self-awareness

March 4, 2019March 8, 2019

Practice being non-judgmental

“You May judge others only according to your knowledge of yourself.”- Kahlil Gibran

We all have a natural innate tendency to be drawn to those similar to us and judge or criticise those who are different. Whenever we come across people who have different values, lifestyles or preferences, we tend to categorise them in a negative way or either criticise or think that they are wrong. Compartmentalizing, better known as judging, aids us in defining who and what we are. Sometimes, we judge a whole group of people by the action of one individual and make assumptions about their behaviour based on single person’s actions. Many of us are aware that prejudice or being judgmental is wrong, but get trapped eventually into biased thought patterns. In order to become non-judgmental and to be aware of our preconceived notions about others, we need to change our view of others and how we ourselves.

What is being judgmental?

Being judgmental is the tendency to criticise or form an opinion or to come to a conclusion about something too quickly without totally being aware of the person or the situation involved. To infer, think or hold as an opinion, or assess or conclude without knowing all the facts leads to assumptions. These assumptions can be on a person’s behaviour, morals, actions or beliefs. Assumptions often lead to inaccurate judgment. Even if your opinions are justified, criticising others ususally makes them wary and defensive of their faults or mistakes.

Jumping to conclusions rather easily, making up your mind before you hear all the facts, or not even keen on listening to what others are saying, all these traits indicate that you are being judgmental. While no one necessarily likes to admit that they evaluate and label others, sometimes it happens so subconsciously that we don’t even realize we’re judfing. Because judgments are ingrained so deeply that it can be hard to break the habit of labeling others or generalizing a person or situation.

“Judging a person does not define who they are. It defines who you are.”– Wayne Dyer

Why do we judge others?

We all like judging others and pass our judgments of others very publicly. It feels harmless to pass our judgment of others as it can give you an instant high and create a temporary sense of power and make you feel good. But, there’s a downside to us being judgmental. It causes unhappiness, guilt, and negativity. We almost become opinionated about many things and people. Due to increased access to one another, we develop a judgmental attitude on just about everything and everyone, from choices, tastes, habits, views and beliefs.

The main reason we become judgmental is because of our own perception of ourselves in comparison to others and could also be a sign of deeper negativity. Here are some reasons why we judge others. We judge

When we are ignorant of what the other person is going through.
When we don’t understand the situation.
When we have unrealistic expectations of people.
When we are being superior to others.
Being self-centered and not being grateful or curious.

Being judgmental of people and situations only signifies your discontentment and the more you judge, the more you fear being judged. This undermines your self-esteem and makes you turn to your inner-critic giving rise to fallacies and biases. According to a research, the more positively someone described the other person, the more likely they were to be happy, kind-hearted, and emotionally stable themselves. Those who are judgmental were harsh and more likely to be narcissistic and unstable.

Why you should stop being judgmental

Being prejudiced can be bad for your well-being. You sabotage your confidence and potential by being too judgmental of yourself and others. Here is why you should stop being judgmental

Being prejudiced, you may stop yourself from trying something new because you already come to conclusions that either you wouldn’t like to do or may not be worth doing a particular task. These conclusions may or may not be true. Instead, by being non-judgmental, you can open yourself to new experiences and try doing something new which you may eventually find it exciting.
You cannot build better relations if you are always judgmental as others feel hesitant to share everything about them because you either ridicule them or judge them. However, by being non-judgmental, you create a safe environment to share and they can trust you to do so and can build better relationships with others.
Being judgmental leads to non-acceptance of things as they are and makes you resistant to change or adopt yourself to new and different environments and beliefs. Being non-judgmental leads to acceptance of things as they are and you can develop more resilience to other people’s judgment of you. This way, you don’t get weigh down by trying to figure out the opinions of others.
By frequently forming conclusions or judgments of others, you end up creating lot of negativity in yourself and in those around you. You cannot attain freedom of being your true self and also cannot see others inherent true self. You cannot find your inner-peace as it makes you frustrated and unhappy.

How do you become non-judgmental?

If we realize how habitually we come judgmental, we can try and unlearn that behavior. We cannot solve a problem or help any situation form place of judgment. One of the best changes you can make to help yourself be happier is by learning to let go of your judgment of others. Here are few ways to let go of your prejudice and become non-judgmental.

Develop awareness of others before you get judgmental about them. Sometimes we grow unhappy with the things we notice in our friends or kids or co-workers because we judge them for what they are doing. It may be their unhealthy habits, or behavior and so on. we start labeling them without understanding what they are going through. We are all human. We must remind ourselves that we all have our own weaknesses; we all make wrong decisions.There might be other reasons behind their such behavior, maybe it is their health problem, either they are feeling stuck, or scared. Focus on their positives to try and understand the reason behind and get curious in knowing what they are going through.

Be aware of your judgmental thoughts. Explore how being judgmental about others makes you feel. If you feel angry or dismissive of someone, if you’re complaining of someone, commenting or gossiping about them, these are the signs that you are judging. Pay attention to such thoughts and instead of coming to conclusions, ask yourself, “why are you judging?”, “What unrealistic expectations you have about others or yourself?’, “what can you appreciate in other person?”, “what would you do if you were going through similar situation?”, “Where is this thought coming from?”, ‘Is this thought fair?’ or ‘Are you making any assumptions?’. Once you understand the irrational nature of your judgmental thoughts, you will be able to actively challenge your assumptions and can see your prejudice irrational.

Figure out the roots of your judgmental thoughts. Look for some past beliefs you have that are influencing your preconceived opinions. Past prejudiced beliefs which you may have learned overtime may be the reason behind you being judgmental. Your true self is a combination of natural tendencies, experiences you have had and the choices you have made. When you have deep-seated beliefs about a group of people or a person, you begin to see those beliefs reflected in being judgmental towards others. Checking whether your beliefs are really true can help you to handle situations that are against your beliefs. This way, you can still respect the person who holds different views and beliefs than yours.

Be mindful of thoughts that are coming to your mind and words that you speak. it is okay to disagree with the thoughts or opinions expressed by other people. But it doesnt give you the right to judge them just because you dont agree with them. You must be mindful of how you respond, represent, and react to others. When you feel the urge to judge or speak in an unloving way, practice to pause for a moment, and rephrase your internal thoughts before you communicate it to them. Dont deem someone’s actions as bad or good and avoid using words that are overtly negative or condescending. The communication must be positive or at the very least not ill-spirited.

Consider others perspective before judging. Everyone has their personality that affects their behaviour. Before leaping to judgment or evaluating someone else’s actions or personality, place yourself in their shoes and understand where they are coming from and their perspective. Everyone makes choices according to their life circumstances. Not everyone has same experiences you have had. You must accept the fact that everyone has a free will to decide what they want to do and how they want to live. It is all relative to their story, values, and beliefs. Be empathetic and look for basic goodness in everyone. By developing a helpful outlook to others, you can practice being non-judgmental towards them.

Finally, exposing yourself to different places, cultures, and people, you can begin to break your prejudiced thought patterns and you can adopt alternative ways of thinking. Sometimes what we consider normal in one place or culture may be different in other. The more you are able to accept the differences, the more you can practice being non-judgmental.

Conclusion

Judging is rooted deep within all of us. We pass unrighteous judgment on others based on our observations and interactions which creates the tone for why we place people into categories. But it is always possible to avoid our judgment of others if we practice being non-judgmental in our day to day behaviours and interpretations. Next time when you find yourself judging others, question yourself “am I judging them” and if you are, remind yourself of above mentioned strategies to break the cycle of judging.

“Be curious, not judgmental.” – Walt Whitman

February 18, 2019February 18, 2019

Why loving what you do is important

“Love what you do and do what you love. Passion is the key that opens the door to joy and abundance.” – David Cuschieri

We cannot always associate success with either wealth or fame. To live successfully, you have to make choices that help you connect with what you most desire and your cherished goals. Finding and following one’s passion is a key to success and is important to live with happiness and fulfilment. Pursuing your life with passion also makes you more self-aware and self-confident. We might have our passion, but life doesn’t always afford us opportunities to follow our passions and we struggle to find passion in what we do on a daily basis. Also, as we go through life in a busy and monotonous way, our interests and passions take a back seat and we make money and career a priority. As a result, we lose touch with things that bring us happiness and we forget to search meaning and purpose in our life. Sometimes our limiting beliefs,or unresolved emotions, or self-doubt hold us back from living our life with passion.

What is passion?

Passion means having keen enthusiasm or intense desire for something. But it is not just enough to have enthusiasm and excitement, you should be able to channel this desire and enthusiasm to achieve what you really want to. Passion is ambition that is materialised into action. At the same time, passion cannot be considered as a starting point or an end point as your passions evolve as you grow. You might lose your passion for something as your interests change. Some people may discover what their passions are early in life while some discover their interests as they go through their life experiences. In fact even for high achievers, the road to their passion wasn’t easy enough as most of them spent long time exploring different possibilities. In other words, your passion can’t be the totality of your life nor it means that you have to get set on a singular idea. But just wishing or feeling passion for things and not working towards them is not being passionate. Living to your highest potential and working towards things you wish for is what is considered as living with passion.

There is no passion to be found playing small, in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.” –Nelson Mandela

Why is passion important?

Whether you are considering starting a new business or turning a hobby into a career, or working on any other dimension of your life, it is important that you pursue them with passion. You cannot give your complete attention to your work or stick with it in the long run if you are not interested. To be successful in your endeavours, passion is not the only ingredient, you also require intellect, discipline, persistence and hard work along with passion. But at the same time, passion becomes an important ingredient as it can motivate you intrinsically. We all need motivation in order to stay peristent in our efforts to realise our goals or to pursue our what we love. But extrinsic motivation in the form of rewards like fame and money can only get you started, whereas passion keeps you intrinsically motivated which can lead to life-changing improvements and well-being and thus provide long-term motivation to stick to your goals. The more enthusiasm and the inner desire you have, the more inclined you will be to persist in your efforts. Passion increases your resilience quotient in the face of any obstacles or difficulties.

Most people are compelled to take up certain jobs for the need of a steady income or to fulfil their responsibilities even when they are not fully interested in those fields of work. Some might end up finding their passion in what they chose. But many continue to stay in them in order to fulfill their needs making them inherently dissatisfied in the long run giving rise to stress, boredom and discontentment. However, in such cases, if they find a way to pursue their interests in their free time, it can make them a lot more happier during the activities as well as for some time later and thus can remain less stressed even in thier regular work hours. When you feel truly driven, you naturally have the zest, energy, and enthusiasm providing you a renewed sense of meaning and accomplishment and this feeling can keep you motivated in other areas of your life as well.

Loving what you do or living with passion improves your happiness quotient giving you moments where time loses its relevance and keeps you less stressed and highly motivated. There are many factors that hold you back from living your life with meaning and passion. Here are some such reasons.

• Not having enough time to pursue your passion.

• Limiting beliefs and negative thinking.

•Fear of failure or what if scenarios and self-doubt.

• Indecisiveness or lack of clarity of what you really want.

• Having unrealistic expectations.

• Focusing only on external rewards.

• Unwillingness to leave your comfort zone.

How to live with more passion

We all have a tendency to view life in a complete opposite way from how it should be–simple, interesting, happy and fulfilled. Instead, we become too hard on ourselves making our lives complicated, busy, boring, and not happy with whatever we are doing. Some might discover early in life. But for some, it gets difficult to find what they are truly passionate about. Also sometimes an overt fixation on your passion, whether by dedicating your whole life to it at the expense of all other things can lead to problems. Living your life with passion is not all about being obsessed with the goal, but finding a right balance in life, by loving what you do and being content in focusing your efforts on getting close to your ambitions and desires. Here is how to achieve living with more passion.

Gain clarity on your core values

Many of us lead our lives based on outside influences which often lead us to unhappiness and inner turmoil. By living in alignment with your values and personal strengths, you can be more aware of what really drives you. If you don’t know what makes you passionate–Gain clarity on your core values, strengths, interests, skills, motivations and talents. This can make you more decisive in channelling your efforts towards purposeful action. You can connect to your core values by asking the following questions.

• What inspires you the most?

• What are you best at?

• What do you love and desire?

• What activities allow you to be creative?

• What is your definition of success?

Stop internalising your fear of failure

Most of us are too fearful in pursuing our passions or to make necessary life changes or to turn our passion into a full time career. Fear of failure creates self-doubt which takes us away from positive momentum to live passionately. Internalising failure strengthens your self-doubt preventing you from moving forward creating what if scenarios. If fear is stopping you from pursuing your passion, take time to reflect on the real impact of that setback. Often your fears blow such situations out of proportion. Learn to embrace failure as a valuable part of success and as part of following your dreams. Also, it is not necessary that if you failed in one pursuit, there aren’t any other possibilities. There are many ways to pursue your passions if you are willing to take risks and willing to step out of your comfort zone.

Cultivate skills

Many people have innate talents and hobbies which they turn into rewarding careers, but this doesn’t mean that those without any talents cannot live passionately. Cultivating skill that can make you better at what you do can give you a leg up in your field. Improving upon some of your abilities will help you improve your job satisfaction more than initial enthusiasm ever will. The idea that you will find success only if you follow your heart may be true only if you have a passion to follow. If have no passions, cultivating skills within your current framework can be more satisfying . Getting better at things that are valuable, provides a deeper source of meaning and helps you live with contentment. Stretching yourself beyond your comfort zone to deliberately learn a skill can bring out your passionate self.

Set expectations to preempt distractions

Establishing a set of concrete goals based on your passions can prevent you from drifting off course due to various other distractions. Turn your passion into clear goals and set boundaries so that you no longer at the mercy of outside circumstances. Laying down ground rules of what is acceptable, or what you wont allow yourself to indulge in and setting goals can stop you from procrastinating especially if you are palnning on pursuing your passion in your free time or as your career. Making a mental picture of where you want to be can provide motivation to ‘zone-in’ your passions. Turn your passion into concrete goals, set clear boundaries and outline your plan of action to achieve them.

“Passion and purpose go hand in hand. When you discover your purpose, you will normally find it’s something you’re tremendously passionate about.”~ Steve Pavlina

Use your free time

Not everyone has an opportunity to pursue their hobbies full time. For many, time is a constraint to pursue what they really like to do because of their busy schedules. You can use your free hours effectively to pursue some new things that interests you, or explore new activities, pursuits that help you live passionately. Making time for your passion requires simplifying some of your daily tasks and schedules. Sometimes turning your passion into an obligation can also make you find time for it. Trade your free time for your activities that you are passionate about. They could be writing, or taking a hobby class, or engaging in any activity you love. This can leave you more energized and motivated in your monotonous lifestyle.

Overcome your ‘limiting self’

“ Finding your passion isn’t just about careers and money. It’s about finding your authentic self. The one you’ve buried beneath other people’s needs.” –Anonymous

To live with passion is to address your negative and limiting beliefs. Challenge your limiting self that worries about outside influences and allowing others to decide what’s best for you. Sometimes, we abandon our passions to fit in, or to follow rules or for being acceptable to others. Not following your passion because of your limiting self makes you unhappy, because you you might alwasys be comparing your situation with the ideal that is following your passion could be. By making your decisions based on your authentic self can not only create a fulfillling life, but also makes you more self-aware, confident and more evolved.

Conclusion

What is your passion? Think about your own interesting pursuits. Things that you love to pursue. Think of what inspires you and what you have been wanting to do. Pursue things that brings true meaning and fulfilment whether it is in your work, or the job you do, or any other dimension of your life. Loving what you do can bring out the most authentic version of you, at work and in life. Follow the above strategies to create the space and time to invest in your passions. Align your passions with whatever you are doing to make your life more joyous and meaningful.

Tame your intrusive thoughts

“The stream of thinking has enormous momentum that can easily drag you along with it. Every thought pretends that it matters so much. It wants to draw your attention in completely.” – E.Tolle

Thoughts are those subjective pictures, sounds and words — and the beliefs, associations, interpretations, opinions and meanings that pass through our mind or hold our attention. Thoughts arise of their own accord and everyday we experience thousands of thoughts and they are the background noise of our inner mental landscape. Whether positive or negative these thoughts clutter your minds, just like your house gets cluttered when you have too many possessions. Unfortunately clearing your mental clutter isn’t as simple as eliminating a possession. You cant throw away a thought. Your thoughts have a way of popping back up as you turn them down especially the disturbing ones.

When unwanted thoughts get your conscious attention, they manifest as moods, emotions, desires, impulses and influence your behaviour. Most of them are unhelpful that are intrusive, involuntary and negative in nature. Such random and problematic intrusive thoughts interfere with your clear thinking, distort your reality, control your moods or limit your potential self.

Being controlled by unpleasant or intrusive thoughts which pop into your mind can result in thought disturbances that are hard to manage. According to a research, most people are mind wavering 47% of their day. Mind wavering can be largely attributed to thought disturbances. However, struggling with, arguing with, trying to drown out or push away such unhelpful thoughts only amplifies them and you may find it difficult to get past such thoughts.

Why are some thoughts intrusive?

Some of our thoughts take the form of fear of the future, or negative memories of the past, or inappropriate that are unhelpful and unpleasant. They seem to appear out of almost no where and cause a great deal of anxiety. Intrusive thoughts are reinforced when you get entangled with them creating doubts about your decisions or your identity or safety. If not managed well, they can cause much distress and they may even lead to certain obsessive behaviours and can negatively impact your well-being.

Are intrusive thoughts normal?

You cannot will yourself not to think any such thoughts or to keep them out of your mind. Eventually thoughts like that drift back into your mind and rise to the surface. Having such thoughts is absolutely normal and many experience unwanted thoughts on a daily basis, but fixating or believing in them or getting controlled by them leads to problems and may cause unhealthy or dysfunctional behaviours. Because of the content of such thoughts is mostly alien or unacceptable and is at odds with who you are, they make you anxious. One of the common myth is that having such thoughts mean that you unconsciously want to do the things that come into your mind. This is not true and in fact trying to fight or avoiding them only ends up in reinforcing them. Knowing how to deal with invasive thoughts can be the key to prevent them from negatively impacting your normal functioning.

How to tame your intrusive thoughts…

Do you ever worry with your thoughts of such intrusive or obsessive nature? You would have noticed that the harder you try to suppress or to distract or substitute such thoughts, the more you tend to get caught up in them. Learning to deal with them effectively can reduce your fearful and negative reaction towards them but also reduces your over sensitivity towards such thoughts. Here is how you can tame your intrusive thoughts.

Accept your intrusive thoughts

Many of us avoid them because we are afraid of negative, fearful, unpleasant, disgusting thoughts; afraid of mental impulses. We tend to avoid intrusive thoughts because we don’t know how to deal with them. An emotional reaction to how you think just keeps them alive. This means that they will appear over and over until you do actually deal with them. Treating them real or avoiding them or trying to change your behaviour based on such thoughts only leads to a compulsive behaviour. You should learn the fact that sometimes the content of such thoughts is meaningless and irrelevant.

Instead of reacting to them as though they are real, Accept them and tell yourself the truth that they have no intrinsic reality and you aren’t purposefully thinking the thought and it doesn’t represent you. Accepting them stops you to react negatively to intrusive thoughts.

Practice ‘cognitive diffusion’

You have a choice in how you choose to respond to intrusive thoughts. This is possible when you are able to identify intrusive thought patterns that end up creating negative emotions or feelings. Here are certain patterns to help you recognise your unhelpful thoughts.

• Thoughts of imagined future or expecting bad things lead you to what-if scenarios causing fear, anxiety and worry.

• Focusing on your weaknesses or perceived flaws results in thoughts of not being good enough. Such patterns often increase your negative self-talk and self-criticism.

• Dwelling on your bad choices and wrong actions leads to thoughts of worthlessness and ruminating over your past mistakes creates thoughts of shame and guilt.

• Habit of lamenting in your sorrows and problems makes you fixate in thoughts based on what’s wrong rather than what’s right. This leads to frustration and wishing things were different.

Stepping back from your repetitive and unhelpful intrusive thoughts, by recognising and identifying them is the process of cognitive diffusion. When you are fused with your thoughts, you tend to believe and take them seriously as you buy into them, obey them and play them out. But by learning to see the thoughts simply as they are — as thoughts and not reality, you can step back into cognitive diffusion. You can hold on to them lightly and do not take your thoughts seriously. You only listen to them if you find them helpful or valuable. Being aware of unhelpful thought patterns when they arise will help you to not to get entangled in and they lose their power to generate unpleasant emotions.

Label your intrusive thoughts

In order not to get stuck in some of your negative thought patterns, it is important to name your thought. When an unhelpful thought pattern arises, simply labelling it mentally can reduce your reaction.

Intrusive thoughts are mostly repetitive and involve certain story lines. When an unhelpful thought comes up with a story line, try to label and let it go without giving much attention to it. It’s just a thought and not reality. Try and open your awareness to yourself and world around. As soon as you name your thought, you step back from being caught up in it and you stop being drawn into the negativity it creates. When you are mentally labelling your thoughts as ‘anxious’ or ‘fearful’ or ‘worrisome’, make sure you do so with compassion and not with aggression or frustration. This helps you to reflect on them with a positive perspective and respond to them peacefully.

Develop present moment awareness

Another effective way to deal with your intrusive thoughts is to bring back your awareness to the present moment. Paying attention to your present moment can get you out of your excessive unhelpful thinking and can ease you out of the internal noise so created. Bringing all your attention to your senses can calm your mind and grounds you in the present moment. In this way, little to no room is left in your attention for all that unwanted and unhelpful thoughts that are intrusive in nature. Being mindful of the present moment brings you back from mind wandering when you get lost in your old habits, beliefs, and negative reaction patterns. Through mindfulness, you build your capacity to change the contents of your thoughts to ‘present’ rather than about a remembered past or anticipated future.

Question your intrusive thoughts

As human beings, we have an inherent negativity bias, with our mental chatter being skewed more towards the negative rather than positive. So despite everything, certain intrusive thoughts can continue to have grip on you. In such cases, you can test reality of your thoughts by asking some helpful questions like ‘Am I creating negative interpretations?’ ‘Is my thought helpful?’ ‘What is the evidence for and against my thinking?’ ‘What is the best part of this situation or person?’ ‘Am I filtering out the positive and dwelling on the negative?’ This way, you can focus on constructive thoughts or actions and can try and find a positive. Doing a goal-directed thinking can also help you see things in a different perspective.

Conclusion

We cannot consistently think only positive thoughts because you cannot control your thoughts but only your response to them. In fact, despite all the efforts, intrusive thoughts float through your mind and rise to the surface. It is absolutely normal for you to experience unhelpful, or unpleasant thoughts from time to time. Even though they make you anxious and uncomfortable, there is no quick fix method to control or quite your thoughts in any lasting way. But by practicing above mentioned strategies, you can, however, tame them and redirect your attention towards positive by not letting them control or giving into them. With a little practice and persistence, you can untangle yourself from unhelpful intrusive thought patterns and can change your focus to more meaningful.

“You don’t have to control your thoughts, you just have to stop letting them control you.”

December 22, 2018December 23, 2018

Mindfulness

December 19, 2018December 19, 2018

Overcome your impatience

“Have patience. All things are difficult before they become easy.”– Saadi

We are always taught different life lessons while growing up starting from how to tie our shoelaces to how to be a nice person. We all turn out to be pretty decent human beings. But when it comes to certain virtues like patience, we all seem to be lacking and struggle with. We always grow impatient in situations that we cannot control. Waiting always gets us worked up. Impatience always sets in when waiting in long lines, being put on hold, or interacting with disagreeable people. We also grow impatient on our road to change from bad habits or behaviour or recovering from illness or addictions.

So, What causes impatience?

Impatience is lack of patience,eager desire for relief or change; restlessness and intolerance of anything that thwarts, delays, or hinders. Technology and an increased access to information also has contributed to our impatience. In a world where we can access any information and order what we want within few seconds, patience can be hard to come by. We are so saturated and conditioned to having everything we need right at our fingertips with immediacy that we are no longer used to waiting. Pressure is always on us to attain certain goals, and with that comes the need to get things done in short amount of time. This instantaneous, the rapid, the quick, the get-it-done-right now kind of mindset makes us impatient.

Impatience can also be rooted back to certain underlying beliefs that we have about ourselves and the world around. Impatience can be caused by,

• Subconscious belief that you are not good enough or other self-limiting beliefs about yourself.

• Your inherent unhappiness with yourself and belief that you had to get to somewhere before you could be happy.

• Certain fixation with future on reaching a certain end goal or to achieve bigger visions, and accomplish more goals.

• Feelings of anger and frustration when things do not go as plan or your way.

• A great sense of urgency to get things over with and to move on to the next thing or task.

• Lack of present moment awareness and dwelling on future.

• Thoughts like “why is this slow?” or “what’s next.” would lead you to being impatient.

• When things get delayed or moving at slower pace than you want or the mindset of wanting everything right now.

Your expectations for immediate attention can negatively impact your productivity, patience and well-being. Studies reveal that higher levels of impatience cause major health conditions over time. Sometimes the urge to achieve your goals manifests into impatience causing annoyance at things standing in your way and gives rise to tension and fear-based emotions. Even though the negative effects of impatience cannot be observed immediately, but they slowly compound over time. It is only when you learn to be more patient that you can know the difference.

What is patience?

Patience is the capability to accept or tolerate delay or difficulties without getting angry or upset. It is a state of endurance under difficult circumstances.

Being patient gives you a feeling of equanimity, a calmness of mind that makes it easier to go through life’s ups and downs.

Why develop patience?

Sometimes the challenges make us vulnerable, possibly afraid, and we have knee-jerk responses to protect ourselves. These responses make an already stressful and unpleasant situation worse. You should learn to make a conscious effort to respond to such situations differently. Patience is the process of turning inwards towards your inner strength. It is strength to stay still with the vulnerable feelings and the restlessness rather than giving into the emotional urge to do something in reaction to what has triggered you.

It is important to develop patience as it increases feelings of happiness as well as reduces stress and anxiety. It also improves productivity because it creates a better and clear state of mind. Here is why you should develop patience.

Persistence

With patience you can be persistent and stay on your goals for the long run. You don’t have to cut corners or do things in hurry, instead you can patiently work things out, do what needs to be done, and make things happen. You can commit to stay with what is right to achieve your goals.

Self-control

To change yourself from bad habits, anger, and frustration, it takes time and if you have the patience, you can wait for yourself to get there. You build self-control to put up with situations that involve difficulties. It develops the capacity to tolerate annoyance, or pain, or irritation.

Clarity

Sometimes you are met with certain obstacles. Such times, you don’t see things clearly because of impatience as it causes the feelings of self-doubt and decreases your confidence. Instead by being patient, you can gain clear vision of why something happened when it did.

Better decision-making.

Impatience makes you end up making poor decisions in order to get you to your desired goal quickly which can affect your health and your happiness. Whereas by not being stressed and anxious about something, you gain time to get clarity and can come to the best possible solution.

Acceptance

Being patient helps you to connect and engage with your feelings or emotions. Your acceptance of how you feel about a given situation and what you can realistically do about it grows. Your acceptance of self help you overcome negative emotions and behaviour.

How to practice patience?

To practice patience, external approaches like enforcing affirmations and regulation of breathing can be helpful. But to create a permanent change, you need to address the root cause by reflecting on your beliefs, thoughts and behaviour.

Here are some strategies to overcome impatience and to practice patience.

Identify impatient thought patterns

Notice when you are feeling rushed and stressed. This may be due to your unreasonable expectations or beliefs of needing everything now. Start by observing your patterns of impatience arising in your thoughts. Identify the triggers for such patterns like being put on hold, facing a long wait, figuring out a solution for a problem. By recognising the impatient mental patterns, you will be better able to accept them and can make a conscious effort to overcome such patterns by responding to them in a different way.

Keep your expectations realistic

Our expectations are often not realistic. For instance, while attempting to learn a new skill, we get impatient by thinking that we should be able to master new skill quickly. Keeping your expectations realistic and knowing them can help you build patience to achieve your desired goals. Understand that not everyone and everything runs on your schedule and other people and situations need not conform to your expectations. Be patient with situations that are not in your control.

Maintain a proper perspective

Practice the habit of maintaining a positive perspective, instead of dwelling on things that are making you impatient. shift your perspective to positive thoughts, affirmations and outcomes. The ability to reframe a situation by looking at it from a different and positive point of view makes any situation more tolerable and it provides you with the needed patience.

Practice slowing down

Because of impatience, you might resort to making poor decisions even though the odds are against your long-term success of achieving your goals. Slowing down can help you in making better decisions that are more likely to give you better results. Practice being mindful in your activities like walking slow, eating mindfully, incorporating a day of rest in your schedule as this can allow you to reflect and you can develop an attitude of gratitude.

Cultivate compassion

Being compassionate helps you to see the circumstance for what it really is, and not how it appears to be or feels. Think of how you can be more compassionate in an impatient situation, or how you can transform the frustration into something useful for someone. This lets you see small things you otherwise would have taken for granted. This way you can focus onto something much more productive or useful for everybody.

Finally, Be mindful. Make conscious choice to pay attention to that which is going on in your field of awareness. Being mindful allows you to respond, not in anger, but instead with patience and it also helps in accepting things as they are. Being aware of your thoughts in the moment, you can remind yourself to be patient.

Conclusion

Patience is an important virtue to cultivate. You can build healthy mind, body, and healthy relationships. You experience less stress by learning to be patient with yourself. Remember that anything worth your while takes time and effort. So, don’t be discouraged or anxious if your progress is slow, remember that change is supposed to take time. Try to build the above mentioned strategies in your daily activities to grow more patient with yourself and with those around you.

“Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.”- Ralph Waldo Emerson

November 24, 2018November 24, 2018

How to handle conflicts productively

“The purpose of disagreement is not victory or defeat, it is progress.” – Teal Swan

Disagreements and differences are inevitable and they often spark a conflict. We all have different opinions and ideas that often lead to serious disagreements in a discussion be it in work places or in our personal lives. You won’t always agree with the beliefs or ideas of others and everyone won’t always agree with yours. We tend to and want to take sides. We all are different in the way we view the world which is influenced by our values, upbringing and background.

Sometimes these disagreements and differences impact people’s behaviour towards each other and ends up in a conflict. For instance, in work places conflict might arise due to competition or due to value clashes and personality differences, or due to perceived unfair treatment. Conflict can cause lot of stress and strain relationships both personally and professionally if not managed well. If left unresolved, it can have various negative effects such as low morale, choosing sides, quitting and violent outbursts. But it also serves as an opportunity for our transformation and personal growth if handled constructively.

Understanding conflict

Conflict by definition, is a disagreement or difference of perspective among individual or groups characterised by bitterness, tension, emotion, and hostility. But voicing your differences is important for creativity and innovation. Challenging status quo, challenging what is acceptable, and challenging the norms usually leads to innovations. New ideas emerge in work places when there are different opinions.

However, care should be taken for those differences should not move further down as major conflict. What initially starts as discomfort or differences between individuals or teams in discussions or conversations, slowly simmers on, if not managed well, creates perceptions, prejudice, wrong intentions and interpretation in the minds of one of the sides or both sides at times. This further not resolved, turns into a conflict.

How differences become Conflicts?

•Differences as and when they are voiced, if not agreed upon, flares the focus away from the issue to direct itself on the people who are creating opinions. This leaves a bad taste in the other side and things begin to get misunderstood.

•Misunderstandings if not resolved at this stage, leads to feelings of distrust, disagreement, lack of communication, blame game etc., and creates a stressful environment of tension.

•Tension gets build between both sides and thus further leads to louder gossips, back-biting, strong opinions against people, and creates strong divisions. This turns into a conflict.

•Conflict further strains trust, relationship, conversation, working together. Individuals at this stage attach their egos to their already diverging opinions and if that opinion is not accepted, they feel that this means a loss of credibility or loss or rejection and the whole situation may turn destructive.

Some more reasons for conflict

• Unwillingness to resolve the disagreements.

• Avoidance of conflict because of dislike of differences or contradiction or fear of disagreement.

• Being close-minded, not open to contrary views.

• One-mindedness prevents us from seeing what is true of value.

• Goal of defeating or destroying the other.

• Receiving only positive support and reinforcement of our beliefs or engaging only with like-minded.

• Inability to tolerate the ambiguity, ambivalence or tension that can arise in a disagreement.

Dealing with disagreements constructively will help you to recognise that the opposite, contradictory or ‘other’ point of view may have some validity. You should make an attempt to identify and understand disagreements and should be able to resolve them be it personal or professional lest they create stressed environment and might hinder your productivity.

The problem is that while conflict provides opportunity for change, we often miss it because conflict always touches our deepest emotions. So, we tend to become defensive in such situations. Our reaction to conflict makes us miss the opportunity which it provides for a change.

“A sense and normal society is one in which people habitually disagree.” – Carl Jung.

How to manage conflicts constructively

We know that conflict is a natural phenomenon because of clashes of thoughts and ideas. If managed well, conflict can be a constructive tool and can emerge as more meaningful and can be helpful to the people involved to understand the situation and to better themselves. By embracing it when it naturally comes our way helps a variety of opinions to surface which can be more useful and innovative. Here are certain ways to manage when disagreements or differences turn into conflicts.

Negotiate

Try and establish a dialogue for negotiation. When facing conflict you can become hostage to your inner fears and doubts, but it doesn’t have to be so. With self-awareness, you can overcome your doubts and change the way you perceive and behave in a situation. Try to see that as an opportunity, not as an obstacle. Talking, establishing a dialogue with the person you are in conflict and negotiating creates genuine and productive transactions focused on the common goal. Talk and listen without hostility or aggression. To resolve, it is more productive to persuade than to force.

Know the root cause

Be aware of the root cause of the disagreement. It is important to not only understand your own perception, but also you need to be aware of the other side’s. Often a disagreement starts from people having different set of goals, interests, or values. To address the conflict you are facing, ask yourself whether it stems from an interest or a need. An interest is more superficial and a need runs deeper like identity, security or respect. Most of the times, the behaviour of people involved in conflict is driven by needs. When you really know the root cause of the conflict, you can respond to that—in order to resolve the conflict.

Establish ways of working

Encourage open differences. This makes everyone aware of how to put up with differences respectfully. Understanding the others mindset helps you to resolve the conflict. If one wants to win, and if that one person is willing to make the other person lose, then the conflict remains unresolved. Leverage your different view points unconditionally and in positive regard. Try to find a common ground for mutual respect and cooperation. Collaborate with the other side and work towards a true solution to the conflict.

Develop willingness to resolve

The unwillingness to resolve does not help you to manage conflict effectively. You need to figure out whether you are stuck up, or is your ego attached to the unwillingness to resolve? Practice being empathetic in those situations. Be kind to the other side and make the right concessions. This gives an opportunity for the other side to respond accordingly. Develop the ability to listen and then respond. And once a concession has been made by the other side as well, reciprocate by moving the dialogue forward.

Focus on the combined desired outcome

When the conflict reaches a crisis stage, it is better to focus on the desired outcome of the resolution. It is better to reveal the big picture that you need to focus on. If the individuals involved in the conflict have different outcomes in mind, first inclining these outcome into one common outcome is important for the conflict to be resolved. If you are not able to arrive at common grounds because of your past misunderstandings, it is better to pare the past and move forward.

Finally, Maintain a positive relationship by respecting and staying aware of other person’s perspective. Emotions such as anger and frustration disrupts thoughtful actions. Even when you don’t agree with a specific point or a behaviour, demonstrate your acceptance of them as a person. Try to separate the person from the problem and focus on real issues and common goals. View it as an opportunity to work through the conflict for a mutually beneficial outcome.

Conclusion

Disagreements and diverse points of view often stimulate creativity and bring about change. But if you find these differences ending up in conflicts, embrace them and resolve them effectively by using above approaches and remember to,

•Communicate to the other person your own perspective, and reflect back your understanding of theirs.

•Help other side to maintain feelings of acceptance, value and worth through conflict, and help them to stay focused on the goal of a mutually acceptable outcome.

•Consider big picture and think beyond current conflict to the long-term relationships and goals involved. A broader perspective may reveal new options and make other issues seem less important.

•Focus on the problem and not the person and approach the conflict without taking it, or making it personal.

“The quality of our lives depends not on whether or not we have conflicts, but on how we respond to them.” – Tom Crum

November 10, 2018

Compete with yourself

“A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others” – Ayn Rand

Competition has always been taught to us from very young age in order to become something, to achieve and to survive. We are taught the virtue of competition in every aspect of life in order to succeed and to win. When competing against another, we tend to draw on to our untapped reserves and this brings the best in us because of the inherent instinct to better the other. This very basic nature of competitiveness has always been an integral part of us from the early centuries as we had to compete for resources like food and shelter. Those who are able to compete and strongest would win the best. Competition is inevitable and being competitive is important when it comes to academics, sports and work. Those who make an effort and draw on their own strengths and possibilities turn out as winners. There are benefits to having a competitive nature like you learn the importance of setting goals, following rules, to cope with stress, to take risks,and to be committed. But is it that only competing against other can bring the best in you? Or can you do better even by yourself? Or Is it always important to define yourself in terms of being better than others?

True competition is about competing with and not against

Competition brings out both the best and the worst in us. And though it is a natural instinct, nurturing it is equally responsible. There is always a danger of ignoring moral values in favour of winning or succeeding. While competing, we learn the virtue of selfishness, being all-out egotistical, and demonstrate superiority on others. We tend to believe that true competition is about breaking others and we constantly compare ourselves to others which leads to insecurities and fears. This further leads to unfair practices like where the aim no longer remains to better yourself or to succeed, but to pull down or belittle another.

But true competitive spirit is about growing, bettering and prospering together while competing with, rather than against another. If you learn to work along with, you will be able to build better strengths and qualities to succeed. Focusing on working together to solve problems, and helping each other to get the job done can result in mutually beneficial outcomes rather than focusing on a short-term, one-sided win.

Compare to your former self and not to others

When you are competing with others, the achievements made by others makes us crave the same achievement when we believe it’s within our reach. There will be always people who are better than you. Accept and use them as inspiration for pursuing your own instead of comparing yourself to others. In other words, comparing yourself with someone else is an inaccurate way of measuring your success. How well you do depends on improved version of yourself. If you question the logic of your comparisons, most of them rather turn out to be irrelevant in their reasoning.

Instead of comparing yourself externally, redirect your comparison within. Question yourself as to how you can continue to become a new and improved version of yourself. It does not matter how you perform relative to your opponents, so long as you perform better than your former self.

Know that your only competition is you

Our natural instinct is to compete with others and not to compete with ourselves. However, if we choose to, we can also compete with ourselves which leads to our self growth. We get so caught up in the competition with others professionally and personally that it is easy to forget that to improve ourselves and reaching our potential is more important than competing against others. It is important to remember that your competitor is not other—your competitor is yourself.

why you should compete with yourself

Always running after the competition will make you less enthusiastic. When you compete with yourself, whether it’s in your learning or work, you can focus on the process of getting better each time. This small shift in your perspective allows you to progress faster and to focus on process.

True competition is not always about beating or outdoing others, but about growing and improving. You should condition to compete constructively by measuring your success not against others but against yourself.

Here are some benefits in competing with yourself than against others.

Can measure your success

If you take a look around, you come across people who made some amazing achievements in their life. Someone is always going to be better than you at something. When you learn to be competitive with yourself, you can have a better measure of your success rather than stressing out on someone else’s. You know success will come to you at the right time when you put in the right effort.

Can improve your capability

Knowing your strengths and weaknesses gives you an opportunity to assess whether or not your goals are right for you. Once you know the things you are not so good at, you can decide upon improving your weak areas in order to achieve your goals. Looking into your own shortcomings rather than outwardly at other people paves a way to improve your capabilities.

Can increase possibilities

When you are competing with others, you are only competing in arenas that others have set up for you. But if you continue to do so, you will end up limiting your possibilities. Only when you use yourself as a true measure of your success do you open yourself up to the infinite things and possibilities. These things might ultimately lead ṭo your passion and happiness.

Can be free of people’s judgment

When you compete with yourself, you are letting go of people’s measure of success. and defining your own measure of success. You are free of what they think of you and their expectations. You chose to follow whatever it is that makes you happy. This makes you answerable to yourself in doing everything you could possibly do to achieve your goals and not because of other people’s judgment.

Can intrinsically motivate yourself

While competing against others, you feel that you achieved something only because it gives you a sense of being better than what everyone else is doing. But that is not the true measure of your success and that feeling is fleeting. But when you compete with yourself, you will be intrinsically motivated to accomplish things that are true to your abilities. You can strive to improve yourself and to challenge yourself in new ways.

To conclude, although competitiveness is innate, do not hold yourself to the standards of other people, wishing you could be better than them. May be this is motivating you, but an even greater skill is to be better than yourself. How about pushing yourself to do better each day. Goal setting is a great way to compete against yourself. You select the end result that you want and that you choose. Then, it is up to you, to work to achieve those goals. Thus, you can push yourself towards your goals, rather than creating unnecessary competition against others. Develop a desire to achieve and always strive to push yourself to become better.

“The principle is competing against yourself. It’s about self-improvement, about being better than you were the day before.” – Steve Young

October 17, 2018October 18, 2018

Embrace your inner leadership abilities

“True leadership of self and others starts with the mind and it is best thought of as a behaviour, not as a role.”

Everyday you come across your inner leader while making choices, decisions or in getting work done or in guiding others in your workplace or chasing your goals. It becomes very important to lead others in a positive way wherever you are or at whatever place you find yourself in life, be it personally or professionally. The true leader in us is always facing work reality day in and day out where we are constantly distracted by external forces, people and tasks, information overload, and are often interrupted by matters that are not in your control which needs your immediate attention. The pressure is always on as you are always drifting and trying to catchup living on autopilot without a clear sense of purpose and direction.

Whether you are aware of it or not, on some level you are continually leading and managing yourself and others. If you come under the day to day limitations and distractions no matter how expert your capabilities, skill and competence may seem, you fail to connect and inspire the people you lead in an organisation or in your personal life and would fail to value and flourish. You cannot manage or lead others if you have never learnt to manage, lead and discipline yourself. The first way to encourage the assets of others is to develop these within yourself first. In order to do this, you should be able to:

• Take yourself beyond your routine ways of thinking and behaving and lead yourself to higher levels of focus.

• Cultivate optimism, persistence, openness, high emotional quotient, and better interpersonal skills.

• Grow your inner focus which attunes you to your intuitions, guiding values and better decisions.

• Show self-restraint to inhibit your impulses and develop will-power and self-discipline.

• Have long-term goals to be able to focus on without getting distracted from all the clutter and distractions around.

• Shed your old habits, beliefs and older ways of working by asking whether the presumptions you are holding onto are true or not.

• Leave your comfort zone once you realise there is no growth and should be prepared to do or learn newer ways by adapting to change.

• Create an inspiring shared vision and the drive to achieve goals.

• Pursue a plan for improvement of self and others.

Performing right and required actions is the foundation for everything you want to achieve in life in general. You should not be predefined by what you are now, rather you should be able to recreate yourself by what you do. Your inner leadership skills further depend on achieving results in your own life or for your work place or for your people who believe in your goals. From this perspective, the ability to manage yourself and things you pay attention becomes important. By developing your awareness of self and others and applying it to manage your inner world and your relationships with others can improve your decision-making abilities and control your choice-making capabilities.

‘Success on the outside really does begin from within’. Here are certain qualities to develop to embrace your inner leader.

In order to lead and inspire others successfully, you must be in tune with your inner leader by understanding your strengths and weaknesses. You must devote yourself to you own self growth to find meaning and live each day with purpose and intention. The more you come to know who and what you really are as a person, the more value you will be able to create. Identify what is most important and what makes you meaningfully different and authentic. Self-awareness will enrich your judgment and makes you aware of the consequences of each of your choices or decisions. This will help you to develop new strengths and have a positive impact on others.

Integrity

Your values determine whether or not you are in control of your inner leader. Align your actions to what you believe and say. Having high integrity helps you in doing right by making right choices. Sharing your values help others understand what motivates you and strive to learn and understand the values of the people you work with. This reduces the chances of future conflict and strengthens your interpersonal relationships.

Every time you avoid doing right, you fuel the habit of doing wrong. Always take a high road and make a tough and right choice based on your values rather than the easy road. Decisions aligned with your values help you to become more effective in leading yourself and others.

Right Purpose

“One cannot do right in one department of life whilst he is occupied in doing wrong in other. Life is one indivisible Whole – M. K. Gandhi.”

When you pursue right purpose, it leads you to do things that are meaningful to you and whatever is relevant to that purpose gets priority thereby eliminating distractions. Get people around you excited about a meaningful cause that contributes to the lives of others. Make decisions that support your purpose and focus on liberating their full potential through the work they do. Align and prioritise your actions to achieve results that matter most to you and to people you work with. Your commitment to right purpose and adherence to it will improve your leadership ability.

Self-discipline

If your goal is to lead and create the most value for your organisation or for yourself, then you must be able to perform to the best of your abilities. This can be achieved by cultivating self-discipline. More often, it’s not that achieving your goals is physically impossible, it is the lack of self-discipline to stick to them that keeps you from reaching your full potential. Self-discipline improves your will-power to overcome obstacles and moves you onwards towards your goal. Every act of discipline strengthens your confidence and helps you control your impulses while staying focused on what needs to get done. The strong desire for your purpose can act as a self-motivator to discipline yourself and to channel your energies in appropriate ways.

Right Focus

“Efficiency is doing things right. Effectiveness is doing the right things.” – Peter F. Drucker

The ability to manage your attention and having right focus is the key to bring out the leader in you. Increase in ‘on task’ time could have a significant improvement in leading yourself effectively to get more focused attention. Focusing your attention on right things and directing attention toward where it needs to go is a primal task of leadership. The ability to shift attention to the right place at right time can refine efficiencies and improve yours and everybody’s performance. By maintaining right focus on goals that matter to you , you can seize opportunities and can improve yourself to be innovative and productive.

Empathy

As important it is to know yourself, to bring out the leader in you, you need to like people and should have a passion to interact, listen and understand them. Develop a deeper understanding of people around. Be empathetic and sensitive to their needs. Understand what drives them and demonstrate genuine concern for their welfare. Guide them through challenges and always be on the lookout for solutions to help them get through their personal challenges. Paying attention to others needs and listening to advice and expertise helps you make right decisions that transform fear to hope by questioning your assumptions. Learn to listen and communicate with care.

“When you start to develop your powers of empathy and imagination, the whole world opens up to you.”- Susan Sarandon

Passion

Have genuine passion and enthusiasm for the work you do. Be excited about what you do and find the best in others and surround yourself with positive people. Pursuing a vision that makes you feel worthy and meaningful and helping others ṭo liberate the fullness of their talents makes you more passionate. Being passionate opens up new possibilities, this in turn, would lead to new choices and new changes and action. Your passion becomes an anchor to keep you from drifting during turbulent times. Being passionate helps you to see good in every circumstance and creates positive attitudes to the opportunities.

“Good leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion.” – Jack Welch

Persuasion

Develop the ability to communicate persuasively. It’s easy to get others to do what you want them to do if you’ll see things from their perspective. Avoid thoughtless actions and look for ways to passionately stimulate and energise people and deliver right messages that motivate and reassure. Praise them for every effort they put forth. When something isn’t going right, point out the one thing at the moment that they could do better and help them find the way without making them feel small. Motivate and steer them in right direction and help them be successful too.

Flexibility

There is no singular path towards solving a problem. Rather than rigidly adhering to traditional and outdated ways of doing things, remain flexible in your thinking and in management of others by adapting to change. Adopt new habits and cultivate new attitudes to embrace change. If your old ways are not proving to be of value, it is important to have the flexibility to re-examine and change the course as needed. Sharpen your skills, develop your talents to help you turn your weaknesses into strengths.

Determination

Be determined not to give up easily when things don’t go your way. Never run yourself down. View failure as opportunity and seek to better yourself and your circumstances. Esteem yourself not with egotism but with humble, realistic self-confidence. If you possess genuine confidence and live with an unshakable sense of who you are, you can be determined to achieve your goals. Make your decisions with clarity and act despite risk and doubt.

To Summarise,

• Be inspired by great purpose.

• Remain flexible and maintain openness to change.

• Accept responsibility.

• Be resilient in the face of obstacles.

• Create a sense of direction in your life having the foresight to anticipate problems or needs before they arise.

• Increase your mindfulness by constant questioning and listening.

• Have impeccable integrity.

• Listen to advice and expertise

• Be collaborative and make decisions by consensus.

• Motivate, influence and help people in developing new strengths or refining their abilities.

• Be receptive to insights, perspectives from other people and their perception.