Tuesday, September 08, 2015

The secret of Success!

Socrates

A young man asked Socrates, an ancient Greek philosopher, the secret of Success. Socrates told the man to meet him near the river the next morning. They met. Socrates asked the young man to walk with him toward the river.

When the water got up to their necks, Socrates took the young man by surprise and ducked him into the water. The man struggled to get out but Socrates was strong and kept him underwater until he started turning blue The young man struggled hard and finally managed to get up. The first thing he did was to gasp and take a deep breath.
Socrates asked, ‘What did you want the most when you were under the water?”

The man replied: “Air”.

Socrates said: That’s the most secret to success. When you want success as badly as you want air, you will get it. There is no other secret’.

Reflection:
A burning desire is the starting point of all accomplishments. Just like a small fire cannot give much heat, a weak desire cannot produce great results...

More about Socrates:
Socrates is a famous ancient Greek philosopher. He was born in Athens in 469 BC and was killed (by poison) in 399 BC (about 71 years old) because the government didn’t agree with his teaching. Socrates is widely credited for laying the foundation for Western philosophy.

Saturday, September 05, 2015

How to Be Yourself

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands but seeing with new eyes.~Marcel Proust
Have you ever been in a social setting, suddenly realizing you are not being yourself? This article takes an in depth look at why we play various roles in our lives, and how to overcome these socially conditioned “masks” to be yourself.
Perhaps you’ve caught yourself saying, “I love catching up with my old school buddies, it’s so easy to be myself in their company”? Or, “Felt so miserable at that party, making polite conversation with bunch of superficial people.”
It transpires that we are often not our true selves in the company of others – subconsciously and repeatedly wearing masks that project a certain image of us to the world.
We seem to have a collection of these masks that habitually surface, intending to best serve our self-interest, based on the need of our immediate environment. These masks come in varied shapes and colors like, the aggressor, the conformist, the nice guy, the shy one, etc.
Only when we are able to bring these masks into our active awareness and deal with them, can we be ourselves and experience the freedom that brings.

Why Do We Pretend?

We acquire these masks from various experiences through life – those gained during our childhood being the most notable and lasting ones. It’s our primal instinct and desire to be loved. This is such a deep longing that right from our childhood, we are constantly adapting to our environment and building different strategies, so we can better fulfill this need.
Depending upon what seems to work, meaning specifically what helps gain our parents’ love during our early years, we subliminally begin to cement those strategies into our psyche.
Some of these become so deep rooted that as adults, we see them as an integral part of our personality – acknowledging it with comments like, “this is the way I am and it’s hard for me to be any other way”.

The Different Types of Masks

1. High Performer
As bestselling author, John Gray explains in What you feel, you can heal, this is how it works. If we were recognized for exceeding our parents’ expectations, say at school, we can grow up believing that being a high performer is the real ticket to be loved.
As a result, one may always aspire, and even go to great lengths, to exceed others’ expectations, be it one’s supervisor, peers, or spouse. Falling short of our own expectations in any way then is a source of disappointment and an opportunity to blaming ourselves. Also, with this approach, we have high expectations of others and can be very judgmental of them.
2. Conformist
If we were loved and encouraged every time we followed our parents’ directives, we can easily grow up being a conformist, believing that it would not be in our self-interest to go against the norm in any group – a family, social circle or an organization.
3. Diplomat
Similarly, we could play the diplomat, keeping our true feelings to ourselves but seeking to create a congenial atmosphere in a group; the reserved one, always hiding our true selves in the belief that we are not lovable anyways.
4. Poor Me
The poor me person believes in the notion that “only when I am in deep trouble and wronged can I attract others’ attention and love.
5. Aggressor
The aggressor is the person for whom anger and show of superiority is the way to get noticed.
6. Critic
The person who is constantly finding faults with others in order to hide their own inadequacies.
7. Bragger
The bragger, where lack of self-esteem leads to eulogizing about oneself in the hope of being loved and admired.
These masks get hard wired in our personality and show up in every aspect of our life, including at work and in our relationships.
high performer belief system may result in a workaholic or a perfectionist; a poor me mentality may constantly attract trouble – physical or emotional; a critic is never happy with the way things are in any setting and so forth.
As these patterns are accompanied by suppressing our true feelings, they create ongoing emotional baggage in our lives. There’s always then an inner sense of incompleteness, and we are unable to fully experience an emotionally satisfying life.

How to Be Yourself


“There is but one cause of failure and that is

a man’s lack of faith in his true self.”

~ William James
Despite our subconscious behavior patterns, we can free ourselves from these limiting beliefs and tendencies. This requires making a conscious choice to be true to our feelings and being honest in all our interactions.
At a deeper level, this entails connecting with our pure inner self and realizing that we are truly worthy of being loved, and are capable of fully loving others. That then provides us the courage to express our true thoughts and feelings, without the fear of being judged.

Social interaction is such a key part of human experience that social neuroscientists now believe that as many as four out of every five thoughts we have are in the context of relating to others.
Further, research by Richard Boyatzis, an Emotional Intelligence expert, highlights how fear of social rejection is one of the three most common causes of human stress. A commitment to being authentic in all our interactions can liberate us – feeling confident of being lovable allows us to not suppress our emotions, making us emotionally healthy and resilient.
As Mark Twain said, “If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything.” It also supports us in being more open to seeking others’ help and be willing to be vulnerable, which in turn, may make us even more endearing.
Let me share a couple of quick examples from my coaching experience here. A senior executive, who wanted to work on his relationships, was described by his colleagues as the critic - very controlling, had high expectations of them, and dealt with every shortfall with harsh words.
As he consistently received negative feedback about his relationships and felt highly stressed from his work life, he was committed to make some real changes. As he became more self-aware, he started to notice the underlying beliefs for his difficult behavior – felt it was his egoistic desire to be right, perfectionist nature, and a deep desire to succeed.
As we worked together, he started to shift his expectations from seeking perfection to more wholesome progress; started to better listen to others and put their agenda before his own; became more comfortable with his true self and less judgmental of others – accepting himself as he was and others as they were; overall, becoming more authentic in his listening, sharing, and conduct. Guess, authentic leaders realize that the power lies not in being right, but in being real.
Another client of mine was always striving to be the nice guy, trying to find a suitable compromise to resolving any friction between his parents and his wife. While this served him alright in the initial years, over time, he started to appreciate that this wasn’t really working – his parents expressed always feeling short changed; his wife felt her point of view was never fully respected; the client himself felt stifled constantly searching for convenient solutions that could somehow please everyone.
Paying attention to this, somewhere he recognized the need to begin expressing his honest thoughts and feelings to all parties – this meant bringing the problems of family disconnects in the open for all to see rather than hide them. As he gathered the courage to candidly confront the problems, the family collectively decided to take on some hard decisions – resulting in the client feeling relieved, and everyone feeling comfortable with the decisions.
As is evident in these examples, this process kind of involves two steps:
  1. Knowing yourself, and then,
  2. Choosing to be yourself.
Knowing yourself revolves around building a deeper understanding of our tendencies to hide behind various masks and being willing to examine them.
As long as there is friction in our relationships and a sense of incompleteness or dissatisfaction in our hearts, we need to remain open to examining our selves and our inner belief systems.
A willingness to dive deeply into our core leads to realizing who we are and how whole, complete and perfect we all are – and that raises our ability to love ourselves as well as to stop doubting our worthiness to receive others’ love.
Being yourself then is about taking responsibility towards overcoming our habitual traits and building the capacity to express ourselves fully and honestly. This means being mindful of our choices at all times and choosing to being totally authentic without being fearful of the outcomes of our words and actions.
Being yourself eventually shifts us away from the inner emotional turmoil and towards feeling lighter, liberated and happy.
* Which masks do you catch yourself wearing? Got tips for being yourself? Share your stories and thoughts with us in the comment section.
Before you go: please share this story on FacebookRT on Twitter.Follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Subscribe to receive email updates. Thank you for your support!

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Are You Financially Prepared For An Emergency?



Money is not everything, but for everything you need money. It's an established fact that money plays a vital role in present-day living. If you are financially prepared, you can easily overcome difficult situations and fix away your problems without getting frail. Life can get you into an emergency without any warning. It requires advance planning and preparation on your part to tackle these kinds of situations effectively.

Are you prepared?

Is your financial information well arranged and properly organized? Have you prepared your will? Have you told anyone about your vital financial information? In case of an evacuation, are your documents ready for the 'grab and go'? Hurricane, flood, earthquake or theft can come at any time creating an emergency situation. If you are not prepared financially, it's easy to get into a messy circumstance. On the other hand, if you have a stout monetary support, you can emerge out as a winner.

What can we do?

1. Get out of debt fast

Getting out of debt may seem to be a distant dream at a particular point of time. But, with proper planning, persistent efforts and by curtailing certain extras, you can definitely overcome your debt and avert monetary implications.

a. If you are in debt, you need to take steps to get rid of it, not any other loan for a temporary relief. You should focus on doing three things - Increase your income, recognize what got you into the debt (circumstances or your habits) and based on your assessments take steps to fix your debt.

b. Next, you need to pick a suitable help. Solutions, such as a debt rearrangement loan may work towards your favor, but it will work only when you take this option at the right time and under right circumstances.

c. When you are in a debt, you need to seriously sort out your spending habits and curb on unnecessary expenses. It may be possible that you are repaying your debt with so little progress that it will take a long-long time to repay it fully. By that time, you would have paid manifolds of the principal value. A debt settlement plan may work, but only when you know your priorities well. Failing to do so may sink you further. Thus, you need to control your state of affairs and manipulate your creditors effectively to pay off your debts in an easy manner.

2. Use credit wisely

First of all, don't finance unaffordable lifestyle with your credit cards. Keeping your purchases within your limits is the key. Often, people are lured with the innumerable products available in the market and use credit cards to purchase unreasonable things only to repent at a later stage. Credit card is a marvelous facility, but works out to be beneficial only when used with astuteness.

a. If you are already into a financial trouble, avoid using credit cards. Pertaining fees and other monetary charges can add up to your debt. However, using a credit card to tackle a financial difficulty is better than to arrange funds by keeping your house on mortgage.

b. Raise your bar; don't get hooked to the minimum payments. Paying only the minimum amount due will eventually elongate the repayment period, and by the time you repay all your dues, you would have actually paid multiple times of the amount you took on credit.

c. Don't get fooled by the low teaser temporary rates; money borrowed during promotional low-interest rates is most likely to be carried on to the higher permanent rates. Make your credit card payments on time and avoid surcharges and penalties. This will also increase your credit score.

3. Get organized

Your spouse, anyone of your adult children or someone who is entrusted to handle your finances should know where your property papers, contracts, documents and policies etc. are located. By making plans ahead of the time, you can actually ease the stress that your loved ones would face in the event of your illness or sudden demise.

This article is written by Rupa Sinha who has been writing articles on a wide range of topics. She is a highly rated writer at a number of article writing platforms.