Since my husband started his business, I've been doing a lot of research these days about launching and marketing a new business. Internet articles, blog posts and books from marketing gurus, online self-help videos, you name it and there's a good chance that I've heard of it. While a lot of this material was insightful and definitely inspirational, it sometimes gave me a sense of trying to play catch up with the rest. It felt like a whole bunch of people have figured it all out and are living brilliantly successful lives while I'm still groping at all sorts of information thrown at me. When things attained a new overwhelming pitch I finally decided to step back and take a long deep breath. To bring me some clarity I decided to put pen to paper and started jotting down everything that came to mind. Finally, after pages and pages of rambling on which was a mix of some insights, an ounce of complaining and random thoughts of inspiration, I was done venting. As the fog cleared and my mind started calming down, I began reading what I'd written and was quite surprised to see some useful bits of information shining through all that clutter of words. So I decided to actually make a blog post out of it and send it into cyber space hoping that it'll find its rightful reader.
1. Do a little bit more than yesterday.
This is actually quite simple to do. We sometimes get sucked into a rut and forget to check in with ourselves every once in a while. Often life becomes about living for the weekend and this thought can help you shake out of that habit. Whatever your current aim is just check in with yourself on a daily basis to see if you did a little bit more than yesterday (If you don't have an aim then make one, to begin with). You could do more each day in terms of quantity or quality, depending on what the task is, but just being aware about how much has been done in comparison to yesterday can be a good motivator. In my case, I have had the aim to be more organized. So I started doing one extra chore each day that I hadn't done on the day before. Tasks like cleaning one extra counter top, organizing one extra shelf space or de-cluttering one extra corner of the house helped me get more into the habit of being organized and helped me get over my lazy attitude. The best part is that it works for almost anything. Do that one extra pushup today, run an extra block today, finish that one extra page for the report today. Pushing yourself to do just one bit more often gets you into the habit of being efficient much faster and over just a few weeks you realize that you've achieved a whole lot more than you would have otherwise. Setting an unreasonable goal for yourself and trying to power through all that mental resistance can only get you so far. It's not a long term solution.
2. Give credit to your habitual patterns regardless of how annoying they are.
Our habits and reactions are sources of vast information about ourselves, if only we could recognize them that way. We often pay very little attention to our own habits, especially if they are not something to be proud of. Nobody wants to recognize their 'bad' habits at the fear of being ridiculed, criticized or even ostracized but we forget that our habitual reactions to situations and people often come from a much deep rooted belief or insecurity. If only we gave our habits the respect they deserve and listen to what they've been trying to tell us, we would end up learning so much more about ourselves. Instead of labeling habits as good or bad, if we just observe them objectively as general characteristics we would be able to really start looking at them without feeling angry, guilty or disgusted. I'm still working on mine and far from making radical changes but this approach has definitely let me loosen up much more which, to me, is an achievement in itself.
3. Every experience can be treated as a test case scenario.
We are doing that everyday, that's how we learn to adapt and react to the environment. What I'm talking about is applying this approach to situations involving negative emotions. I'm not asking you to be stoic or emotion less but if you treat each incident as a test case of action and reaction then every reaction you get is just a feedback. The whole observation becomes analytical and loses most of its emotional drama. That leaves you calmer and much more focused on getting the end results.
4. Develop the quality of being thirsty for knowledge.
This is a rather important point if you plan to enjoy a satisfied life. Notice how I said satisfied, not rich, not famous but satisfied. Gaining knowledge can be the most satisfying thing if done the right way. Be curious, ask questions and prod into the details. It might make u a nerd but it sure is an immensely satisfying process once you start viewing things around you with a childlike wonder. We get so stuck with a knowledge base that is of advantage to us in order to grow rich/be successful/climb the ladder that we forget being a connoisseur of knowledge. Yes, a connoisseur, that’s what I’d like to call it. Knowledge, even technical, can be treated like art. You can absorb it, linger on it and appreciate thoroughly to get the feeling of complete satisfaction. I’m an electrical engineer by profession, but recently because of taking up this business endeavor along with my husband, I started reading up on how to build a website. At first it was cumbersome, I was frustrated that we need to put in so much work just to get our website up and running. And that’s barely getting to the starting point of any business. That kind of attitude got me unwanted stress, constant arguments and a whole bunch of distracting thoughts that were slowing my progress even more. So one day after a long chat with my husband I decided to grow up, deal with my current situation and mend my attitude. That’s right. I changed the way I looked at this whole situation. Here I was an engineer, who for the first time was getting to build an actual professional website and getting to learn so many cool features in the process. Why then was I whining about this? I realized that life was forcing me to look into developing a skillset which otherwise would have gone unnoticed. When I truly learnt to appreciate the knowledge that I was gaining, the tasks became fun and I genuinely started looking out for ways to better the end result. Eventually when the site went live, the satisfaction to me has been at par with getting a raise at a salaried job.
