DEV Community: Rachit Sharma

I Stopped Blaming Myself for “Inconsistent” Workouts

Rachit Sharma — Wed, 02 Sep 2026 18:30:48 +0000

For a long time I thought I was bad at sticking to a plan. Some weeks lifting felt easy. Other weeks the same workout felt impossible, and I’d spiral about discipline.

It wasn’t discipline. It was my cycle.

What changed

I stopped expecting the same energy every day. I started paying attention to patterns: when I slept worse, when cramps showed up, when motivation dipped for no “logical” reason, when I suddenly felt strong again.

Once I treated those swings as information instead of failure, training got quieter in my head.

What I actually do now

On low-energy / period-adjacent days: walk, mobility, lighter work. No guilt.
When energy builds: progressive strength again.
Around higher-energy days: push a bit more if it feels available.
Later in the cycle: dial volume down before I force a PR attempt I can’t recover from.

I’m not perfect at it. I just stopped pretending my body runs on a 24-hour clone of itself.

Tracking that isn’t only a calendar

A basic period tracker told me when my period might start. Useful, but incomplete. I wanted symptoms, mood, energy, and workouts in one place so the pattern was obvious.

That’s where EvaShark (https://evashark.com) fit for me. Cycle and symptom context, workouts that can adapt to phase and energy, some nutrition tooling, and a privacy-conscious option if you don’t want everything living in the cloud. I’m not saying an app replaces listening to your body — it just made the listening easier on busy weeks.

If you’re in the same loop

Inconsistency across the month can be hormonal, not moral.
Recovery days are part of the plan.
Track how you feel alongside what you lift.
Adjust the workout to the day you actually have.

I didn’t need a harsher coach. I needed a fairer model of my own month.

I Stopped Blaming Myself for “Inconsistent” Workouts

Rachit Sharma — Wed, 02 Sep 2026 18:11:47 +0000

For a long time I thought I was bad at sticking to a plan. Some weeks lifting felt easy. Other weeks the same workout felt impossible, and I’d spiral about discipline.

It wasn’t discipline. It was my cycle.

What changed

Once I treated those swings as information instead of failure, training got quieter in my head.

What I actually do now

On low-energy / period-adjacent days: walk, mobility, lighter work. No guilt.
When energy builds: progressive strength again.
Around higher-energy days: push a bit more if it feels available.
Later in the cycle: dial volume down before I force a PR attempt I can’t recover from.

I’m not perfect at it. I just stopped pretending my body runs on a 24-hour clone of itself.

Tracking that isn’t only a calendar

A basic period tracker told me when my period might start. Useful, but incomplete. I wanted symptoms, mood, energy, and workouts in one place so the pattern was obvious.

If you’re in the same loop

Inconsistency across the month can be hormonal, not moral.
Recovery days are part of the plan.
Track how you feel alongside what you lift.
Adjust the workout to the day you actually have.

I didn’t need a harsher coach. I needed a fairer model of my own month.

How I Got CLB 7 on TCF Canada Without Burning Out

Rachit Sharma — Wed, 02 Sep 2026 16:17:17 +0000

I needed CLB 7 in all four skills for immigration points. Not “good enough overall.” Listening, reading, speaking, writing — each one had to clear the line, because the lowest skill is what counts.

For a while I studied randomly: YouTube videos, a bit of conversation, some grammar drills when I felt guilty. My French was improving in a vague way. My mock scores were not.

Here’s what actually changed.

I started training the exam, not “French”

TCF Canada has a shape. Timed listening. Timed reading. Three speaking tasks. Three writing tasks. Once I practiced inside that format, I stopped guessing whether I was ready.

Speaking was my weak spot

I could chat. I could not always finish the task the way the exam wants — especially when I had to take a position and convince someone, not just describe my weekend.

What helped was recording myself on the same kinds of prompts, then fixing the same mistakes over and over: clearer structure, better connectors, attempting a bit more complexity even if it wasn’t perfect.

Writing got better when I scored it like an examiner

I used to rewrite until it “felt nice.” That was useless. Looking at task completion, coherence, vocabulary, and grammar separately made the next draft obvious: fix the two worst things, don’t polish endlessly.

Full mocks mattered more than I wanted to admit

Doing one section at a time made me feel productive. Doing a full run made me honest. Pacing and fatigue were part of the score.

What I used day to day

Tutor time when I could get it. A lot of solo reps when I couldn’t. For exam-style practice with quick speaking/writing feedback and timed comprehension, I also used PrepMyFrench (https://prepmyfrench.com) — mostly because I could repeat the exact weak spots without waiting for a class.

If I had to start over

Practice all four skills every week.
Obsess over your weakest skill.
Prefer exam-format practice over random streaks.
Take at least two full mocks before the real test.

CLB 7 wasn’t a motivational quote for me. It was a systems problem: right format, enough reps, and honesty about the skill that was dragging the rest down.