Thursday 10 November 2016

Lets just do it because it makes us happy.

Forget about everything else, what if we just do something because it makes us happy? Doing something that we believe in, something that gets us excited to wake up in the morning to face another day. What if we lived our life as we want it to be, what if we had total control over our life – like we are the driver and we are driving it to the destination where we want it to be heading.

What if we just took a leap of faith. Yeah I usually scratch my head at that idea too. It is not easy - isn’t it? To even get started is not easy. It’s scary especially from thoughts of various risks that are involved that flashes forward in our mind. Realistically so many things can go wrong. Taking a risk is not easy because its not safe. Generally safe is having a normal established career working for other people like normal people do and working till a certain retirement age where we can have a descent pension to sustain us in old age.

But than lets ask ourselves - Will that work for me? Is that better than taking a chance on my dreams? How does the normal pay off for other people? Would I be happy with that normal? How many things have I done so far that I have regretted? Would it be worse if I woke up one day realising all the times lost and the things I could have done  or regretting the mistakes that I will make that should push me further in pursuing a vision of my future I believe in? Think about it.

Then there is the other thing that makes it difficult to set up our mind to just go for it - the ‘deafening noise’ that confuses us and makes us loose touch with our inner voice. Other people with an opinion on how we should live our life. Those who feel that they know what’s best for us or those who just itch to fix our life or ‘make us great again’ (the Donald Trumps in our lives). It makes it hard for us to focus on the important things in life. It can make us doubt our abilities or the validity of our life goals.

I think we can build the courage to go for our dreams in full force without hesitations, so many people have done it and it has paid off for them a great deal. There are few important things that we need to do. Firstly we have to appreciate ourselves more, we have to start appreciating, acknowledging and respecting the things that make us unique and the things that makes us truly happy. We should get connected with our inner truth. You have to believe in yourself. We should try thinking back to when we were younger and more free - What were the things that made us happy then? What were we really passionate about then? What are some of the joyous things that you have lost along the way which you can bring back? What did you truly believe in? I believe that key to unlocking our great potential for the future lies in our past. We should embrace our past and use all that inspiration to propel us forward.

It’s also about connecting the dots and discovering things that has been consistent throughout our life. Can we see a pattern in things we have been involved in? If we can draw some sort of graph to account for all that we have done in the past, what is something that has been consistent there all along. Consistency is the key, I think it is sort of a key to having a balanced life. If we strive to be consistent in doing more and expanding on the things we love and things that means the most to us we shall always be proud and content no matter the outcome.

 Finally we have to put aside the goal of proving a point to other people or making other people happy. You should do it because you love it. You should do it because it makes you happy. You should do it because you believe in it with all your heart. Forget about the standard definitions of success in this world, our success should be based on personal contentment and satisfaction. Destroy the normal boxes that we are placed in, its a new age of great possibilities and people are redefining the standards and norms. We are at an age where we can create our own paths no matter how isolated it may feel at the beginning of our journey.

You and I just need to keep on doing what we want to do and what makes us happy. Just simply do it. Forget about what the gurus, the experts and the majority says of what we need to do or not to do. Forget about the strategies, forget about all that technicalities. Just go ahead and do it. Not even harsh criticisms and objections should distract you from your pursuit of happiness. You have to believe in the value of what you are fighting for and how it will add value to so many other people’s lives with your courage. But then it doesn’t feel like having courage at all because you were just doing what you love and what makes you happy - making other people happy is a great bonus.

Follow what your gut is telling you to do. Continue to ‘do something’, maintain consistency, continue improving and learn and grow along the way. It’s your life, you live it as you please and as you believe. You create your destiny and your path. Be happy. Do what makes you happy. Go ahead and create that life!

Tuesday 1 November 2016

Just get started and continually master the art of improving.

Hi friends thanks for having me in your company. – “sounds a bit fake and like you are trying too hard”. Then how should I start this – “well you just started.” Okay. Hi there readers this week I wanted to talk about what I am trying to do this week – “aha..are you sure anyone want to hear about that?” Okay enough with that. Does that happen to you too when you try to get started on something. The critical voices that is so critical of everything we do. Sometimes it’s those voices that stops us from even starting. But darn it, be brave, puff your chest up to those critical voices and just get started anyways. Maybe by just going ahead, getting started and doing it anyways we can be more experienced enough to realize what needs to be improved as we progress.

Talking about improvement, for the past couple of days I have been asking myself what are some of the things I can do to improve something about me or maybe how I go about doing things. I thought to myself what if I try to at least improve something in a day. Wouldn’t that be productive? Ill be making full use of a day I am given, getting value out of it and not taking it for granted. Most times we are just carried away by the urgent day to day tasks that we forget to make improvements where it  is needed or making important improvements that brings us closer to the achieving of our life goals. I want to change that for myself.

They say that habits are formed in 21 days so what I have been doing is trying to be consistent with it in that period of 21 days and tracking myself. It takes a little bit of effort to do this within that habit forming period – I know because I am not always eager to do it every time when I wake up in the morning. So every morning I am waking up and repeating to myself ‘I am going to improve something’ a few times and once I am all excited, revved up and in the mood, I start searching my mind for something to improve today. For now I am starting with the little things like trying to be a little more tidier and organized, having a good posture or moving about a bit more faster. Very significantly I have been working towards silencing the critical voices and just going ahead getting started and doing things. I have been also trying to have a bit more stamina. Small inconsequential things really, it’s all about tiny steps and bigger momentum.

I am actually doing this deliberately, it’s nothing that just popped up in my mind and I decided to go for it. I would like to make it a habit, the habit to identify areas that needs improving and to work on it. Instead of dreading life and feeling inundated complaining how things are not going the way I would like it to be, I am going to find things to improve and throw my energy into that. I am going to be constructive and work towards continuous improvement, we wouldn’t be able to do that if it is not in our nature so it takes practice. Again practicing on smaller things first.

That’s what the world demands, people who are able to improve things. So we should acquire the eye for improving things. How can I do better? How can I make it work better? Things like that we should think about. Probably in a few months we can ‘master the art of improving’ and we can go ahead and identify bigger things to improve or we can be more strategic with what we want to improve, aligning it to our life goals. Note down your life goals (I have and it’s exciting looking at it) and slowly improve things so we are on the track to achieving them ensuring that nothing stands in the way.

Thanks for your time. I would like to hear from you how much of an expert or how not so much of an expert (like me) you are at identifying things to improve. I really love hearing people’s stories, I get excited and inspired by it. But be warned I might get too interested and cyber stalk you.. ahahahaha.. not in a creepy way. Anyways Happy mastering the art of improving everyone!!