A calm and relaxed mind helps you to take the right decisions
Peace of mind is very important in life!
How can we achieve it?
Meditation, deep breathing exercises, money, power, health, relationships…
What contributes to the peace of mind?
Duke University did a study on “peace of mind.” Factors found to contribute greatly to emotional and mental stability are:
1. The absence of suspicion and resentment. – Nursing a grudge was a major factor in unhappiness.
2. Not living in the past. – An unwholesome preoccupation with old mistakes and failures leads to depression.
3. Not wasting time and energy fighting conditions you cannot change.- Cooperate with life, instead of trying to run away from it.
4. Force yourself to stay involved with the living world. – Resist the temptation to withdraw and become reclusive during periods of emotional stress.
5. Refuse to indulge in self-pity when life hands you a raw deal. – Accept the fact that nobody gets through life without some sorrow and misfortune.
6. Cultivate the old-fashioned virtues—love, humour, compassion and loyalty.
7. Do not expect too much of yourself. – When there is too wide a gap between self-expectation and your ability to meet the goals, you have set, feelings of inadequacy are inevitable.
8. Find something bigger than yourself to believe in.-Self-cantered egotistical people score lowest on any test for measuring happiness.
When you are going through the challenges in your life, it is seldom that one may think of them as opportunities to grow and become a stronger person. But research has shown that past adversities are helpful in making you strong to face future challenges in a better way. Your past struggles make you more resilient- your ability to bounce back from adversity and grow from the challenge.
While dealing with your adversity you come out as more empathic, confident, more positive (optimistic), losing fear for the struggles/challenges and take them head on…so on and so forth.
Researchers have found the following growth-oriented factors as reported by the people who have gone through some difficulties or adversities in their life:
Increased appreciation for life
More meaningful relationships
Increased personal strength
Finding new ways for growth
Becoming more spiritually inclined
So, as you go through whatever adversities in your life at any point of time, just think of it as an opportunity to become stronger, more resilient and moving towards a better tommorrow!
Coaching is a journey that self-aware people undertake to achieve professional and personal growth, to enhance their overall quality of life in terms of well-being and to achieve those goals which at some time they thought were impossible to achieve.
Role Of A Coach
The coach will help you to find the resources in yourself to achieve those goals or objectives that you have in mind related to your personal and professional life. The coach takes you to this journey of growth and success through new perspectives. The coach will be the best person who will know the gap between where you are now and the goal that you have in mind and will ensure you work tirelessly to reach that goal.
The coach will always talk about specifics. He will convert your goals into smart goals- specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely. You just can’t say ‘I want to do better in my Life’ or ‘I want to perform better at the workplace’. Your coach will make you talk specifics and ensure you have specific achievable goals. Your coach will be the realistic optimist. He will ensure that you have realistic goals that are attainable in a timely manner.
A good coach will always help you look better rather than trying to make you look good. This implies that the coach will not look at your past to decide or judge on your future. Many of us believe that our intelligence, our personality, and our physical aptitudes are fixed — that no matter what we do, we won’t improve. As a result, we focus on goals that are all about proving ourselves, rather than developing and acquiring new skills. Your coach will help you change this mindset and will help you develop and acquire new skills to achieve your goals.
Your coach will help you to embrace the fact that you can change. This will allow you to make better choices and reach your fullest potential. Better choices will ensure you better results which will ultimately help you in all spheres of your life; at home and at the workplace.
A coach understands that you are not only capable but also resourceful within yourself. He will help you in discovering your dreams and goals and will provide clarity by asking you to explore more into it by doing a deep dive. The coach will help you to explore and generate strategies and plans to execute these goals by giving you full responsibility and accountability. He will provide you a supportive and motivating environment to explore what you want in life and how you might achieve those aspirations and fulfill your needs.
Coach As Your Partner
In your coaching journey, the coach will often play the role of the sounding-board to your experiences and will help you commit to an action plan by allowing you the personal space and support you need to grow and develop. The coach’s key role is to assist you in maintaining the motivation and commitment level needed to achieve your goals. He will make you understand and realize that you are the driver of your life engine!
Here a word of caution! Please remember that your coach is not a therapist who will provide you with medical advise. Likewise, the coach will also never provide you with a tailor-made recipe for success. Rather it will be you who under a coach’s patronage will be driving solutions in accomplishing your goals.
Does this sentence often bother you? Are you the one who spends a lot of time thinking on ‘What if….?’ before starting anything new? Do you often think of the negative aspect of life even if there are no valid reasons to do so? Do you avoid doing most of the things that you would otherwise have loved to do just because you felt “what if….?” What is this ‘What if…’ actually all about??
Let us see some examples of ‘What if…’
-My family may not like it
-I might fail
-People might mock at me
-I might be humiliated
-I may lose money
-My friends may disown me
-I may lose my reputation
-My limited potential might be the hindrance
So on and so forth…!
Did you observe something common in all the above ‘assumptions’? Yes, these all are assumptions only as these did not occur still…only You assumed that they might occur!
Did you notice something else too!
Did you notice the fear factor in all the above assumptions?
This is what is called as the fear of the unknown.
And this is true for most of us. It is a different thing that we all have apprehensions about many of the things in our life and it plays an important role in making decisions towards something that we intend to do or accomplish. But till we limit ourselves to the apprehensions level only, we are good. Apprehensions are a good indicator that will make you weigh all pros and cons before making the right decision. But when that apprehension turns into a fear, you lose the battle. You will not be in a position to take the right decision any more with that fear looming in your head. Rather, you will not be able to make any decision at all! And your status quo remains. You are stuck where you are; no progress made. Life goes on for you!
The important thing to understand here is that you have to come out of that Fear in your head. Unless and until you do that, it will be difficult for you to accomplish anything important in your life- both personal and professional. And believe me, it will not be an easy task for you to achieve that mental state- where the mind is free of Fear!
So, how does one achieve that state of mind? I will share something from my own life. I too had lots of fear as I was growing up. Moving from adolescence state to a young man and then to crossing my midlife, I was continuously faced with so many fears that many times I wondered if at all will I be leading a free and happy life devoid of all my fears? Then as I matured with age and experience, I slowly started taking risks; risks of attempting to give an attempt to all the things that I had some kind of fear attached to them. And I was not only astonished but was also pleasantly surprised to find that most of the fears that were associated with the activities that I attempted were mere fears only!
In practical life, they(the fears) just don’t exist! Yes, this is very true and based out of my own experience. And the things that I attempted ranged from taking on a new course at forty-five to starting a family during the same age, accepting a new job offer in a completely new domain to drawing boundaries in my relationships so that I maintain the sanctity of my own space. My belief in people enhanced to a level that now I give the benefit of the doubt to almost everyone with whom I interact. I don’t doubt people anymore. I have relinquished all fears in my mind and have attempted new initiatives in my professional career having ventured into the territories quite unknown to me in my professional life.
These are very few and some very basic examples though but the list is long…
Here is the Key; to begin with, attempt very small or not very significant fears of yours and keep repeating the action(your attempt) accumulating the small victories. After a point, you will have the confidence and the mental strength to attack your bigger fears. And slowly you will achieve bigger victories. You will be ready to take calculated risks in your life and will make significant progress.
And you know what? The biggest lesson for me in all this was:
People give a damn about you!
So, the biggest worry that we have in our mind ‘what people will say’ is so irrelevant and obnoxious.
And remember: On the other side of your FEAR….lies your SUCCESS!
When you are knocked down badly and left with no strength to get up to fight again…you still gather all your strength for one last time and get up to fight with only one intention – to win!- This is Power!
When you are down and out… and people, your acquaintances, look into your eyes with a sly smile on their face that only says ‘ ha…finished?!’ and you look back straight into their eyes with a gentle smile that says’ just wait and watch…!’- This is Power!
When you feel alone and hopeless with your mind repeatedly telling you that you have lost it and should quit…but you listen to your heart and your gut feeling which tells you there is still a chance!… and with no one else beside you, you start off again from the scratch with a prayer in your heart… – This is Power!
When you are an underdog in terms of your education qualification sitting with your well-qualified peers in the conference room dominating the discussion and your peers look at you with dismay showing an expression on their face ’hey….but this was our domain!’- This is Power!
And lastly, when you are continuously abused by the ones whom you hold dear, you still continue to be kind and forgiving to them because your character doesn’t allow you… to become like them!- This is Power!!
Power is not holding big positions and adding designations to your name …neither it is to do with having big houses nor with having fancy cars! Real Power is to face the continuous challenges that life throws at you and come out as a Winner each time!!
The sun is about to go down
in a while. Mild golden rays of the drowning sun gets into my room filtered
through the long outstretched branches of the lone coconut tree outside my
window. In some moments, the year would come to an end. There is that
anticipated excitement of the New Year which is only a few hours away and at
the same time, a feeling of loss engulfs me too! Loss? Yes, loss of the golden
time that just zoomed past in the form of a whole year! But why say loss? Well,
loss as so many things still unaccomplished in my life! Every year is just
slipping by like the sand in my fist…yes, there were important tasks
accomplished and some big achievements too in this year but what about those
dreams that still remained dreams year after year!…
“How is your Portrait
learning class going on?” I asked my school time friend when we recently met.
“No, I never started!” He
replied with a sigh!
“Why? What happened? Last,
when we spoke and that was quite some time ago, you seem to be very keen on
learning the art of Portrait making?”
“Yes, it was my dream for
long…but you know, not able to find time for this. Also, the kids need more of
my time now when I am at home.”
I did not ponder him any further. I myself have been struggling to find time to learn the Guitar for long. The now not so newly bought Guitar is just hanging on the wall since it made that grand entry to our house. It must be feeling acrimonious in a similar fashion to what my colleague , Subramanian (actually, Subbu my dear friend!) feels towards me for still not having met his long pending request of releasing one of my team members to his team. Shame on me for letting both, the Guitar and Subbu, down!
Forget about the Guitar or
Subbu, but this is a hard fact and a harsh reality of our life. We somehow get
so much consumed in our routine job and the family responsibilities that it leaves
us with no time to pursue our interests which are so close to our heart. And it
is true for both genders. So, what do we do with our dreams that are still
unfulfilled? Should we let them die a quiet and peaceful death? Does everyone
do that? I don’t think so. There are many people, despite all their
professional and personal commitments, who find time to pursue their hobbies
and dreams. After all, you just have one life to do all these!
To be somewhat more granular, you will find that if you do an analysis of your daily time-spend including weekends, you will find there are multiple occasions when you just have nothing to do. And how do you spend this time? You become a consumer- a consumer of internet usage (going through useless updates and mindless surfing of net), endlessly gossiping over the phone or mindlessly watching TV which adds no value to your well-being. Also, I believe a little planning on time management would yield us ample spare time which we can utilize managing our interests and hobbies. It is our mindset which we have built over the years that makes us believe that there is a scarcity of time…all the time!
As we travel through our
journey of life, we often find ourselves caught up in the mad race of acquiring
more and more- more wealth, multiple houses, more cars, more ‘likes’ for our profile
pictures and so on…or simply put; becoming more acquisitive in nature. In this process,
we just lose track of our destination and start wandering around. Just pause
for some moments and think for a while- where did you want to go and where have
you reached now? Are you moving towards the destination that you had in mind when
you started or have you deviated? Have you achieved your dreams or are you
letting them die a slow death?
I would suggest some
simple but very powerful ways to ensure that you don’t lose track of your
cherished dreams and goals. And here they are:-
Write down your dreams or goals in block letters in your personal diary or journal (if you maintain one!). Or, simply write down your dreams or goals on a plain sheet of paper and stick in front of you on your study table or your work area. Read it daily and all the time! At least once in a day, read it aloud! This will help you to mentally register your goals and dreams which will automatically yield in producing some concrete actions to achieve the same. Believe me, it works!
Discuss your dreams and goals with at least one person in your life. It can be your family member, spouse, close friend, a colleague or your teacher or mentor. Ask for advice and means and ways to achieve your dream. There is nothing to feel shy or secret about it. The psychology behind it is that when you speak about something with another person close to you, it creates an obligation in your mind to ensure its completion. You feel obliged to do it as in your sub-conscious it creates an objective for you to achieve that task. Also, you become answerable to the other person when he or she inquires about your dreams or goals. You become accountable in the process!
Maintain your diary or journal and visit it periodically. Your dreams and goals should be listed there in order of your priority. Keep ticking the boxes as and when you achieve or complete your goals. Whenever you visit your journal, it will remind you that you have pending tasks to complete. This way you will not lose track of your dreams and goals.
Remember, life is short. Yes, one day you will wake up and find that you are no more capable enough of doing things as you were able to do so earlier. So, wake up now and accomplish! Fulfill the purpose of your life. Life without purpose is meaningless. Set your goals high so that the process of achieving them becomes a journey to remember in itself. And while you are on this adorable journey, don’t forget to enjoy and have fun! After all, one lives for what?
Well, the sun has downed
now and slowly the chilly wintry night is creeping in. Wow! In a few moments,
we will usher into the New Year! A new year that will give us innumerable
opportunities to grow and shine along with loads of fun-filled moments! So, enjoy
it!
