A blog by Karthik.
As the year 2011 begins with lot of fresh expectations and resolutions as usual, my mind ponder over the fact that whether I may be able to keep up the resolutions or come up with excuses, blaming the circumstances, waiting for the ideal situations…etc for not living up the expectations like the past years.
After a long pause filled with silence, finally I decided that I should figure out that why I am unable to keep up the resolutions and live up to my expectations last year. What is holding me back? How shall I overcome the obstacles: if any, to keep up the resolutions? Then I decided that if I succeed in answering all these questions then only I should take this year’s resolutions. Otherwise there is no point in taking these much hyped resolutions. It is a mere formality and waste of time.
Last year, I had made great resolutions and action plan at the start of the year. But when I was about to realize that I failed to live up to my expectations & keep up the resolutions, a year has passed by.
Initially I felt lot of depressed by the way things were shaped up for me but instead of hating my self, I chose to love my self as I am. Then I realized that these mistakes will make me stronger if I make an analysis and learn from them instead of ruing over failures and missed opportunities. These mistakes have highlighted my weaknesses and if corrected, it will make me well equipped to make the year 2011 a success. After deep reflections inside my mind over the events that happened in the past three years, I glanced through my thoughts and came out with the much needed analysis. The analysis threw a lot of surprises and shook me completely. Few excerpts from the analysis were as follows.
Reasons for failure & List of Mistakes (Narrated from the audience point of view)
1) The Blame Game
It has become a natural tendency for us to blame others and situations when something go wrong. It deters us to look into our own mistakes and our mind fails to interpret and learn from our mistakes by putting blame on others and circumstances. We get swayed away so easily and it will be too late when we realize our mistakes.
2) Controlling the controllable events.
Another interesting conclusion: When we are part of the blame game, we tend to focus on the uncontrollable events in which we don’t have any command and often feel depressed about our fate & circumstances. There are certain events which are purely in our control. If we try to focus on controllable events such as updating our knowledge base, skill sets, professional development, and fine tuning our attitude and other interpersonal skills then our quality of life will gradually improve over the long term even in some cases when we fail to fetch the results in the shorter term. We need to be more focused on the controllable events to fetch results.
3) No clear written goals or any action plan. Lack of focus & commitment.
Another reason for our failure to keep up the resolutions is that we don’t have any clear written goals or any action plan to make our resolutions achievable. This is one of the reasons for our resolutions dissolving in the initial stages it self. We should cultivate the habit of maintaining a personal and professional diary to keep our mind free of junks of information to think better and process the information to avoid repetitive mistakes.
Often our mind is crammed with thoughts and lots of information which hinders our clear & logical thinking. We should keep our mind as blank as possible with thoughts related to the task alone.
4) Falling short of preparations.
For late, we have developed this habit of facing emergency situations at office without any preparations like facing the best bowling attack in the world without any pre match practice and preparations. On the Professional front, at least one day a week preferably Sunday, we can dedicate for practice and preparations for envisaging the likely issues that are about to creep in during the coming week and to know & fine tune our weaknesses. I must admit that we may face unforeseen issues but with practice and preparations, we can handle the situations much better.
Suggestions & Steps for Self improvement:
5) The Threshold limit explained.
Definition: A level or point, at which something would happen, would cease to happen.
So if we practice to avoid the pitfalls in the first four tips, then we are almost halfway through but how to track whether we are on the right path, how to track when we are deviating from our resolutions? The answer lies in creating a threshold limit and constantly monitoring our efforts to check whether it falls below the threshold limit or above the threshold limit. Below the threshold limit means, there are issues that need our immediate attention and if we fail to respond at that point, we may fail in keeping up our resolutions. We should try something new by setting milestones & rewarding ourselves, reminders or some other creative approach with more will power & motivation. Above the threshold limit means we are operating on the safe ceiling.
If I practice the above mentioned points, I am sure that I can make the best out of 2011 but there is a pressing need inside me to upgrade myself. I don’t want to face the issues with the same mindset I had in 2010. I have to transcend beyond the world of five senses and to arrive at the perception of sixth sense if I really want to upgrade myself.
6) Sixth sense.
I have often wondered how the world’s best brains such as Albert Einstein, Sir Isaac Newton, Swami Vivekananda to mention a few were able to arrive at such mind blowing conclusions with crystal clear clarity. Are they generating that much amazing mind power? Are they tapping the energy from the all prevailing Universal source using their sixth sense? Here goes the answer.
When you practice your goals & ideas with single minded determination and focus and make that goal your life-and when you think of it, dream of it, and live on that idea then your brain, muscles, nerves, every part of the body, will be full of that idea. Your mind and intellect will be in sync with the Universal mind & intellect.
Then to achieve your goal, your mind taps the Universal Energy & information* from the Universal mind & intellect:- with the help of sixth sense perception.
Just as humans have a mind and intellect, so does the entire universe has a universal mind and Intellect which is already pre – programmed at the time of creation of the Universe and contains the information of all things in the universe. With the help of meditation* and constant practice of the goal & resolutions in our day to day life and progress spiritually,our mind merges with the Universal mind and intellect with the help of developed sixth sense* and taps the universal Energy and access the same for the well - being of the universe.
This is the way by which amazing discoveries & inventions both materialistic & spiritualistic have been made by focused individuals.
This is the way to success, and this is the way: eminent scientists, spiritual giants & sports icons are produced.
Sixth sense includes our ability to understand the subtle cause and effect relationship behind many events, which is beyond the understanding of the intellect that normally operate only on the dimension of five senses.
So far, to sum up with a conclusion, I have been operating well below the threshold limit on both personal and professional fronts over the years. I need to patch up immediately.
I know very well that when we try to direct a change, our mind will initially react with opposition to that change. There lies the pitfall and often we discard our efforts in the midway and blame the circumstances. But this time, I believe the key to moving ahead against opposition lies in responding not in reacting to the events, training your mind with patience and perseverance for not giving up even when it seems like the end. What you perceive to be the end is not the end. It’s a mere illusion. I plan to be more focused and I am looking forward to redouble my efforts by not blaming others & circumstances, controlling the controllable events, listing down my goals & action plan with priority & time frame, focusing on preparations to achieve my goals this year.
I have also decided to create a threshold limit by visualizing in my mind the end result of my resolutions and goals and preview the likely events that I have to perform along with action plan and time frame:- just like designing & previewing a sample animation movie. How interesting it seems!
Let us pledge to make the year 2011: a threshold limit viz.a point at which our goals will be transformed into reality for the end product to materialize and our weaknesses cease to exist. To begin with, we have approximately 360 days in our credit and let us strive to improve day by day by learning from our mistakes, dealing with our weaknesses one by one. Have a great year ahead. My wishes for you and your family.
Hope the ways mentioned in this blog propel you to go for an extra mile by assisting you to learn from my mistakes and implement the suggestions for improvement to keep up your resolutions and make yourself well equipped to deal with your weaknesses and convert it to strengths by constantly monitoring our progress twice everyday at the beginning of the day and at the end before going to sleep. Looking forward to hear from you.
Endnotes:
* Universal Energy & information: All the discoveries and inventions both materialistic and spiritualistic have been made possible by tapping the Universal Energy & information from the Universal mind & intellect which is available since the time of inception of the Universe, by our own mind & intellect. Nothing is yours & mine. Everything belongs to the universe.
Ref: The Bhagavad Gita. As Lord Krishna explains to Arjuna on the battlefield: The Essence of Gita.
You did not bring anything - whatever you have, you received from here. Whatever you have given, you have given only here. Whatever you took, you took from God. Whatever you gave, you gave to him. You came empty handed, you will leave empty handed.
* Meditation : In this context meditation is not confined to practicing spiritual hymns by closing your eyes. Meditation refers to your single minded focus & determination to execute your goal.
* Sixth Sense: Can be acquired by constant spiritual practice with single minded focus and determination to the task in hand as mentioned in the sacred Vedas.
Thank you for spending your valuable time to read my blog. Send in your comments to karthikthewriter@yahoo.in
A blog by Karthik
