Abida Islam Progga is the founder of ‘The Incredible Variety’ blog which covers topics of personal development, psychology, mental health, and more. They are currently a college student, blogging part-time, and originally from Bangladesh.
Abida answers questions about their own personal development journey and why they started their blog, ‘The Incredible Variety.’
I met Abida through an online community of fellow bloggers. We connected through our shared love of writing and personal development. ‘The Incredible Variety’ shares inspiring content (new content posted almost every other day) to help its readers live better, more beautiful lives.
An Interview with Abida Islam Progga:
1. Tell me about yourself:
I am from a little town of Bangladesh and I am mainly a college student right now and I do blogging as my part time job. I love blogging because I am too passionate about writing. For a long time, I have been a fan of reading books about self improvement as well as listening to different podcasts and tips about it. I gained some excellent knowledge from there and on my blog, I share this knowledge with my audiences and I am still a regular learner and worshiper of the personal development journey.
2. What does the term ‘personal development’ mean to you?
To me, personal development is a lifelong journey where we assess our life goals and implement different healthy habits and potentials in our life for having a good mind and body with healthy relationships for having a good lifestyle overall. Through personal development we accept the spiritual truths and grow positivity within us and we also spread it among others by emitting all the negativity.
3. How did you first become interested in personal development?
Several years ago, I was such a sluggish person and a terrible student. People around me were literally annoyed by me but my mom was different. She literally pushed me to do meditation and exercise regularly as well as growing a regular reading habit. Even though I wasn’t that interested, I couldn’t ignore my mom’s words.
After several months of practicing these good habits, I figured out a good change in my life and became a talented person and a brilliant student as well. That was the first time, when I thought that if I can bring some positive changes in my life within the shortage of time, then I can improve my life more if I wish! From that time I started implementing new positive habits, potentials and rules in my life and am still learning how to live a better and a happy life.
4. What do you think is the most challenging aspect (of personal development)?
From my perspective, the most challenging part of personal development is to accept ourselves in the way we are. You see, tons of people in the world are suffering from different insecurities with themselves. Even reams of people used to have a bad past somehow and they keep regretting that.
These people who are hating themselves can never be actually happy and can never be at peace of mind. Self acceptance grows self confidence and self esteem and creates self love. And I presume, self love is one the most important things to live by.
5. What has been your own experience with personal development?
Back then, the first mission I had was to have good time management. This is the first thing that I have been working on and is literally being almost there. Secondly, I have worked on different valuable and essential skills.
As you already know, English has been my second language and in my country, it’s literally one of the most challenging tasks for anyone to master, but hopefully I have mastered my second language and working before my third language right now is Arabic.
I am also learning to be a better content writer. Moreover, I was basically afraid to talk to new people but I am happy that I have finally mastered public speaking successfully after a ton of practice and failures.
Read Related: The Courage to Change: Why Personal Growth Requires Courage
6. What inspires you? What is your motivation for your current life’s path?
In my current life’s path, I am having various things that inspire me. When I look back at my past, I get inspiration by presuming how far I have come! Doing new things and facing new challenges actually make me know about my strength and my stability.
My parents unconditional love motivates me to move forward and do something excellent for my life so that I can make them feel proud. On top of that, when I find someone trying their level best to create positive changes in their life despite failing an ample of times, then, I feel too inspired and forget about giving up as well.
My friends are also a part of my inspiration. Maybe, my friend circle is small but I am surrounded with some true and great friends who accompany me through my tougher times and help me to get over it. We are surrounded with many people who are living a miserable life. When I get to help any of them somehow or when I can make any of them smile, then it inspires me to do something in the future so that I can create a better life for them.
7. What positive benefits from working on your own personal development have you experienced?
I have started feeling blessed, since then I started working on my personal development. The first benefit I got out of it is self love. Now I enjoy my company a lot and sometimes I feel like I am the best friend of myself. Through self love, I have also gained self confidence and now I am not afraid to take risks anymore and I am also overcoming my fears everyday.
It has also made me serious about my commitments and has improved my outer relationships with my friends and other people and thus I have learnt that people mostly love the company of a positive person. Secondly, I have achieved the courage to be different and creative and today the blog I’m having is actually the outcome of it. Since I started working before personal development, I have also started having a better and disciplined life and I have learnt how to be happier. Even now I have been so aspiring and it’s been a lot easier for me to reach my goals!
8. What kind of positive changes in yourself and/or your life do you hope to make in the next several years?
Nowadays, I have started spending a little excessive time on my mobile phone and mostly for unnecessary reasons and I am afraid that I am mobile addicted. Moreover, I am also not able to write on my blog consistently. So, currently my main goal is to manage my mobile addiction as well as managing a good routine to write contents.
In the next several years, I am hoping to be a successful content writer and a blogger and also will try to make a living out of it. Additionally, I am also thinking of starting out my own YouTube channel where I will make videos from my blog posts like many other bloggers. ( I actually created a YouTube channel and made only 3 videos, and didn’t get serious about it so didn’t get any subscribers :o)
9. What are your ‘self-care’ routines or positive habits you have?
I start my day with basic exercise at home and also go for a jog. I also do meditation for at least 20 minutes a day. I cannot spend my day without reading a book.
Even though I love journaling, I do it in a bit of a different way. I only write down the positive things happening in my life and don’t write the negative things. I assume that in the future when I read my journals to memorize my past days, at that moment my bad memories can make me literally sad and I don’t want to be. But when I remember the positive occurrences, then I will be able to have tons of gratitude.
Plus, I also have a journal where I write down all of my goals and I simply use it for tracking my progress. I am also trying to make some balance on my diet list. As a part of it, currently trying my best for avoiding any kind of junk foods and also trying to eat as much healthy vegetables and foods as possible
Read Related: 5 Bad Habits to Remove from your Morning Routine
10. What advice would you give to the younger ‘you’ from 10 years ago?
The advice I would give to the younger ‘me’ from 10 years ago is, “Just stop overthinking and start working because this is the only way you can change your life.” And don’t compare yourself with other people. Because back then my life was quite miserable since I was comparing myself with other people too excessively. That made myself lose my confidence. And I was overthinking a lot that it was just taking all the peace and happiness from my life. I might not be regretful at present for them. But sometimes I feel really bad for the stupidity I have done with my life.
Thank you for reading! Make sure to check out Abida Islam Progga’s awesome blog ‘The Incredible Variety’!
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