The First Day of Doing Things Differently

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A Long Time Coming

It’s been a full day, packed with planning, thoughts, and deep inner analysis.
Honestly, it’s been more than a day; it’s been a whole period. A long one.
It started even before I quit smoking for the first time.

Three attempts in one month.
They drained me.
But I learned a great deal about myself.

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I learned how to rise after failure.
To find trust in myself again.
To keep that voice inside alive, the one that still whispers:

“I know you can.”

As you can probably tell, I’m not giving up the battle against smoking- that toxic drug that used to be trendy, but now more and more people are fighting to break free from.

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Why Today is Different

Because today…
I made an actual plan for my life.
I set goals.
And I finally saw the steps to reach them.

For a while now, I’ve been feeling stuck.
Oddly enough, I feel more beautiful, smarter, and stronger than ever-
But I’m not moving. I’ve been still.

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This isn’t the beginning of stagnation.
It’s the beginning of waking up.

I realized I had built my own bubble,
One where I was the perfect girl, the adaptable woman…
For everyone but myself.

And then things started shifting:

• I felt anxious (maybe I always was?)
• I started setting boundaries
• I began to feel less guilty about them
• And finally… I craved to live at my full potential

To refine myself, in other words.

I know, it might sound a little ridiculous. A perfectionist wanting to “perfect herself” even more.
But this kind of refinement… I think it’s actually the opposite of what being a perfectionist usually means.
Because what I want is to live more authentically.
Without masks, without guilt. To live for me, through simple choices and real freedom.
Through trust and love.

And so… I started seeing her.

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The Girl I Was (And Am Becoming Again)

The version of me who doesn’t smoke.
Who is relaxed, bohemian, joyful
Who moves freely and socializes with ease.

The girl who used to romanticize life.
Who found meaning in every little thing.

So I asked myself:

What was different back then?

Well, one thing was that I wasn’t addicted to smoking.
Another thing: I went out of the house more often, even though I was more socially anxious than I am now.
Then came a few flights, a few trips to countries not so friendly to smokers, and a few realizations, like:

"Cigarettes are stealing my happiness."

And that’s when I decided to quit.

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The Real Work Begins

But quitting smoking triggered other internal processes, and reflecting on my failures helped me see all the ways I’ve been sabotaging myself.
All the masks procrastination wears.

Eventually, after countless overly-perfect plans with no results… I stumbled upon Brian Tracy’s book.
One chapter was enough to get me started with some self-analysis and to figure out what my goals actually are.

Guess what… it was hard.
I honestly didn’t even know what I wanted from life anymore.
But eventually, inspiration hit, and I was able to see things pretty clearly.

Then ChatGPT helped me dive deeper, and finally… I built a battle plan.
ChatGPT kept telling me (seriously, at least 10 times) that I have a lot of creativity and unexpressed thoughts, and that I really need to start writing. Anything.

So…
Here I am.
Writing.
Anything.

This is now part of my evening ritual.
And I truly hope I stick with it this time.

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1.

This is real content, my deeply personal thoughts.
For the sake of staying true to my voice and my inner world, I wrote it in my native language first,
then asked my assistant, aka ChatGPT, to translate it.

2.

Don’t expect everything to be perfect in my posts—if you even stumble across them.
They’re just ramblings.
Think of them as poems in disguise—only they’re not poems. Or prose.
They’re neither, really. Just a raw spilling of my most private life, straight from my head.

Hey, don’t be mad.
I’m just trying to let go of perfectionism...
...by perfecting the person I want to become.

Cheers.