Sunday, February 7, 2010

To go beyond comeptition

In life most of us are really confused as to what we want.This is understandable, because to really know your deepest wants, desires and clues of what makes you happy, you have to take a journey deep inside yourself;and this takes a lot of effort.
So we take a shortcut.We look around to see what the next guy wants, or the next 1000 guys want, and we decide Ok, I want something better than him, so I can feel superior.He wants a Toyota, and Bingo, I know instantly I want a Merc..Gosh I have finally found my purpose in life, it is to own a Merc.
The school system that we go through adds to this way of thinking.It is bad programming in massive amounts.The entire criteria for success while growing up in a school- environment is this:Be better than the next guy.Or be better than the next 1000 guys.
But this approach to finding out what we want comes at a price.First of all, if we want to be better than the next guy, lest assured on some level we are going to think of him as a competitor, a rival,an enemy whom we are supposed to beat.And this automatically means that we block out all possibilities of learning what he has to offer, and sharing with him the gift that we possess, because we don't learn and share with enemies do we?
Besides, this way of thinking sets a pattern where every time you want to figure out your goals, you never even think of the possibility of looking inside yourself, because you are convinced the answer lies in what other people are doing or going for.This takes you further and further away from self discovery and gradually you begin to lose yourself in other people's worlds.
So if you are at a crossroad and trying to figure out what you want to do, or even if you are not at a crossroad and simply going about your day, take a moment to stop, look inside and figure out what exactly it is that you want.What exactly it is that matters to you?There is a great sense of satisfaction in knowing at a really deep level that you are doing something because you and only you want to do it, not because somebody put a random fantasy in your head.
Going after a dream is painful and it takes effort and sacrifice.And it wont be pleasant to find put one day that it was never your dream in the first place.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Kepp moving forward

Holding on to the perfect memory.
You try something, you fail. Try again and fail again. try again and finally by some magic you succeed. You hit the bulls eye. You finally break it big in the stock market. You finally reach your ideal body fat %. You finally deliver the perfect speech.
And now you create an identity out of it, a successful person.
Now the time has come for you to go to the level 2, maybe deliver a better speech in front of bigger audience, maybe make a bigger investment in the stock market.
But hey, that means this is new territory and you might fail and you are now a successful person, so you are not allowed to fail anymore. That was for dummies(your past self)
I am sorry, it doesn’t work like that.
So far as a starting point is concerned, there is not a lot of difference between level 0 and level 1, level 1 and level 2, or level 2 and level 3.
Which means, you are going to experience a lot fo the problems over and over again as you go from one level to the next.
If this stops you from taking action, you are stuck at the current level.
What are some issues with this?
1.Obvious, you don’t grow any more. you lose 5 lbs, but no more.
You can deliver a speech in front of 20 people, but your knees still shake at the thought of a speech contest. And you feel stagnated again.
2.Have you ever been at a traffic light? Of course you have. Let’s say you are at a light and the light turns green. But you don’t move. You are comfortable where you are and you don’t know the road ahead, so you just stay put. And you feel good about it
What happens?
After a few moments, the light turns YELLOW, AND THEN IT TURNS RED!!
Walking towards a goal is similar. When the signals are fine and you dot move to the next step, you are not going to stay comfortable forever, because the lights will soon go red and you will feel yourself actually sliding back.

Einstein has a very beautiful quote regarding this.
Life is like a bicycle. To stop yourself from falling off, you must keep moving.

Remember it at all times.

Why mastermind?The top 4 reasons

A mastermind group is no new concept for you if you have been studying self help and personal development for any length of time. If you have read Napoleon Hills’ Think and Grow Rich, you obviously know the benefits of a mastermind group.
Yesterday, I observed and experienced these benefits for myself in a very up close and personal manner.
I joined a boxing gym and completed my first group lesson. It was mind blowing. It was a one and half hour session and here is how it went:
First 15 min- minor jog and warm up.
15 min: Squats with a 10 lb ball
45 min: 10 rounds of punching(straight punches, hooks, jabs and kicks on a punching bag)
15 min: stretches and 300 sit-ups!!

At the end of the session I felt as if I have lost more weight than I did in an entire month of swimming by myself in my cold water pool And I also managed to sweat living in Canada which is quite an accomplishment(yes, even in summer)

On my own, I could never summon enough energy to continuously do such heavy cardio exercises for an entire 1 hr and end it with 300 situps. It was simply beyond my stamina I thought.
When I used to do situps at home, I felt after I reached the 30th mark, my stomach would burst and would simply stop. But in the fun pumped up environment of the boxing gym, it went by so easily that I didn’t feel a thing.
Why?
Because in the gym, I was a part of a mastermind group.

I have read a lot about mastermind groups and the effects it has on your goal, but this was the first time I ever experienced its true power. When you are part of a group, there are three major factors that ensure you will always perform at your full potential. Here they are:
1. You have an excuse. Hey, you don’t want to punish yourself by stretching, but if you don’t, your prestige will be shot down. So your ego has an excuse to keep pushing on.
2. Everybody else benefits from each others’ positive energies. Everybody is trying to be their best and this engages others to be their best.
3. You are completely in the moment. Believe me, when I am punching or kicking that damn bag, I am not thinking about the weather, the issues at work, the economic crisis. Nothing at all. The mind is completely still and I am just focused on delivering the most powerful kicks and punches. There is a serious meditative aspect to it. And focusing on the process will definitely result in a better outcome. Thinking when you are going to complete the 30th sit-up would probably distract you even as you are doing your 5th. Not a good thing at all.
4.It builds bonds. In a supportive atmosphere, you feel relaxed, you can be yourself and that allows you to demand the best out of yourself.


Do you use mastermind groups to aid yourself in your goal? This should be one of the first steps that you should take.

The Top 3 reasons to do what you love

Why should you concentrate on doing what you love? Will it help increase your motivation levels?
You bet.
Why is that?
It takes care of many of the fundamental principles of personal growth automatically. Otherwise, you have to consciously watch yourself at every step.
What do I mean by that?
1. Often times, when you go against the grain, the learning curve initially is steep and all of a sudden you hit a plateau. And your high goes away. The next thing is you begin to question yourself if you are at all going to get out of this rut. many people actually get stuck here for life. A common problem is Oprah’s battle for weight loss.
Also, when things get real hard and painful, you will ask yourself why do I need to do this. What is in it for me? I am happy the way I am..no need to go to that sweaty gym 4 times a week. The self help gurus refer to it as ‘getting leverage on yourself)
Now , if you already enjoy an activity that is related to weight loss, you are never going to ask this question, you will still hit a plateau, but your focus will so occupied by the task at hand you probably will notice the plateau only after you have crossed it. Like ha,,I was stuck there for quite a few months..welll..whatever.. how cool is that?

2.There is a saying in bodybuilding that if you can do 10 bicep curls, the muscle actually would grow the most on curl number 11. That is a dramatic way of saying that real growth only comes from stretching yourself beyond your comfort zones. but if you hate the activity you do to reach your goal, how difficult is it to stretch beyond your comfort zone. Your whole focus and energy is already eaten up by just maintaining your current zone and that feels far from comfort. Now some one comes and tells you that until you stretch, there is no use keeping doing the same exercise..wow, some motivation there eh?
If you do something you love, stretching yourself becomes a very realistic job(not easy, but realistic) an that’s still better than impossible right?
3.You have often heard the saying, focus on the process, not the outcome. That’s a fundamental truth. No question there. But if the process hurts like hell and the outcome seems sweet and full of glory, I am sure even an outdated mainframe computer would find it hard to focus on the process. Its really simple, you know that the brain is always trying to avoid pain and gain pleasure. So if in your mind, the process is painful and the outcome is pleasurable, you CANNOT focus on the process. You will absolutely focus on the outcome.
If you have something you enjoy, this whole equation is revered. Now you enjoy doing it so much that the process actually is pleasure itself and while the outcome is still pleasurable, you don’t really care if ti happens or not. This is probably the only effective solution to focus on the process for people who find it difficult to control their focus(which describes 99% of humanity- no offense)
So. The suggestion is this. The time you spend trying to control your focus and direct it towards the process, take some of that time and energy and really really work hard to find something you enjoy .Find that and then work hard at it. It will eventually lead you to your goal.
That way not only you reach your goal faster, but you are in one piece at the end of the road rather than a beat up bundle of nerves.

Making sense of advice

Listening to a lot of advice over the years, I found that when I listen to something, there are inevitable pieces that don’t make sense, that go against my current way of thinking.
For example, in a wealth seminar, Tony Robbins says that to be a giver , you have to start with what you have now. Whatever money you have, give 10% of it away. It makes no sense for me because if I have little, giving that 10 % of that little away isn’t going to make much of a difference and the main purpose of giving for me is to make a difference.
But as a newbie I often fall for the thinking trap that says—this doesn’t make sense, so I cannot trust the rest of his advice.
Well, I don’t think like that anymore but the point is this. When you disagree with one thing, don’t take that one thing and use it as an excuse to discard all the other things that do makes sense.
A piece of advice is fundamentally nothing more than an opinion. It is not carved in stone. Somebody is sharing his/her personal experience and the theories they have built around them based on their own belief systems.
You have different belief systems so naturally some of the theories are not going to makes sense.
Think about it like going up a mountain.
Your guru is on top of the mountain, you are at the bottom. You ask your guru describe the path to me so I can navigate better.
The guru describes the path looking down..and he also describes scenery which you cannot see.
The path is not the same as visible from these two positions. Of course his description might not make complete sense to you at this point. But do not take that which doesn’t makes sense and go—this doesn’t make sense…so the rest must be absurd also. This is going to be the default tendency because thinking like this gives you an excuse to stay in your comfort zone.
Don’t fall for this.
Whatever works, just take it and apply it. And soon the stuff that was absurd once will start making sense too.

How to take consistent action

Consistency, not perfection.
In his personal power tape, Tony Robbins says that perfection is the lousiest standard in the world. Perfectionists are always worried that they are not going to be perfect if they try something new and so they end up not trying at all. That’s ultimate failure. Giving up even before you attempt.
Makes a lot of sense to me.
In toastmasters, it’s not uncommon for somebody to attend meetings for months or even entire years without even doing a single speech. They are always telling themselves that the more I hear speeches the better I become and one day when all my technicalities of speech(vocal projection, body language etc) are taken care of, I will go deliver a perfect speech and pull off a standing ovation.
Unfortunately that someday would never come.
What is your definition of perfection? Something that is appreciated by a lot of people? That’s a bit putting too much pressure on yourself before you start a venture.
Let’s define perfection in this way: I am perfect if I put my 100% out there.
Very simple, easy to remember.
There is no perfection in this world its just another excuse to procrastinate.
I had done 6 speeches in a row at toastmasters and then I took a month break. When I returned, for my 7th speech, I felt extremely rusty. Even before a known crowd, it felt I was going up for the first time. But if I told myself let’s wait a few more weeks to get back in rhythm and after that I will think about it, then speech #7 would never have happened. Instead I just prepared my best and delivered what I could to the best of my ability. Was I perfect? No. but my self esteem and confidence grew knowing I could take action despite the fear of being imperfect.
Consistency is a really key factor in building confidence. People think that when they can do something perfectly, they can feel confident about it. Really?
Are you not reversing the cause and effect here?
I believe perfection will come when you are confident, and not the other way round.
And what better way to build confidence than to keep trying, failing and trying again?
See, this process is not really easy. I guess we all have fallen for the trap sometime that if we just sit and theorize and gain knowledge on a topic the confidence to be the best would suddenly arrive and somehow we can escape the pain of failure.
No.
The pain of failure and going through it is what would build your confidence.
Go ahead and screw up!

How to avoid information overload

Why do we need to avoid information overload?

In a Sherlock Holmes novel ‘A study in Scarlet’, Holmes’ secretary Dr. Watson mentions something about the Earth’s revolution around the sun. As it turns out, Holmes is unaware that the earth moves around the sun, he still believes it’s the other way round! When Watson is surprised at his ignorance, Holmes says that he doesn’t bother himself with knowledge that doesn’t serve his purpose - to solve crime. He cannot afford to burden his brain with unnecessary theory and he would do his best to forget what he just learnt.

In your own personal growth, have you ever faced a burden of information that was perhaps nice to know, but was not serving your purpose?

Let’s take a look at how a theory gets formed.
A guru or teacher tries something a few times and gets a result.
And bingo, they have a new theory, a new model, a set of rules to achieve the result.
But hey, have you ever stopped to think that the results came before the theory and not vice-versa?
A man doesn’t come up with a random theory, follow it to the word and get the result.
He tries a bunch of things, gets a result for his efforts and then forms a theory around it.

This means understanding theory is not going to get you results.
Getting a result will help you come up with a theory.

Let’s take an example.
Let’s say in the domain of freelance writing online, the theory is 'content is king’.
Very true.
But is this knowledge enough to produce quality content? Can you just know this and go create quality content? No, when you create quality content and see good traffic, you deduce quality is king.

The point here is to not depend too much on the theories to bring you the results.
Theories are good for intellectual understanding.

The correct way to evaluate information is to see if it is moving you towards action or taking you away from it.

So in the above example, if you are a god writer but a bad promoter, the theory is right for you, as it will prompt you to start writing with greater gusto because now you know that if you just write well, it will take care of it.
But if writing is not your primary skill, the above concept can actually screw you up, and cause you to start thinking in a loop.

After all content is king, and you cannot write quality content, so better wait until your skills become perfect before taking the first step.
Wrong.
Take the first step in whatever you are good, if you are a good marketer, get somebody else to do the writing and then use your promoting skills to build a better website.
The fundamental lesson in avoiding information overload is to evaluate the information using this one simple rule:
“Is it moving you to action with the skills and constraints you already have, or is it forcing you to doubt and judge your abilities?”
Follow this simple rule and you will not be overwhelmed by a flood of unnecessary information.