Do you interpret and then act or act and then interpret?

Day in day out we are exposed to events, tasks, results, and our own internal desires. Most of us interpret it and generate a vicious cycle of disaster (see the first figure-Interpretation before action).

Example:

• Result: we are exposed to our disorganized home


• Interpretation: Organizing the house is a painful and boring job


• Generate feeling: Feeling of boredom


• Form belief: I don't enjoy organizing


• Label: I am a poor organizer


• Action or avoid action: I do nothing about organizing the house


• Result: More disorganization

This vicious cycle continues till a major disaster strikes; Even then change is limited to your capacity to interpret.

Let me give you a virtuous cycle-(Act and then interpret)

Act: Instead of interpreting we begin to act. We postpone interpreting

Positive results: We make progress. We get positive results- apart of our house is now organized

Interpret: That wasn't difficult. In fact I liked organizing and I did get the house organized, even though it is a small area of the house

Generate positive belief: I am beginning to enjoy organizing; Organizing the house is easy if I start small and continue for a few days till I get the whole house spic and span.

Dislodge dysfunctional label: I am not a poor organizer.In I am a good organizer; In a few days I will be great organizer

This is a virtuous cycle that will put you well on the path to getting your house organized and you becoming a good organizer.

You can apply this virtuous cycle in every area of life.

Try it out! It will change your life.

What is your experience? Do share your thoughts here!
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Do you have the habit of checking on your resources before you venture upon something?

I caught the company bus today and I was well on my way to a meeting when I suddenly realized that it was raining outside. Even though it is a rainy season in Mumbai, we experienced little rain in the last few days; So I forgot to take an umbrella.

This set me thinking-If only I had checked on what resources I needed before I left for the day, I would not be without an umbrella.

Many of us jump at an activity or a journey without thinking through the resources we need to accomplish the activity or get through a journey.

It is not enough to set goals or define tasks, It is also important to define the resources we need to accomplish that goal or to do that task.

Goals can be achieved through action and if we need to act, we will need the resources that enables the action to be executed.

You need to do the following:

Have a resource pause and ask your self the following question:

What resources do I need?

This one question can save you a lot of time and trouble.

Try it out.

What is your experience? Do share your thoughts here!

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What is one of the best ways to boost your self-esteem?

One of the sure fire ways to boost your self-esteem is to help someone in real need of help. The help could be in form of you doing something for them or it could be a financial support when they need money suddenly or it could be both.

The more you help others in different ways, the more your self-esteem will grow.

How do you go about helping others?

Here are a few tips:

• Be alert to opportunities that will come by your way
• Scan your community and plan your help strategy
• Join social groups that are involved in helping others
• Begin with your friends and relatives

Try it out! The trick is not to wait for grand opportunities to help others, it is to grab any opportunity, even a small one and help others with a sincere desire to do so with no thought of any return from them in any kind.

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How can you make next week the most productive week of your life?

As I sit today and look back at the week that went by, I feel I have accomplished quite a few things. However, I cannot say I was most productive all the days of the week.
Why is that so?

What about you? Was this week, the best, in terms of productivity?

Let's make next week the most productive week! Here are few of my thoughts of how to accomplish, just that.
This is possible only if you have every day of next week taken care of.

How do you make a day, any day productive?

Here is what you need to do:

• Always have your days goals set the previous night. Never start a day with out a list of goals to achieve.
• Have a good nights sleep the previous day
• Get up sufficiently early to reach your work place an hour earlier
• Start your day wit tasks related to the first goal you have planned to go after. Never start the day opening your email.
• Complete at least one major task before you check your email.
• Do not keep your email open for more than 15 minutes. Get yourself a timer and ruthlessly shut down the email when the alarm beeps.
• Set shutting down as a cue to get out of your desk and walk away from your desk-may be to another colleague, just to say hello or to the water cooler or to any other place you choose; This is your break and limit it to just 10 minutes.
• Get back, refreshed, and start on another task related to the same goal or another goal.
• Determine a preset time you will work on the task, say 30 minutes, and set the timer on
• Ensure that you tackle at least two major goals in the first half of the day and two major goals (total 4 goals) in the second half of the day.
• Check emails periodically and act according to urgency. always get back to the task you have started.
• You can use minor, unrelated tasks as breaks too.
• Ensure you spread the goals around the dashboard (see previous post on dashboard)
• Ensure that when you get back you have goals set for home/personal front too
• Schedule an hour to do totally random non goal related things

Try this out! Do share your experience here.

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Is your environment conducive to your goals and values?

Of all the powerful forces that act on us, environment is top on the list. It can make or break you. It can make or break your family. It can make or break your child.

How much of the environment you and your family are exposed to, are under your control?

It is important to take stock; While it is always not possible to have an environment conducive to your values or goals. it is very important to take charge your environment as far as possible.

You need, what I call compensatory exposure to environments/people who will reinforce your values and goals.

Compensatory exposure cannot happen by chance. You need to engineer it and plan for it.

What is your experience?

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Do you use the "power of ONE"?

There is the "power of one". It helps you to focus. It helps you to move quickly and steadily towards your goals.

What is the "power of one"? It is a very simple concept; Yet it is powerful and profound.

The "power of one" is getting into the habit of asking the following question and acting on the answer:

What is the ONE thing I need to do today that will get me to my goal? Answer this question and then schedule to do that; Do that!

You can ask the "power of one" questions at different levels and in different areas of your life.

Examples:

• What is the one goal I need to pursue today that will give me the maximum return?


• What is my one fault that if I correct will give me a giant leap in becoming a productive individual?


• What is my one talent that I possess if I utilize will give me a tremendous fulfillment?


• What is the one thing I need to do to improve my relationship with my child?


• What is the one thing I need to do to contribute meaningfully to the society or community?

Once you have achieved that one thing then you can move on to another.

Try it out! Do share your thoughts here!

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Do you project a false image of yourself to the outside world

I recently met a few people and found that they were projecting, to the external world, a image of themselves, that was so out of step with reality.

Are you the person, you project to the outside world? If not then there is a major congruence problem.

For many people the projection process may be subconscious, however for a few others it may be deliberate.

In either case, it is not a healthy situation. Watch yourself closely when you next interact with people, you may be surprised at the drama being played.

If you find a disconnect, of who you are and the image you are projecting, then you need to change the behaviour of projecting the false images; This needs a lot of intrapersonal work.

What is your experience? Do share your thoughts here!

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Have you ever got back to your roots?

I took a vacation and went to my native town. Took my family to our ancestral homes and showed them the spots where various events had happened in my childhood. The whole trip was nostalgic. I went to my kindergarten school and took some photographs.

Since, I had lots of time on hand-no laptop or cell phones, I had lots of time to think and reflect back. I found the whole experience very refreshing.

Have you ever tried to go back to your roots? Try it out!

As memories will flood back, along with it you will get nuggets of values that have been associated with those memories. These are the values that have made you the person who you are. Examine them! keep the good ones and discard the dysfunctional ones.

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I am back from vacation!

I was away on a vacation last week.

I will start posting from today.

What are the prerequisites of any action?

Every action can be done well or it can be done poorly. An action can hit the mark or be wasted in terms of effort and time spent on it.

What are the universal prerequisites that will take your action to the level of excellence and give it a masterpiece touch?

Let me list, for you, the prerequisites for you here:

Please refer to the picture while reading the list below.

• Your desire to contribute through the action must be very high. This one factor is the missing link between you and excellence. Check your desire to contribute and consciously raise it.
• Your commitmentt to the action must be high; If you are highly committed to the action, you will leave a stamp of excellence. Check your level of commitment for the task.
• You need to set the goal/objective of the action. It is very common for people to start an action without thinking through what they want to accomplish through it. Check whether you have set a goal for the action. This is also the time to set a deadline.
• Include others in the action; especially if team work is required for carrying out the action. Even if it is only you who have to carry out the action, it is a good ideas to discuss the action with others. They may give you a different perspective. Ask your self who you can contact for this action.
• Generate ideas of how you will carry out the action. The more you generate, the richer the choice you have. You can choose the best alternative. In this stage it is a good idea to involve others. They may give you priceless ideas or their ideas may lead you to a totally new idea. Check whether you have generated sufficient ideas before you have decided what to do.
• Action it out without any delay. If there are several, sequential actions then list them out and do them one by one. Delegate the actions and monitor your other team members for completion.
• Once the action is complete, learn from it; This is especially true for recurring actions.

Use this list and you will be amazed at the results you get in life!

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Do you use locks effectively to reach your goals?

In this world of extreme distraction, we need to learn to use locks. If we do not learn to use locks effectively, we can end up in an imbalanced and unfulfilled life.

Look at the picture and you will see the series of locks you need to use to accelerate the achievement of your goals.

Let me describe them here:

• Contextual lock-This is the first lock you need to engage-example: You are in the office and you lock yourself in the professional context; Which means that your actions are all related to your professional and company related matters. At home you engage the family lock and do not continue to pursue actions on the professional front, unless it is an emergency.


• People lock-Once you have locked the context, then you need to engage the people lock. The actions you are going to pursue, are they for self or some specific individual in your organization, assuming your context is professional at that moment.


• Contribution lock-Once you have engaged the people lock, then you need to ask yourself how you can contribute to this person and establish an area for contribution-example your boss has asked you to develop a business plan for a new business venture.


• Goal Lock-Once you have engaged the contribution lock, then you need to determine which goal you will pursue in the locked context, person and contribution area. Identify a goal and engage a further goal lock with an established period of time you will pursue this goal-15 minutes 0r 1 hour or half a day.


• Action lock-You develop an action plan based on the locks you have engaged so far and finally engage an action lock, which means that for the next period of established time, say one hour, you will pursue this action and nothing else.


• Unlock-Once you have finished the action and the time period is over then you will unlock and pursue either another action or decide to continue the action you are doing by re-engaging the locks.

There is a power in this cycle! It is one of the best antidote to distraction and multitasking which will get you nowhere.. It also helps you to achieve a balanced success in all areas of your life

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15 things to do so that you do not have to hear ideas, you could have thought about yourself, from others.

Hearing ideas from others is a valuable exercise. We need to be open to others ideas so that we can examine our own and discard them if we encounter a superior idea. However, many a times, we hear ideas from others, we could have easily come up with ourselves.

Have you ever come out of a meeting thinking how you wish you had thought of that idea yourself?

Here are the fifteen things you need to do to avoid such a situation:

1. Define the problem or issue completely so that you home in on ideas that are rich and relevant to it
2. Arrive at the definition only after arriving at at least 5 alternative definitions of the problem or issue
3. Apply the Pareto principle-what are the 20% of the elements of the issue or problem if I tackle, will give me 80% of the results or impact?
4. Depending on the complexity of the problem or issue, set aside 3 to 5 sessions of creative thinking.
5. Use an expensive pen and a note book to capture your priceless ideas; Nothing motivates like luxury!
6. Generate as many ideas as possible
7. Look at the issue from different angles
8. Plan your sessions sufficiently advance so that you can sleep over after each of the sessions
9. Read the ideas you have written just before falling asleep
10. Capture ideas, if any, in the morning
11. Repeat steps 5 to 10 for every planned session
12. Consolidate the ideas and review
13. Choose the best of the ideas and form an ideas list
14. Start applying these ideas to the issue or problem
15. You are now ready to listen to the ideas of others with an open mind

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Do you miss an opportunity even though it stares in your face?

Some opportunities will knock your door hard and you need to to be completely stone deaf not to hear it. However, most of the opportunities arrive silently and are in the backdrop;

They stay there until time elapses and the opportunities fade away, unnoticed.

Most of the people miss opportunities as they are unaware of them!

Why does this happen?

Experiment:

Just close your eyes and decide that when you will open it you will notice all the red colored stuff around you.

Did you suddenly become aware of all the red colors around you? The more you are in this red color search mode, the more you will filter out the other colors or even if you see them, you will ignore them.

Hence, it is very important to scan for opportunities. The problem is people get fixated on their goals. They wear goggles and forget to remove them (Check out the previous post on "goggles" if you have not read it).

Examples:

So executives get stuck to their professional goals to the neglect of their family goals or people get stuck to their financial goals to the neglect of their health goals; This is assuming that they have set goals in the first place.

To a person carrying a hammer, everything will appear as a potential nail.

What is paradoxical is that even if you have set goals in different areas of your life, you will miss them if you do not actively scan for opportunities.

The more you are aware of your goals, in different areas, in your life and the more you keep them in front of you and scan for opportunities, the more you will be able to spot opportunities and grab them.

The picture depicts what you need to do.

Steps:

• Identify the situation or context you are in (in office or out on the road or at your daughter's school or ---)
• Select a goal relevant to the situation
• Scan for opportunities relevant to the goal
• Spot the opportunity
• Action it
• Accomplish

Going through this cycle again and again for different goals can completely change the direction of your life!

Try it and share your experience here!

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Do you use pen and paper to think?

Try this out! Next time you have a complex problem to solve, take a pen and paper and begin to think by capturing on paper your thoughts.

For many of you, this will give a tremendous boost in the quality of your thinking; While you write down your thoughts, you should also attempt to draw them.

You will realize the power of this technique only when you actually experience it.

Once you find your quality of thinking improving, you can then buy an expensive pen and a note book; Name this pen as the think pen and the note book as the think note book.

Have them handy! You never know when you will need them!

Why do you need to buy expensive pens and notebooks? It is because you need these tools to record your priceless thoughts!

Many of us do not have this habit of thinking on paper and we miss out on the powerful thoughts that could have flown from our minds to the pen to the paper if only we had these tools and used them!

What is your experience? Do share your thoughts here!

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What is your degree of ownership and contribution to a specific cause?

The degree of your ownership and contribution will determine the extent to which you give high quality output and attain satisfaction for others and yourself.

Let's examine the Ownership-contribution matrix:

Please study the picture before you read further.

Quadrant of Low Ownership and Low Contribution:

In this quadrant your ownership to the goal/task is low and also the contribution is low. Unless you have consciously examined the goal/task and determined that it is of no value to you, this is a wrong quadrant to be in. It can also be a dangerous quadrant to be in.

Example: You have consciously examined and determined that it is a waste of time to wash the car as it will rain any moment.

Example: You have low ownership of your weight loss program and your contribution to your own weight loss is zero, as you don't exercise and continue to eat junk food.

Quadrant of Low Ownership and High Contribution

In this quadrant your ownership to the goal/task is low, but your contribution is high. This more of forced contribution.

Example: Your child doing home work because her teacher is going to check the home work tomorrow.

Example: You go to the gym everyday and work out because your spouse will be very unhappy otherwise and may nag you.

Quadrant of High Ownership and Low Contribution

In this quadrant you have high ownership for the goal/task, but your contribution is low.

If it is a conscious choice to delay the contribution because of specific reasons, such as, you having a time constraint, as you are focused on achieving other high priority goals, where your ownership and contribution is high, then it is alright to be in this quadrant for the particular goal/task in question.

However, if you are in this quadrant because you are pursuing other non value adding activities that have diverted your attention or pursuing activities dictated by others which are not aligned to your goals and you said yes to them because you couldn't say no to the people who asked you, then this is a dangerous quadrant to be in.

Example: You have consciously decided to delay exercising till you finish your forthcoming exams

Example: You have forgotten about exercising because you have chosen to watch TV mindlessly or you have postponed unconsciously because you value lazing around the TV more than exercising.

Quadrant High Ownership and high Contribution

This is the best quadrant to be in. It is possible to be in this quadrant only if we constantly ask ourselves these two questions:

• What is my current ownership to this goal/task?


• How can I contribute, my best, to this goal/task?

We need to ask these questions and raise the degree of our ownership and contribution!

This is a sure fire recipe to a highly successful living!

Try it out and it will change your world forever!

What is your experience? Do share your thoughts here!

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Do you see your world, coloured, through just one pair of goggles?

All of us wear goggles! I am using the word "goggles" metaphorically here. There are different kinds of goggles. Some of them are shown in the picture.

Different types of goggles!

• Parent goggles
• Business person goggles
• Professional goggles
• Hobbyist goggles
• Fitness goggles
• Recreation goggles
• Spouse goggles
• Leader goggles
• Manager goggles
• Citizen goggles
• Contribution goggles (How can I contribute to the betterment, enhancement, achievement---)
• Family goggles
• Friend goggles

There are many goggles you wear in life. The ones you wear the most, color your world the most; For example, if you wear your professional goggles, it will filter everything out that is not related to your professional life. If you forget to take this goggles off when its utility is done, you will continue to see your world colored through it and you may neglect your other areas of life.

The good news is that you have a choice to select the appropriate goggles you wear! You also have a choice to rotate different goggles you wear, day in day out, so that your life is balanced.

The way you see the world determines the thoughts and the actions you will be taking.

Questions to ask yourself:

What goggles am I wearing right now?

How long have I been wearing them?

Are there other goggles that I should be wearing but I have not worn them for a long time?

A successful life is a balanced life! Use the powerful concept of goggles to have uniform achievement in all areas of your life!

What is your experience? Do share your thoughts here!

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What is the timelag between your goal oriented actions?

Let's say you start an action which you chose that will take you to one of your goals. You do it for a certain period and then stop; Then there are a set of actions that are not related to your goals, which lasts for a certain period of time; This action goes on till you suddenly realize that you have to get back to the activities that are meaningful to you and goal oriented to you.

What is the time lag between the two set of goal oriented activities ? Have you ever checked that out?
For some people it may be an hour or two, for some it may be minutes, and for a lot of people it may be days or months or even years!

Do this experiment! You may be surprised at the results.

This monitoring may prove to be one of the most important activities you ever have done in your entire life.

The time lag between your goal oriented actions will determine whether you will achieve all the goals in your life!

Think about it!

Do share your experience here.

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Do you speak with people who matter?

I visited an old colleague of mine whom I have always respected. I enjoyed my conversation with him. We discussed various topics including the consulting industry to which we both belong.

Not only did I enjoy the conversation, I also found my mind drawing in some options for solutions to some specific issues I was juggling with.

What is amazing is that neither one of us were directly talking about or discussing the issues in question.

It is important to have a select few individuals with whom you need to talk on a regular basis. You will be surprised at the amount of subliminal inputs you get from them.

Try it out! Do share your experience here.

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How do you treat your senior citizens?

An incident, yesterday, at the mall shocked me and taught me a very important lesson!

We were searching for some drawing tools for my new hobby; I am learning to draw cartoons.

As we went from one aisle to another, we finally reached the aisle where the stationary items were displayed.

I went half way in and my way was blocked by a man who did not respond to me when I told him, "Excuse me!"; As I moved forward, when I got a chance, I told him to stand aside, as he was blocking the way of others.
My tone was tough, rough, and expressed exasperation. As we continued to search for the items in that aisle, a lady came to me and said that the person, who was blocking the way, was an old man, 72 years old.

She picked up a fight with me and said, "That is not the way to talk to an old man!" I further got irritated and put her in her place!

Later on while reflecting on the incident, I felt that I had committed serious error.

Why did this happen?

Here are the reasons:

• I assumed that the man stood there, blocking the way, on purpose
• I assumed that he did not care for me
• I assumed that he was arrogant
• I did not even look at the man and hence, did not notice that he was old

Here are some more thoughts that came to me while reflecting on the incident:

• May be he was deaf
• May be he had a recent operation and could not move swiftly
• May be his reflexes are slow at his age
• May be he was preoccupied with his worries and did not hear me
• May be he was arrogant

I always thought I was a compassionate person.

I learnt that you can be compassionate only if you are aware!

You can be compassionate only if you observe others and their situation.

You can be compassionate only if you pause and not react blindly to your assumptions.

Another lesson I learnt is that old people are like children. We need to take care of them and ensure that they do not come in the way of others or are not a nuisance others.

We need to be behind them, just as we would be with a small child. We need the compassion and caring to do so!

I decided that never again will I loose my temper because of my assumptions. I also decided to be more aware of others to be more compassionate.

What is your experience? Do share your thoughts here!

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When was the last time you gave courage to someone?

Recently we came to know that one of our relatives (a 31 year old lady) was diagnosed of a serious, life threatening illness; Her family members are completely shaken up; especially the girl's mother.

What do you say to such a family that is in shock? It is very important to carefully decide before hand what needs to be told.

This is how we handled it:

• We expressed our shock and sadness to them
• We talked to the close people around that girl, especially the girl's mother

We told her that:

• This is the time for courage.
• This is the time to be tough.
• This is the time to give a lot of courage to your daughter
• This is the time to keep saying that everything will be fine
• This is the time to guard your daughter from every negative thought, every negative people and every negative situation
• This is the time to accept what has happened and to start doing things to cure the disease
• This is the time to fight back at the disease
• This is the time to go to war against the disease
• This is the time to take charge and lead the battle, for your daughter needs you to lead more than any other time in her life
• This is the time to take charge and guide every other family member about the situation
• This is the time to use the wonderful advances in medical science and wage a war

We left her with this thought:

No battle is lost until the last bullet has been fired! Be tough! Be courageous! Be positive! Give your best fight! Trust in doctors after choosing the best ones; More than anything else, trust in God!

We also told her that we will always be with her and her family in this fight!

Trust in God; Do your best;Fight with an attitude to win!

This is what we realized after we gave courage to them!

It is in these kind of situations your family or friends need your support! It is easy to play, have fun, enjoy, when things are going right with them; You need a lot of courage your self to give courage.

When was the last time you gave courage to others? If you have not done so, then it is time to reexamine your values and start giving courage to the needy; More than any gift you can give a human, it is the courage to face the battle of life that will be prized the most!

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Trust in God; Do your best;Fight with an attitude to win!

What we realized after talking to the girl's mother