Mindset matters

“Anything is possible if you have the mindset and the will ,desire to do it and put the time in.” ---Roger Clemens

      You might have observed that some of the highly successful people lack formal education and business management skill, but they are quite successful in any venture. Also, you come across some people with knowledge and extraordinary business skills, but will not be much successful or achieved much. Why does this contradiction  exist? The answer is a mindset towards achievement.

       It is proven  that anybody can achieve more in life and it requires the  four  factors  as follows

1. Desire to achieve

2. Faith in self and God

3. Consistent Effort

4. Ability or  Skill

        It looks like all the four are equally important, but the reality shows that first three are important and the fourth ability or skill can always be acquired or delegated.What matters most is the mindset and the first three elements are related to a mindset.Even if you have all talent or skill, but lacks in desire or faith in yourself and too lazy to take consistent effort, you may not able to achieve great things in life.

    Hence set your mind for high ambition and be faith in yourself or god and tune your mind for taking consistent effort, then you get all the skills or capability to achieve anything.You attract good things in Life!!

Setting the standard high

         One of the differences between highly successful people and mediocre people is that setting high standards for themselves. Setting high standard means they are always thinking  big and expect more from themselves.It can be in the area of professional or business growth or in a relationship.

The psychological effect of thinking  big and expecting more will be as follows

a)      Always feeling   highly motivated

b)      Not  looking  for external motivation to keep them happy

c)       Always engaging  themselves  in productive work which benefits them and others

In the absence of setting high standards, mediocre people get into the following behavior

a)      Feeling    dull frequently

b)      Always looking  for external motivation like  entertainment, media or other outlet, even then not feeling  fulfilled

c)       Always looking for situations to complain or blaming others

d)      Looking  at the life with skepticism

Hence, for the benefit of your own sake, always set high standards or expectation from you .This will push you to new heights and in this process people surrounding you will also  get benefits.

Environment matters

“You are a product of your environment. So choose the environment that will best develop you toward your objective”. --Clement Stone

          One of the opinions about the Personal development program is that during the session, everyone is feeling motivated and highly inspired to do great things, once they are out of the session into real life, they become  less energetic. This may be true, because your environment  influences your thought processes, behaviors and activities. The environment can be family, professional or friend ‘s circle  beyond the profession.

       It is said that you are the AVERAGE of the five people you spend most of the time. This is true. If you surround yourself with positive and highly energetic people, you will also start to observe them and reflect in your behavior. Without your conscious effort, you will start believing that what they are doing. That is the power of the environment and its influence  in our life. Similarly, if you are surrounded by  negative people with complaining others about all things, you will also start believing in their thought process and you will  demonstrate the same behavior.

       As you cannot change the environment completely, be aware of the quality  and change your mix of environment  like meeting new people, joining forums, visiting new places, getting exposed to new challenges and associating with people beyond your regular environment .This will help you to enhance your perspectives.

       Since the environment influences your action, be aware of the quality of your environment and choose the balanced mix.

Managing fear

 “We fear things in proportion to our ignorance of them.” —Christian Nestell

     For most of us, the important reason for not taking any major decision or massive action in life is not due to lack of capability or resources, but the fear inside the mind. The moment we think of taking action  like  a change of job, taking more responsibilities, taking new initiatives, expanding the business etc , the first emotional response   would be  fear about failure or fear about rejection or even fear about success.

      Fear is normal, but the worst part is the moment fear creeps in, we drop the idea or taking action. Instead of abruptly dropping the idea, we can evaluate the fear with a rational approach as follows

Two questions shall be answered to justify the fear factor

1. What worst thing will happen if I take the idea into action?

2. What best thing will happen if I take the idea into action?

If you write the answer honestly to the above questions, you may get the following benefits or clarity on the below

1.   You estimate the maximum losses and your readiness to manage the losses or not .This helps to postpone the action until you get prepared to manage.

2.   Sometimes advantage may outweigh the losses. This helps you to take action.

     In either way, you get some clarity on the fear and this will help you either to take action or drop rather than worrying too much about the fear. You will be peaceful when you evaluate the fear with a rational approach!

Dealing with difficult people

“When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but creatures of emotion.”-Dale Carnegie

One of the repeated questions asked during  management development programmes is that how to deal with difficult people in a professional environment. The difficult people can be  bosses,colleagues or even subordinates.

My  perspectives would be as follows

      First of all, there is no category of people as” difficult people”. We have not yet learnt the art of dealing with those people. Accept this fact. By accepting this fact  you are taking personal responsibility to deal with them. This mindset will enable you to learn the skill of managing people.

      Second, do not try to confront those people as you spend your energy on dealing with them, which is a low probability of success. Instead, spend your energy on doing your work.Your result and behavior will make others to turn back to you. Gaining the respect is your responsibility.

       Third, enjoy this experience as you are learning new dimension of dealing with people.

       Fourth, accept the situation and be patient. Time is a powerful change manager  and it  will bring  changes in the environment  or in the person or yourself.Even you  may become the master of dealing any “ difficult” person!

       Ultimately, your peace is important and you cannot  compromise for the people who comes and goes on your life path.

Appreciation

“Unless you have bad times, you cannot appreciate the good times”. Joe Torre

      One of the habit of highly successful people is noticing even small accomplishments of others and timely appreciating.Some of us have developed the reluctance ourselves to appreciate others, even  they deserve for the same. It is applicable for both on family relationship as well as in the professional / business environment.

The psychological reasons  of this reluctance to appreciate  others are

• Fear of losing control
• More of self centered as if no time
• Taking granted
• Poor self-esteem or low confidence

      The study shows that the person who is appreciating others needs to be in a positive frame of mind. If one  is not in a positive state, he / she  cannot able to appreciate others. Hence, appreciation is not for only motivating others, it is a measure of our wellness of mental strength. Also, It is important to appreciate others on time and no point in appreciating others  when they  left us  or in customary farewell ritual.

Relook  your habit of appreciation of others and frequency, especially the people in your family and the people are working for you. It reflects your mental health. Start appreciating  others and you attract the abundance in your life!      

Emotional Maturity

“Caring  about people, about things, about life - is an act of maturity.” Tracy McMillan

        In a family or professional environment, if something goes wrong, we immediately tend to lose our coolness or fix someone to blame. In this process, we are missing the relationship aspects and the need for supporting the victims.

        There are few people who demonstrate a high level of emotional maturity. Just an incident happened a few months back to one of my friends.

         One day my  friend  along with his wife went to a marriage function  and returned home . He advised her wife to keep the jewels safely in  locker and left  to office .His  wife did not keep the jewels in the locker   and  went for shopping. When  she  back to  home, she shocked to see that the house door  was broken ,the things inside the house were in a mess  and the jewels were  missing .It was clear attempt by outsiders for money . The wife disturbed with mixed feeling  of loss and guilty of not keeping the jewels safe despite his husband’s advise . Also, she worried about his husband ‘s reaction to her negligence. The  husband returned back to home. While everyone was expecting the furious reaction, he gently touched his wife and said: “ Good thing in bad time,you were not inside the house when rob took place, you are safe,i can earn whatever we lost, nothing to worry “. He demonstrated empathy and maintain his cool temperament in a situation where he could not do anything. At that moment, he  did what was required for his wife.. Where did he learn this art of looking the life differently?

If everyone can look at life with this kind of perspective, there would be less problems in the relationship. This kind of maturity is difficult to attain, but possible with awareness of self and situation.

Conquering self

“It is not the mountain we conquer, it is ourselves”- Sir Edmund Hillary

          Sir Edmund Hillary was New Zeeland based mountain climber. From childhood, he was interested in adventures, climbed several mountains. He desired to climb mountain Everest, as it was the highest mountain in the world with steep height 29000 feet. During 1950’s, he had  undertaken to climb    and broke due to several causes. Even though it was perceived as bold effort, he regarded himself as a loser. He looked up at Mount Everest and screamed “I will come again and conquer you because, as a mountain you cannot grow. But as a human, I can “

         Eventually, in 1953, he scaled up the Everest and achieved the fame as the first person to climb mountain Everest and many followed thereafter. He expressed his achievement as “It is not the mountain we conquer, it is ourselves. “ How true it all is.

         When we come across obstacles, failure, disappointments in any of our endeavors in business or in personal life, the immediate inclination is to break up or get into frustrations. The real success is in managing negative emotions and coming up from failures. There may be a chance to work around the failures by  repeating the attempts as time, effort, process, the environment and energy are very different from earlier efforts.

Actual achievement is not on the external demonstration; it is about conquering our internal concerns, doubts, negative emotions, and frustrations.

         Conquer your internal dilemma in any endeavors and you attract good things in life!

Emotional Setback

“If you so choose, even the unexpected setbacks can bring new and positive possibilities. If you so choose, you can find value and fulfillment in every circumstance. -Ralph Marston

          A life changing events at any age affects us in many ways. Many people get upset  and take a long time to recover. Few people who are strong willed  and able to console themselves, they even become stronger  than ever before. Sometimes emotional setbacks bring  new hope and possibilities.

       For example, no one would forget the tsunami 2004 and its effect  on the east coast areas of south India. One of the victims of the tsunami  is Parameswaran, an engineer at ONGC  and his wife Choodamani. The tsunami turned their family upside down as it killed their three children and seven relatives. The couple  broke down and  even  thought of committing suicide. But something sparked their thought process and  they realized that there must be greater  cause for which they were alive.  They began to provide  shelter and food   for the children  who lost their parents in the tsunami  and  eventually  started a trust Nambikkai (meaning HOPE). Today (after 10 years), they look after  37 children and they found the purpose of their life. 

Key insights from the example:

a) Accept the setbacks, the flow of life  as such, as we may not know the purpose behind it..

b) In any adversity, there may be some positiveness..

c) Sometimes emotional setbacks turn into new possibilities as we do not know the big picture of life!!

Make your resolutions work

“Desire, burning desire, is basic to achieving anything beyond the ordinary.”Joseph Wirthlin

         Most of us have the habit of setting goals  on the new year's eve. One of the survey says that only 8 %  of the people follow through the actions and finally achieve the goal. Why new year resolution or  even generally goal setting  could not be carried forward? One of the  reasons could be the resolutions or goals are mere wish and this alone will not bring the result. The goal lacks “ burning desire”, that mean  compulsion or a strong need to achieve the goal.

         There are two approaches through  which we can have  a burning desire. One is thinking  how the goal will bring pleasure or happiness to you if you achieve the goal. The second is thinking  the pain you will have or continue to have if you are not achieving the goal. This will drive you to take necessary actions.

         For example, you are setting  a goal to improve your communication skill or relationship quality  significantly this year. You intensely realize that  if you improve the communication skill or relationship quality, you can win any battles in life. Also realize that if you are not improving the skills, you cannot even be successful in job  interviews and lifelong you will have struggles.Associate this pleasure and pain with your goal of improving the skill and  this will drive you to take all actions to achieve the  goal.

         Today's action is to associate the burning desire to your goal and start taking action. You will attract Good things in your Life!.