“I believe empathy is the most essential quality of civilization.” – Roger Ebert
An interesting study in the field of human nature suggests that humans are soft wired to experience another’s plight as we are experiencing it ourselves. Empathy has its roots deeper in human nature. Mirror neurons, as the scientists call it are behind the chemistry that is needed to experience what others are going through. Mirror neurons make you go through the same feeling as others just by seeing them. Empathy is a human reaction which arises after having an illusion of being in the same situation as you see the other person. Being civilized, it is utmost important for you to stand in someone else’s shoes before being judgmental.
“Empathy is about standing in someone else’s shoes, feeling with his or her heart, seeing with his or her eyes. Not only is empathy hard to outsource and automate, but it makes the world a better place.” Daniel H. Pink
Empathy is being able to feel what others are feeling. While working with customers, peers, boss, one has to develop empathetic skills by respecting their work. Through this you can advance social progress, because empathizing is more like the process of connecting. Empathy essentially means understanding people, animal or the natural surroundings thus making the world a better place.
We, the civilized people do not bother while hurting others. We never revisit the agony which is caused to other people by us. If the same harm is done to us we behave quite differently. This deficit in empathy can be called as self absorption. In order to change your perception about the reaction to different situation others are in, you need to expand your consciousness. Thus, walking the spiritual path in other person’s shoes refraining from passing a judgment. Treading this path, you can easily feel other’s pain as if its your own.
“Empathy is really the opposite of spiritual meanness. It’s the capacity to understand that every war is both won and lost. And that someone else’s pain is as meaningful as your own.” – Barbara Kingsolver
“Movies that encourage empathy are more effective than those that objectify problems.” – Roger Ebert
Media has profound effect on civilized mind. It is one of the powerful tool which can create revolution. When mirror neurons in humans can create exactly same effect as other person, visualizing an actor crying triggers crying response from the audience. In order to create a generation which is empathetic, it is important to create media which encourages empathy instead of objectification of the problem. Here, bringing out the humane side of the problem is necessary.
“If you find yourself saying ‘But I’m just being honest’, chances are you’ve just been unkind. Honesty doesn’t heal. Empathy does.”- Dan Waldschmidt
As per one famous Sufi saying it is necessary to let the words which you want to speak pass through three gates. The first one would ask whether those words are true? The second would ask are those words necessary to be spoken and the third gate would ask are those words kind?
The words by now would have already become empathetic. Honesty is a good trait to have but while being honest, you cannot lose kindness.
“Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant?” – Henry David Thoreau
Religion, Institutions, Nationalism are just reasons for not being empathetic. The fellow human beings, the creatures and the surroundings have one thing in common, their connection with each other. An instance of looking into each other’s eyes and understanding the pain, can be a miracle. It is mainly because that would invoke the natural connection which you have with the fellow human being.
Judging is easy, but understanding other person’s perspective requires a painstaking effort. We must understand before we judge.
Once your spirituality takes you to the level of understanding other person’s point of view, you are practicing empathy.
“Have compassion and empathy in your heart. Many people are suffering deep emotional anguish beneath the surface of their lives, and smile even as they hurt inside”. – Jim Palmer
Compassion and empathy are at the center stage of a happy life. Deep emotional anguish can be devastating but it’s the compassion which would bring the lives together. Words can hurt but the actions showing empathy would heal anyone’s life who is deeply suffering emotionally.
“Traits like humility, courage, and empathy are easily overlooked – but it’s immensely important to find them in your closest relationships.” – Laura Linney
Relationships are very difficult to handle when there is no humility, courage or empathy left in them. In the world where human beings are just a part of some superficial race to earn money, these important traits have been overlooked. When relationships go beyond repair, instead of identifying the underlying problems, empathy, humility and courage would help a great deal in healing it.
I have a great deal of empathy for anyone who is having a hard time. I believe this ability to see another’s view point has served me well as a writer – Alex Flinn
What is that you would offer when you see a person suffer emotionally? The best thing to be offered is your empathy. Seeing the world from his viewpoint and understanding his emotional state would be the most appropriate thing to be done at that point. It would help you as a person. It would give you immense satisfaction as you have understood a fellow human being, made a connection with him without judging him. This particular act of empathy would take you a different level, it would make you more HUMANE.
Thanks of Reading.
Speech Spells Your Style
Speech is, perhaps, one of the most important aspects of communication, today. Speech comprises the words that you speak and more importantly how you speak these words. Speech is not taught in schools and colleges. We just pick it up – from our parents, teachers, friends and others in the society with whom we interact. Some of the mistakes that people make in our circle are also adopted by us, though unknowingly. When we set out to improve, we have to unlearn many things. Just because we have been committing these mistakes again and again these form a part of our speech habits. Speech blemishes can be corrected with knowledgeable guidance and a lot of practice. In this regard let’s deal with the following six items:
- Knowledge of language grammar.
- Your vocabulary in that language.
- How you construct your sentences.
- Clarity in your voice.
- Your knowledge and ability to pronounce the words correctly and clearly.
- Pace, pause and tone of your speech.
Knowledge of grammar Normally, it is assumed that knowledge of grammar is only bookish ability and it’s useful only for written communications. This is a fallacy and totally incorrect. You can make nice sentences easy to understand only if you are adequately comfortable in the grammar of the language.
Learning or building of vocabulary is a lifelong process. It should never cease. Difficult, fancy or fashionable words need not be a part of your vocabulary. In fact, simple is beautiful.
Your construction of sentences, in a way, defines your speech. The efficacy of your speech depends on it. Short sentences of varying length may be intertwined to bring out a beautiful style.
Voice plays a major role in your speech. Voice need to be pleasing to the ears of your listeners. Voice can be made very attractive by proper breathing and desirable use of the speech organs.
Pronouncing the words correctly and clearly shows your style. Importance of clear and correct pronunciation should never be undermined.
How you speak is as important in conversation and speech as the content and language, if not more. Power of your speech depends on the judicious use of changing pace, pause and tone etc.
Thanks of Reading.
Exploit Your Talent to shine!
Lucius Annaeus Seneca quotes “ Shun no toil to make yourself remarkable by some talent or other”!
Talent is an innate ability which one is gifted with. Everyone, indeed, has been bestowed upon with some talent. But some people can identify it and some people take it unidentified to the grave. In short, identification of your talent is what makes the whole difference. Mere identifying it is not enough and it should be further developed by consistent efforts. Sometimes your talent may be of immense use in your career field and if you develop it proactively, then success is just a cakewalk for you.
Sydney Smith has convincingly brought forward the fact by saying,” Whatever you are by nature, keep to it; never desert your line of talent. Be what nature intended you for, and you will succeed.”
So this is the simplest way to achieve success!! Then why many can’t make it up to that success? Because the problem lies in identifying: what is your talent! The task of identifying talent becomes difficult given the number of influences one has from one’s childhood. The parents wish their children to achieve something without knowing what the child is good at. The teachers also imprint the minds of the pupils by their perception of good & bad. Peer pressure, further, adds to the influence which a person is exposed to in an impressionable age.
Thus, talent gets hidden somewhere in the routine life and one tends to be ugly duckling.
But once you know what you are good at and polish the same, life takes you to places.
One can transform oneself and understand one’s true self only when one has the ability to ward off these influences.
A mentor is the one who can help you identify your flair. If you do not have one, then it is essential to find one who can guide you to find your competence and further to enhance the same. A mentor is a consultant who may not be related to you though he will be interested to see your growth. Mentor could be a friend, a teacher or your parent.It is not only the individuals who get benefited by the mentors but many progressive companies are seen to hire mentors in order to help them grow.
Strong conviction in your ability makes you shine out in the crowd. You should eye million opportunities which you come across; given your inclination. Once you focus all your energies on your talent, you can make the best of any smallest opportunity you encounter. You should not let go any opportunity rather turn it into the golden one.
It is often said” When opportunity knocks, don’t let the fear hold you back.Open the door and embrace the opportunity which has come forth”!
Once you identify your talent ,it is more important to master it. In this fast growing competitive world you can’t relax with mere inherent talent. You should master the art to fortify it further with all the necessary efforts. You should have an action plan to exploit your talent and have to follow up the plan, diligently . A close monitoring of your action plan with the help of a written record is also a must while mastering your talent. Once a master of your talent, you can master success.
Keep yourself updated with the field of your inclination. Keep yourself equipped with the technological advancement in the field of your choice else you will be left behind. Identify the people who have made it great in the world, with the talent same as yours. Reading their life stories and experiences will also make you understand what it took them to reach their and how best you can have an edge. Get inspired from their stories.
Written reports of your journey at taming your talent helps in a long way, too. Always have a journal which helps you understand where you stand. Monitoring day to day progress towards mastering your talent is a continuous process. Create milestones and verify yourself against those. If your lag behind ,push harder to mitigate those.
No wonder with your continuous efforts you would transform the ugly duckling into a beautiful swan.
Four Factual Feature of WILLPOWER
A Chinese Proverb says “Great Souls have wills ; feeble ones have only wishes .”
What exactly is meant by the word willpower or ‘will’?
Willpower is the ability of a person to decide and execute the course of action in detail to fulfill one’s wishes. It is the strong determination by which a person continuously strives to achieve one’s goals with dedication, especially, when caught in difficult times.
Psychologists have also termed this mysterious phenomenon called willpower as self control exerted to shrug off the inner resistance in the form of discomfort or laziness in order to hit the long term targets. Lack of strong willpower is one of the reasons for failure. Whether it is the goal to reduce weight , to quit smoking or to complete an arduous project, stupendous willpower is the key secret to achieve it!
The beauty of willpower is that one can work over it and increase it with a resolve. Let us see the essentials required behind cultivating and developing a strong willpower.
- Clarity of Thought : Clear thinking is vital for setting specific goals in life. When we know our particular destination and our purpose to reach there is well defined, we chalk out a plan accordingly. Without clarity of thoughts, we tend to get diverted as we have no focus and are devoid of specific goal.
Napoleon Hill – There is one quality that one must possess to win, and that is definiteness of purpose, the knowledge of what one wants ,a nd a burning desire to possess it.
- Discipline : “ It is fatal to enter any war without the ‘will’ to win it” -Douglas Macarthur
In order to cultivate a seed of willpower and to develop it further, it needs to be supplemented with the essential power of self discipline. Self Discipline is the strength to work towards one’s goals with perseverance and tolerance in order to accomplish those. Without self discipline one tends to give up to the temptations, inconvenience, hardships or obstacles which may come in the way to achieve your goals.
- Strong desire : “Strong desire is the starting point of any achievement.”
Any successful accomplishment stems from the strong desire . Strong desire to fulfill one’s mission manifests itself into a disciplined plan and approach to achieve it. It increases one’s willpower to achieve one’s dream and fulfill wishes. The wishes remain wishes if not backed up with the fire of strong desire.
- Great Emotional Intelligence : Emotionally intelligent people don’t lose course of action even in phase of extremely challenging circumstances. They are focused and thus, the willpower to achieve goals increases. They respond to the hurdles, obstacles and the difficult times in the same way as if there aren’t any. Emotional intelligence enables one to think logically when one encounters a pressure cooker type situation.It doesn’t let the odds interfere in your way towards success. Thus, with a great emotional intelligence one is always power packed with strong willpower . Success, then, is certainty.
James Gordon has quoted “ Its not that some people have willpower and some don’t . It is that some people are ready to change and others are not”.
Indeed! Willpower is a by -product of how much one can change oneself .
Your willpower is like a muscle. When you use it , it gets stronger. It is a habit when inculcated can lead to several success stories and vice versa. Every success story is an expression of strong willpower.
Henry Ford, who is known for his one of the successful car brands in the world , could achieve so given his firm grit and willpower.
Now let us see how strong willpower is a boon for a person.
- It enables strong perseverance:- It enables one to continue the needful course of action decided upon at the beginning of the mission. Most importantly during difficult times. Persevering the goal is crucial to attain it.
- It increases the focus:- With Strong willpower comes the focused attitude. One sticks to the plan even in case of odd circumstances. It is wise to starve your distractions and to feed your focus. With great focus comes a accomplishment.
- It wards off the hesitations and the doubts if any:- When the willpower is augmented one tends to visualize the goal and hence there is no space left for the hesitations and doubts.
- It enables to take calculated risks:- When one is backed with strong willpower, one takes calculated risk.
” If you risk nothing, then you risk everything”. -Geena Davis
- It is the most essential ingredient to the most successful life:- With a strong and
positive willpower one can move mountains. But without the same one is helpless.
So, give the bird of wishes , the wings of magnificent willpower . You will definitely visualize the success soaring high.
Thank of Reading.
May I invite your comments on my forthcoming book?
Introduction
“Life is a race. If you don’t run fast, you will be trampled”!
Yes! Indeed, once one starts toddling or even before that the race begins and one keeps wondering “What made me lose and the other one win, the same race?”One questions oneself amidst the darkest deep nights until one gets no answer and finally blames it up to the destiny. One often becomes uncomfortable when one thinks about the failures one had especially when one doesn’t get valid reasons for the same.
But we tend to forget these monologues – thanks to the mundane activities of one’s life. But if we dig deeper, the exercise has the power to take us closer to the solutions. This book aims to give you an insight into life which is a mixture of ups and downs, failures and successes. Once we understand this and accept the reality, it no longer remains a jigsaw puzzle. Life is journey. All our goals are but milestones, and we need to enjoy the journey.
At a certain stage of life, one tends to compare oneself with others. It is indeed a natural tendency wherein one often measures one’s success, joy or happiness by comparing these with those of others’. And then confronts a battery of questions like below:-
“Why am I not rich like him? Though we studied together and are best friends how come he/she has achieved what I could just think of? What makes him/her so very desirable? In short, one tends to become jealous of other’s success. Jealousy, certainly, is best avoided but if nailed properly could give us the desired results like success, happiness, prosperity and also peace of mind.
Through this book, I have tried to help the reader understand themselves better to ward off various negative influences and personality development needs. These hinder your chances to succeed. The book addresses the personality issues, and shows the path towards improvement. It will help to elevate your self confidence to an untapped level.
The book also throws light on important habits, skills and behavioral traits which successful people possess and practice. The contents have been divided into following chapters.
- Attitude:
“A bad attitude is like a flat tyre! If you don’t change it, you will never reach anywhere”!
Attitude defines the major part of your personality. It makes you who you are. It is the way you respond to what you face in your life. Thus, a positive person seeks opportunities in the various hurdles he/she encounters whereas a negative person finds faults with every situation. This book will help you identify your attitude and learn the ways to correct the flaws by adopting certain procedures.
- Communication:
Today’s world is a shrunken world. Globalization has brought us closer but you should have a knack of able communication with the world around you. Both, verbal and written communication skills are a must you to understand others and to express yourself effectively. This book aims primarily at pointing whether you lack these skills and, if yes, the various ways to improve on these. We, also, look forward to hone your existing communication skills through this book.
- Interpersonal skills: – Man is a social animal. We continuously interact with the family, colleagues, friends and society around us. We have to work with those around and seek harmonious relations with all. Interpersonal skills come into the picture when we need to build and maintain cordial relations with the society. Through this book we take you to the various methods which would help you imbibe the necessary interpersonal skills.
- Continuous Improvement: – Stagnation doesn’t breed success! Is it not true? Today’s fast changing world demands dynamic people who keep abreast of latest information and the changing advanced technology. Successful people, often, have a quest to explore more, learn more and thereby, pursue excellence. But one cant be directionless in exploration. This book is a must have guide so that you know what are you heading towards.
- Willpower: – Willpower is the strongest virtue which successful people possess and which helps them achieve distinguished success. It is the ability to perform consistently under the testing times and the ability to withstand the difficulties. Willpower, alone, often defines one’s success. This book sheds light on the way to focus your physical, mental and intellectual energies and to build strong willpower. Success, then, is just a few steps away with strong willpower.
6) Habits: – Power of good habits are vital to success. The book intends to inculcate all the basic formal good habits like humility, understanding, and empathy for others. It will also help you develop a sense of humor which is a rare trait these days. This book will enable you to enhance your self esteem be the best of yourself.
- Time management: – Time and Tide wait for none. This might sound a cliché, but it is the hardcore truth. One needs to effectively manage this very resource which is equally distributed to everyone on this planet. This book will hold your hands and guide you to use time in the best possible manner.
How to use this book?
Well, before using this book one needs to have undergone a self analysis. An analysis helps in the long way to identify one’s strengths and weaknesses. One needs to retrospect about the successful times and identify what contributed to those distinguished events. Was it your sheer talent, initiative or a group effort? Once you get answers to this question, ask yourself again whether you still use those elements in your endeavors? If you encounter a negative answer, ask yourself again “Why not?”After all why should happy history not repeat itself?
It is equally important to ponder over the failures of life as it is to dwell over success. Failures are the major lessons to be learnt in life. Ask yourself,” When did I fail and Why?” Is it because of some shortcomings? If the answer is yes, note down the shortcomings and counter them with the methods in this book.
This book can be used as a reference manual for developing a desirable and successful personality. Of course, you need to answer all the questions tabulated in the self assessment form.
Happy personality development ahead!
Three reasons why Blame Game is the worst!
Scenario 1:
1) An employee couldn’t submit the annual report on time. On enquiring he blamed the delay in work to the team’s noncooperation.
Many other commonplace scenarios occur in everyone’s life. And these are what we call as blame game.
So what exactly it means? Well, blaming others’ or situations for one’s own failures. This generally happens when one is not ready to take up responsibility of one’s failure because of ego or fear of criticism. Blame game means the activity by which one tries to identify the person or situation that can be made a scapegoat. In the above mentioned example the employee comfortably blamed the teammates for not co-operating with him. Sometimes the reasons are true but in most cases these are mere excuses one produces for hiding what one is incapable of doing. This makes them unsuccessful and then it becomes a habit.
Yes! Blame Game can become a habit if not consciously uprooted from one’s life!
And what does blame game indicate? The blame game is the game of timid. It comes easily to those who do not have courage to face life. Life poses several questions at various times. The people who are afraid of failures are the people who try to escape by blaming others. Life is two sided coin. It comes with the successful moments as well as failures. World hasn’t witnessed a person who hasn’t seen and experienced both. Then why to fear failure?
Winston Churchill once said,” Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm”!
Blame game is the worst played game which comes due to the following reasons:
1) Lack of courage: People who lack courage fear to face failures. They don’t want to take charge of something that they failed in. They want to shrug off the responsibility of failure and thus, they find an excuse for the failure. They blame the circumstances, the situations and many times other people who are involved in the project with them.
As the saying goes, “An inefficient workman always blames his tools”!
These gamers find excuses which would make them less responsible of the failure.
Certainly, the example quoted above is that of a blame game instead of an excuse. If people were not co-operating the employee could have arranged for a meet to discuss the issues!
People with courage often stand up for their failures. They analyze what went wrong in their efforts and if at all it is their mistake they accept it wholeheartedly. They are bold enough to accept their mistakes and learn from those for future projects. They firmly believe in the philosophy that “ In order to succeed in life you must first be willing to experience failure”!
2) Lack of Discipline: “The more disciplined you become, the easier life gets”!
Discipline is a must to succeed in life. If one doesn’t possess this virtue, he tends to play blame game when he fails. When one starts a project or a task one should be good at estimating the time it will take to complete the project. One needs lot of persistent efforts to finish the work in particular time.
Indiscipline interferes with the persistency of efforts and causes missing links which may not be connected again or may take longer to connect. This leads to loose ends and yes failure! One has to inculcate the habit of discipline in order to stop the worst game of blame game.
Discipline after all is knowing what needs to be done and doing the same when you actually don’t want to do it!
3) Procrastination: “Procrastination is like a credit card- It is fun until you get the bill”
And the price of procrastination is quite huge. Don’t put it off to tomorrow what you can do it today. People who like to blame others and situations for their failure are the ones who procrastinate the most. The tendency to avoid difficult work is the one which leads to procrastination of work. One needs to apply mind to difficult tasks at hand. One needs to manage time well, by prioritizing the activities one has. “Project prioritization matrix- Eisenhower matrix “ is a tool which can help anyone keep the track of importance of any activity based on its urgency. Once an activity gets delayed one may get entangled with other routine activity or countering an urgent task.
These are some of the reasons why one takes the rescue of blame game. One needs to change oneself and inculcate power of good habits. Habits change when one continuously works on them. It takes time but the self esteem it builds is totally worth it.
Thanks for reading.
Four formidable pillars of success
It is often said,” Nothing succeeds like success!” It is indeed the truth. Once you are successful there is no looking back. Many success stories are a testimony to this statement.The success story of Steve Jobs who was fired from his own firm is one to get inspired from.Stories like this have inspired us and keep motivating us to achieve success. We all desire success. Who wants to fail? We all have dreams and wish our dreams could come true. We often wonder ,” What will make me successful in my endeavor”?
Well, we here discuss the mantra for SUCCESS.
There are four formidable pillars wherein lies the foundation of success viz. courage, desire, direction and hard work. All these four essentials pave the way to success and work in cohesion to make your dreams come true. Remember success is never an accident. But it is a choice which one constantly makes. The choice of emotions, feelings, attitude and above all a discipline which one practises everyday until he meets success.
“You are the masterpiece
of your own life.
You are the Michelangelo
of your own life.
The David you are sculpturing
is you
(Dr. Joe Vitale)” This is the quote from a famous book ” The Secret” by Rhonda Byrne.
Definitely who else can turn your fate towards success? It is only one, who has to be successful, should work out courageously in his life to realize his dream and his desires with relentless hard work in a particular direction. This, alone, could turn the tables to success. No one else can be held responsible for a failure and no one else can enjoy the sweet success than the one striving hard for it.
Let us discuss these “must haves ” which can lay a strong foundation for success as one can’t buy success- It needs to be built!
1) Courage:- ” Courage is not the absence of fear but the acquired ability to move beyond fear.”
Courage is the ability to take up what sets you on fire. Courage is to pursue one’s passion and attain success. But many times the fear of failure takes one away from following one’s passionate dreams.
As the quote by Marc Anthony goes,” If you love what you do, you will never work for a day in your life! When you work for something you love, you tend to put heart and soul into it and the result is a fruitful outcome. So why not be courageous enough to achieve success by doing what you love? Michael Jordan , renowned Basketball player is the leading example of courage. He was courageous enough to pursue his dream of being a football player in spite of several failures..
Indeed, courageous terrains are the risky ones. But it is often said,” No risk is the biggest risk”. One needs to take calculated risks and foresee hindrances while one takes the path of courageous behavior.
Take up your passion as an adventure and go ahead with the well chalked out plan to achieve success without any delay!
It is true that Success is not final and failure is not fatal. So what is that differentiates between the two? Well, it is a continuous courage one possesses to overcome the failures and to convert those into success which really counts.
2)Desire- “ A desire is the starting point of all achievements, not a hope,not a wish but a keen pulsating desire which transcends everything.”….Napoleon Hill
Indeed, one has innumerable desires throughout one’s life but to realize those desires one needs to work hard in a certain direction. If one desires something quite passionately, one finds a way and is ready to work hard to achieve it with commitment and dedication. If the desire is weak, one often ends up with an excuse. Many people desire to be millionaire, and many others to be a film actor. But why all of them can’t fulfill their desires while only a few carve their niche?
Well, one needs to have strong willpower in order to support the equally strong desire.
For eg:- If one fat person wants to lose his extra pounds, he should wilfully exercise and control his diet, or sweet tooth. Thus, exercising and controlling his dietary habits are entirely dependent on his willpower.
It is often thought that the desire is a product of will but rather its converse is true. Will is a product of desire. The more your desire to attain some height, or achieve something in life the more is your will to help achieve it.
Thus, we can also say that the distance between the success and failure is measured by power of one’s desires. A person who has unsuppressable desire is sure to walk the distance towards success sooner when compared to the one less desirous. This also leads to the fact that the stronger the desire the sooner the achievement. One should always dig into one’s desires and build a strong will to materialize the same.
Bill Gates has been desirous of the success his company enjoys today. Nothing can be achieved without a strong desire.
Let us now come to the most important of all the pillars:-
3) Hard Work:- For All your days prepare
And meet them ever alike
When you are the anvil, bear-
When you are the hammer, strike!
….Wings of fire by Dr A.P.J
The power of hard work can never be underestimated. Hard work always bears sweet success. There are proven stories which lead to the fact that determined hard work never gets unrecognized. Consistency in hard work leads to the sure destiny of success. There is no elevator to success and thus, one needs to climb the stairs. One should not only work hard but one should work in silence and let the success roar, eventually.
Hard work goes hand in hand with patience. One has to be patient enough to enjoy the success after one’s hard work. The best example is of the farmer. Farming is no joke. One has to toil hard to sow the seeds in the fields and be patient enough to reap the harvest. The crop doesn’t grow in a single day but takes its own time. The seeds of hard work needs to be nurtured with patient care.
It is nothing but disciplined hard work throughout the years which has produced the stalwart legends like Abraham Lincoln or Nelson Mandela . It may be asked whether hard work guarantees success! It might not guarantee success but it helps in improving the chances towards success. It is often said that if hard work becomes one’s weapon then success is bound to be one’s slave.
One might encounter bad luck or bad moments in life but relentless hard work works as a alchemist which transforms into great success.
The Indian freedom Struggle led by M K Gandhi is a testimony of his hard work towards achieving independence.
And we now come to fourth pillar of ensuring success:-
4) Direction:- Direction of efforts plays an important role when striving to achieve success. Hard work should always be accompanied with right direction. Remember :-Hard work without correct direction leads nowhere.
Swami Vivekanand was guided by Saint Ramakrishna in his pursuit of higher self. A mentor is the one who provides for the correct direction and guidance so that one often reaches one’s goals without wasting time in futile ways. When one desires of something one needs to specifically chart out the plan, detail in the timeline within which one needs to achieve it and finally search out for a mentor who can guide accurately guide him onto the path of success.
Dr A P J has rightly quoted in his book Wings of fire
” When the student is ready, the teacher will appear!” With mere talent one can’t dream to achieve success. One has to get the ship guided in the proper direction else it will be drowned or may not reach its successful destination.
Acquiring success is not so difficult. It is merely when your desire meets a courageous and well-directed hard work that leads to success. Success is 99% perspiration and 1 % inspiration. Success comes to those who believe in the power of their dreams and desires. These people work hard towards achieving those desires with relentless conviction, dedication and discipline even at the cost of risking their lives. No denying the fact that hard work is indeed a two way street. You get back what exactly you have put in!!
Introduction to the forthcoming Self-help Book: ‘PowerPacked Personality’
Yes! Indeed, once you start working or even before that the race begins and you keep wondering “What made me lose and the other one win, the same race?” You question yourself amidst the darkest deep nights but get no answer. And finally you create one. You blame your destiny. This is the only way to find comfort.
One often becomes uncomfortable when one thinks about the failures one had. No one likes to own the responsibility especially of the failed endeavor. One tends to forget these unhappy monologues; thanks to the mundane activities of life.
But these monologues if dug deeper, have the power to take us closer to the real answers we seek. This book is aimed at giving you an insight into your life, its challenges and the answers you desperately want to find out. If the principles propounded are followed in true spirit, life will be no longer an irritating jigsaw puzzle but an enjoyable and successful journey.
Though comparison is odious, yet at a certain stage of life, one tends to compare oneself with others. It is indeed a natural tendency to measure one’s success, joy or happiness. And then the person confronts a battery of questions like: “Why am I not rich like him? Though we studied together and were best friends? Once close buddies, why am I shy of even reaching out to him? How come he/she has achieved what I could just not think of? What makes her so very desirable?
In short, one tends to become jealous of others’ success. Jealousy, certainly, is best avoided but if dealt properly could give us the desired drive that will take us to our desired destination, our sought after goals. Success, prosperity, peace of mind and happiness just follow.
This book will help you understand yourself, leverage all natural human emotions through simple step-by-step forward movement. Simplicity of understanding and ease to follow practices and procedures are the principal features of this book.
The book will work as a reference manual describing how to handle difficult situations. It could work as a catalyst to bring out of the shell and make your existence as lively and as colorful as that of a butterfly.
Further, the book addresses the other personality issues that keep you away from achieving the success you always dreamt. It shows the path towards improvement and elevates your self-confidence to an untapped level. The book throws light on most of the important skill set and behavioral traits which successful people possess as listed below:
1) Positive Attitude: “A negative attitude is like a flat tyre! If you don’t change it, you will never reach anywhere!” Attitude defines the major part of your personality. It makes you who you are. It is the way you respond to what you face in life. Thus, a positive person seeks opportunities in the challenges they encounter whereas a negative person finds faults with the situations or the people.
This book will help you identify your attitude and help you learn the ways to correct the flaws adopting certain simple procedures to be followed consistently.
2) Effective Communication: Today’s world is a shrunken world. Globalization has brought us closer. Good Communications has become more important than ever before. Both, verbal and written communication skills are critical to understand others and to express yourself effectively. This book is your guide to develop these skills. Simple exercises easy to follow offer you powerful technique to improve on these. There is no limit to improvement.
3) Interpersonal skills: We continuously interact with the family, colleagues, friends and society. We have to work with those around and maintain harmonious relations. Good interpersonal skills are, therefore, crucial to our success and happiness. Through this book we take you through the various methods which would help you imbibe the necessary interpersonal skills.
4) Continuous Improvement: Stagnation doesn’t breed success! Today’s fast changing world demands dynamic people who keep abreast of latest information and the changing advanced technology. Successful people have a quest to explore more, learn more and thereby, pursue excellence. But one can’t be directionless in exploration.
This book provides you a direction. It can act as a personal guide so that you know what are you heading towards.
5) Willpower: Willpower is the strongest virtue which successful people possess and which helps them achieve distinguished success. It is the ability to perform consistently under the testing times and the ability to withstand the difficulties. Willpower, alone, often defines one’s success. This book sheds light on the way to focus your physical, mental and intellectual energies and to build strong willpower. Success, then, is just a few steps away with strong willpower.
6) Habits: Power of good habits are vitals to success. The book intends to inculcate all the basic formal good habits like humility, understanding, empathy for others. It will also help you develop a sense of humor which is a rare trait these days. This book will enable you to be the best of yourself.
7) Time management:- Time and Tide wait for none. This might sound a cliche but it is the hardcore truth. One needs to effectively manage this very resource which is equally distributed to everyone on this planet. This book will hold your hands and guide you to use time in the best possible manner.
How does one use this book?
Well, before using this book one needs to have undergone a self analysis. An analysis helps in the long way to identify one’s strengths and weaknesses. One needs to retrospect about the successful times and identify what contributed to those magnanimous events. Was it your sheer talent, initiative or a group effort? Once you get answers to this question, ask yourself again whether you still use those elements in your endeavors? If you encounter a negative answer, ask yourself again “Why not?”After all history repeats itself.
It is equally important to ponder over the failures of life as it is to dwell over success. Failures are the major lessons to be learnt in life. Ask yourself, –
“When did I fail and Why?”
“Is it because of my shortcomings?”
If the answer is yes, note down the shortcomings and counter them with the methods in this book.
This book can be used as a reference material for developing a desirable and successful personality once you have done with the self questionnaire presented above. Happy personality development ahead!
8 Moves to Maintain Right Perspective
Life is lived through your perspective, your perspective of life. Perspective for an artist or an architect is how the object looks in relation to other objects around. Likewise, ‘Perspective of Life’ is relative to what we see around and what we have to deal with in our normal day to day life.
- Never Undermine Perspective. It is said that never underestimate the power of perspective. It can change everything. Your attitude depends on your perspective of life. You may believe that there are too many ups and downs or you may view the same as the process of growth.
- Your Perspective Guides you about the relative importance of things. Thus, your priorities will depend on your perspective. One must keep in mind that in the environment of constant change, one may has to revisit one’s perspective often.
- Time is a resource which has been equally distributed to all human beings. The moment you realize the importance of time it will reflect on your perspective and accordingly you start dealing with people and situations differently.
- An interesting example of perspective may be attributed to the people who are very short. They have always to look up. At the same time the person who is proud and vain will tend to look down on others. So the person who is grounded will see the reality much better and will succeed in building up good relationship with the people at work place in society and at home. The proud will not.
- ‘We cannot change the cards we are dealt, but how we play our cards is in our hand’. Thus the life may be looked as a game of cards in which our ability and our choice to choose the right path are both very important. Many a times if you are too much concerned about something, your worry about the same may lead you to wrong decisions.
- Never try to give any explanations to people who do not want to understand you. People only hear what they want to hear and the best examples that you may give to such people is only waste of your time. Therefore don’t do that.
- An important point to maintain your right perspective is that you should never compare yourself with any other person. Comparison is odious and should always be shunned.
- It’s necessary not to worry because worry does not solve any problems of tomorrow, but it surely takes away your peace, today. Actually, solving problems is the significance of life. So, it’s necessary to re-training your mind to process life as it is. Problems are perceived because you find that things are not happening the way you want them to happen. Peace cannot be forced to stay with you but it can be achieved by proper understanding and with proper perspective.
Thanks for reading.
Eight Big Benefits of Belief (Self-Belief)
In life it is necessary to have some beliefs. That does not mean that you need to follow any dogma or belief forced on you. You can pick your own beliefs with discretion. First, let us understand what is self-belief. What are the qualities that it inherits? Self belief is an invaluable virtue which brings great possibilities in your life. Its indications are that you:
i) Stop making any excuses for any reason what-so-ever.
ii) Do not indulge in any negative thought.
iii) Stop thinking that difficulties surround you alone. You do not jump to conclusion and take hasty actions. You express your fears to others without any hesitation, because you keep in mind that everyone has some fears.
iv) You stop procrastinating because that is indicative of your lack of confidence.
v) Stop pursing perfection. Perfection is never achieved. It only stops you from moving ahead.
Once you develop self belief and you observe that you conform to all what has been said above, you will find the following eight advantages coming to you smoothly and seamlessly.
- Self-belief enables you to hold strong conviction. All things do not happen the way you have planned or the way you expect. But strong conviction will help you to move ahead without fear of failure.
- Self belief also helps you develop optimistic attitude which is necessary today in the wake of fast changing world. Life is becoming extremely competitive. Any opportunity missed once may never come back again. But if you have a negative attitude you will not be able to catch the fleeting possibilities.
- Your self-belief also makes you more reliable to others. Thus you tend to build up better relations with others. Your credibility is not question. Since people can trust you they vie for good relations with you. Needless to say that for any significant project you need help from others.
- Self-belief also helps you to be focused and self motivated. You no longer take life as it comes. You don’t depend on unknown sources to bring you luck. You carve your own destiny. Self motivation helps you to maintain enthusiasm and interest in life.
- Your risk taking ability improves if you start relying on yourself. It is said that there are no gains if there are no risks. Your conviction helps you to take calculated risks in meeting the challenges of life. The tendency to avoid and escape facing challenging situation reduces substantially. You start realizing that difficulties form a necessary part of life.
- Further, self-belief enables you to give and receive constructive criticism with an open mind. In the current scenario exchange of ideas and views are extremely important. The autocratic leader is not acceptable any more. So if you want to progress you have to collaborate with others from your own organization or outside outfits.
- Self-belief helps you to be more assertive. You start caring for yourself more than pleasing others. Someone said that he doesn’t know any formula of how to succeed. The sure short formula for success has never been discovered. But there is a firm unbeatable formula for failure and that is trying to please everyone. Your self-belief will not allow you to embark on the journey of securing approvals where these are not mandatory.
- Last but not the least, you start working on improving your self respect. You realize that if you do not respect yourself, others will follow suit. When you’re in need to raise self esteem, you become more effective and you become more productive. Now, you start managing your time very effectively as any improper or inadequate use of your time will hurt your self-esteem.
Thanks for reading.
