Discomfort can be a pain or a springboard for success. When you are uncomfortable you want to change your status. You are not happy with the status quo. This creates the impetus to take action.
When you are comfortable you can easily become satisfied with status quo. This can potentially lead to mediocrity.
Therefore do not view discomfort negatively but rather use it to provide the impetus to change – and change for the better.
To get to the next level of success, you need to leave your comfort zone and learn new things and seize opportunities. You have to make yourself accountable for going the next level or find a mentor who can make you accountable.
I am not a relationship expert. However, I do run into relationship issues while I coach business executives.
What I have noticed is that the biggest lament for women in a relationship (marriage, common law) is the lack of expression, appreciation, and priority from the man in her life.
Women find men to be misers in expressing their love and appreciation and give priority to other things (business, sports) compared to the relationship.
Men, on the other hand, are confused. No matter what they do, women can find fault with them.
If men started to take every opportunity to express their love and appreciation and assign priority to their relationship things would get much better.
If women, on the other hand, picked their battles instead of making every battle a big one, things are bound to improve.
It would be good to do a weekly checkpoint of how this is working as follows:
– what worked well last week?
– what could have been done better?
– what are the goals for the coming week?
I believe when an important relationship is rock solid in terms of communication, respect and understanding the rest of the challenges are far easier to handle. When the foundation of an important relationship is shaky, the rest of your life gets impacted!
Today is Valentine’s Day and lots of love messages and roses are going to be exchanged.
One thing I leaned from my parents is the power of unconditional love! For them love was not based on conditions; it was based on acceptance! Their approach was: I love you the way you are, not the way I want you to be!
This approach is very difficult for modern parents. Therein lies the challenge. When you try to change people it can be a lifelong challenge. The fastest way to change people is to change the way you look at them. Dr. Wayne Dyer would say: “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change!”
So as we are celebrating Valentine’s Day and sharing roses and loving messages yet the one foundational trait we need to work on is to accept people the way they are. Once you do that you give them the permission to value their uniqueness.
In this age of information overload, our brains are busier than ever before. We receive tons of information each day on our mobile devices alone. And this is excluding the data we are exposed to from other media sources.
Deciding what information is essential and what can be ignored is a herculean task. The result is that we end up feeling overwhelmed and confused.
Here are seven simple ways to make better sense of the world around us.
1. Work in 90-minute intervals – Generally our brains cannot focus for more than 90 minutes at a stretch. So take a short break after every burst to refresh your mind. Sip water or take a stroll, anything to break the monotony. This way, you will enhance both your focus and efficiency.
2. Set limits – Our attention is a limited resource and gets depleted over the course of activities, leading us to lose focus and make mistakes. Hence, instead of wading through all the information that comes your way, filter it. Schedule time slots and focus only on the task at hand.
3. De-clutter your mind and physical space – A clean space leads to a clear mind.
4. Find new ways to relax – Minimize your consumption of television and the Internet. Read an interesting book instead. Or explore a new form of music. Trying out unusual things forces our brain to grow new neural pathways, to expand the power of grasping and understanding knowledge.
5. Exercise Daily – A Cambridge University study found out that jogging just a couple of times a week can lead to the growth of new brain cells in the region linked to the formation and recollection of memories. Meanwhile, scientists have also recently found that particularly vigorous exercise helps release a protein called ‘noggin’, which helps to keep the brain nimble and active as we get older.
6. Sleep and wake up early – Sleep deprivation is a big productivity killer. It not only affects our mental capacity in the short term but also leads to quicker mental or cognitive decline over time. Yet almost all of us are guilty of losing out on sleep. In order to make the best use of the earth’s rhythms, sleep by 10 pm and rise by 6 am. Waking up early not only helps you to make use of the early uninterrupted hours but also enhances your mental clarity.
7. Meditate daily – If you want to understand the world better, you have to understand yourself better. Meditation is the quickest route to self-awareness and understanding. Meditate at least 20 minutes daily, followed by 10 minutes of quiet self-reflection. This alone time is critical for organizing your thoughts and life.
If you want a smooth sailing whether in driving to work or to your dentist, taking a flight and attending a seminar is to start early.
By planning the night before what you need to take with you, the clothes you want to wear, thinking about the potential traffic at the time of your travel would greatly enhance your journey. You will be relaxed and actually enjoy the ride.
It is a myth to think that by squeezing every minute and starting late you are saving time. Actually, you are saving time by starting early because you will be better prepared for the meeting and save time avoiding the traffic.
Finding your life’s purpose will be one of the most important decisions you will make. Once you have found your sweet spot, your holy grail, the next step is to build your life around it because there is a gap between imagining something and making it a reality. What we do to bridge this gap ultimately decides the quality of our reality.
Here are a few tips to make the journey easier:
➢ Articulate your life’s purpose in great detail – We can create all that we can conceive. Writing down your dream helps to crystallize your goals and concentrate your attention. For example, if you want to become a singer, then articulate it in complete details right down to the kind of music you want to associate with, artists you want to work with, the kind of styles you want to experiment with, your lifestyle etc.
➢ Inculcate self-discipline – There will be times when the road ahead will seem difficult and you will be plagued by self-doubt. In times like these, it is easy to give up on your dream. Moreover, when you are working on your dream, the locus of control shifts from the outside world to your inner being, often leading you to slow down on tasks. Disciplining yourself to keep up a daily schedule and consistently following through on all activities will help you remain on track.
➢ Don’t expect immediate results – The starting phase requires your undivided attention. This is the time when you get to work at your craft and hone it to precision. Learn to treat every challenge as a learning opportunity. Do not undervalue this experience as these obstacles carry within them the potential for great self-growth and transformation.
➢ Be resilient if things do not go as expected – Planning for every eventuality is a good beginning, but not a guarantee against perceived failure. Remember, you have the inherent strength to rise up after every fall and learn from each one.
➢ Work hard – The axiom ‘Do what you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life’ does not mean that you will not have to work hard. It means that work might not seem like work at all since you would be enjoying what you do. However, the fact is that every job will contain certain aspects, which you might not enjoy, but which will need to be done.
➢ Keep a backup plan ready – Besides your own role, there are other aspects, which affect the success of your endeavors. Most ideas require a certain running time before they take off. So it’s essential to plan for the long haul, especially if you are supporting a family and need to pay bills. You will need the support of your loved ones.
➢ Break it down – At times the scale of our dream might seem daunting. Often, in the beginning, you might not know how to start. The way forward here is to break up every big plan into smaller tasks based on relevance and immediacy.
When you have aged parents who are having serious health challenges it can be quite taxing on you as you try to navigate your own responsibilities of parenting, profession, partnership, other.
You sometimes feel you have to pick and choose to cope and sometimes you ask the question why me?
However, when you take this responsibility as a blessing and remember what your parents did for you when you were young, not only does your perspective change but you find great joy and inner peace.
The reality is one day you will be old and the treatment you will get from your children is the treatment you are giving your elderly parents. Children don’t do what they are told, they do what they see.
So, when put to a challenge of looking after your aged parents instead of saying Why me? Say, Why not me?
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