. Revenue targets I know I should have mapped by now. The content bank. All of it waiting. All of it undone.

And I freeze.

Not because I don’t know what to do. I do. I know exactly what to do. But there’s this voice. Quiet, persistent. Is it good enough? Will they like it? Why am I still here when everyone else is already there?

My Cousin in Paris just got selected for this leadership thing. My Friend’s company is already in newspapers.
Don't get me wrong. I love this for them. I really do.
But even so, there are moments when you can't help but look at where you are…
And here I am, haven’t posted in a week, can’t reply to a podcast request. So why would I bother starting now?

That’s when it gets twisted.

Your nervous system is reading the exhaustion, the list, the comparison, the doubt. All of it. As threat. Too much to do. Too much judgment. Too much risk.

And when it perceives threat too big to fight or run from, it does what it learned to do. It freezes. It shuts down. It protects you by paralyzing you.

This is a trauma response. Not the big catastrophe kind. The everyday kind.

Trauma is what happens when your nervous system perceives more threat than it can handle. It expresses itself in different ways.

One of them is freeze. Your system goes numb, paralyzed, unable to move.

Another is fawn. The part of you that tries to be small, tries to please, tries to get it perfect so nobody leaves or judges you.

Both are your nervous system trying to keep you safe the only way it knows how.

In this moment, you’re experiencing both. The freeze is shutting you down. The fawn is whispering that maybe you shouldn’t bother anyway. Maybe you’re not good enough, so why risk it?

The exhaustion didn’t create the freeze. It just made your system more vulnerable to it. And the comparison didn’t either. But it gave your nervous system more reasons to believe the threat is real.

So you freeze. And then you’re furious at yourself for it.

Because you know you can do this. You know it. So why aren’t you?

Because your system is overwhelmed. Not broken. Overwhelmed.

The only way out is one small thing. Not the biggest. Not the most important. The one that feels possible in the next hour.

Do it. Finish it. Get proof that you can move. Then the next one doesn’t feel impossible anymore.

That’s how you unfreeze.

Talk soon,
Love Pooja

Your heart is racing.

You haven’t moved. You’re not in danger.

You’re just sitting there, and your body is acting like you’re about to jump off something.

Because in a way, you are.

You’re about to choose the version of you that doesn’t exist yet.

And everything inside you is pulling toward the one that does.

I know this feeling.

Not as a concept.

As a moment I lived through recently, sitting still, heart loud, choosing not to go back to the familiar thing.

And what happened inside me in that silence is exactly what I want to talk to you about today.

The Moment Nobody Talks About

Everyone talks about the decision.

The courage it takes. The clarity. The conviction.

Nobody talks about what comes after.

I said no to something recently. Real, incoming work. The kind that feels foolish to turn away when you’re building something and the safety net isn’t fully there yet.

The moment I did, my heart started racing.

I hadn’t moved. Nothing had happened.

And yet my body was in full alarm.

Then the silence came.

And in the silence, the most convincing voice I know showed up.

Maybe you were too hasty. Maybe just check in. Once. Just to see.

It didn’t feel like fear.

It felt like reason.

It always does.

Why Your Brain Pulls You Back

Here’s what’s actually happening in that moment.

Your nervous system has one job above everything else, keep you alive.

And to your brain, alive doesn’t mean growing.

It means known. Predictable. Safe.

So the moment you do something outside your pattern, hold the line, say no, stay when you’d usually leave, your amygdala fires.

Because unfamiliar, to your brain, registers exactly the same as danger.

This is why the pull back always feels so convincing.

It’s not weakness. It’s not confusion.

It’s biology doing exactly what it was built to do.

The problem is it was built for survival, not for the life you’re trying to build.

And here’s the part that makes it harder.

Your brain doesn’t just pull you toward the familiar action.

It pulls you toward the familiar identity.

The version of you that went back.

The version that softened it.

The version your nervous system considers home.

Even if that home is a place you’ve been trying to leave.

The Loop That Keeps You Stuck

Here’s what nobody explains properly about how this works inside your body.

Every time you take the exit, go back, undo it, make the discomfort stop, your nervous system gets a hit of relief.

And relief feels like reward.

So your brain files it.

This is what we do when it gets hard. We leave.

And the next time it gets hard, it reaches for that pattern faster.

More automatically.

With less hesitation.

Until the exit isn’t a choice anymore.

It’s just what happens.

You’re not weak.

You’re running a programme your brain has practised so many times it doesn’t need your permission anymore.

The only way to change the programme is to run a different one.

Even once.

Even badly.

Even scared.

The Space Where It Changes

I didn’t go back.

I stayed in the discomfort and talked to myself the way I’d talk to someone I loved who was frightened.

You’ll be fine. It’s okay. Stay here. Let’s see.

And slowly, something settled.

Not because the fear disappeared.

Because I stayed longer than it did.

Here’s what that did, neurologically.

My brain got new data.

Not the version of me that exits.

The version that stays.

And every single time you stay, even for one moment longer than you wanted to, your brain updates its file on who you are.

This is what I’ve learned from studying identity and nervous system regulation in a way I couldn’t unfeel:

you don’t change by trying to do different things.

You change by giving your brain evidence of a different person.

One moment at a time.

One choice at a time.

One silence you didn’t run from.

The space exists in every single moment you feel the pull.

That racing heart, that convincing voice, that almost irresistible logic of going back...

that’s not a sign you’re wrong.

That’s the space.

And here is exactly what you do when you’re in it.

Read more

You’re Watching Yourself Do It. And Doing It Anyway.

You know that moment.

You’re not blindsided. You’re not caught off guard.

You can see exactly what’s happening.

The word you’re about to say.

The thing you’re about to reach for.

The work you’re about to avoid.

And there’s this strange, almost cinematic split second where you think:

I know what this is.

And I’m doing it anyway.

That feeling of watching yourself participate in your own undoing is one of the most disorienting experiences a person can have.

Because it’s not ignorance.

It’s not a bad day.

It’s you, fully conscious, choosing the thing you said you wouldn’t choose.

And then wondering what the hell is wrong with you.

Nothing is wrong with you.

But something very specific is happening inside you.

And once you see it clearly, really clearly, you can’t unsee it.

The Brain That Keeps You Familiar

Your nervous system has one job above everything else:

Keep you alive.

And to your brain, alive doesn’t mean thriving.

It means known.

Predictable.

Safe.

Your brain is essentially a very sophisticated pattern-recognition machine, and its favourite patterns are the ones it’s already run a thousand times.

Because those, at least, it knows won’t kill you.

This is why people stay.

In situations they hate.

In habits they’ve named and diagnosed and journaled about and posted about.

In versions of themselves they’ve outgrown.

Not because they don’t want out.

But because out is unknown territory.

And unknown territory, to your nervous system, registers the same as danger.

So your brain does something quietly brutal:

It makes the misery you know feel safer than the possibility you don’t.

It will choose a familiar pain over an unfamiliar freedom every single time, unless you intervene.

This isn’t weakness.

This is biology doing exactly what it was designed to do.

The problem is it was designed for survival, not for the life you’re trying to build.

Why You Keep Reaching for the Cheap Thing

Here’s what nobody explains properly about dopamine.

It’s not the pleasure chemical.

That’s the myth.

Dopamine is the anticipation chemical.

It fires when you expect something good, not when you get it.

It’s what makes you reach for your phone before you’ve consciously decided to.

It’s the pull toward the familiar thing before your awareness has even caught up.

And your brain needs dopamine to do everything hard.

Focus.

Starting.

Pushing through resistance.

Doing the work that actually matters.

All of that runs on it.

So here’s the loop:

Every time you take a cheap, easy hit, a scroll, a notification, a substance, anything that rewards you without costing you anything real, your dopamine spikes.

And then it crashes.

Below where it started.

In that crash, your brain is running on a deficit, and it wants out fast.

So it reaches for the fastest, most familiar thing available.

Not your goals.

Not the hard conversation.

Not the work.

The easiest thing.

Again.

You’re not lazy.

You’re trapped in a loop where your brain is constantly spending tomorrow’s motivation to get through today’s discomfort.

And every cheap hit makes the real thing feel a little more impossible.

It’s like eating a bag of chips before the meal you actually needed.

You’re not hungry anymore.

But you’re also not nourished.

You’re Not on the Bench. You’re Playing for the Wrong Team.

Here’s what I want you to sit with.

When you watch yourself do the thing, when you’re in that split second of full awareness and you do it anyway, you’re not a passive spectator.

You’re an active participant.

You are, in that moment, choosing the familiar.

Choosing the loop.

Choosing the version of yourself your brain considers home, even if that home is a place you’ve been trying to leave.

And the most painful part?

A piece of you has also quietly written off the other version.

The one who does the work.

Shows up.

Chooses differently.

Because you’ve talked about that version for so long without becoming them that a part of you has stopped believing they’re real.

That part isn’t your enemy either.

It’s just exhausted.

Exhausted of hoping and not seeing evidence.

So the change doesn’t start with motivation.

It doesn’t start with a plan.

It starts with one moment where you don’t do the thing and you feel what that feels like.

Not as a thought.

Not as a promise.

As actual lived evidence that you are capable of choosing differently.

That feeling, that quiet in the gap, is the proof your brain has been waiting for.

The Space Where Everything Changes

Viktor Frankl, who survived the Nazi concentration camps and built an entire philosophy from the experience, said something that has never left me:

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

The loop exists.

The familiar will always pull.

The cheap hit will always be easier than the real thing.

Your brain will always, on some level, prefer the known over the possible.

But the space exists too.

It always has.

In every moment you watched yourself, that awareness, that split second of I know what this is, that was the space.

You were already in it.

You just didn’t know yet that you could do something different there.

Being ready to use it is a choice.

I hope you make it.

This is part of a series on the neuroscience of why you don’t do what you say you will.

Talk soon,
Love Poojaa

Last week, one of my posts went viral.

I’d been wanting that for months.

More reach, more eyes, more people actually seeing what I’m building.

And then it happened. Comments rolling in, strangers engaging, people responding to what I’d written.

And I froze.

I didn’t reply to a single comment. I just watched it.

Like it was happening to someone else. Like if I stepped into it too fully, something would go wrong.

By the time I finally showed up, the momentum had already shifted. My reach dropped.

And I sat with that strange irony.

Wanting to be seen, getting seen, and then hiding from it anyway.

Here’s what I noticed when I stopped to actually look at it: this wasn’t a LinkedIn strategy problem. This wasn’t even really about comments on a post.

This was me, encountering a version of my life that felt bigger than what my nervous system recognised as safe.

And retreating back to what was familiar.

We do this. All of us.

We want the thing. We work toward the thing. And then the thing arrives and some part of us says:

Wait. Are you sure? Is this really for you?

And what makes us human, what separates us from every other creature, is that we can actually observe this happening.

A deer that escapes a tiger doesn’t sit in the next field reflecting on its freeze response. It just grazes.

But we get to watch ourselves. We get to ask why. We get to choose differently next time.

That is a superpower. And most of us are using it to beat ourselves up instead.

So I’m not going to scold myself for freezing.

I’m going to sit with it and ask: what was happening in my nervous system in that moment? What did being seen feel like in my body? What story was running underneath it?

Because here’s what I know: it’s not a capability issue.

I can write. I can engage. I can show up.

Something else was happening. Something that made visibility feel unsafe, even when I’d been chasing it.

And that something needs to be understood, not suppressed.

We often hold our biggest dreams at arm’s length. Treating them like something for one day, something slightly out of body.

That distance is not accidental. It’s protective.

Because if the dream is far away, you can’t fail at it yet.

But that distance also makes your nervous system treat success like a threat. Like alien territory. And your body will resist going somewhere it doesn’t recognise as home.

So the work, the real work, is making the dream feel normal.

Not one day. Not someday. Now. Inhabitable. Safe.

Here’s how I’m learning to do that.

One: Acknowledge the resistance instead of fighting it.

When you feel the pull to avoid, don’t

Read more

The calls you don’t take

There’s a game I play with myself sometimes.

I call it surviving and calling it thriving.

I stayed in something for years, a working relationship, a dynamic, a pattern that was quietly draining me. And every time I tried to leave, something pulled me back. A moment of progress. A promise of change. The sunk cost of time already spent.

From the outside, it probably looked like dedication. From the inside, it felt like loyalty. But if I’m honest, it was neither. It was fear dressed up as commitment.

Here’s what I’ve been sitting with lately: sometimes the people we stay with, the situations we tolerate, the dynamics we keep alive, they’re not bad people doing bad things.

They’re just being exactly who they showed you they were from the beginning. And somewhere along the way, you decided that if you just gave more, stayed longer, tolerated better, they’d become something different.

They didn’t. Because they were never the problem.

The pattern was.

And patterns don’t live in other people. They live in you.

I see this with people I care about. The victim story that gets told and retold “I gave so much and they gave so little.” But if you look closely, the terms were always clear. The other person never hid who they were. You just kept hoping the story would change.

This isn’t about blame. It’s about honesty.

Because the moment you stop making someone else responsible for your peace, something shifts. You get your power back. You stop waiting to be chosen and start choosing yourself.

I gave back some money this week. Closed a chapter. And instead of feeling loss, I felt something I didn’t expect.

Abundance.

Not because the money didn’t matter. But because I decided it didn’t shake me. And that decision, that small, internal shift, changed everything about how I’m moving right now.

This is what I want for you.

Not fake it till you make it. Inhabit it. Feel what it feels like to be the version of you who has already let go. Who has already chosen herself. Who has already decided that the weight doesn’t have to be carried just because you technically can carry it.

You don’t.

Shrug it. Put it down. And notice how much lighter everything gets when you stop doing the other person’s job for them.

Today I saw a Bestseller badge on my Substack. Then it was #7. Then #16. Then it disappeared. Then it came back.

And I caught myself waiting for it to disappear again so I could prove to myself it wasn’t real.

That’s the game. The one we play against ourselves.

So I stopped. And I just let myself feel it. Bestseller. Me. However fleeting. However small. Real.

Because your brain can’t tell the difference between actually experiencing something and vividly imagining it. So why are you using that power to imagine the worst? Why not flirt with the feeling of the best?

You’re allowed to feel abundant before the bank account catches up.

You’re allowed to feel like a bestseller before the numbers make sense.

You’re allowed to let go of what’s draining you without needing it to make sense to everyone else.

Life is too short to be this tired in your own mind.

We all fall. We all rise. And sometimes the rising is just deciding… quietly, firmly, finally that you’re done carrying what was never yours to carry.

Put it down.

See how far you go when your hands are free.

Love,
Poojaa

There’s a version of sadness that most people don’t talk about.

Not the dramatic kind. Not the kind that comes with a clear reason, a loss you can name, a story you can tell at dinner. Not the kind that earns you sympathy or explanation.

Just the quiet kind.

The kind that shows up on a random Saturday afternoon when the light changes and you’re standing somewhere beautiful and something in your chest just... drops.

That kind.

I’ve been feeling it today.

I don’t entirely know why. Maybe I do and I don’t want to say it out loud. Maybe it’s hormonal. Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe it’s everything that’s been quietly accumulating that finally found a crack to slip through.

I used to fight this feeling.

I used to immediately start digging, looking for the thread, the reason, the root cause, as if understanding it would make it stop.

I’d excavate and excavate until I was exhausted and still sad and now also confused about why I was sad.

Here’s what I’ve learned from all that digging:

Sometimes there’s nothing at the bottom.

Sometimes you reach the centre of it and there’s just you, sitting there, waiting to be acknowledged.

Not analysed. Not fixed. Just seen.

I go looking for the reasons,

Trying to solve the problems of my heart.

So I dig and I keep digging,

I excavate and excavate,

Until I reach the place

Where there’s nothing left to uncover.

And at the centre of my pain

I meet myself again.

She smiles and says:

You did it.

I am proud of you.

I know that this was hard.

There comes a point in all the digging

Where all there’s left to do

Is feel.

I think about sadness like a moody old friend who shows up in a velvet coat, invites you to slow dance in the dark, and reminds you you’re human.

She’s a little dramatic.

Wears soft sweaters.

Plays sad songs on purpose.

But she knows things.

She knows that grief is sacred.

That slowing down is not the same as falling behind.

That softness is not weakness. It’s just strength in a different outfit.

Sadness has a slow rhythm.

She moves like water, not fire.

She doesn’t demand. She invites.

Come rest, she says.

You don’t have to carry it all tonight.

But here’s the thing nobody tells you about sadness.

When you’re in it, really in it, you put on what I call the grief goggles.

Everything looks different through them.

The future looks smaller.

The present looks heavier.

You can’t quite see yourself clearly because the goggles are fogging up your vision.

And you’re so braced for the hit, so ready to defend yourself against the feeling, that your own arms are blocking your line of sight.

You can’t see how far you’ve come.

You can’t see how much you’re holding.

You can’t see yourself the way the people who love you see you.

And in that moment, the most radical thing you can do is not fight it.

Not fix it.

Not perform your way out of it.

Just take the goggles off.

Sit with it.

And give yourself the love you’ve been saving up to give everyone else.

You know that love you pour into your friendships, your work, the people you show up for?

The patience you extend to others when they’re struggling?

The grace you offer so freely when someone else is having a hard day?

Give that to yourself today.

Right now.

In this moment where you’re sad and you don’t entirely know why and that’s okay.

You are allowed to be sad and strong at the same time.

They are not opposites.

Some of the strongest moments of my life have happened inside sadness. Not after it, not despite it, but inside it.

Because choosing to feel something fully instead of running from it takes more courage than most things I know.

This isn’t failure.

It’s a pause.

It’s your soul saying: tend to me.

So today I’m tending.

Not performing okay.

Not rushing through it.

Not reaching for something to make it stop.

Just feeling it.

Just being here with it.

Because sadness isn’t here to ruin the party.

She’s here to dim the lights, pour a glass of red, and whisper: feel this.

It means you’re alive.

And you are.

Alive and feeling and not as alone as you think you are right now.

I’m right here with you.

Love,

Poojaa

The Identity Switch - How to Actually Change Who You Are

Let me ask you something uncomfortable.

When you think about the goals you keep setting and not hitting.
Have you ever considered that the problem isn’t your plan, your discipline, or your motivation?

What if the problem is simpler and stranger than that?

What if you just don’t believe, at a cellular level, that you’re someone who does that?

Maxwell Maltz figured this out in the 1960s as a plastic surgeon.
He kept noticing something strange patients who had successful surgeries, who looked objectively different, would walk out of his office and still feel exactly the same.
Still insecure. Still small. Still stuck.

The outside changed. The inside didn’t.

Because the inside your self-image, the mental blueprint of who you believe you are doesn’t update automatically. It updates on evidence.

And most of us are walking around with outdated blueprints we built in childhood, in old relationships, in jobs that told us who we were allowed to be.

I know this because I lived it.

For most of my adult life, my self-image was quietly running the show. I didn’t realise it then I just thought I was someone who struggled, someone who needed external validation to feel okay, someone who accepted less because somewhere inside I believed less was what I deserved.

It showed up in everything.
The relationships I stayed in too long.
The work I undercharged for.
The goals I set and quietly abandoned because some part of me never believed I’d follow through.

Then something shifted. Not overnight but a series of moments where I started making decisions from a different place. I ended a long relationship. I took a solo trip through seventeen countries.
I started saying “this doesn’t work for me” and meaning it.

And the most interesting thing happened: My behaviour started matching that new version of me. Not because I forced it. Because I started identifying as her.

Here’s what actually changes identity and it’s not motivation.

Jillz Guerin talks about this in the context of feminine energy the idea that you don’t attract or create what you want, you attract what you are.
The woman you’re becoming isn’t someone you perform.
She’s someone you inhabit, gradually, through the small daily choices that say “this is who I am now.”

Maltz calls this the thermostat effect.
Your self-image acts like a thermostat it regulates everything back to what feels familiar.

Which is why you can have the best plan in the world and still find yourself back at zero. Not because you’re weak. Because your thermostat is set too low.

The way to change the thermostat isn’t to white-knuckle your way through. It’s to give your brain new evidence.

The identity switch in practice.

Here’s a real example. I used to smoke. For years it was just part of who I was until I spent an extended period away from my usual environment and simply didn’t.
When I came back, something had changed. Not willpower. Identity. I had started thinking of myself as someone who doesn’t do that anymore.
And when I catch myself slipping back, it isn’t guilt that pulls me forward, it’s a quiet, firm sense of That’s not me. We dont do that anymore

That’s the switch.

You don’t fight the old identity. You don’t shame it or suppress it. You acknowledge it that version of you had her reasons and then you consciously choose a new story.

How to start.

Read more

When I worked a corporate job, I didn’t particularly enjoy being held accountable.

The pressure from a manager, the deliverables, having to answer to someone I just did it because I had to.

But here’s what I see now, on the other side of it.

Those nights when I put in the extra hours. The times I worked towards something because I had to because someone was watching. It brought out things in me I didn’t even know were there.

And now? I run my own business. I’m my own boss. Nobody’s watching.

And I notice the difference.

That’s the uncomfortable flip side of freedom that nobody really talks about. When the external pressure disappears, do you still show up for yourself the way you showed up when someone else was counting on you?

For me, honestly? Not always.

So this week I ran an experiment on myself.

My cousin and I had actually tried something like this before getting me to start video context, and it faded. I kept saying I’d do it. A part of me already knew I wouldn’t. After a point, he stopped asking, because how long do you keep nudging someone who keeps saying yes and keeps not showing up?

But this time we made it different. More doable for me, currently.

Thursday evening he gave me a docket. I pick my target, six pieces of content. One newsletter. Deadline: Saturday night. A reward waiting on the other side.

Friday morning I sat down and did all of it. Every single piece. Done.

I sent him proof. Got my reward.

And then didn’t post a single thing.

It was all ready. Fully ready. All I had to do was put it out into the world.

But something always needed fixing. This caption needs a better photo. That one needs one more read. Just one more small thing.

Days passed.

Until one post slipped out before I could catch it half-edited, unfiltered, just out there.

My stomach dropped.

It did really well.

And that cracked something open. The next one went out. Then the next. And then I sat down and wrote this because honestly, this is also how I think better. Talking. Moving. Not sitting inside my own head.

Here’s what I want to tell you about that gap.

The one between done and posted. Between I will and I did. Between knowing and doing.

Neuroscientist Emily McDonald EmOnTheBrain says something that I think about a lot in my own work. The brain’s job is not to help you grow.

It’s to keep you safe. And the more you want something, the more your brain treats it as a threat because now there’s something to lose. Now it matters. And anything that matters is something you could fail at.

So it slows you down. Finds the thing that needs fixing. Makes the delay feel completely reasonable.

This isn’t weakness. This isn’t laziness. This is your brain doing exactly what it was built to do keeping you inside what it already knows.

But here’s what it cannot do.

It cannot predict a future it has no data for.

The moment you do the thing anyway imperfectly, incompletely, before you feel ready you give it new information. You update the file. And slowly, quietly, it starts to believe:

Oh. We do this now. Okay.

The resistance is real.

What it’s telling you is probably not.

You don’t need to feel ready. You don’t need it to be perfect. You just need to let something exist in the world before you talk yourself out of it.

One small kept promise to yourself is worth more than a hundred plans you haven’t started.

I said I would. And I did. Even when I almost didn’t.

What’s the one thing sitting finished or almost finished that you haven’t let out yet?

You know what it is.

Set a timer. Ten minutes. Let it be imperfect. Let it go.

Then tell me how it felt. Reply to this. I actually want to know.

Love, Poojaa 🐤

The Real Reason Your Goals Feel Heavy Before You Even Begin

Let me ask you something.

When you think about that goal, the one you’ve been carrying around for months, maybe years, what happens in your body?

Does it feel light and exciting?

Or does it feel like a weight you’re not sure you can lift?

If it’s the second one, I want you to know something: that heaviness didn’t come from the goal itself. It came from everything that happened between the moment you first wanted it and right now.

Own the desire. Stop pretending.

Here’s where we start. Not with a plan. Not with a vision board. With honesty.

You want this.

You’ve always wanted this.

And somewhere along the way, you started pretending you didn’t because wanting something you haven’t achieved yet starts to feel embarrassing. It starts to feel like evidence against you.

But here’s what I know to be true: it is often easier to get what you genuinely desire than to rid yourself of the desire itself.

The want doesn’t go away. It just goes underground and starts showing up as restlessness, comparison, and that quiet voice at 2 a.m. that says you’re not doing enough.

So let’s just say it clearly.

I want this.

I see it.

I own it.

That’s step one.

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When Everything Falls Apart, You Finally See Clearly

I was twenty-nine when I decided to leave everything.

My first solo trip changed something inside. An island called Sihanoukville..
I came back to India and told everyone the plan: I’m quitting my job, leaving the country, moving to Dubai with a backpack.
No safety net. No backup plan.
Just a pull towards I don’t know what, but not this.

People thought I was insane. Maybe I was (Am)

My first interview in Dubai was a rejection.
It was the first time I had been rejected in an interview. It was also my first time applying for a job. I didn’t even have a LinkedIn profile. Yes, I was that headhunter.

I remember crying in the bathtub of my hotel room. loud and silent simultaneously.
Blowing screams into the towel to muffle the sound,
Ahh, Rejection hurts, even worse when it’s your first.

It’s embarrassment mixed with the weight of everything you’ve sacrificed to get there. And in that moment, your entire world just collapses.

The next day is usually better, not significantly, but definitely slightly.
(There is something releasing about a good cry.)

So I broke my self-imposed social media policy and created a LinkedIn profile.

After endless no replies, A stranger replied to my DM.

“Come in, I don’t have active openings, but let’s see,” he said.

I went. We had a great conversation.
He wrote recommendations for me. One went back to the same company that had rejected me, but this time for a different position with a different recruiter.

I remember walking into that same building. But I was different. There was a bounce in my voice. A strut in my shoulders. Confident.

The stranger’s faith stabilized something dwindling, belief in myself.

When I walked out, I knew. This time felt different.

And guess what, I got the job.( With better pay)

But here’s the thing nobody tells you about getting what you wanted: Can feel different from what you anticipated, sometimes it can feel hollow, and that’s scary to admit.

The office was real. The salary was real. The plan was finally working. Everything looked like Arrival.

Except I felt this strange sinking feeling in my tummy. The one that makes you drag your feet to work over waltzing in.

The drive to climb the “corporate ladder” had dried up. I just... didn’t want it anymore. The hunger was gone, and I was going through motions in a life I’d fought so hard to build.

Before I gathered the balls to face the question, if not this, then what?
and put down my papers, COVID struck, and I was laid off.

I spent three months alone in a hotel room in Dubai (cheaper than my rent.)

Every day, my phone would ring at a fixed time. One call with family, one with friends. That’s what kept me tethered.

My Secret Santa from my organization had given me books. I’d indulge in those. Within that hotel room, I found my own world. And surprisingly, it felt lighter. I didn’t have to rush to a job. I didn’t have to perform. Everything had already fallen apart, so there was nowhere left to fall but find.

It was confusing because even in all that loss, I felt... free.

Free to take the time off to just be. In the silence and distance, I realized what I wanted at 25 was very different from what I crave at 30. And that’s all right.

I didn’t think this while stranded alone abroad in a hotel room, eating sausages boiled in the water kettle, wondering how this would work out.

That Dubai and Damac would be the last time I worked a corporate job.

I finally flew back home and started a company with my grandmom, we called it Pookiparty.

Here’s what I learned in the low blows:

Mediocrity is more dangerous than failure.

Failure is loud. It shakes you, humiliates you, forces you to rebuild from scratch. But at least it moves you. At least you know something has to change.

Mediocrity is quiet. It lets you stay comfortable just enough to not question anything. You perform a life that doesn’t belong to you, and the days keep passing, and nothing shifts because nothing is bad enough to force the shift.

That’s the danger.

The worst moments often hide the best redirects. Not because suffering is noble or necessary but because when everything falls apart, you finally stop pretending. You stop performing. And in that silence, you hear yourself for the first time in years.

Sometimes you need to lose the life you built to find the one that’s actually yours.

If you’re in that gap right now:

That messy in-between where nothing makes sense, where the old life doesn’t fit anymore and the new one hasn’t shown up yet …stay with it.

Don’t rush to fix it. Don’t perform your way through it. Sit with the discomfort long enough to actually hear what it’s telling you.

Because here’s what I know: when things are really bad, the likelihood of you changing is far higher than when things are just okay. Okay keeps you stuck. Rock bottom builds character and direction.

You’re not failing. You’re redirecting.

Something good is coming. And I’ve lived enough of these moments to tell you with full confidence.

I promise you that
Love,
Poojaa

I keep telling people: don’t negotiate with yourself.

And then I catch myself doing exactly that.

Not dramatically.
Not like some big breakdown.

Small edits.

“I’ll just have one.”
“I’ll start after this.”
“Today doesn’t count.”

It’s never a fight.
It’s a quiet rewrite of the plan.

I had decided I wouldn’t smoke.

Still found myself reaching for it.

Not because I needed it.
But because I didn’t want to sit through that phase.

That 20–30 minute window where everything in you is irritated.

Where suddenly:

• the work feels heavier

• the plan feels unnecessary

• you start questioning the whole thing

Nothing has actually changed.

Just your tolerance for discomfort.

This is where most plans fail.

Not in the planning.
Not in the execution.

In the moment between wanting something and not allowing it.

That gap.

We think the reward is the thing:

The joint.
The drink.
The scroll.

It’s not.

The real reward is this:

Being able to feel the urge… and not act on it.

Because the moment you reward yourself before effort,
you’ve trained your brain on the wrong order.

You don’t build momentum after that.

You build a pattern of negotiation.

And the worst part is …We know this.

We can explain it perfectly.

And still do the opposite.

So I’ve stopped trying to be “more disciplined.”

Instead, I’m tracking something simpler:

The gap.

What I said I’d do.
What I actually did.

No story.
Just evidence.

Because most days, the issue isn’t confusion.

It’s that we don’t stay with the discomfort long enough
for the decision to hold.

If you want something practical, try this:

Next time you feel the urge to break your own rule,

Don’t fight it.
Don’t distract yourself.

Just wait 10 minutes.

No action. No negotiation.

Just sit through it.

Watch what your brain does to convince you.

That’s the part you usually never see
because you give in before it finishes.

That’s the work.

Not fixing your system.
Not finding a better plan.

Just increasing the amount of time
you can stay with “no”…

before you turn it into a “maybe.

It was a Friday night.

We were celebrating my birthday one month late, but adorable

I wasn’t even in India this year.

I was stranded in Dubai for the second time

(That’s a story for another day.)

Anyway, we’re all sitting around, talking, catching up.

And one of them starts describing her routine.

Wakes up early.
Gets things done.
Fits in an hour of chanting.
Then work.
And more work.

Long days.

“I’m a workaholic,” she says (almost like a badge.)

But she also looks… tired.

Not “I need a nap” tired.

Something deeper.

At some point, the conversation shifts to health.

Someone mentions stress.

And almost immediately

“No, no. I’m not stressed.”

It was quick.
A little sharp.

She shifts in her seat, adjusts her leg, keeps talking.

And the conversation moves on.

But that line stayed.

Because nothing she had just described
sounded like “not stressed.”

And I keep noticing this.

People don’t always lie to others.

They just quietly edit the truth for themselves.

Not loudly.
Not dramatically.

Just small, clean denials.

“I’m not stressed.”
“I’m just busy.”
“This is normal.”

And once you say it like that

You don’t have to interrupt anything.

You don’t have to question anything.

You definitely don’t have to change anything.

And maybe that’s the real discomfort.

Not the stress.

But the moment you realize
Something isn’t working the way you pretend it is.

Because once you see it

You can’t unsee it.

I said I’d try something simple.

Less thinking.
Less explaining.
More doing.

So here’s what I’m starting to see more clearly now.

There comes a point….after all the planning, the awareness, the understanding

, where none of it matters anymore.

Because now, it’s time to do the thing.

And in that exact moment, something interesting happens.

You can either act.

Or you can… float.

Delay it.
Stretch it.
Entertain a few more thoughts.
Convince yourself you’ll do it “properly” later.

And the thing is , floating isn’t always wrong.

But it has to be a conscious choice.

Most of the time, it isn’t.

It’s quiet.
Unnoticed.
Automatic.

And that’s where the damage happens.

Because these small, unconscious decisions

They don’t just delay the task.

They slowly start eroding something far more important:

your self-trust.

The facts are actually very simple.

Almost annoyingly simple.

You know what needs to be done.

You’ve known for a while.

But instead of doing it, you circle it.

You think about it.
You refine it.
You revisit it.

As if complexity will unlock something new.

It doesn’t.

It just keeps you occupied long enough to avoid the discomfort of action.

And here’s the part that gets frustrating.

The awareness.

You can see it happening.

You know you’re doing it.

And somehow, that awareness starts turning into a strange loop:

“I know I do this.”

“I’ve always been like this.”

“This is just how I am.”

And before you know it …

You’ve turned a temporary pattern
into a fixed identity.

A self-fulfilling one.

You start underestimating your own capacity.

For things you are perfectly capable of doing.

So what actually works?

Not another layer of understanding.

Not more analysis.

Honestly?

You don’t need to win the argument in your head.
You don’t need to resolve it.
You don’t even need to understand it fully.

At some point, you just need to Stop engaging.

Because most of the delay doesn’t come from confusion.
It comes from over-participation in your own thoughts.

You respond.
You explain.
You negotiate.
And the moment passes.

Try this instead:
Act mid-thought.

Before the explanation completes.
Before the resistance settles in.

Until next time,
Speak soon, Love,
Poojaa