"Kill the snake of doubt in your soul, crush the worms of fear in your heart & mountains will move out of your way." - Kate Seredy In all my blogs I have been mentioning about the inner power that we have. We are whole, complete and resourceful enough to achieve what we set out to. We are self-sufficient, yet we don't achieve what we want to. We always come back to square, the very place where we started. We are unable to move ahead not because there is lack of information around, but because of something else that we are unaware of. Many a times we are aware of what holds us back, but we don't know how to overcome these. That's why I always say, move out of your own way if you really want to achieve what you want to.If you want to be your best version, then you got to stand out of your way. Well, I am referring to the psychological barriers that hold us back from accessing our inner resources, the power that resides inside us. Psychological barriers are beliefs that a person has about himself/herself regarding his ability, potential, self-worth. They are some deformed thought patterns that don't allow us to break-free and attain what seems impossible for us. For a long time, I have been a victim of these psychological barriers myself. Overcoming these require much inner strength, strong will and courage. Pick up a sport and you will see how your psychological barriers come into play. That's why probably it is recommended to learn to play a sport at a very young age. That's the time when our mind is flexible and tender. We can mold our thoughts accordingly. As an adult, you too can achieve what may seem unattainable or impossible for you. But, what is required is first your courage to uncover your psychological barriers, your mental blocks and work on overcoming these. Most importantly, patience is required to allow yourself to unfold to this process of discovery. Many a times we find it hard even to accept our blind spots, it's like a tight slap on our face; something that we had been running away from & ignoring. Don't worry, I have been there and I know how it feels. I know now for sure that not uncovering is much more painful than confronting these. I would like to cite my example here. As a child, I used to play a lot with water and you'll find all my dolls bald-headed. Every time I used to play with my dolls, I shampoo their hair and clean them. The result of which was that I used to fall sick and had fever because I was majorly in water myself. My mother couldn't make me understand that and so the best that she could think of was, to cut all the hairs of the dolls that I had. I had a lot of other histories around water and my adventures. Somehow, without my knowledge, I developed this very strong dislike for water later. To the point that I was scared of even getting inside it. I had gone to Triveni Sangam to immerse the mortal remains of my father many years back. For those who aren't aware of Triveni Sangam, it is the meeting place of the three sacred rivers: the Saraswati, the Yamuna & the Ganga(Ganges) and is considered as a very holy confluence in Hindu tradition. A bath there is said to flush away all of one's sins. I didn't take a dip in that water out of fear. I was scared to that point. Later, when my son wanted to learn swimming, I allowed him to, despite of being fearful myself. I was so scared that I used to sit there watching him while he was taking his classes. I sat there and confronted my fears. That's when the Coach came up to me and told me to try out swimming. My first reaction was, "Me and swimming?! Oh! Forget it! I am very scared of water.I can never do it." The Coach insisted me and for many days I didn't even pay heed to him. I started giving him excuses saying that I had a c-section while giving birth to my child, I have a deep-seeded fear around water. I get sick and also an emotional block around water holds me back. But, somewhere deep down I wanted to swim. I had the desire but was fearful and my psychological barriers around my self-belief held me back from taking the plunge. The Coach insisted me and encouraged me. There were few other coaches who told him to stop pushing me because I was too fearful and hence they passed their judgement that I can never swim. This hit me hard. I then told the Coach, "I want to learn swimming. How can it be that I can't learn?! I will give it a try." And that's how my journey began. It took me a while and lot of endurance. Today I am a good swimmer and you can see me swimming in the picture above. I am not fearful of water anymore! I swim along with my son and every time I am fearful of anything, I just remind myself to get out of my way and let my inner resources play it's part. If I have created that limiting belief, I have the power to recreate another one. If I have held myself back, I have the power to push myself forward too. Since then I have been challenging myself. As a child I used to play Table Tennis, Badminton, even Cricket (advantage of having two brothers) & dance was something that came naturally to me. Sports had been an integral part of my life. So, I chose to embrace it now again because it rejuvenates my soul. I learnt Zumba, I did Zipping, Paragliding and now I am learning Kick-boxing to challenge myself more. There are many mental blocks which we aren't even aware of. Our job is to uncover them one by one till you are left with none. Our own psychological barriers hold us back from performing at our peak. Mental block is an inability to perform a certain action. It can be associated with just about every aspect of your life. Mental blocks are formed because of various reasons such as: 1. Painful or difficult unresolved experiences/memories which you have buried deep inside. 2. Lack of confidence due to lack of knowledge and experience. 3. Fear of the unknown creates paralysis and incapability to cope. Also, look at this info-graphics below to see where you stand. Here are some of the common mental blocks. See which one is familiar to you:
1. Self-doubt 2. Indecision 3. Fixed mindset 4. Self-criticism 5. Comparison 6.Uncertainty 7.Tunnel vision 8. Fuzzy Focus How to identify your mental blocks? Notice your inner dialogue and what words you commonly use for yourself. What feelings come to the surface. Journal it and read it loud to yourself. This will expose your mental block. Our own personalities and values get in our way. We may have a personality type & our values may be something which might be conflicting to what we belief, who we are and what we aspire to be. So, choose to stand out of your way if that is no longer serving you. You will be amazed at what you can create. Trust me, you can create more than what you belief you can. Love & warmth, Priyanka
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When the curtain of darkness drops and when you throw light to your unawareness, you will viscerally feel breakthrough happening. Every time I feel I am growing, I bump across an area within me which needs light, which needs my awareness to transform into light within me. Today I am glad I again got present to something inside me that I wasn't even aware of. All thanks to my Coach! I resisted and defended myself from acknowledging it. I denied that I felt that way because long long ago I learnt my way of dealing with uncomfortable emotions. I learnt to protect myself from feeling the hurt, the pain. And the way I choose was, to not feel that emotion, not acknowledge that emotion and even ignore it when it hit me. And after doing this, I became very good at it. Practice turned this into a habit and habit became my second nature. I became very adept at hiding my emotions, my feelings and could quickly cover that up with something, which sadly after a while even I lost sight of it. And I thought it was okay to be this way. I thought this is how emotions need to be dealt with. As I ignored my uncomfortable emotions, I also deflected the good emotions coming my way. My being got created this way and so my energy with which I showed up!
I struggled with this internally without even my awareness. Every time something happened, every time I couldn't progress in my life I defended myself with circumstances outside of me, by putting the blame on people around me and even judging myself. Least did I know that there was actually a bug inside me that was stopping me from blooming into who I was, from flying high, from achieving my goals, from showing up the way I am meant to be. I was looking for answers outside me while the real demon lied inside of me. I even tried to understand this by gathering information around people, their habits, ways to deal with them, etc. etc. The more I looked outside, the more I enabled the demon inside me to grow. I knowingly nourished the demon inside me by putting my focus on things outside me. I thought that if I understand the situation well, I can adjust to it. I thought that if I understand people well, I can accommodate their view points....The list is never ending. The moment I decided to look within, the moment I decided to throw light to the demon inside me, I realized that it was there sitting inside and just trying to stop me from having limitless access to myself & my being. I decided to take responsibility and engage in a discussion with that demon. Let me call it my limiting mind inside me instead of demon because I got to know that it was there lying in me to protect me and not to destroy me. But that limiting mind wasn't aware that even though it's presence had a protective undertone, it did more harm than help to my being. Because anything limiting can just be a bonsai and not a blooming plant. It did give me the requisite ingredients to survive and be protected but not what needs to flourish, thrive and bloom into limitless possibilities. And I want to have a limitless experience. Tears rolled down my cheeks just after my session with my Coach ended. As if, I was bidding adieu to my limiting mind who protected me, showing gratitude for it's presence inside me for so long that today upon joining hands with it to embrace and welcome my limitless mind, I am feeling joy & courage. I thanked my limiting mind for having been there with me in my journey and for all the protection. But, I also said,"It's time for you now to leave me and whenever I will need you, I will call you not to limit me but to help me embrace my limitless mind. This way you'll be empowered too. Because now I want to embrace limitless possibilities and I want to spread this awareness to people around me." I know there are numerous people out there who will resonate with what I have felt and I want to support them in embracing their limitless mind the way my Coach did for me. As a first step, I am going to do this with a group of leaders that I am addressing in a session next week. I am glad that this breakthrough happened today. Now I can take the participants to this joyous journey that I viscerally experienced. My limiting mind, I acknowledge you, I thank you for being with me. I take responsibility for defending you all through out my life, And as a result of which my experience of me, people & life was limiting too. Today let's together embrace my limitless mind, And set on a journey of limitless experience of myself, people & life. Let's take it to the next level. Let the journey begin... Love, Priyanka "It has been said that something as small as the flutter of a butterfly's wing can ultimately cause a typhoon halfway around the world." Chaos Theory A minor change, such as flapping of wings by the butterfly can create a phenomenal change. Hard to believe right?! How can such a tiny action create a massive reaction?! This is the way we doubt ourselves too! Many a times we don't realize our power until a situation arises which enables us to play with our strengths or until when someone shows us our power. A butterfly cannot see the designs that's there in it's wings but everyone can see it & believes that the butterfly too knows it. Much to our surprise, we don't realize who we are. But, the fact is we are enough, we have enough within us to be, become who we want to be. We can make a difference in our own subtle ways. We don't have to be someone to do that. But, just be ourselves and keep doing our tasks with passion & conviction. Every action matters because it causes another reaction and eventually another and it's a chain reaction. Only when you forget to believe in yourself, you give the power away to what happens outside of you. I see everyone as gifted. There is not a single person on this earth who lacks potential. Yes, the difference lies in whether you are able to ascertain that gift in you, what you do after you know you have that gift and whether you are consistent enough in honing that skill inside you. Best of all, when you can find an outlet to use that skill for something greater than yourself, you have more possibilities of creating miracles with that gift. But for all this, you have to be comfortable in your skin. You have to first decide if you want to be a copy or someone original. Because, a copy remains a copy and an original is always in high demand. It doesn't loose its effect but a copy fades away with time. We hold lot of fears in us. Sometimes these fears are just groundless. We are more than our fears. Fears don't make us, it's just a part of us. It has a protective undertone to it. Sometimes, a certain belief comes to the surface & holds us back till we confront it and lean against it to rise to who we are. Small gestures leads to great impact. You never know what difference you might be making in someone's life, till the time you stop doing what you are doing. So, believe in yourself. Trust in every action that you take. You are powerful beyond measure! Sadly, when we stop believing in our strengths, the worlds stops believing in us too. Leave aside humility for a while. If what you do is true, there is nothing wrong in speaking up for what you do and who you are. So, first acknowledge yourself, your strengths; then work towards mastering that strength. Keep taking tiniest of the actions and you just reach your destination joyously, purposefully & most of all, you surprise yourself with you own abilities. You look back and smile at your own inhibitions & disbelief! Sometimes, we just need a reminder to ourselves: "You are powerful beyond measure!" And this post is just an attempt to do that. Love, Priyanka
In my entire career and life, I haven't found so much joy & fulfillment in what I do now. I was wondering what is it that I do differently now that I didn't do earlier?! There's got to be something more. What have I dropped? What have I accepted? What have I uncovered about myself? Today I choose to be vulnerable so that I inspire you to be vulnerable with yourself & others. As I looked back, I found few things that now I have embraced which earlier I didn't. I have shredded few fears that held me back from feeling joy in every work that I did and in every role that I played in life. Not that the work was not good or life was not good, but the space from which I showed up was not powerful enough to allow me to enjoy it fully and I wasn't even aware of it. Shredding the 3 hidden fears: 1. Fear of losing out: I feared losing out in my career, in my life. Instead of enjoying what I was doing, instead of being grateful for who I was; I was more involved in securing a place for myself in my profession and in life so that I didn't lose out. When the focus is on doing not to lose out, to secure a position, what can you expect?! Of course a scarce, fearful mindset will attract more scarcity and not the abundance that we long for.I couldn't muster the courage to tell the kind truth to myself and others around me. I suffered internally and so thus my work suffered because I showed up from a place of seeking approval for my actions, pleasing others & not serving them. The dire need ingrained in me to be loved, respected and admired fogged my zeal to serve fearlessly. Fear of losing out actually paved the way for making this fear a reality. I actually lost out on many areas in my career and in life. But now, I have acknowledged this hidden fear & embraced it. I now don't fear to lose out, but I just show up to my best potential so that I can be of service at work and in all the roles that I play in my life. 2. Fear of being laughed at and be seen as an idiot: Many times I stopped myself from asking questions which apparently seemed dumb and also refrained from sharing my ideas thinking that these might seem to be stupid. I was fearful of being looked upon as someone not being smart enough or not being looked up to. This attitude let me down. I either withdrew fearing being judged, exposed to or simply showed off and lost out on the basic principle of forming deep connections. Yes, I won some battles, but I lost many too. Winning didn't fetch me joy and losing didn't teach me anything because my focus was on the destination only. But, today I am comfortable in accepting my flaws, my mistakes and best of all, take responsibility for the impact that has had on me and everyone for this attitude of mine. I feel more respected, more loved and more accepted now than ever before. 3. Fear of dropping the EGO for greater good: EGO is our self-projection, the mask, the armour that we use to hide some gap within ourselves. We know who we are. We know what our story is. We know what our truth is. Even though we may choose to ignore, we are self-aware about our own weaknesses and limitations. We inflate our EGO to hide these from others. There are so many quotes around EGO and dropping the EGO for greater good of self and others. But, do we chose WISDOM over EGO?! At least I didn't for many years. But finally I decided to come home to myself and love myself for who I am. I don't need any shield, armour to hide or project myself. This is who I am, in front of myself and you. I dropped my guards, I have chosen to be vulnerable knowing very well that I may be judged. But the burden of masking is too high a prize to pay, it weighs me down to a considerable degree not allowing me to leverage my gifts. As I write all these today, I feel so relieved & happy. I am allowing myself to embrace vulnerability because I know it is power, it is courage that we muster over years of self-manipulation & smart concealing. More than anything, today there is confidence from within and a deep sense of fulfillment of living my purpose, my true calling. The process of self-discovery is a joyous experience. It's a journey and not a one-stop destination. As I proceed on my journey, I welcome you all to experience your journey too. Embrace the real you, embrace yourself. There's definitely something more to this...I leave it for you to uncover.
Love, Priyanka "The moment you are ready to quit is usually the moment right before a miracle happens. Don't give up." Many a times we get the low feeling, a feeling of not being able to see through the things. There are times when nothing happens as per our plan. There are rejections, there are NOs. And then we get drained. We then start losing our hopes and even start doubting ourselves. We even start thinking if the journey is worth it, if what we have chosen for ourselves is even the right path?! Our mind is clouded with doubts and pessimism. To top it, the rejections add on to our fears and our rational mind starts presenting us with past data that were registered from our bygone experiences. From a state of utter self-confidence we then stoop to the lowest level. Boom: We decide to give up. In fact many does. Even I gave up many a times when things weren't good. Negative emotions engulfed me and I gave up only to regret later. I learnt the hard way that when you feel like giving up, that's the time you shouldn't. You should never give up when you feel like because that's only a passing phase, a part of the process that leads to bigger success and achievement. Well, changing plans, refinement of ideas etc. are absolutely fine. But, not giving up on yourself. Because someday you are going to look back at all these and be so grateful for not quitting. Today, as I discussed with one of my clients about the progress, my client too wanted to give up. Unable to deal with the pressure of rejection & NOs, my client too wanted to move back to the comfort zone and be safe. But, I challenged the desire which I knew was just a spur of the moment and finally the client decided to stick to it no matter what. The moment when you give up, you lose out on all the efforts that you had put in. When you become more conscious about getting to your goal, there creeps in anxiety and stress. The longingness creates negative emotion in us and makes us rethink because our rational mind seeks for constant validation. But, the truth is, we need to validate ourselves when every other force invalidates our efforts. That's how a champion is born! That's how a masterpiece is created! To have extra-ordinary results, our actions have to be extra-ordinary too. We can't expect miracles by taking lesser leaps. We need to take big leaps. Sometimes these times of despair, inner turmoil, low moments can really be the launch pads for you to take the next big leap. If only to care to reflect on the real message that it is bringing to you. These moments allow us to reflect on our weaknesses, our habitual patterns, our habits, our coping strategies. If we care to throw light to these, we will get to the real issue and be able to take the next big leap. But, do we chose to do that is the big question?! We don't. We just try to find solace in the prevalent situation and give in succumbing to our self-created excuses. That's the reason we don't make it to where we are destined to be. We chose to play low and we re-create that system for us to play low. When you get rejected, when you get NOs, rejoice and say to yourself: "Bring it on. I welcome rejection and NOs. I welcome this fear & uneasiness. I embrace this fear because I have faith in myself & the Universe." Sounds crazy right?! But just try doing it and see what miracles you create in your life. Next time you want to give up, just don't. Just contain in that anxiety and instead of reloading, reflect to get in touch with the real issue. Trust your journey when no one else does... Love, Priyanka
“I am in the right place, at the right time, doing the right thing.” - Louise Hay
I hear my client tear up saying that things are not happening, I am lagging behind. I am getting older and yet I haven't progressed much in life as compared to my peers, friends, relatives. "I feel low & sick," I hear many people say. That I am running out of time is a very common expressive phrase used by people now-a-days. Comparison with another person dampens your joy of enjoying your moment & your story. This is a natural and a very human reaction to feel the pain when you see others moving ahead of you. Be it in your profession or in your personal life when you see your peers moving up the ladder, acquiring materialistic possessions, getting married, having a family etc. at their perfect time; you feel bad about yourself. That's when you recall your good old days and try to pacify your pain by saying that I did this, that; I was this, that; I had this, that; your thoughts keep pouring. You even try to put yourself in that person's situation and fool yourself by saying that if I were in his/her situation I could have done this/that; if I got that opportunity, I would have had this/that breakthrough. You try hard to convince yourself that you are good too, you are worthy too and you too have had some experiences which defines your worth, success. But the truth is, as you forget your journey & focus on the journey of another; as you ignore your timeline and focus on the timeline of another person; you dis-empower yourself and disrespect your being. True success doesn't lie in relative growth with another person but with yourself. Look back and see how far you have come. That's what your story is, your success is, your milestone/s are. Be proud of them. Focusing on another with negative emotion just as envy, anger, rage, fear will only affect you and no one else. This will remind you of your scarceness and will give you more pain. And when you don't process these emotions well, you will further be dragged into the vicious cycle of being self-critical or become critical of others. With this emotional state, you will either over-perform or under-perform based on your coping strategy. Either one isn't good for you. Remember that you are moving at your pace, at your time zone that best suits you. You receive what you need at this moment. No less, no more. And if you haven't come very far as you may think, then that's also your choice to remain in that state. Keep walking and keep giving your 100% and let the rest unfold in it's own time, a time that is perfect for you. Don't be impatient to arrive at your PERFECT TIME. You may regret later. Achieving things at the earliest possible time has become so toxic that even at work we manifest that desire. This behaviour does no good but shadows our ability to see our gifts, our potential and our strengths which come to the fore at its own unique time. Sometimes we do so much, yet we fail to see that till we sit & reflect on how far we have come. I urge you to acknowledge all that you have done in your entire lifetime and then share your experience. How you feel about yourself? Do you still feel low or you feel great about your own self after these acknowledgement? Paste these at a place that you can easily see and remind yourself of how far you have come. Let's practice acknowledgment, let's acknowledge ourselves and let us enable ourselves to see our own gifts, achievements. These acknowledgement can be as petty as you can remember. Because once these were those precious moments that you wanted & longed for. Dive back & collect all of them from your memory. Love, Priyanka When you operate from your BEING; things seem effortless, the results are profound. But when you function after donning your STRATEGIC SELF, things backfire. The very purpose of wearing your armour, the mask to hide your hidden fears in the basement of your psyche gets amplified and it springs out in ugly forms. What we fear the most gets replicated in every aspect of our personal & professional life. What we belief deep down gets manifested. We may be good at hiding our essence, our BEING from the real-world fearing consequences, but eventually we keep attracting those that we hide, defend and suspect. That is the energy exchange that we have with life.
Of late I have very strongly realized the need to shift from my strategic self to embracing my BEING. Our subconscious mind gives us cues that we can pick up only when we challenge ourselves and muster the courage to uncover the underlying truth. This year, when I had attended Master Coach Rich Litvin’s intensive at Santa Monica, the insight that I was reflecting upon was: “How beautiful it is to bloom into the person that we truly are?!” This was the message from the Universe to me that needed my attention and action. I realized it’s meaning intellectually and left it there. At the back of my mind, a thought was lurking: Why did I even pick this insight out of so many intellectual ones that I knew? What was so special about this one?! As I sat down with my Coach to decide on my journey ahead and plan my actions forward; I again chose the name of my Organization as People Essence. I was oblivious of the fact that these were some of my own intuition at work which I didn’t pay much heed to. Now I realise what this was all about! The message that I needed to know & work upon as a part of my own deep inner reflective work was my own essence. I need to let my essence, my BEING bloom into what it really stood for. When we give more power to our strategic self and ignore our BEING, our essence; we become powerless. We don’t allow our authentic self to come out but shadow it till it hides in the deepest basement of our psyche never to be seen again. But, this self-doubt that we hide from the world gets manifested every time in our actions, in our behaviours, in our relationships, in our existence. Like a spring, the harder we try to suppress it, the harder it becomes for us to hide it; it bounces back with greater velocity. Isn’t it sad that we disconnect ourselves from our own BEING and then expect others to connect and empathise with us?! The lens with which we see the world, creates our reality. Our reality isn’t created by anyone else but us. To realise and even accept this, you must have the courage to unmask yourself and drop the armour if not in front of all, but to yourself to begin with & then with someone whom you deeply trust. Once you are comfortable, you can then share it with all that you come across. We are naturally good at defending ourselves. Projecting the reasons of our pain outside us, is what we have mirrored back from our life’s experiences. More the fear inside us, the better our defence mechanism and armour will be. We learn to strategize to hide our deepest fears, insecurities and challenges. As we strategies, we reinforce our fears and mask them only to realise that the demon that we are battling with still resides in us and has the power to influence our overall growth and success in life. Sometimes we take a lifetime to unveil it and accept this bitter truth. Sometimes we live our whole life in unawareness. When you embrace your Being, your essence; you are not only dropping your guards for good but also inspiring others who emulate you, follow you to drop their own too. This could be your team member who adores you, your friend who believes in you, your child who copies you, your spouse who trusts you, your parent who is proud of you. Authenticity is power, it is courage and contagious too. Let yourself embrace your BEING and drop the strategic self to experience an exponential life of joy, happiness living in the expression of your highest self. I have been attracting all that I am fearful of in my life. However beautifully and adroitly I might be using my strategic self, after some time something gets triggered and I land up in the exact space I was fearing to be. Unless and until I deal with the demon inside, nothing will change. So, I decided to have a one on one conversation with the demon. I told myself not to use my mask/armour at the most vulnerable moments but to feel the way I am feeling. No running away, no blaming, no victimizing but to confront. As I did this, I realised that my fears were nothing but some experiences of my life that I chose to give power to and define me & my very existence. To refrain myself from feeling those fears again, I made some rules to protect myself which became my perfect system in which I operated. But, ironically and well-conceived, these fears never went away but became more bigger than I could have imagined. Only when I decided to embrace my BEING, my essence, my fears lost all their powers to influence me and dictate me. Now I feel empowered. A long journey though, an end of a beginning for a new beginning. I invite you to experience yourself the power of owning your BEING, your essence. Love, Priyanka At a very young age, when I failed to achieve one of my childhood dreams, my grandfather told me these golden words to me: "You can and you will." He told me these words to motivate me at a time when I was very upset at my failure. He told me to speak aloud these words just with a slight change. He told me to replace the 'You' with 'I' which makes it, "I can and I will." He told me to believe in these words and keep saying it till it gets into my system. At that time, my young mind couldn't really perceive what he exactly meant by that. But, because I believed in him, because he was one of my role models, I trusted him & told these words to myself. I am not sure though I really believed in these words or not myself. I just said it because he told me so. I wish I realized then the power of affirmations. I wish I knew then that the words that we choose to say ourselves create our realities & shape our future. There is a complete science behind this which in broader scope & terminology is known as NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming). Here is a small diagram that depicts what NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) is all about in simplest terms. NEURO is your thought process, LINGUISTIC is your words/language & PROGRAMMING is your behaviour which eventually leads to action/inaction, results; the creation of your life. It's like you are painting your world with these three basic things. The masterpiece that comes out of this is where you are now. A stroke of your thoughts, coloured with your words & manifested with your behaviour creates the masterpiece of your life. So, again it affirms the fact that we are the creators of our destiny, our world. And because there is no one like us, we have the power to create something unique. Our originality is our power. Louise Hay says, "Every word you speak is an affirmation. The sub-conscious is always listening." What you say within is reflected outside. Sometimes you don't even realize it. The more often we repeat the words, it slowly starts becoming our reality. We keep practicing it and become so good at that, that we don't even realize that we are getting used to it. I was asked by my grandfather to say affirmative words as a child, yet again today I was reminded by a co-Coach to be cautious of the words & language that I have been using for myself. I wasn't even aware of the limiting words that I had been using for myself. Words that are self-defeating, self-limiting & unproductive should be shed away & replaced with words that boosts our confidence, our belief in self & words that reminds us of our potential. Words are indeed powerful. I choose positive affirmations for myself & pledge to be careful & conscious of the words that I use. Affirmation is a word or phrase repeated to oneself to declare a certain belief or feeling. It helps the person to change the mindset & become the person you truly wish to be. How does affirmation look like? Check below. You can make your own by filling in the blank : I AM ______________________. Last but not the least, affirmations need to be said with conviction, concentrated focus, attention & faith that you CAN & WILL achieve what you want.
Remind yourself of these words by Paul Coelho, "When you want something, the entire Universe conspires in helping you to achieve it." Warmth, Priyanka “The mind is a powerful force. It can enslave us or empower us. It can plunge us into the depths of misery or take us to the heights of ecstasy. Learn to use the power wisely.” David Cuschieri Why it is said that sky is the limit? Why is this metaphor used? What's your first thought when you hear this? The sky is the limit because there is limitless possibilities that you can ever imagine or think of. If that is the case, if our mind is so powerful and has the ability to take us to possibilities we hardly imagined, then what holds us back? Why all of us don't excel? Why we live a life of mediocrity & not of mastery? Why we don't become exceptional leaders but settle with being just good? Why we don't excel but just limit ourselves to benchmarks already set? Do you see that the conditioned mind possesses you? How high have you set your sky? Have you even set it? If not,why? Many a times we don't even realize this and live the way we do by blaming our circumstances, attaching our undesirable outcomes to various things that our mind had captured all the way long. Stories that our mind found impactful, interesting, self-serving, common, certain etc., we kept accumulating & thus forming our belief systems. This is nothing but mental conditioning. From a young age, we condition ourselves. Other environment, our parents, our friends, our own experiences, our facts registered in our so called memories, all play a huge role in determining what beliefs we hold on to tightly and what structure we fall back upon as common behavioural pattern, habits etc. We hardly pay attention to what is happening in our inner world. Thus resulting in conditioning & perception building because of which our mind is unable to free ourselves of our own limitations. Slowly this turns into habits which becomes hardwired in our system. Here's an interesting video on mental conditioning. This is a very common story, I am sharing this video with credit. Do watch this for better clarity. Now the next question is, if conditioning is so powerful, how do we reset our mind & fly high? I have researched, studied and applied Tony Robbins's (the great Coach & NLP expert) technique on how to reprogram your mind and found this self-transforming for me. You may even try this. The steps are simple only if you allow yourself to dive deep into self-inquiry & introspection :
1. Decide: First get very crystal clear about what you want in life. What do you want in your profession and in your personal life? Make the decision that you are not willing to settle, that you are not willing to live the way you are living right now, and set your sights on what you want. This way you empower your mind to focus with precision & clarity. 2. Commit: Stop all the excuses that you would want to throw yourself to. Just commit. Drop the fears & self-doubts. You have to battle it out: your inner world vs your commitment. Small steps at a time, tiny actions to take daily but not to give up. 3. Resolve: Observe what results you are getting from the actions that you are taking, analyse what is working for you & what isn't and then do what serves you. Resolve is finding solutions to what may come your way in achieving what you have committed to. Each stage is important and many people give up when things get hard, uncertain and uncomfortable. It is at this stage that one must check for creative solutions, actions and make the required shifts. In order to manifest sky is the limit, you must hold on to the path.You can revise your actions, the steps, but you got to keep flying. Explore the limitless possibilities in you. First step is make up your mind, Decide. Warmth, Priyanka Most of the people I meet, baring a few, are so busy. And when asked about their busyness, they simple don't have an answer to their busyness. Meetings get rescheduled, you keep waiting beyond the scheduled time of meeting, last minute changes get incorporated, everyone is running around, on their toes; yet when you analyse the output, results, there's no change. The problems, pain points remain, the concerns get aggravated, there is no time for reflection, no nurturing time....The list is endless. Many a times when I ask this question to many busy people: What keeps you busy?, I get this reply: "I don't know. There are so many things. Everything seems important, urgent and I can't say No to anything. And despite of all these hours, I get nowhere. I mean problems remain, their forms are different. I am juggling with life, my hands are full." My next question to them is: "Do you want to be in this state or create something better?" The answer again is :"I have tried managing time. I have read every book on time management, the priority boxes, etc. but I land up in the same space every time.See it's simple, workload is increasing and hence I can't do anything about this." Well, I had been through this phase. I get this right away. But then I came across something that has served me and hence I would like to share with you all this tool that you can use to not just management time but integrate time into your life and thereby have a holistic life. At the end, your life is dear to you. You can't just let busyness dictate you. I read a book recommended to me by my Coach. It's called The 80/20 Principle (The Secret to Achieving More with Less) by Richard Koch. While I was doing my MBA and later, I did come across the Pareto Principle. But, as usual never applied diligently till I felt the need to do so. I recommend you all to read this book. It has many things/tools to offer. The best thing that I liked about the book was about the 80/20 thinking. When we think 80/20, we produce 80/20 result. So, what is this 80/20? It simply says that 20% of our efforts, produce the 80% of our results. Our goal is to find out what are those 20% tasks, activities, work etc. that produces 80% of our desired results. Every time, we pick anything, it is important to think 80/20. Anything that you are doing in any aspect of your life: deeply fulfilling career, loving relationships, kids, your nurturing time etc., ask yourself: "What are the 20% activities that are helping me get 80% of positive results in these areas and how are they impacting my bigger commitment?" It is very important to ask yourself this question. Once you find out those 20% activities, all you need to do is keep putting more efforts & focus in those 20% so that you can optimize your output. Once you adopt this thinking & action, you will find abundance of time not only for reflection & nourishment, but also your productivity & performance will increase. Do try out and share your experiences with me. Here's another addition. I got to know about this from another Co-Coach. It's about setting conditions as follows: Must Have’s are what must absolutely be part of your life. You will work actively to make sure they happen, they are your starting points. Can’t Have’s/Won’t Do’s are your deal breakers. If these things are present, you’re out. Nice to Have’s are the things that if you did get, you’d be grinning ear to ear, but you can live without them. Will Accept’s are the things that you’d prefer not to deal with but will accept to get where you want to go. As you make your list, be really mindful of what you put where, especially what you establish as Must Have’s and Can’t Have’s/Won’t Do’s. Your Must Have’s and Can’t Have’s become the starting point for designing your life, and the things you put in those quadrants have a tremendous amount of power to shape how you approach and experience the world. As you do this, suddenly your life is by design. And that’s the true power of setting conditions & thinking 80/20. Well, now you decide if reading this blog is a part of your 80/20 or not? :-) Sending positive energies your way so that you all have a stress-free life, having it all.
Warmth, Priyanka |
AuthorLife & Organizational Development Coach Archives
February 2023
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