“Listen with curiosity. Speak with honesty. Act with integrity. The greatest problem with communication is we don’t listen to understand. We listen to reply. When we listen with curiosity, we don’t listen with the intent to reply. We listen for what’s behind the words.” - Roy T. Bennett
Many a times we tend to tell our story more than listening to what others have to say to us. We want to sound good, look good in another's eye, as if we are competing to prove who is better and in that space we tend to forget the very intent of having the conversation in the first place. As as result of this what happens? We don't connect with another person, neither do we create any impact in their nor our lives. I have often been told that while I am in conversation with another person, I make them feel comfortable; comfortable to that extent that they share some of the deepest secrets with me that they had never shared with another person. This makes me happy, but at the same time I used to wonder what did I do differently to enable that! I didn't apply any technique/tool, then what?! When they asked me as to how I did that, I had no answer because I actually didn't do anything consciously, neither tried to project something on to them. All I did was listened deeply, got really curious about the person & what he/she had to say. Undoubtedly, I am a very curious person and I just go with the flow out of that curiosity. I forget everything at that moment and just allow my curious mind to take the lead. I let them say that they always wanted to say but were too intimated by other's clever words that they just shunned themselves away. Well, here the point that I am making is not about me but about deep listening, about understanding another from their perspective, about accepting & respecting another as they are, creating a safe space for them to share & be comfortable and to do this, all you need is genuine curiosity. Curiosity is caring in action! You can get curious only when the focus is not you but the person in front of you; when he/she is more important than yourself at that moment and that comes only out of sheer care for the person. And how has that curiosity helped me & the person?! It helped me save lives of people, transform people's perspective for good, helped them find solutions to their problems, helped them take off burdens that they had been carrying all throughout their lives. By this simple way, I have helped individuals who wanted to end their lives not give up but see for possibility amidst adversity; not give up on their dreams but believe in their innate gifts & uncertainty to be able to make it come true; people into addiction recover & give up addiction to be able to replace that with something not to numb their pain but feel it to let it out; have helped people to grieve, let out their emotions & not be left alone; the list is long. In fact, I acknowledge myself for today instilling hope in a person who wanted to end the life out of sheer distress and loss of hope in possibilities & self. And yes, that's a huge difference that I could have made to them. They say that and that makes a difference to me. The light that I see in their eyes, the spark in their voice, the shift in their being after the conversation is what gives me immense pleasure of having made an impact, a difference. Imagine what will happen when you simply get curious?! I hear from a lot of professionals/individuals who are leading teams, building teams, wanting to form deep connections, wanting to create long lasting relationships both personally & professionally but with failed attempts. My invitation to them is to ask one question to oneself: How curious you are? As I dug deeper, I found that beneath that curiosity was the genuine care & compassion for the person. As I got curious, I also brought empathy & care along with that curiosity. I wasn't just collecting random data to create something out of that but caring for the person in front of me, who to me had so much to share & speak. Compassion doesn't come from having experienced someone's life experience but through imagination. When you use your mind to creatively think what they must have gone through, you are filled with compassion & love. So, to me to form deeper connections you need the 3 Cs: Curiosity, Care & Compassion. The more time you spend in questions starting with "what and why", you will figure out the answers to "how". And only with curiosity you can uncover the "whats & whys". The answers to "hows" is a by-product of how well you spent your time figuring out the "whats & whys". Last but not the least, it is important to get curious without attachment. Because if you are in it, you can't see the perspective outside of it but similar to what the person is saying & that won't make much of a difference because then you are putting back the person to the same box that he/she is in. And if you are wondering what box I am talking about, do feel free to read my previous blog to get more insights into that. I am curious to know what's coming up for you at this moment after going through this blog. Can't stop myself & my curiosity! Get curious! Believing in you, Priyanka
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I was at the famous Murchie's Tea & Coffee at Victoria reflecting on my experience of THE Intensive, a coach workshop that I had come to attend to; hosted by two extra-ordinary coaches who have done deep transformative work on themselves & who chose not to just be content at being credentialed coaches but to keep raising the bar for themselves & the coaching industry. Yes, I flew all the way from India because I knew this is going to be different. Somehow I love to learn from such coaches; it makes me happy, fulfilled & content of the fact that I am at the right place, in the right room full of genuinity & radiance. So, here I am basking in my own thoughts, reading the book, "Show Your Work" by Austin Kleon gifted to us by coach Adam Quiney & Bay LeBlanc Quiney during the workshop(To know more about Adam & Bay, click here). As I was sipping my hot coffee & reading through the lines of the first page of the book, something just struck me. It caught my attention & made me think. It read, "Give what you have. To someone it may be better than you dare to think." And this is so true! We hold back and don't share our work, our ideas, our views etc. hoping for the perfect day to come, hoping to master the craft & then share; fearing our work might be stolen; believing that we might be like a dumb person sharing without any reason or being called for. We can add on to this list of judgments that we make about self & others & thus hold back. We do this often and yet feel guilt & shame for avoiding what we want to do. We make peace with this avoidance & numb the pain with other things. You might as well choose to say I never do this. This way you are just putting yourself back into your box, unaware of your own blind spots. We remain in our box again & again. We gravitate towards it and that's who we are until we choose to ask ourselves this powerful question: "Where might I be doing this in my life?".
Just as I was about to get inside my box again after this awakening, my inner voice told me: "Look at you! Did you hear what others think of you?! What they think your essence is?! Did you truly believe them or ignored?" We were given an activity during the workshop to discuss about the essence of every person that we see through our eyes. And my group members shared some amazing stuffs about me & it was hard to believe it myself. I was embarrassed for putting myself down for such a long time, for not believing who truly I am. The group that I worked with in the workshop, were strangers to me & they didn't know who I was, neither did they have any vested interest to share good stuff about me with me; but they saw in me what I didn't. They saw radiance, brilliance, possibilities, wisdom, groundedness, feminine power, free spirit in me that I hadn't viscerally acknowledged. Intellectually may be I owned that, but viscerally I didn't and hence I refrained from showing myself, my work to the world. I knew there are people out there in the world who would love what I do, my work, my ideas & what uniqueness I bring in, only if I allow that to happen. Well, I have come a long way in this; blogging & you-tubing are few ways of showing my work to my niche community, the community of people who would relate to me & understand me. But, it's just the beginning & I am glad I have made that start. It is scary, fearful & uncomfortable; but much better than sitting in avoidance and not creating your possibilities. I want my obituary to be awesome after all! See we all have the essence in us. It's like a light bulb that lights up at the back of our head which every person can see except us. May be we too got a glimpse of it when we were just born; but we were too caught up with other things but notice our essence. And thus chose to operate from fear. As a result of which, we over or under express our essence. Just being conscious of this phenomenon is powerful! Making sense?! Try it out to see for yourself. What did I get by holding back?! Certainty of who I am, but missed out exploring my possibilities; comfort of being inside my box using my survival mechanisms but missed out on experiencing the evolved & radiant me. Was fine with what I had in life, but failed to embrace the other spectrum of being not fine. Because only when you allow yourself to experience both the sides of the spectrum, you truly can embrace & enjoy every emotion(positive or negative) & experience life in totality. In letting go off our old ways, we discover new ones. In letting go off the contentment, we realize what we are running away & numbing ourselves from. More guarded you are, more you stand in your own way of feeling even the goodness in your life with the power & velocity that it might have been possible for you. Because the possibilities of the spectrum is infinite! As you expand, it expands. Evolution is never upwards but it's like going up & down and up & down for you to experience its power. As I learnt this beautiful acronym during the workshop for the word FINE (Frustrated, Insecure, Neurotic, Emotional or Emotionally unavailable), I realized that many a times we just say a plain "Fine" we are not being aware of the underlying experience of the emotion (energy in motion). So, next time you say you are fine or hear someone saying it, know that there's hell lot of emotions running beneath the surface of your fineness which you might be aware or not even aware. Whether you own it & dare to accept it & dive in to explore, is completely your choice, depends on your being: if it is fear-sourced or love-sourced in essence. And showing your work is just like that. You have to be courageous enough to be seen, copied, stolen & ridiculed or praised but yet you show it no matter what because you don't want your essence to die out & fizzle but show up in the world as it is. And this piece of thought, my insight is what I have to give you, may be you might not resonate with what I had to share or add some more from your story & create a new insight for you to create magic & miracle in your life. After all you need to first enroll yourself to your dream, the possibilities that you can create. I don't need to do this for you because you are whole, complete & full. Want to figure out how you can start doing your deep work, I recommend you hire a coach. Love & radiance, Priyanka "If you wish to see the truth, then hold no opinion for or against." - Osho
There is always peace & tranquility in the truth. But we are so impatient that we have no time to discover it but use our opinions & judgements. And when we use only our perspectives to see the things, situations, people and understand them, we are way away from the reality. I have judged people many a times. I have judged myself too. I have seen people, things and situations from my lens only & believed strongly to be the truth in totality. For many years I have lived like that. What happens then? My ego got satisfied with the fact that I know people & myself well. I didn't have to do the hard thing of finding out the reality but easily draw conclusion with certain parameters that I choose to have & that saved my time. I felt happy that what I thought to be true is what it is. Ridiculous! Now I can laugh it out, but then this was my priced possession. A STUMBLE INSIDE ME NEEDED INVESTIGATION Living in an illusion and believing my truth to be the only truth. This limited my understanding of self and others, of situations & things. Emotional triggers are best ways to find out what's happening in your inner world. We often draw conclusions by seeing what's happening outside but forgetting to acknowledge that it's our inner world that draws these conclusions. For many years I didn't understand this phenomenon. Even though intellectually I did, I didn't viscerally accept it. We live in a world that judges us, boxes us. Assessments are used to categories us. No offense to the great researches done in this area. Assessments are required and important but what is more important is what conclusion we draw from these assessments and who is drawing the conclusion. If our own views are limited, we will draw the conclusion accordingly even if the assessments might have a different tonality to it. Anyways, this isn't my topic of discussion for today. What I want to share is how our own truth distorts the reality, the actual reality. I too choose not to understand the truth. Uncovering the truth was a difficult one & not easy. And who would choose a difficult path over easy one?! No sensible person would! But later I realized, what looked like an easy path, was actually a path leading me to nowhere. I always found a deadlock. As if there was a roadblock every now & then. And all my energy was spent in figuring out & overcoming that. I wasn't tired but my energy depleted and that wasn't a good space to be in. If that way was easy, the sail should have been free-flowing. Something inside me struck & I decided to try out the seemingly hard path. Everyone says it's hard, but is it really hard?! Did I try it myself to conclude that to be hard?! So, I decided to walk the hard path. Not to become some sort of a spiritual teacher or guru; but to experience it myself to see what's there in it. The curious mind did play a good role here! This first decision was enough to bring about a huge shift in me. A shift that's not visible but can be felt from inside and it takes time to manifest outside. In this path, all I needed to do is to look within, check my internal map & navigate myself accordingly. Whenever I find myself not moving forward, I know I have not gone deep inside. There's a stumble inside that I needed to investigate. Once I did that & overcame the block, the path outside itself opened the doors to many beautiful destinations. SOMEONE ELSE HAVING CONTROL OVER OUR EMOTIONAL STATE One such block inside me was being easily affected by other's behaviours, opinions, other's idea of me, their actions. This is the zone that most of us are in. Many of my clients whom I coach find themselves in this spot. Someone else having the power on us! We feel angry, sad, happy, good about ourselves, feel bad based on what others think of us & do to us. Sometimes we also try to act smart and ignore feeling this way. We are ashamed to admit & acknowledge. But the fact is that it affected us so much that we decided to ignore it, numb it to negate the pain. So, see we are again walking the easy path of being affected by others or altogether brushing off our emotions & acting as if nothing can affect me. In reality, this rejection is a clear sign of being affected. Consciously we have numbed our emotions, but our neurons stores it. Every cell has an emotional memory which manifests in some or the other forms such as our behaviours, actions & physical manifestations in the form of ailments, illness etc. Emotions means energy in motion. And energy can't be destroyed or created but transformed & transferred. And transformation of energy is what is called building up one's emotional resilience, internal strength, the emotional muscle. Today I vulnerably write about my weaknesses & express openly. But, I wasn't like this too before. Now I understand that if I have to experience myself in totality which is the beautiful thing to do, I have to acknowledge every side of me and so do I have to allow others to see my dark sides too. No one should love me only for my strengths but also should know that I too have my imperfections & I am working on it. If that acceptance is there, people will experience me more profoundly, without my mask & armour. This will also enable others to drop their masks & armour hopefully. My journey then will be fruitful! When you choose to see the truth, you investigate. Whenever I get hurt, angry or sad or even too excited; I ask myself this question: What is causing this emotional state: my truth or the actual truth? If there is a gap, I know the emotional state is futile. Not real but temporary. When my truth doesn't match the reality, I get angry, sad & withdraw. Then I know that I have taken the shortcut and not the so-perceived hard path. When my truth exceeds the reality, I get excited & overly happy. Then also I know that deep down I need to do deep work to investigate if that's my low self-esteem finding solace in external validation or me lowering my benchmark to not to lean on to my fears & insecurities. I am working on myself, I stumble many many times; but I get up because now I am conscious of my inner world and that this is the only thing that bridges the gap between my truth & the actual truth. I have the power to control my emotional state & no one else has. TRUTH IS JOY, PEACE & GENTLE Many a times we lower our truth to be happy. Other times we exceed it to at least land up at something positive. But any which ways we are deviating from the reality. To uncover the truth, the reality as it is; we must peep inside, accept & start seeing as it is without prejudice, judgements, opinions. Is this easy? Not at all. But it leads to joy, inner peace & increased vibration. Because the truth is joy, peace & gentle. That's a state of neutrality. Everything is in sync. So, does your truth match the truth of the source? If not, it's time to walk the inward journey. Love, light & gratitude, Priyanka "I don't fix problems, I fix my thinking. Then problems fix themselves." - Louise Hay
Yesterday was indeed a day of self-discovery! For the past couple of days, I was becoming more aware of my patterns and blind spots. And after attending a webinar by one of the master coaches on the topic, discovering your sweet spot; I became more aware of a part hidden in me that I wasn't aware of. This webinar acted like a catalyst to uncovering that. Sometimes you need your own sweet time to discover things. That discovery is joyful because then the insight becomes too powerful to resist converting it into action. As coaches too, we have our blind spots. If we aren't mindful of that, if we aren't looking within, there are chances of us sabotaging our own growth & so the growth of our clients & people whom we serve. SELF-DISCOVERY IS BEAUTIFUL Self-discovery is beautiful because then you get to decide what you want to do about it. You have the power within to control the outcomes and not the other way around. I realized that I had a mindset of fixing everyone's problems. I wanted to fix things. This I did consciously & many a times unconsciously too. My mind looked for cues to fix people, fix things, situations. After having been into HR for more than a decade, I developed this attitude in me strongly and so I behaved exactly the same way in every aspect of my life. I wanted to fix things not working in my relationship, I wanted to fix things in my son, I wanted to fix things in my career etc. etc. And amusingly, I looked at this from an absolutely different angle. I gave it the name of being a giver. I was considering myself to be profound giver giving away my advice, my ideas, my tips, my suggestions trying to fix what was wrong in the other person. Sometimes, I did this without even the person asking for it. I mean unconsciously, I just exuded that energy and so I sabotaged many connections & relationships. Many a times I offended people too. Most importantly, I was harming myself and sabotaging my peace of mind & happiness. This attitude of fixing never works out for good. The only thing that would really be empowering for me would be to fix this mindset of mine. Something inside of me needed to be fixed and so I decided to dive into it deep. OUR PROJECTIONS ARE OUR DEEPER INTRINSIC NEEDS What we project onto others is exactly what we need to give ourselves. As an Enneagram style 4 person, I had this believe around myself being defective. My coach, Clarence Thompson did tell me about this. I viewed myself from that space and so my urge to fix things in others. You fix when you think that what you are seeing, experiencing is not right. So, you try to make it better. You try to fix it to be able to fit that into your idea of being good. I realized I had high ideals in my mind and I was never satisfied being who I was. I always had this habit of comparing self with someone whom I looked up to.This can be even imaginary ideals, the perfect being. So, I wanted to fix every part of me to be able to be that ideal person. And when I do this what happens, I loose out my uniqueness, my originality and become just a mere copy of the ideal & a vacuum persist. I had nourished this demon inside me for years and this was one of the major blind spots that was holding me back from experiencing myself in my truest form, liberating myself to my next level of growth. Ah! Every time I think this is the big one, I encounter another big one. But this uncovering is amazing! NO FIXING NO REPAIRING, JUST THE WAY IT IS I then realized that this needs to be fixed in me. Rather, than fixing, it needs acknowledgment. I acknowledged this side of me and embraced it fully. I gave approval to myself for who I am. As Byron Katie says, "Loving what it is." So, I decided to love what it is. No fixing, no repairing; just the way it is. If I want to live with this imperfection, so be it. And if I want to fix it, so be it. But now there's a huge difference in the way I operate. I don't fix because I want to make things better; but because I want to accept the imperfection & embrace the next level to experience another side of me and so in other people; not to escape from the imperfections but to experience myself & others more profoundly. More than fixing, which comes from a place of scarcity, fear; now I operate from a space of love and abundance. There's scope for improvement, if you want, embrace it; if not let it be how it is because that is what is needed exactly at this point, at this moment. So, givers & people who love fixing; do look deep within: "What's that which needs fixing inside of you? What is it that you need to give to yourself that you have been giving others?" Last but not the least, when you fix others problems, you take away their ability to find their own solutions. All you got to do is, just support them in finding their solutions and answers. They know best what needs to be done, you just be with them while they solve/fix their problems. That is powerful! We don't see this power because we haven't realized it's power yet. And coaching is all about that, no fixing but inspiring, eliciting, nurturing & leading forward. Love, light & gratitude, Priyanka "You are confined only by the walls you build yourself."
Uncovering a truth requires courage and the willingness to go deep into areas within us that we haven't traversed or have restricted ourselves from doing so. When you open the doors to that which you resist, you'll find that you have unlocked the first door to the barrier itself. There's this abundance barrier that is holding me back from experiencing myself in a profound way & not letting others experience me in my unique ways. As I block this, I too block myself from creating what I am meant to create. WE ARE MORE THAN WHAT WE HAVE EVEN EXPERIENCED OF US This life is not just about waking up everyday and performing the tasks that we have laid down for ourselves but doing; let me scrap doing but being more of who we truly are. We are at the core beyond our possibilities, beyond our vision, beyond our thoughts, beyond our limitations. We are extraordinary, we are love, we are pure, we are abundant, we are more than what we have even experienced of us.There's so much to experience ourselves in us that this life-time will fall short. As I grew in my life, I have uncovered beautiful parts inside of me, parts unknown to me & also parts that looked seemingly not so good to me but was there to tell me that it is important to experience both sides of the coin to be able to arrive at a point of nothingness, a space of absolute infiniteness. The space between the extremes, the space between the polarities, because to experience that space, you have to be awakened to even sense its presence. For a greater part of my life, I lived in black & white. I lived in this or that, on or off, because I wasn't even aware that something in between existed because this awareness is very unique to every individual based on his/her growth journey. I am not sure what & why I am writing all of these. But yes, I am letting myself flow, I am enabling my thoughts to flow and uncover an abundance barrier that is holding me back for long and I find many people including my clients having this barrier, unable to break-free from it. So this blog is an attempt to uncover that barrier. I have realized that when you let your thoughts flow, feel the underlying emotion in it and just sit with it with the quest to uncover the message, you get the message, the answer that you are looking for. THE UNIVERSE IS ABUNDANT ONLY IF WE ARE WILLING TO EXPERIENCE IT Anything that we restrict in us and don't allow to flow & obstruct the Universe's flow of energy is where we get stuck. Abundance is the natural flow. The Universe is abundant only if we are willing to experience it. We choose to be in the scarcity space because that's what we have experienced, that's what most of us have been conditioned to accept, that's what takes us to the victim mode paving the way for sympathy & excuses which we like & dislike too. A thought is coming to my mind but I am feeling vulnerable to share it here. And I know that this is the right moment to share because this resistance will uncover something that will serve me. So, here it is: I grew up in a middle class family and my parents gave us the best that they could. Today I am all because of the foundation that was laid then. So, I sit in this deep gratitude of that experience. Yet, there are parts in me that is looking for answers, unresolved issues around abundance that needs resolution. And here I am to unlock my abundance barrier. Two questions that I asked myself since the abundance barrier is not serving me anymore are: 1. What is the abundance barrier trying to teach me that I haven't learnt over these years? 2. What message is it giving that I have been ignoring for years? What came up for me are these revelations! Deep down I believe all of these: I don't deserve abundance. I am not important enough to experience abundance. In the experience of scarcity my deeper needs of being accepted, loved, valued unconditionally are met. And because of which I had restricted myself from experiencing abundance. I never allowed myself to embrace it, but kept on deflecting it whenever it wanted to embrace me. As a result of which, I couldn't experience the joy of being in the nothingness of this experience. I just tasted one side of the coin and never allowed myself to taste the other side thinking that this is what it is. I kept imagining what the other side would look like & kept judging, conceptualizing, restricting myself from experiencing that out of sheer fear to plunge to the other side. This awareness is enough for me to create a new awareness in me to enable me to experience the other side, allowing the energy to flow & enabling the abundance barrier to break. I already feel from the inside that the barrier is breaking now. We think that abundance means having lots of money, huge bank balance, surplus income etc. But in reality abundance is beyond all of these. Abundance is the feeling of fullness, feeling of having everything, feeling of bliss, joy, feeling of resourcefulness, feeling of the power within us to create & manifest. When we get access to that power within, we automatically elevate ourselves from a space of lack, emptiness, scarcity to a space of resourcefulness. Abundance can be felt when we get in touch with the gold mine that is hidden inside us and now it is up to us as to how we want to use it. Getting into that space requires deep belief that we deserve to live in abundance and that abundance lies in us & not outside us. You can earn more money, yet feel lack & scarce. You can have everything yet feel empty & incomplete. Abundance comes from the acceptance of these facts: I am worthy of this feeling. I have faith in my resourcefulness. I approve of the abundance that is already there in my life. I approve of the abundance in me. I am not pulling myself down to scarcity in my thoughts, emotions & actions but elevating myself to experience abundance, a blissful state to be in. When the little voice inside us says: "Yes, I have everything, I am full, complete and powerful enough to create what is important to me", is when you truly embrace abundance. You break free from your barrier and you are a step closer to your experience of life. Why did I even mention that I belonged to a middle-class family?! Because generally we are conditioned to belief that a normal middle-class family doesn't live much of their lives in abundance state but scarcity state. That is what we have been conditioned to believe. But the actual experience would be to not accept what is generally downloaded to you but what you experience what the reality is. Being in middle-class family doesn't mean living in scarcity, it is just the conditioned mind that restricts the experience of the abundance gold mine that is there in us. Once that is broken free, abundance will flow through every person, every being. It's a matter of sheer experience unique to self! OUR CHOICE MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE An insight is a new way of looking at things. You then club it with your learning, learning from other sources and make a powerful perspective for you. That's the beginning of any journey. Once you are aware of your abundance barrier, you got to ask yourself: What do you want to do about it? You want to use it to experience yourself in a more profound way or you want to remain who you are, in a cautious space not wanting to expand & bloom? The choice is entirely yours and that choice makes all the difference. Leaving you with a thought provoking quote by J K Rowling, "It is impossible to live without failing at something...unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all-in which case you fail by default." Love, light & gratitude, Priyanka "I never worry about action, but only inaction." - Winston Churchill
We are intellectually so equipped, but we slip into doing things that don't serve us and then sit in guilt and shame for not doing what we are supposed to do or even for doing things that we didn't want to do. Internet is flooded with information, but yet we live in inaction and regret. Why?! OUR SUBCONSCIOUS MIND SHOULD VISCERALLY ACCEPT, BELIEVE AND OWN OUR GOALS TO TRULY MANIFEST THEM Before answering the question: "What to do when you have lot of clarity at conscious level but refrain from taking actions?"; I would like to give you some context around conscious mind and subconscious mind. Our conscious mind is the thinking mind/rational mind that has only 5% control over our brain. Rest 95% of our brain's control lies in our subconscious mind that is the powerhouse of all the memories, beliefs, perceptions, patterns that we have formed & stored over the period of time. Sigmund Freud, Father of Psychoanalysis said that our subconscious mind continues to influence our behaviours. So the crux is this, it is not sufficient to just have clarity at the conscious level but our subconscious mind should viscerally accept, belief and own our goals to truly manifest them. Tapping the subconscious mind is the key. NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) talks in detail about this aspect and I wouldn't dive deep into this in this blog. You may read my related blog on befriend-your-subconscious-mind-to-reach-your-highest-potential.html for more insights around this. If you really want to find an answer, you have to go to the root of the problem and uncover the truth. You have to raise your awareness around why you are doing what you are doing. This will enable second order change and transformation. When you choose to increase your awareness, you have enabled the resolution of the problem because now you know the 'why' and then you can easily figure out 'what' to do and 'how' to do. Uncovering what the problem is, is paramount for a long lasting transformation! How to raise our awareness is the main question now? You can start by asking yourself these questions to find out why you are not taking actions even if you know that these are important & will support you to achieve your goals: 1. Do you really have a powerful intention? Is your why powerful enough to move you to actions? Be honest and answer this question. You may choose to articulate your intention, craft it and write it down in a piece of paper and ask why you want this. What will you see, hear and feel when you fulfill your intention? Do you feel viscerally connected to this? How does your body respond to this? You may use the visualization technique from NLP. More about this in another blog. 2. What are your beliefs about your own abilities? Is there a part inside you that feels that you are not worthy enough to achieve that goal or you don't deserve to attain that? Do you feel less equipped to fulfill that intention? What perfect system have you created for yourself to remain who you are? Do read this blog of mine to reflect on this aspect :what-perfect-system-have-you-created-for-yourself-to-remain-who-you-are.html. 3. What are your gains being in this current situation? To attain your goals, there has to be a change in your current state. How is your mind perceiving that change? 4. What are the pains of not attaining that goal? Does the pain of not having the goal outweigh the gains of being in the current state? If there is no pain, then the change will not happen because of the perceived gains in the present moment? 5. What can you do to retain the gains of current moment while you attain your goals? 6. You may choose to go deeper and look at your values, things that are important to you. Also, an assessment of your role models, who you are and what you uphold will give you a clear picture about the conflict in any area that is holding you back from moving ahead. Do check out this related blog: why-our-intentions-dont-get-fulfilled.html. ASSESSING YOUR HABITUAL PATTERNS After all of these, you may now assess your habitual patterns. What are the habits you fall back on when you are stressed? These can be good as well as bad habits. Remember that every habit that we have formed over the years, fulfilled some intrinsic need in us that we wanted at some point. Over time, these became a part of our lives and we have hard times letting them go because we focus on removing the bad habit and not uncovering the need that is associated with it. As Tony Robbins says, there are six needs in human beings & in his words:
It is rightly said that our why drives us to start, but it is our habits that keep us going. Forming success habits, replacing old/not serving habits with new ones keeping in mind the need associated with it, will help. Research says that it takes 21 to 60 days to replace old habits with new ones. This is a consistent process and requires effort on our part. Be mindful of the thoughts that you are feeding to your mind everyday. Our subconscious mind doesn't know what is right, wrong, true, real, unreal. What you feed it with deep believe is what it believes and manifests. So, if in the background there is a voice that is critical and doubting, you are eventually going to attract that. Have a structure of success, an accountability partner that will support you in attaining your goals. Reward yourself every time you take a tiny step forward, however tiny that may be. The initial push is little difficult. Once the moment is set, you just get going. Being consistent is yet another important thing. Never skip taking actions. The moment when you feel like giving up, is the moment you need to stick around the most because powerful insight/learning is on its way. Last but not the least, figure out a way unique to you to attain success. Once you are aware of everything, you know what needs your attention. You then carve out a plan that will support you. Leaving you with this thought: What did you come up with after reading this blog? Do share your insights and breakthroughs. Love, light & gratitude, Priyanka "Your life is a story of transition. You are always leaving one chapter behind while moving on to the next."
Transition simply means a change from one state to another desired state. We all fear transition because any change is uncertain in terms of the experience & the outcome. It requires one to move out from a comfort zone and play full out to experience something that is different and uncommon. Sometimes we choose transition and sometimes life gifts us certain circumstances and experiences that require us to transition to a different level. I see this as an opportunity for us to grow to our next level. Some transitions are unexpected and uncomfortable when we are not ready to accept that sudden change. In today's VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous) world, change is certain and so we must be prepared for any kind of transition. The more prepared we are, the more easy the journey becomes & surety of an effective outcome. The moment we get stuck in rigidness and don't embrace flexibility, that's the moment we indirectly say NO to any change which might be really beneficial for our growth. I would like to categorize transition into two broad categories: 1. Involuntary transition 2. Voluntary transition 1. Involuntary transition: Any change in life which we voluntarily have not chosen but bestowed to us due to circumstantial changes or is situation based is involuntary transition. This is one of the most challenging transition because we have no prior acceptance to this but it's like a sudden jolt to us that is imposed and leaves us wondering what next to do and not to do. This phase has the probability of taking us to a victim mode if we aren't cautious. Many people break-down during this phase and becomes a victim. This requires one to go through a grieving process wherein you first just acknowledge what has happened, take charge of the emotions, let them out in creative ways; accept the reality and then chalk out the next moves to move forward. As an example, when an organization decides to downsize, many employees get affected during this involuntary transition. Although this has nothing to do with the employee personally, but due to the common human dynamics, one has the tendency to take this personally and hold grudges for putting one in an uncomfortable and undesirable situation. Hence, an employee goes through a turmoil and shows different reactions based on the personality type. Some withdraw, some run away from the reality and some become resentful and stuck. All these are natural reactions of the involuntary transition phase. More than the situation, the perception of the situation affects the overall morale and so the actions and the results. 2. Voluntary transition: Any change that is initiated by us and majorly taken to experience ourselves in new ways in any sphere of our lives is voluntary transition. This is something that is exciting and fearful but this comes with a lot of positive emotions because an individual chooses this unlike something that is imposed upon. This transition is more like wearing the creator's hat and the other one is like being victimized. Examples of this transition may be: starting a new role, a shift from an individual role to a leadership role; starting something which one is passionate about; starting on a new journey on self-discovery and possibilities of creating what's not there and what one never thought of and many more. No matter what form the transition might be, it requires few common things for its success:
The potential of a person never fades, but we do loose the form based on what we have decided to perceive about what has happened. A positive frame of mind will enable positive actions and so will the results be positive. But a negative frame of mind will block us from having access to our creativity & our resourcefulness. And so the actions and results will match to the state of our mind. It is important that we keep challenging ourselves to do things that make us uncomfortable, make us realize that we have immense possibilities, and that the power lies not in the situation but in the way we take it. Any situation that breaks us is something that needs retrospection of ourselves because that's a direct message to us about our internal dialogue that we are having. More a person has self-awareness and a powerful intention, more he/she can lead oneself from a victim state to a creator state and that makes all the difference. A shift in the state of our mind is one of the most vital, critical, simple yet difficult thing to do. It's a choice, a habit, a practice and a mindset that needs nurturing, care and unfolding. Inviting you all to a joyous journey of transition from where you are to where you truly want to be. Love & light, Priyanka "Jobs fill your pocket, but the way you look at your job, fills your soul."
In a recent podcast, one of the HR leaders gave a beautiful acronym for the future of work: M A P (Mastery, Purpose and Autonomy). Today I will focus on PURPOSE in my blog since this is something that is very important and many professionals I meet, come up with this statement now and then: "I don't find meaning & purpose in my role!" To that I say, welcome! I was in the same space and I didn't find meaning and purpose too in my role. To me it was mechanical, routine and purposeless. Yes, because I looked at it that way. My perspective was fixed and I saw only that side of the role. In fact the reality was that some rigidness had to shift inside of me; some aspects had to be embraced; some old thoughts had to be discarded and many more. But, I am glad that I went through that transition which eventually brought me closer to my purpose and gave meaning to my work. I have realized that there is no perfect role/career. It is entirely how you see it and how well you connect with what you see. Once you are in sync with that, you have found your purpose and meaning. Almost a year back, there was a point when I wanted to give up what I was doing because I felt I couldn't add value and didn't find meaning & purpose in my role. But today, I am doing the same work and find deep meaning & purpose in what I am doing. And with that realization, the way I serve my customer community has shifted massively. With that realization, I have grown as a professional and my capacity to give has increased manifold; I don't get drained, I become rejuvenated after every session. How is this possible when I am doing the same work; everything remains the same except for the way I relate to it and the way I look at it?! Do note that this is absolutely different from a sense of not being able to connect yourself with the role. When you can connect with the role, when you get a sense of being able to make a difference; yet when challenges come; if you get a kick inside to give up; that's the time you need to sit in that discomfort and ask: Is meaning & purpose missing in my role or I am not being able to see and figure out meaning & purpose in my role due to my inability to break free from normal ways of doing things? Am I getting bored with the role or the way I am performing the role? YOUR MEANING & PURPOSE IS HIDDEN IN THE WAY YOU PERCEIVE YOURSELF IN RELATION TO WHAT YOU ARE DOING Today, as I was coaching one of my clients and I asked this question to him: What is that one thing that you are proud of from your career? The reply impressed me and reaffirmed my believe in my client. The reply was: "I am proud of the fact that I am contributing towards maintaining the security of our nation, I am serving & protecting my nation. My purpose is to ensure that every product that I scrutinize is 100% quality proof and efficient enough to enable our soldiers to protect us from external threats and invasion." Can you guess what my client's role is? He is a embedded testing professional. This is what gets him going and gives a sense of purpose which is: service to the nation, protecting the nation. Look at the beautiful interpretation of his job! Had he considered himself just as a testing professional, his drive would have been less. He would have looked at the same scenario as something very routine and boring. But, the fact that he looks at it from an absolutely new angle and new perspective is what makes him stand apart. No wonder that he is a high performer, a great leader in his field and making a dent in the Universe. Today, I learnt a beautiful lesson from my client. He has reaffirmed my belief in the fact that it is how you look at your role and your contribution towards that role that makes all the difference. THE ORDER IS: WHY, WHAT AND HOW This also reminded me of John F. Kennedy’s stories. It was the story about when he visited NASA and saw a janitor mopping up the floor. Kennedy asked him what his job was at NASA and the gentleman said, “I’m helping send a man to the moon.” Look at the difference and the way one perceives the thing. This is exactly the "WHY" that Simon Sinek, the renowned motivational speaker, organizational consultant & the best selling author of the book, "Start With Why" talks about. When your WHY is so profound, your results are bound to be extra-ordinary. It's never the other way around! The order isn't this: How, What and Why; but this: Why, What and How you do it matters & makes all the difference. FIND MEANING AND PURPOSE IN YOUR ROLE So, let's uncover how to find meaning & purpose in your role? Well, do you still need to uncover or you have already figured out by reading the script above?! You are the best person to uncover your answers. All you need is to reflect on the following questions:
Do feel free to write to me or comment with answers that came up for you. I invite you to challenge your thinking, the way you look at things and how you conclude it. Love & light, Priyanka The joy of uncovering our blind spots is so fulfilling because it leaves you shifting your being which is the key towards massive growth & transformation within you. When your being shifts, your actions will accordingly shift and so your results. Today I uncovered yet another blind spot in me where I realized that more than living my own values, I was actually expecting others to live those values. This realization gets triggered at the most vulnerable situations, when you are in the grip of your limiting mind, when you are under stress. It is rightly said that if you have to know the true personality of a person, you have to see him/her at his/her lowest points. How one behaves during these periods will actually reflect what insecurities they have, what fears they are holding on to & what their inner world without masks & armours truly look like?! In moments of despair, we usually give in and we project our inner self. Not that our inner self is not good or so, but we then get aware of which space we are operating from: fear based or love based.
We all have values that we uphold, our actions are shaped by our values. But many a times, we don't realize that living our values is different from expecting others to live by our values. Even I didn't have that awareness until I uncovered that blind spot in me today. And I am so glad to have got in touch with that side of me. Values are what we uphold to be important to us & that which influences our behaviours and attitudes. My top values are: freedom, fulfillment, joy, authenticity, empathy & abundance. Great values to have! But, at moments when we are not at the centre of our being, at moments when we are out of balance, is the moment when we need to uphold our values most because it will serve us since it defines our identity, our actions that makes who we are. Noticeably during these moments we don't live by our values & instead expect others to live by our values. How? Let me share an instance. I arrived late for a meeting by 2 mins or so. The person with whom I had the meeting scheduled was upset and the body language reflected that. This was my perception though! Before the person said something to me, I clarified why I was late & expected the person to empathize with me. But that really didn't happen and the person started to question me & I felt judged. Here I was sitting feeling judged and not being empathized. I was completely zoned out because I had a very high benchmark for the person & that it wasn't matching up to that really irritated me. I sat in that anxiety and was flooding my mind with all sorts of judgement around the person. Later, after centering myself again, I realized that I was the one judging the person and not empathizing with. Empathy & authenticity are my values and I wasn't living those at that moment but expecting the person to empathize with me and be authentic too. Because I wasn't living my values & I was expecting the other person to live my values, I withdrew myself from being totally present in the moment, from giving my committed listening and hence my actions weren't serving me & the intent of the entire meeting got lost till I got back to my senses and reminded myself of the fact that I need to empathize and be authentic. That small shift just changed the entire dynamics of the meeting and eventually it turned out to be a fruitful one but with a massive breakthrough for me. Many a times, in organizations also, we carve out these values yet we forget to uphold them. We expect employees to abide by them. The leaders who create these organizational values don't live by them and expect every other person to adhere to these. Leadership is beyond forcing but inspiring. And you inspire others not by saying but by being what you want them to be. Likewise, pick up any relationship in your life. May be with your spouse, child, sibling, colleagues, friends etc. Notice that many a times we don't do what we want them to do for us. If we want love, we must first give them love; if we want them to be truthful, we have to be truthful first. Do think over? What serves us powerfully: living our values or expecting others to abide by our values? Our values are unique to us. And more importantly, values have to be just lived without any inner benchmark. Benchmark will derail you. But simply living the values will empower you. Nothing external can trigger you if you live by your values in every situation and not just put the power on external locus of control like expectations from others. Love & light, Priyanka There are times, cycles when we reach a low point in our thinking. Our mind is no longer capable of thinking positively, we are no longer able to look at the bright side of the things. This noticeably happens at moments when we are rejected, when we get NOs, when we fail, when we don't meet our expectations, when we don't meet our targets/deadlines, when we assume that we are no way closer to our intentions. That's when we question ourselves and our abilities. That's when self-doubts creep in, we become one of our greatest critics! Everything seems to be working against us. Situations, people & life in general seems not to be working in our favour. That's when we are in the grip of our limiting mind! That's the time when we look at things from a fixed view and loose the power to create. That's when we tend to give up. In fact this is the most vulnerable spot and time for giving up & forgetting our "WHY". This is the time when we loose sight of why we started of in the first place. Our mind is clouded with all the negative thoughts and we slowly move towards the victim state if we aren't mindful enough.
Today I felt I was in the grip of my limiting mind. I became fixed in my views, my mind started to pick up all the negative cues, everything not serving me & my growth. Earlier I wasn't aware of my patterns. But now I know when I am in the grip of my habitual patterns. I withdraw, I criticize myself, I doubt my capabilities, I don't take any actions but become lazy across all the four bodies: physical, emotional, intellectual & spiritual. I use distractions to keep me away from feeling any discomfort. I seek for approvals, validation and blame others for what has happened. In a way it is a complete zoned out moment for me. But, the beauty of all of this is that, now I am aware of my behaviours. I realize my patterns & so half the battle is already won. All I need to do is to gather myself up and move on with my consistent actions. But, there is a twist here. Every time anything negative happens, I get the chance of being a beginner again. The lightness of being a beginner again is more effective than carrying the burden of being just successful with no real impact. Every time things don't work out, I get an opportunity to use my creativity muscle, churn it to my benefit & come out with something really impactful & useful. This for me is growth. There is so much joy in failing! I could never say this before because I never saw it that way. Every time I am rejected, every time I am ignored, every time I bag a NO; are the times I really feel proud of myself because I know that I am progressing & not just running over at the same spot again & again with the delusion of progressing. These NOs are the foundations of my story to be told as a part of my legacy! I would be happy to gracefully bag as many as I can and I acknowledge myself for being able to say this now. This proves that my leadership depth has increased massively over time. Way to go! My clients are a reflection of me and hence we find joy working together; being in the coaching relationship. Whenever they come up to me with a long face upon failing, upon not meeting targets; I know that breakthrough is going to happen that will change their lives drastically. They do the same things that I have mentioned above. They self-loathe, self-criticize, withdraw, blame, go to victim state. They forget to see the glory of being who they truly are in moments like this! One failure robs them of their peace of mind, their identity, their capabilities. Mind it that they are all exceptionally high performers; just that the failure has taken a toll on their being and they are unable to see more than just their failure in moments when they are in the grip of their limiting mind. Giving up & quitting mentally, mid-way, is one of their biggest blind spots that they need to work on. Simply put, they have lost the form due to limiting thoughts that they have held due to the rejection that they are experiencing now. And then I remind themselves like I did to myself to let go of these unnerving thoughts; to embrace the limiting mind because it speaks from a space of fear & give power to the limitless mind, igniting & leveraging the limiting mind. Leaning against the intrinsic fears is the key. Change is constant, likewise failing too is a part of the master's journey. For anything extra-ordinary that you want to create, you have to be extra-ordinary in your thinking, in your being and in your actions. You have to fail extra-ordinarily too. You must sail through that to be able to conquer your failures. Giving up is truly failing and not failing. Failing gives us opportunities to be better, for us to re-look at our ways, to be more creative, to defy the regular ways of doing things, breaking ourselves into pieces to actually see what parts are critical to fulfilling our bigger intentions. And my clients are extra-ordinary who plays bigger games and their purposes and causes are extra-ordinary! Free yourself from your limiting mind to win not just the battles but the war inside of you & produce extra-ordinary results, to live your "WHY" for which you started in the first place. Love & light, Priyanka |
AuthorLife & Organizational Development Coach Archives
February 2023
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