How to break the chains that bind you?

All of us drag chains with heavy weights attached to it. These chains prevent us from achieving success and reaching our full potential.

Everyone of us has at least one big iron ball chained to our legs or our hands are tied as we go through life?

Examples of chains that bind you:

- Laziness
- Disorganization
- Insensitive nature
- Pleasure centered living
- A bad habit

The list can go on. It is important to draw up a list and identify which chain and iron ball is holding you back; The one that is the biggest.

Take decision to day to untie and unchain yourself with that one thing that binds you, hinders you, and prevents you from reaching your full potential.

It is time for you to untie and unchain yourself!

Here is what you need to do:

• Develop top 5 list of chains that bind you


• Identify one chain that is impeding your progress to the greatest extent


• Use overriding will (see previous post) and break that chain


• Develop strategies to educate your will (see previous post)


• Educate your automatic will


• Take a zero tolerance stand


• Monitor periodically for success



• Reward yourself periodically


• Start with the reward right now ( you have read this post and decided to act on it)-you deserve it!


• Stabilize the change and move on to the next chain

Try this out! Break one chain at a time and set yourself free to soar the skies of achievement!

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Do you know how to use your will?

There are three kinds of will.

They are listed below*:

• The automatic will
• The overriding will
• The educated will

What is an automatic will?
It is your will that has been hijacked by a habit or an external stimulus.

What is an overriding will?

It is the will you use to overcome the tremendous pull a habit or an external stimulus arouses in you to act by using the associated automatic will

What is an educated will?

It is the automatic will associated with a habit or a recurring stimulus that is educated to respond differently

It is important to examine our actions and check which of these wills are acting. Most of the people have their will subordinated by impulses, habits and strong external stimuli.

It is important to use your overriding will and train and educate your automatic will to respond differently.

The more educated will you have the more your life will go in the direction you want it to go.

Example: You have this great urge to smoke. The urge comes from your habit, the stimulus-withdrawal symptoms of nicotine acting upon you, and the external stimulus of your friend offering you a cigarette. Your automatic will overpowers any thought of avoiding to smoke and you yield.

You have two alternatives:

One alternative is to use your overriding will and say no. This requires tremendous energy and your overriding will needs to be strong enough, by constant use, to do so. It will be difficult to use only the overriding will because at some point it may be exhausting to do so.

Another alternative is to use your overriding will and say "NO" and then educate your automatic will to respond differently.

You will decide and teach your automatic will the following:

• Your automatic will be taught to avoid situations that are conducive to smoking
• Your automatic will be taught to say no to your friend, explaining him that you are giving up smoking
• Your automatic will be taught to throw away the cigarette with one puff, even if you yield to smoking
• Your automatic will be taught to substitute cigarette with say coffee or tea

The point I am trying to drive at is that your will need to be educated to deal with the strong pull of a habit or an external stimulus.

The strategies I have provided, with respect to smoking, need not work for you; What you need to do is develop your own strategies to get rid of smoking.

You can apply this powerful approach and set things right in your life. Once you educate your automatic will it will behave differently

Remember: Educated Will + Skill + Educated Will directed environment is the formula for success.

Try it out and do share your experience here.

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Do you read, watch movie or TV indiscriminately?

There are many movies I wish I had not seen. This is one of the reasons why we as a family is very careful while taking our daughter to the movies; Similarly there are many TV programs that I should never have watched.

My father was always cautious and checked the books I read when I was a child.

I read a lot! I have plenty of very good books, however, I have also come across books that do not match my values or they are plain wrong in the stance they take.

The problem with books is that you cannot have a dialogue with the author and disagree with him.

Hence, it is important to be careful while buying books; otherwise you can have an indigestion; So is it with movies or television. To give you an example, there was one frightening movie that I saw as a child that haunted me for a long time

What is your experience? Do share it here.

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Do you know you always have a choice?

How do you react when life doesn't match up the way you want it to? You feel you have lost it and everything seems dark in front of you.


Here is a poem that will light your way!

You always have a choice!*

There will be times when things will go wrong, very wrong,
And life will no more be a happy song,

There will be times when you wish you were never born,
And life will gift you a thorn

There will be times when, in sorrow, you drown,
And life will push you down and further down,

It is in these times, you need to stand up, fight,
Fight hard to set things right,

It is in these times, you need to find poems & prose,
And throw the thorn and search for the rose,

It is in these times you need to embrace your strife,
Strive hard and fully live your life,

It is in these times you need to wipe your frown, smile,
And get going and go for the extra mile,

For always, you have a choice, to find your voice,
And use that voice to tell you that you have a choice.

*© Muralidharan Jayaram

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