Giving Your Children Liberty to Learn Makes them Competent

Anshul and Nishtha are extremely doting and hands-on PARENTS. They leave no stone unturned to give a good upbringing to their 9-year-old son, Prayaan. They are perfect at managing their office schedules, taking breaks to spend productive time with him and encouraging him round the clock to do various activities and help him complete all his tasks. Despite a very well balanced and perfect parenting, they observe that Prayaan hesitates with relatives, neighbours and the less frequent visitors. He keeps maximum distance with new acquaintances and never feels comfortable when strangers are around. After weeks’ discussion, the parents found the reason in their own behaviour when Prayaan was a toddler, they never allowed him to walk freely in a garden, never used a public transport with him and never let him do his school activities and projects alone. They never wanted him to do things in his own way just to facilitate him and avoid mistakes. Over-possessive attitude of the parents and over assistance in his hobbies and interests made him dependent and introvert; the results are quite obvious, now he doesn’t want to mingle with new people and never feels confident in doing things alone. For every miniscule thing he looks forward for his parents support.

Give Your Children Liberty to learn and Build them Stronger than ever

When children are not given the liberty to learn, doing things alone, making mistakes and facing challenges they don’t grow as resilient YOUTH and avoid taking risks in life. The more freedom they get at doing things and completing tasks, the more robust they become in making decisions and neutralizing threats. So try to give them opportunities to struggle and learn on their own, it will give them an impetus to unveil their strengths and capabilities. 

The major factor responsible for why parents don’t allow their children to make mistakes and confront challenges and failures is the family system of today’s era. Let’s read how it affects:

The Growing Prevalence of Nuclear Families

The traditional Indian joint family system which is based on the principles of collectivism, promotes social cohesion and interdependence among the members of the family and the little ones imbibe the strongest values at a very early age. However, with the growing culture of nuclear families, children’s social and emotional growth has faced a setback and the over-alert and agile parents of today have added fuel to fire. The child is the only centre of attraction in a nuclear family so the parents want to facilitate him/her more than what is required. As we know a child’s incipient personality is greatly influenced by what he observes at home in his formative years so when a child grows up doing most of the tasks with the assistance of others, he never develops a streak to plunge into newer realms and grows with myopic attitude. So as a parent and guardians, we must give a required level of liberty to our children to make them more competent.

 

Have Strong Faith in Children’s Efforts

Parents are the primary agents for shaping up their children’s personality and their open behaviour can make children strong, stable, resilient and practical if they respect their individuality, freedom of choice, privacy and personal space. Mostly, people think that children should be given liberty to learn alone at a certain age so that they don’t make mistakes. But they fail to understand that mistakes are the best teachers and, by expressing such ideology they reveal that they lack faith and trust in their children’s EFFORTS, and this practice leaves a lasting impression in child’s memory and proves a major deterrent in cultivating self-belief and self-confidence. Talk freely and positively about their mistakes so they consider mistakes as a part of learning process.

The famous Hollywood actress, humanitarian and tabloid star, Angelina Jolie speaks about her mother, who died from ovarian cancer at the age of 56, as an “extraordinary woman”. She describes about her mother that she was an ardent art lover and always supported her for whatever she wanted to choose for herself. She let her children explore the nuances of an actor’s life and how to express themselves in difficult situations. Angelina further adds, she would sit in the car for hours till her auditions continued and rejoice with her like a bird on her selection. The most amazing part of her parenting was she would embrace difference of personalities and was open to all experiences. She never tried to make her daughter a mould of her rather raised her with art and creativity and both were very different from each other as two women. Giving children liberty to learn things and explore life and people on their own offers new horizons to their imagination and creativity. 

 

Let Children Experience all Kinds of Emotions

Giving emotional liberty to a child is very important yet we never want our children to get angry, scared, feel threatened or disappointed. It’s absolutely normal if a child is scared of a spider or a lizard but we do our best to avoid our child’s confrontations with these emotions and here we make a mistake of providing him/her an over protective environment and obstruct his way of growing as a fearless person. Struggling and working on a challenge during a child’s growth years is always good for brain’s neurological growth. On the contrary, the children in an over protective environment avoid challenges and shy away from taking risks if they find any possibility of failure in their attempt. This impacts a child’s holistic development and he starts having inhibitions. We should never forget that struggles are helpful experiences and always vital for facilitating learning and growth.

Also Read: Never-to-Advise-Adolescents

Parents’ mindset and their approach regarding an open and flexible way of nurturing the young minds determine whether the children’s development is fixed or malleable. They should also focus on the importance of efforts and mistakes in the process of learning. If parents give their children liberty to learn and explore, children will grow as confident and innovative youth and this attitude of parents will definitely have sizeable effects on their skills and learning. You are always a role model for your child so just think As a Parent Do You Preach or Perform? Learn to be responsive and consistent in all your interactions and activities with your kids, encourage them to pay and buy smaller things from themselves in your presence. Let them make their choice even if you feel they may fail; if they succeed they will rejoice, if they fail they will learn from their mistakes and you will learn more. Trust me, your child always teaches you to be a better parent, you just need to understand and identify their responses and build an empathetic coordination with your kids, rest you are doing perfectly fine!

Self-Confidence Is The Key To Reaping More Rewards In Life

Win and live all your dreams by taking your self confidence a notch higher

When Thomas Alva Edison was ready with his invention of light bulb, he called his office boy to test that bulb. His entire team of assistants was very happy because it took Thomas 1000 attempts to invent the bulb. As the office boy was feeling nervous in front of the scientist and the team, he couldn’t hold the bulb tightly and unfortunately he dropped the bulb. The poor office boy wasn’t unaware of his fate; he knew he would be fired but nothing happened for the next two days.

After two days Edison again called the office boy and all his assistants were astounded to see that he handed him over another light bulb and asked to test it. None could believe their eyes and asked Edison, why he called the office boy and what if he dropped the bulb again? Edison calmly replied, “It took me just one day to make the bulb again but if I don’t give him the same task again, the boy will never be able to regain his self-belief and self-confidence. And I will never let that happen."

The idea behind this act is very deep and important; most of us give up on those things we feel we are not good at  and never try to boost our confidence to make even a single effort to achieve that unattainable. Self –confidence is the key to conquer all our dreams and teaches us that mistakes or failures must never dampen the spirit to do miracles in life and to live life at its fullest. We all believe that self-confidence is the key to reaping more rewards in life yet very often we don’t do something we yearn for, just because once mistaken, and lose our self-confidence forever, whether it is driving, swimming, playing a sport, participating in a competition or public speaking; we step back if we fail at first attempt and don't work on that skill. Let's never forget that there’s nothing in this world, one can’t achieve if he/she honestly strives for it as it is rightly said by the Brazilian writer, Paulo Coelho in his book, The Alchemist, “When you want something so desperately; all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” So never lose your self-confidence and practice the small tricks to bring a positive and productive change in your personality.

Interesting Read: Challenge-Your-Comfort-Zone

Feel Great About Your Flaws and Imperfections

Don’t observe the things at their face value; it brings ignorance towards what your destiny has stored for you. Your capabilities are always much more than your limitations and these limitations add a great potential to your personality when you convert them into your strengths. Once, Bruce Lee, the martial art expert was asked about his inspiration and mantra of success, he replied, “I don’t have a perfect body. My right leg is roughly an inch shorter than my left that is why I put my right leg forward in my stance. I am short-sighted so I specialize in close encounters and in this way, I have turned all my imperfections into my strengths.” So boost your self-confidence by feeling great about your flaws and imperfections. Convert your weakness into an advantage and avail all the Opportunities that fall on your way to enhance your self confidence; as self-confidence is the key to reaping more rewards in life.

Learn From Your Failures and Never Give up

In today’s scenario, when everyone loves to talk only about success, achievements and material gains, the basic rule of life has become, “Either prove or perish”, and it seems as if failure is never dignified. Nobody wants to discuss about failure, which in a larger context, lays the foundation of victory. If you wish to become a self-confident person, take lessons from your failures and accept them with courage, verve and grace. Failures are never Failures; they are the attempts that you have made in pursuit of success. This attitude will build your self confidence and personal excellence will greet you every moment, at every step, at each of your endeavor.

Focus on Smaller Goals to Enhance Your Self-Confidence

There are three types of goals in everyone’s life; short-term, long-term and medium-term, most of us invest our maximum time in thinking, planning and putting in our persistent efforts to achieve the long-term goals. But the most important ones are the short-term goals which always drive you towards the bigger goals and eventually make them easier for you. A sense of achievement always fills you with immense confidence without measuring the size of the goal so if you achieve something regularly you feel more confident about yourself and your capabilities which is possible when you decide smaller goals for yourself. So continue to work on your short-term goals as the habit of Goal Setting takes your self-confidence a notch higher.

Self-Control is a Booster Dose for Stronger Self-Confidence

Emotions play a pivotal role in building a personality and it’s very important to nurture the ability of self-control as with the help of this guiding force we can tap into to have a more fulfilled life. When we are driven by our emotions, we get distracted from our purpose and forget to control impulses, fight temptations and exercise willpower. A greater level of self-control makes us decisive, resilient and inhibits the pull of temptations which functions as a cornerstone of emotional intelligence and trains our mind to rely on its strengths and enhances our self-confidence. Avoid rumination on past events, think about your present and plan your future, it will stop you losing your confidence on the things that are not under you’re your control.

Self-confidence is just like magic; it helps you navigate your life the way you want and instills trust in your abilities and judgment. Self-confidence is not only looking and appreciating your strengths but recognizing your flaws also and how to conquer them. Take your self-confidence a notch higher so that you can get ready to embrace your full potential.

Always remember, “With a greater self-confidence, you become a winner even before you start on it.”

Challenge Your Comfort Zone, Don’t Get Confined to it

 Do you confine to your comfort zone?  

“If you never take a risk, you will never know what changes you need to make.”

-Paulo Coelho

Changes always come with challenges and change is the only constant in life till the time you fall in the trap of your comfort zone which is so placid and alluring that one prefers to stagnate over growing and exploring new horizons. Have you ever felt resistance in switching jobs, relocating different cities, taking up new hobbies, upskilling yourself or learning new activities? If yes, nothing to worry about it, human mind always resists change. It is we who have to decide whether we should continue and stagnate or gear up and glow with the change. Mostly, it has been observed that we deny the opportunities and future prospects because we don’t want to face anything unfamiliar and challenging. We all know that there will be no rewards without risks yet we don’t muster courage to cross the threshold and breathe in open air. Let’s try a small activity of self-communion- Ask yourself a question, before making a new choice in your personal or professional life: What’s the best and what’s the worst that can happen if I go ahead? The answer of this question in both the cases will help you address your sense of fear and discomfort and help you build equanimity if you choose to dismantle the layers of your comfort zone.

Let’s read about a few practices that can help you challenge your comfort zone and how not to get confined to it:

Find Out the Reasons of Fear

We don’t want to step out of our comfort zone as we fear new and unknown. We love being cooped up in the same environment for years just for the sake of feeling safe and comfortable. We don’t want to break the boundaries of inhibitions, stagnation and monotony despite knowing that this type of attitude can take a toll on our professional opportunities and personal growth. Whenever you want to make a choice for yourself; your subconscious mind repels to venture beyond the comfort zone, so training your mind is very important here. No one wants to choose challenging or risky options; we think what most of the people are doing and we also start following them in a bid to play safe, sail safe. Here I would like to quote Robert Frost’s lines:

“I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence;

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I-

I took the one less travelled by,

And that has made all the difference.”

 

-The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

 

These lines clearly indicate how difficult it is to make choices in life, but when you make a good and distinctive choice for yourself, you always stand out as one among the crowd. So learn to make choices by finding out your fears and conquer them all with Your Grit and Determination.

 

Keep Telling Yourself, “I am Fearless”

Communication with your body, mind and soul is very important as this works as a tool to align your thoughts and actions in a positive manner. Speaking to yourself opens your heart to infinite possibilities and gets yourself accustomed to whatever emerges. Make a daily habit of self-communion and tell yourself that you are fearless and ready to survive in any situation; you will be able to come out of your comfort zone very easily. In this world there is nothing like Midas touch, things never fall so easily as it seems when we look at others, one has to invest a lot to gain something. So the first step that you take to come out of your comfort zone is to feel fearless. If you walk fearlessly, accept new challenges wholeheartedly; your chances of being rewarded will be higher so speak to yourself, “I am Fearless.”

 

Identify Your Instincts and Impulsive Acts

When we become subservient to our changing emotional states, we quickly catch ourselves starting to feel insecure and anxious. We often react impulsively and fail to follow our instincts. If you receive any negative feedback and feel offended and develop a strong desire to react to it; just wait for a moment, take a step back and think this situation in a different way. You are being given one more opportunity to unleash your potential and prove yourself. When you start listening to your instincts and identify your impulsive behaviour, you get yourself ready for any storm or turbulence which ultimately takes you to a point where no concept of comfort zone exists. You start flowing with everything you have in hand and appreciate your surroundings and your life as it unfolds. 

Take Pride in Your Accomplishments

Thinking about your glorious achievements always fills you with a sense of completeness in yourself. Keep reminding yourself about your self-worth and accomplishments so that you can display grace and magnanimity in any situation and this attitude will propel you to break the boundaries of your comfort zone without much hesitance and aversion. Sometimes thinking and planning of going out of your comfort zone threatens your survival and sounds so formidable that you daren’t to deal with the decision-making. At that moment if you recall everything that you had achieved in your past; you will find that these challenges are so petty and trivial; it gives you a momentum to change the list of your growth goals and you define yourself in an exuberant way.

Recommended Read: The-Conundrum-of-Commitment

Practice Exploring at Smaller Levels also

If you find anything uncomfortable, try to do it until you become PRO at it. It can be taking a different route to your workplace, talking to new clients, public speaking, smaller changes in daily routine, adapting new fitness regime, exploring new restaurants and new cuisines; just keep experimenting with all the different approaches so as to allow your mind and body to accommodate in different situations. It sounds little quirky but it really works!

The moment we find ourselves in the cocoon of our comfort zone, we begin to underestimate our innate ability to adapt and get familiar with new and strange things. Staying long with your comfort zone make you socially and professionally inept and you end up yourself in an impasse where nothing brings joy and satisfaction to you. It’s time to identify your strengths and leverage them to conquer your comfort zone. Let’s never forget, we learn and grow the most when we are in discomfort. The only thing we need to learn is how to get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

Only The Valiant Can Nurture The Virtue of Forgiveness

 Forgiveness Is An Attribute Of The Brave

“Forgive others, not because they deserve forgiveness, but because you deserve peace.”

World War II, Holocaust, Nazism, The Final Solution, Concentration Camps; the terms still haunt the mankind and narrate the brutal killings and atrocities on innocents. Even after years of liberation, the life in concentration camps kept reminding the Holocaust survivors the horrendous sufferings they had undergone in the concentration camps and the days when they prayed for the end of their life to escape the torture and grueling human experiments on their bodies. Amidst all such horrific memories of the Holocaust survivors, today I have brought a story of forgiveness, a story of resilience, a story of releasing the burden of hatred and angst for those who deserve no mercy but because the victims deserve True Happiness and peace for themselves.

The story begins with the ordeal of a small girl, Eva Mozes Kor, born in 1934 in Transylvania, Romania who survived Dr. Joseph Mengele’s human experiments on twins. She was only 10 when she arrived at Auschwitz with her parents, two older sisters and her twin, Miriam. Her parents and other sisters were directly taken to the gas chambers while she along with her twin, Miriam were selected for the twin experiments, conducted by Dr. Joseph Mengele, known as the Angel of Death. Most of the twins died during the medical experiments; Eva and her sister, Miriam spent nine months in the camp, being subject to experimentation on their bodies. She was given injections with some unknown drugs that caused high fever and swollen arms and legs. When she was taken to Dr. Mengele, Eva heard him saying that she would die in just two weeks. She spent next two weeks in the hospital barrack, crawling across the floor to reach for water as she wasn’t able to walk and kept reminding herself that she must survive; the reason was apparent, if she died, her sister would be given a lethal injection by the doctor to conduct a twin autopsy. After two weeks, it was her intense desire that won the battle; her fever broke and she met her sister. But they never talked about the experiments with each other.

On January 27, 1945, the Red Army liberated the camp and Eva and Miriam along with 180 children, most of whom were twins, were sent to various shelter homes. Fortunately, Eva found her mother’s friend Rosalita whose twins were killed by Mengele. She took the responsibility and helped them return back to Romania.

After the war, Eva tried to forget all about the horrific experiences at the camp and in 1950 she immigrated to Israel. She served in the Israeli Army for eight years. She and her sister suffered varied harrowing ailments as they were used as guinea pigs for the experiments at the Auschwitz. Miriam’s kidneys stopped growing; they remained the same as of a 10 year old and Eva donated one of her kidneys to her sister. In 1978, when a miniseries by NBC, The Holocaust was aired, she became curious to know about all the Mengele twins who were liberated from the Auschwitz concentration camp and how the deadly experiments affected their lives. She started locating other survivors of the camp and in the year 1984, she founded CANDLES, Children of Auschwitz Nazi Deadly Lab Experiments Survivors.

 50 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, in the year 1995, Eva decided to forgive the Nazis and she returned to the place where she had witnessed many children tragically murdered. Dr. Hans Munch, a Nazi doctor who was stationed outside the gas chamber at the camp was also standing with her, to read the witness statement as the testimony of Holocaust period. At the same time, Eva declared her forgiveness and changed her status from being a victim of the Holocaust. She even forgave Dr. Mengele to release herself from the feelings of hatred and to remove the burden of suffering and the traumatic period. It wasn’t easy for her but she couldn’t live any longer with those nightmares; now she wanted peace and tranquility for herself.

 

When the holocaust survivor forgave the Nazi soldiers, she received controversies and protests from all over but she expedited that forgiving doesn’t imply denial of justice; neither means that crimes and evil deeds should be forgotten. Forgiving doesn’t mean forgetting as in many cases, it’s impossible to forget the events that affect our lives deeply but the truth is: forgiveness is nothing to be done with the perpetrator, rather it can be defined as an ardent need of the victim so as to release themselves from the pain inflicted upon them.

 There is No Point in Raking Up the Past

Do you also feel, forgiving is one of the most difficult acts that you do especially to those who have hurt you, pained you and berated you? Yes, everyone feels the same; now let’s look at the other side of the coin. Do you really believe that the one who has hurt you, remembers about his wrong behavior? Of course not, so ultimately who is suffering? Isn’t that YOU, because you are not able to forget and you choose to carry the burden of the grudges and anger for the person who is responsible to ruin the precious time of your life. You have lost that moment of your life and now recalling and cursing again and again about the same, you are destroying the present moment also. The moment you forgive the person, you feel relieved from all those feelings which were getting you deprived from your peace of mind and tranquility. Learn to forgive, because forgiveness doesn’t bring any good to others; it brings contentment and bliss to our self. So stop raking up the past and nurture the virtue of forgiveness absolutely for yourself.

 

“Forgiveness is a promise, not a feeling. When you forgive people, you are making a promise to yourself to heal yourself and to empower yourself with peace and tranquility.”

Does Forgiving Make You Gullible?

Many of us believe that one’s forgiveness may be implied as one’s cowardice and undue endurance, but forgiveness is a virtue of the valiant and not the cup of the tea of cowards. Forgiveness helps you to cultivate the ability of sequestering oneself far from all the brunt of past and the experiences of bitterness and humiliation; caused deliberately to you. There will be many to goad you into an act of retaliation or revenge upon that person but if you overcome the tendency of harboring contempt and bitterness you succeed in uplifting your mind, body and soul. Only the valiant can nurture the virtue of forgiveness. 

Forgiveness helps you in healing from pain and the agonizing moments; forgiveness is not only self-liberation but self-empowerment also.

Recommended Read: Let-Lord-Mahaviras-Teachings-Combat 

Having a mulish attitude of retaliation will impel you to deeply entrenched feelings of contempt, displeasure and vindictiveness. You will probably end up in the unenviable throes of profound desolation and will never be able to pull yourself through this situation. So forgive for yourself; not for others. It will be painful for you if you don’t help yourself to come out of an unpleasant state of mind. Let your mind and soul be at peace by nurturing the virtue of forgiveness. Believe me, the virtue of forgiveness is the summum bonum of human life and human character; let’s keep it alive, let’s keep it flourishing and bring peace to our eternal Self.

Cultivate the Habit of Goal-Setting: Be Your Own Arjuna

 Setting New Goals Gives Birth to a New You

Living without any goal in life is just like sailing in a vast ocean without any compass.

Once, Dronacharya, the Guru of warfare who trained Kauravas and Pandavas the skills of military arts and weaponry decided to test all his pupils. He set up a target in the shape of a bird and called his pupils to shoot at it. Before his pupils could shoot the target they had to answer the questions of their Guru, Dronacharya. First of all, Duryodhan, the over enthusiastic disciple took up his stance; Dronacharya asked him, “What do you see?” He replied, “I can see the tree, the bird and the leaves.”

Dronacharya at once ordered him to go back to his place and called Yudhishtra, the eldest of the Pandavas. The Guru asked the same question and was disappointed to receive the same as was given by Duryodhan. One by one all the pupils were called and they responded the same. A few tried to act smartly and added that they could see their guru, their cousins and so on but none could satisfy Dronacharya with a correct response. Finally, it was Arjuna’s turn to hold the bow; when he set the arrow and pulled the string, Dronacharya asked the same question, to which Arjun replied, “I just see the eye of the bird.”

The guru asked Arjuna if he could see the tree, the leaves or his brothers standing around. Arjuna was firm and focused on his target and his answer was, “No, I can’t see anything else except the eye of the bird.” Filled with pride and adoration for his favorite pupil, Dronacharya gave a green signal for the shooting and the next moment the bird was on the ground in pieces.

This story teaches us a very important life lesson i.e. to set and realize your goals and chase them. When you set a goal for yourself, you streamline all your focus towards it and develop your concentration to achieve the target. It takes a strong will power to winnow your goal from all the distractions and irrelevant issues and put everything aside that offers temptations and fantasies.

Explore Your Interests and Passion

New skills, experiments or exploring new vistas should never be considered intimidating in fact they boost your energy and motivation to find your real interests and passion in life. Mostly at younger age we could not decide on the professions or the life style but at a later of life if you feel that you take no interest in what you are doing; never hesitate to give yourself an opportunity to explore yourself, your interests and your passion. Never be afraid to experiment and never justify your decision to people; be firm and be honest with what you choose for yourself. Setting goals will always nourish you enough courage to get you out of your comfort zone, explore your interest and push you towards the desired fields that you had dreamt of. One of the most renowned restaurant chains, KFC, with the value of $12.6 billion was started by Harland Sanders at the age of 62 after serving in the military and trying a number of different jobs. KFC is just one story, there are many more such inspirations which prove that nothing can withhold you from having a goal in your life and achieving it.

Resourcefulness is a Key Factor

Once you set a goal for yourself, you start planning to achieve it; and this whole process gives a momentum in life and this momentum fills you with energy, aspirations and newness for yourself. You feel yourself reborn amidst all the commotion of petty issues and humdrum routine. Here, being resourceful is a key factor in identifying your strengths and leveraging them to surpass the challenges that hinder your path. One should have no qualms while pursuing the goals and that is possible only when you develop the quality of being resourceful and to keep looking for cues to make things better. Resourcefulness is a mindset which is very relevant when the goals you have set are difficult and you cannot envision a clear path to get to where you desire to go. It helps you cultivate out-of-the-box thinking and the ability to take every possible measure that paves the way to your success.

Reinvent Yourself with New Goals

Setting new and realistic goals for yourself keeps reinventing you as a person and helps you rediscover your strengths and limits. Setting a goal on just getting rid of a bad habit can also help you reinvent yourself and making a better version of yourself. Inculcate patience and spend 15 minutes with yourself everyday to gain perspective and realign your thoughts to give yourself new goals and find your way out of the labyrinth of the day-to-day petty issues and fleeting emotions. If you feel you are stuck at a stage in life and beleaguered at the situations give yourself a new goal; any new habit or learning a new skill, will improve your focus and you will start getting more and more positive and optimistic with those situations which were annoying you earlier. Any type of unwanted material and thoughts always obstruct your efforts and achievements so clear out all the physical clutter and conquer the mental/emotional clutter (if you have any) and rejuvenate yourself and embrace a NEW YOU.

 

Chase Your Dreams until You Live Them

Life is like a ride on a roller coaster, it has its twists, turns, highs and lows. We keep chasing our dreams and pursuing our goals till this ride propels us to lofty standards but there are lows also in this ride and they disrupt everything. Confrontation with failures often drive us towards despair and gloom, eventually leaving us defeated and chastened and we stop chasing our goals as we accept that we can’t achieve this goal. Nurturing the attitude of, ‘This too shall pass’ can only be the ballast to help you transcend the insecurities and disappointments in life so believe that there is always light at the end of the tunnel; stay resilient and keep moving earth and heaven to chase and achieve your goals till you celebrate them.

“Some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all- in which case you fail by default.” So cultivate the habit of goal setting for yourself on daily basis. Be an Arjuna in each of your decision and focus on attaining an enriching life; not just for you but for others also. The size of the goal never matters until you carry on with the process and efforts to achieve it. The euphoria at the success will be the same whether it’s a smaller goal or a magnanimous one.

Stop Paying Attention To What People Think and Speak About You

Does It Matter What People Speak About You? 

“Confidence is not ‘they will like me’. Confidence is ‘I’ll be fine if they don’t’.” The most important thing in life is your self- confidence, if you have faith in yourself and sure of your success no setbacks can hinder your way. If you wish to grow and chase your dreams, stop paying attention to what people think and speak about you, just aim to carry yourself to the moment of no return. The people’s courts and trials are a continuum process of making endeavors to keep pulling you back and get you embroiled in the pangs of humiliation just to quell your creativity and stifle your aspirations. An aphorism of behaviorism goes as; “All civilizations need sheep to enslave and govern easily, lions aren’t required anywhere.” In essence, if you are mentally strong, resourceful, focused and determined there are more chances of rejection for you. So take rejection as a mark of your capability and strength, similarly at any point of time in your life if you feel people don’t show much acceptance towards you, take it in your stride and be proud of yourself.  Now let’s discuss how to keep others’ remarks and opinion at arm's length and maintain equipoise in all circumstances:

Learn to Ignore

When we adapt the laissez-faire attitude, we are less affected by others' insinuations. It’s a universal truth that you can never change others; you can only change yourself. So do it today! Stop paying attention to what others speak about you; you are not a clown or an ice-cream seller who can keep everyone happy. You are bound to keep yourself happy; neither one can be good (except family and friends) to you nor worst (except criminals); one can be good or worst only to oneself so learn to ignore those who don’t add any value to your life. Put in your honest efforts in your work, respect your individuality and stop bothering about people who judge you, people who are least interested in knowing what you know but very keen to know what you don’t know. They are never important in your life.

No Obligation to Hold Onto Those Who Don’t Accept You

Man is a gregarious animal and there are certain obligations on everyone as an integral part of society. Being respectful to others never means being timid and not able to express disagreement. We shouldn’t have obligations to hold onto those who don’t accept and appreciate us. There is a prevalent misconception that one should practice tolerance to sustain social and professional relations. Needless to say, the relations that demand extra modesty and carefulness; they are never relationships; they are simply connections between two individuals. And connections cannot demand obligations.

Gain Control on Your Thoughts

Research has proven that thoughts are not abstract always; they contribute to an overall development of your personality by materializing themselves and shaping your character. Our character governs our body and will power and determines our deeds as well as achievements. If we develop fear, doubt or anxiety towards the external factors and depend upon the circumstances for everything, we give birth to a weaker personality that always demands attention and external validation making it more vulnerable to the vitriol and judgments of others. On the contrary, gaining control on thoughts galvanizes your efforts to build up a stronger, undeterred, and exuberant personality.

Interesting Read: The Conundrum of Commitment with Self

Face Your Loss Alone; It’s None of Others’ Business

When the ace tennis player Arthur Ashe was on his death bed, losing his battle against AIDS in 1992, millions of his fans were grieved and expressed their despondency by asking him how God could choose him for an untimely departure from the world. To this, he replied with contentment, “All over the world, some million teenagers aspire to become tennis players. Of them, only a few thousand play some circuit and only a hundred or so play the grand slam. Finally, only two reach the final of Wimbledon. When I was standing with the trophy of Wimbledon in my hand, I never questioned God ‘Why me?’ And now what right do I have to ask God, why me?”

In The Pursuit of Gaining sympathy from others, too often we invite unsolicited advices and baseless blames for the losses we are suffering. The only way to keep such negative people at bay is to muster courage to face the loss alone with this faith in our heart that this ordeal is going to end soon and such adverse circumstances are not the fundamental part of our existence. These situations are just superficial aberrations and bouts of darkness which must be met with positivity, persistence and equanimity. There’s no other way round to deal with adversities and challenges in life. Making it a talk of the town will simply deteriorate your mental health and engulf you in a feeling of dejection.

Remind yourself everyday what you want to do in life, what are you doing and what’s obstructing you to achieve your goals. If get perturbed by the sarcastic remarks of neighbours, colleagues or any acquaintance make it clear to them that their opinion doesn’t hold any importance in your journey of success.

Mostly, we anticipate acceptance from others, we look at them for validation that we are fulfilled and doing every desired thing to make a meaningful existence for ourselves but get hurt when receive mean, judgmental and pretentious responses, so expecting any kind of external validation and appreciation is always futile and self-defeating in fact it can be detrimental for your mental and physical health. Ask yourself; how you are doing and how do you feel about your achievements and success. It is only YOU who matters the most and none can judge you so be just you, and accept the way you like to think about yourself.

Your constant efforts for your self-growth will never let you get deprived of the wholeness of your individuality and help you find solace and reassurance in the fact that ‘roses always bloom among the thorns’ so life is just the same, if people want to see only the thorns associated with you, let them do so; you are always there to adore and appreciate the roses, and you will remain forever to enjoy the fragrance of those roses.

Your Anxiety Can Become An Essential Guiding Force of Life

Convert Your Anxiety into an Inner Power to Perform Better

Before any interview, performance, presentation or match people become so nervous and anxious about the result and their performance that they get perturbed and stop focusing on the preparation.  No wonder when mind becomes enmeshed in this turmoil anxiety overpowers them before they realize. This last hour anxiety can either impinge on  one’s performance or take it a notch higher; the difference is entirely in your capacity to turn it into your inner power to perform better. This ubiquitous influence of performance pressure can be effectively used to give rise to the courage that can ridicule your fear and anxiety if only you train your mind to convert your anxiety into an essential guiding force of life. Let’s learn to recognize and embrace our anxiety to plan with more energy and perfection. Let’s learn to keep our fear unacknowledged with better planning and perfectionism.  

In a recent interview Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar, India’s batting maestro and one of the finest batsmen of the world, spoke about himself keeping awake whole night, just tossing and turning in bed, thinking about the next day’s match. It was after a decade, when Sachin realized that perhaps these sleepless nights were the part of the process of getting prepared for the match. Any kind of anxiety or nervousness before any big or special event of your life is quite normal and everyone goes through it. This nervousness actually prepares you for the harder challenges and you come out of it as a winner so it’s absolutely natural to feel anxiety before an important day.

An overwhelming surge of anxiety and fear is often considered as weakness which is sheer fallacy. This nervousness is very important to help you enquire about your strategy, planning and preparation. It ramps up the process of self-evolvement and pushes you hard to move heaven and earth to reconstruct yourself for the final moment.

Interesting Read: Strong Emotional Immunity Can Guard Against Any Illness

Plan, Prepare &Practice

Performance anxiety is not a problem or weakness but a natural phenomenon and many seasoned presenters, speakers, politicians, players and celebrities also feel this nervousness which constantly alerts and prepares your mind to give your best and helps you galvanize your efforts to make it a memorable experience for you. Once you convert your anxiety into the guiding force, it ameliorates the effects of performance pressure on you and you can channelize your efforts to plan and prepare for the event. Your anxiety woks as a tough trainer and keeps reminding you to put in a little more; you only need to understand how to manage the level of anxiety and fear. Seeing any opportunity on your way must make you ready to sink your teeth into and this nervousness is a signal that this opportunity matters a lot for you so plan, prepare, practice and perform with utmost honesty so that you can ease yourself. Organize your thoughts, determine the best flow, be mindful and trust your instincts. 

Visualize the Series of Events and Your Success

There’s immense power in visualization, one has to see the image, the glory in one’s mind before venturing forth to manifest it. Try to invest your anxious hours in visualizing what you are to attain and accomplish after this event and live your conviction. Many of us erroneously think that power of visualization can work only with longer meditations; the fact is everyone can achieve their goals conditioning their brain to see, hear and feel the success in mind with honest and Consistent Efforts. It improves your performance outcomes; it’s training your mind the same way you practice and work upon learning the nuances of any skill. Visualization helps you prepare for a high pressure situation so devote your hours of anxiety to visualization and see how things change miraculously.

Admire Yourself For Giving Your Best

Myriads of things in our life are a reflection of who we are as people, how we think in certain situations and respond to them.  Just a little mindfulness helps us relinquish the fear of future and arouse the need to operate in present moment. If present can be improved future will change accordingly. The moments of anxiety can realign the thoughts, enhances objectivity and gives the best ideas to fight the challenges. Your anxiety and last moment pressure can be used as your boatman who can take you ashore safely through the storm. So learn to utilize it. Always trust your instincts and trust me your instincts will never fail you.

As T S Eliot rightly said, “Anxiety is the handmaiden of creativity.” So train your brain to assign the duty to your anxiety to stay vigorous and optimistic in any difficult situation and come out of it as a winner, as an achiever. Your anxiety will certainly follow your instructions, undoubtedly your anxiety can become an essential guiding force of life.

Design A Perfect Life With Grit And Determination

Destiny Favors Those Who Possess Grit and Determination

A young, dynamic and ambitious Chartered Accountant, Chirag Chauhan is an accomplished businessman today and an inspiration to many. While inaugurating his new office on the same day that left him wheelchair-bound 15 years back, he reminisces the arduous journey from 11 July, 2006 to the present day with utmost pride and confidence for himself. Chirag, a 21-year-old aspiring boy, who was pursuing CA then, was returning home when a series of bomb blasts struck Mumbai and he found himself lying in the pool of blood, amid the wounded passengers and burnt dead bodies at Santacruz. Little he was aware about the fact that he was going to face the most harrowing reality of his life as he had suffered a spinal cord injury that left both his legs and lower body paralyzed. Chirag was compelled to think again and again why God had chosen him for this catastrophe? Why he only had to suffer all this?

Interesting Read: Small-Efforts-Big-Changes

The next three years were even more grueling as Chirag’s daily routine comprised eight hours of painful physiotherapy and six hours of study but he was determined to complete his CA and wanted to fulfill all his dreams and aspirations. After clearing his CA Examination, he started a job with an MNC. In 2012 he opened a small office and kept on adding more and more clients. Last year, during lockdown he founded a platform offering virtual taxation service and the portal started getting 10,000 hits daily. Now Chirag is all set to begin a new journey after winning his battles against all odds, proving to everyone that failure doesn’t exist at all, it’s always about rising after a fall. His grit and determination finally changed his destiny.

In an another story, destiny had to change its course because of determination and intense aspiration of Sonam Malik, Indian wrestler who is going to represent India in the upcoming Tokyo Olympics in the 62 category. In the year 2017, she suffered a nerve-related twinge in her right arm and everything seemed to be shattering in front of her eyes as her right side was paralyzed. The young, aggressive fighter wasn’t able to hold anything and her doctor advised her to forget about wrestling and focus on her treatment. Now everything was left on her fate; if destiny favored her, Sonam would be again on the mat. As her father had a meagre income and couldn’t afford expensive hospitals, they started ayurvedic methods to heal her. Within six months of her treatment she recovered as if God wanted her to be back on the mat. With rigorous training after her recovery, she became the youngest Indian woman wrestler to qualify for the Olympics and she found her destiny to be on her side with her determination to continue with the sport.

In both the stories one thing was common and that is winners and achievers are not the ones who never tryst with adversities in their lives but they are the ones who rise with more strength and determination after each fall. Life isn’t a bed of roses, especially for those who aren’t satisfied with an ordinary life; but a constant pursuit of excellence with perseverance and resilience. Let’s never forget that determination is one of the greatest motivating forces that keeps us consistently moving ahead to succeed no matter how rough and bumpy the road is!

Being Determined OR Being Skilled?

Being determined is more important than being skilled or intelligent. These innate talents and expertise can create opportunities for you but these opportunities can be converted into achievements only through grit and determination. Even a person with an average talent when puts in his hard work into something he can transform it into success. As we know determination keeps us moving towards our goal and staying focused on it, we learn to win despite the odds and obstacles throughout the way, we learn to overcome whatever contributes to our fragility and vulnerability.

Determination Makes You a Decision Maker

As we all know life is a short journey from B to D; B stands for birth and D for death, whatever comes in between is C and that’s all about the Choices we make in our life. So making right choice is very important. Determination brings clarity, creativity and competence to us to decide upon the various uncertainties in life and how to find the positive dimensions in everything. A perfect decision in career or personal life is just like a platform to stir us from within and enable us to leapfrog to the optimum levels of our mindset and living. Determination is all about making right choices during troubled times and helps us insulate ourselves from the negative forces

Determination Instills Optimism

Determination strengthens us to bear with unexpected and uncertain challenges in life and thus instills hopefulness and optimism. It trains our mind to never harbour doubts or remorse over the past incidents and look forward to new vistas for better prospects in life. A determined person accepts life’s unpredictability and never loses his sensibility when met with setbacks and challenges; eventually learns to take every fall or failure as an opportunity to learn. It makes you a good planner and a perfect planner never takes a step back when it comes to take risks and gradually it transforms you completely; from a player you become a game changer.

It won’t be an exaggeration to say that determination lays the foundation of success and fulfillment in life. Among all the virtues, qualities and capabilities determination takes precedence; You Can Design A Perfect Life With Grit And Determination.

The story doesn’t end here; determination has something more to say, Asha Kandara, a sweeper from Jodhpur, Rajasthan has drafted her glorious destiny with her firm determination to clear Rajasthan Administrative Service Examination to soon be posted as a Deputy Collector. Dear Reader, are you set to write your destiny with determination?