Hello readers 👋🏼,
Apologies for my absence last week, I recently found myself in a new environment, faced with new challenges, which took some time to adapt to. If I pushed myself could I have published a newsletter? Maybe. Would it have been up to the standard that I set for myself? Probably not.

In the timespan of the last 7-10 days, I have learnt a lot about adapting to a new environment and the aforementioned new set of challenges that comes with that - so let’s get into it. 👉🏼

Enjoy,
Umar ⚡️

Finding Your Bearings 🧭

Identifying pain points

Similar to looking at a customer base, when you find yourself in a new environment (or a familiar one that you wish to change) it is important to think carefully about the problems that you constantly face. Once you’ve acknowledged them, then you can begin to work on finding solutions to them.

For example, one of my only lunch options at the hospital I’ve been placed at is M&S, which charges £4.50 for a cold meal. Not ideal. Once I realised that I didn’t want to settle for that, I integrated packing my own lunch into my dinner routine. Whilst I waited for my food to cook, I would quickly pack it instead of scrolling on TikTok etc.

It seems like a small change, but it frees up time later on, and saves me money every day even on days when I wake up late without time to make lunch. It takes time and energy to identify the pain points in your life, but when you do, be prepared to enjoy great returns.

To implement this, I would reccomend that you write down 3 pain points you can identify in your life, ideally from different spheres of your life, and then make an action plan to tackle them. Stay accountable with a journal or habit tracker that you can keep private or share with someone else.

🎧This podcast and blog post by The Simplifiers podcast is a great listen/read on this topic:

Key Takeaway → ‘Use pain to prune your life’ 🪴

Reshaping Your Habits 💎

Bridges should be relocated, not burnt. 🌉

Building a new habit from nothing can be quite hard, especially in a new environment, but adjusting your existing ones can make the process much easier.

It takes 21 days to form a new habit, but it can take a day to pivot your actions to suit a new environment. I made Notion a daily habit for tracking my tasks relating to university and my projects (like this newsletter), but now that I live alone I also use it to track when I need to do my laundry, get more groceries, etc.

With more commuting involved in my daily routine, which is also busier overall, I had to reallocate the time which I use for admin and writing to my bus journies and walks. Finding ways to make things which seem like “a waste of my time” into productive timeslots can be really effective and rewarding - and it is something I reccomend you to try and do.

🧠 Think about a process which can make you feel that you don’t have time for the gym, or a time where you could switch out social media for reading/active recall (if you’re a student). Make that small readjustment and you’ll soon realise how much time you free up, and how that feeling of ‘wasted time’ becomes less and less frequent.

🍿This short video highlights 8 things that you can do on your commute to make the most of it:

Key Takeaway → Owning your time gives you ownership of your life ⏳

Find Your Way Home 🏡 

Don’t forget where you came from!

One of the key aspects to thriving in a new environment is remembering where you started, and the people who helped you to start there. For most of us that means family, and friends, but it can also mean who you were back then. If you’re at university, remember that it was the younger you that got you there. When you find it annoying to cook for yourself, remember who used to cook all your meals before.

Check in with these people to keep you grounded but also to remind you that even if you might physically be alone, you aren’t really. Having support can give you a lot of confidence, and to those who might not have others to support them, being there for yourself is so important. It’s not arrogant to acknowledge how hard you have worked, and how well you are doing - in fact I think it is essential to remaining grateful and humble.

I don’t have a YouTube video or a book on this topic, because it’s a situation that has only arisen for me very recently, but I wanted to give my own message:

Key Takeaway → The grass is greener where you water it 🌱

When you maintain good relationships with your family and friends, life is much better, and when you feel that you need a miracle - it will be one of those people who will pull through for you.

Thank You For Reading. This was Edition Four. Be a Chameleon.

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