Choose joy

Happiness is a choice that you make every moment of your life. You are reading this possibly because you are happy to read it. Possibly you are reading this post to divert yourself from some pressing worries. Perhaps you are reading this because you hope to be inspired or your get to learn some new words or simply because it appeared in your inbox and you are curious to know what it is all about. Whatever be your reason to read, it better be a conscious choice but more importantly it must be a choice that makes you feel happy. Choosing joy is not an option but a compulsion because the world around has enough and more challenges, worries and problems that will engulf you and joy is that antidote to cope with it.

Finding joy is not as complicated as one may think, considering the numerous challenges one faces daily. It is all about adopting /embracing the right mix of self belief, attitude, optimism and being pragmatic.

Self belief– It is the belief that you are blessed with choices and that you will choose the right path as long as you can visualize joy at the end of it. E.g. A student has studied well but unfortunately gets a very tough question paper. Despite the possibility of not faring well or even failing, he/ she refuses to copy because in her/ his eyes that would be cheating. It is the self belief that no matter what the outcome, I will remain true to my character and values.

Attitude – It is how one approaches each moment and the changing landscape that makes life so unpredictable. E.g. The student referred to in the previous point can become despondent that all her/ his efforts are in vain or can choose to look at the challenges as a learning to put even more effort or to be more selective in what is being studied. The attitude decides how one embraces joy no matter what the situation.

Optimism – It is seeing the bright side of things. Even in the darkest hours look for a glimmer, a ray of sunshine or at least a twinkling star. E.g. The student who gets a tough paper must make an effort to attempt the paper and be optimistic that her/ his effort will give a favorable outcome. The assumption of course is that the student has studied well and so can put in a decent effort.

Pragmatic – Choosing joy is always the result of pragmatic thinking. If the situation is hopeless it is better to embrace it stoically rather than in grief and despondency. E.g. The student can keep wondering and hurting that all his/ her efforts are in vain or could lament his/ her fate. On the other hand of one is practical look at the tough exam paper as an eye opener on how one must be better prepared. Focus in doing one’s best using all the knowledge gained through the hard work put in. If the paper has been uniformly tough for everyone, chances of those giving it a great shot passing are much higher. Giving up and not answering is a pragmatic but wasted effort as the outcome is now never in doubt.

Try these:          

1. Can you recollect two of your most terrifying moments in your life? What were your reactions? How did you overcome the situation?
2. You arrive at the airport for a much awaited foreign holiday. The airport suddenly announces that all flights are cancelled due to major technical glitch at the airport. It is peak holiday season and you can never get a booking again.  What will be your response to the situation? How will you choose joy after the initial shock and despondency?
3. How would you react to the following situations?

• The police has issued a fine for over speeding. The car was being use by your friend when the incident occurred which was captured on CCTV.
• You dropped your phone accidentally and by mistake a passerby stomped on it with her spike heels. The screen is shattered.
• You go for a health check up and the doctor says you need a specialized check up for what the doctor suspects is rather serious ailment.

This post is courtesy www.actspot.com

You are also invited to visit our Inspirational and Motivational Blog

www.poweract.blogspot.com

Happiness Diet

If you ask anyone what he/she seeks in life, you will realize that everything boils down to being happy. Hence today’s post is on a simple diet to remain happy every day, every hour, every moment. Like any specified diet for any illness there is a list of prohibited items and a list of recommended items. Also included are two tablets to be ingested morning and night. Follow it and remain happy always.

Prohibited items so as ensure you remain happy:

Complaints – Out biggest weakness is our tendency to find fault, to complaint and to crib instead of appreciating the efforts put in by others or alternatively doing our bit to set things right. Complaints may draw attention, it may help us offload our anger but invariably it affects us negatively.

Bad moods and resentment – Both these largely go hand in hand. We allow ourselves to let minor things affect our feelings and moods and thereby imbibe negativity within us. At times we simply resent certain people or situations because you are either jealous, envious or dislike the person or situation.

Living in the past– The good old days is a lament of the older people. Fact is each of us getting older by the minute and it won’t be long before each of us also lives in the past and longingly recalls the good old days. The past is gone so recalling it may be nostalgic but would not do much good for our current living. Adapt to the changes around and live life the way it is today.

Avoid negative people – The whiners, the critics, the angry and resentful people, those who are constantly finding fault. The list goes on. Avoid or atleast minimize contact with anyone and everyone who largely displays these negative traits. They will negatively influence your thinking and slowly you will be seeing the world from their perspective.  A dark, gloomy and hopeless future never helps anyone feel happy.

Compulsory items to ensure you remain happy.

Laughter – The most visible sign of happiness is laughter. Hence it is essential that we find ways and means to enjoy a good laugh. Fortunately for people of the current period, Wattsapp provides ample laughter through various forwards one receives. Unfortunately the same medium also gives much more disturbing and often unverified inputs that confuses, creates fear and gets people worried. Hence one needs to find alternatives to ensure you get a daily dose of laughter. It could be in cartoons in the newspapers, jokes in magazines or finding real life humorous situations. There are also laughter clubs mushrooming and that is another alternative to begin the day well. Learning to poke of one’s own self is also a good way to find laughter from within. However, be careful not to evoke laugher at the expense of others or by being sarcastic, making caustic comments or insensitive observations.

Hugs & Kisses – Touch is a very important aspect of life that is often underutilized largely because of cultural taboos. In the current scenarios where bad touch has gained notoriety touch as a source of happiness has to be very carefully utilized. Touch is most evident in hugs and kisses especially when people are travelling afar. However, other touch elements could include an appreciation through a pat on the back and empathy through a squeeze on the shoulders. Families bond a lot through hugs and kisses and happiness is alive and visible then.

Living the moment – being alive.- One common problem that confronts people is that they are often reminiscing about the past or making grandiose plans for the future. What they miss out on is the reality that they have to live for today and must focus on making today something special. So they need to enjoy the moment, relish the challenges, face the upheavals stoically and smile through the niggles and giggles that they will encounter each day. It is by living each moment with awareness, with passion and with integrity that one comes alive fully. End of day, there will be no tears or regrets; just contentment and a smile on the face and joy in the heart.

It also helps if each morning we begin with a broad smile that reflects a positive attitude. We can go to bed in peace if we reflect on the day and be grateful for all the wonders it has offered. These two pills taken each day at day break and sundown would ensure a perfect happiness ECG for every individual.

Try these:

1. List out 5 most invaluable items in your possession. Can you donate/ sacrifice any one or more of these items and still remain contented?
2. What positives would you see in the following situations?

• You have failed in an exam by one mark
• You have misplaced your wallet containing substantial money and your credit cards.
• You have been bitten by a stray dog.
• You have been passed over for a promotion and worse still your bitter rival at work gets a double promotion.

 This post is courtesy www.actspot.com

You are also invited to visit our Inspirational and Motivational Blog

www.poweract.blogspot.com

Reflect on these statements and then act

Here are 7 exceptional statements that would make you pause and think. The more important element though is to appreciate the logic and then apply it in day to day life. The focus of this post is to encourage you to apply the logic in our everyday life and thereby enrich the quality of our daily living.

Make Peace with your past so that it doesn’t spoil your present.  Don’t use the excuses related to the past to justify your failures of the present. Instead, delve into your inner spirit and challenge yourself to make today and your future something special. Have no regrets. Failures/ poor marks in exams, failed relationships of the past, the criticism and taunts, the anger and frustrations have to be left behind in doorway of the past. However, if there is something from the past that has relevance to your personal improvement, do make it a point to learn from it. This is especially true of negative feedback given by others which may have been hurtful then but from which you can profit now.

What others think of you is none of your business. Your business is to focus on what you have to do. Never make the mistake of doing something to please others. Sometimes you have to be upfront, honest and frank even if it means displeasing people in authority or people with whom you share a very close relationship or bond. However, at times you must pause and think about any suggestions or comments or feedback that others express for there could be opportunities for you to learn from it.

Time heals almost everything; Give the time, sometime. There are times when you feel low. Other times you in physical or emotional pain. One tends to rationalize the pain but often it seems to keep coming back in waves and overwhelm us. Fortunately for us, time is a great healer. While we may not forget a hurt or pain, over time the intensity of it gets reduced. Losing a loved one or a jolt in a relationship are deeply painful experiences and the immediate reaction is to go into depression and despondency. If one can tide over the initial  shock and hurt, time is sure to give you  relief and peace.

No one is the reason for your happiness except YOU yourself. A critical mistake we make is searching for happiness in external happenings and material things. A new mobile phone or a new dress would certainly make us happy but it won’t last for long because the craving to get something new would forever haunt us. On the other hand if we find happiness in the simple pleasures of daily life, could be the bright sunlight or the tasty breakfast or the mere thought of having a good day, it would last longer and become more meaningful. Happiness is a choice you make every moment. You form that habit and happiness will envelope you.

Don’t compare your life with others; you have no ideas what their journey is all about. Jealousy is a very human emotion and unfortunately a very poor emotion to retain. The root cause of jealousy is our tendency to compare ourselves with those who are more successful or happy or richer than us. If we compared our self with those less blessed and less privileged than us then we would value our life and our riches with greater understanding and joy. The trouble with comparison is not just that we use the wrong benchmark but that we compare very selectively. We see their success but never pay attention to their hard work, their sacrifices, the pain they underwent and the numerous failures they have had to overcome to reach where they are. Understanding their journey will make us appreciate our blessings in the correct perspective.

Stop thinking too much; it is alright not to know all the answers. We plan, we think about the future, we rue the past, we imagine that we could have been even better off if we just had a little luck and the right connections. Perhaps we are also trying to gain all the knowledge but not really using it.  At times we are trying to beat google at its own game. We try to be pragmatic and minimize our emotions lest we succumb to our emotions when we take decisions. We are human beings because we have emotions and so logic and knowledge while being very useful, would not make us better human beings unless we let our emotions have a say too. It is ok to be less informed but more connected with life.

Smile; you don’t own all the problems in the world. At the end of the day everything boils down to just sporting a smile.  As they say, a smile is curve that sets everything right. If you can wake up with a smile and retain it the whole day and go to bed with it, then life would be just perfect. Aim for such perfection. In my view a SMILE is an acronym for See My Instant Life Energizer.  You can read about it by clicking on the following link http://poweract.blogspot.in/2010/01/smile.html

Try these

• Using all the alphabets of your first name, middle name and last name list out at least 5 English words. How many of those words represent your nature. E.g. Thomas Jeffery Hanks – thanks, meet, fat, same, shame, far, mat, most, share, hare, etc.
• List out the names of 3 people who you are envious / jealous of. For each write down 3 attributes they posses that makes you envious of them. Can you also list out 3 reasons why they deserve the success they have attained?
• What are the 3 questions that keep recurring off and on? Any reasons why you feel threatened by these questions or uncomfortable trying to find answers to these questions?
• Make a list of 5 of your favorite jokes. Share it with your friends the next time you have a get-together.
• What has been your worst personal experience to date? How have you coped with it? Have you got over it ?

This post is courtesy www.actspot.com

You are also invited to visit our Inspirational and Motivational Blog

www.poweract.blogspot.com

I am ME

At times we try to analyze ourselves and realize that while we have much to cheer about, we also have much more to rue.  We do not like our limitations, our burdens and resent our shortcomings that are accentuated when compared to others. Rarely do we enjoy our own company or luxuriate in the knowledge that each individual is a very unique person; so very different from his/ her own peers, friends and even siblings.

It is MY individuality that I need to appreciate, embrace and celebrate.

Appreciate my individuality – It is reflected in diverse aspects of my personality

My physical dimension

My mental make up

My emotional

My value system

Embrace my individuality – It is acceptance of who I am

Learn to love my whole being

Learn to make peace with my short comings

Learn to utilize my life

Learn to value my dignity and self respect

Celebrate my individuality – The art of cheering for myself

I will stand up for my rights

I am ready to defend my point of view

If different I shall be different; no apologies for who I am.

I will smile often, laugh heartily, live it up passionately.

Try these

Today I will write down the following:

5 things that I am proud of

5 aspects of my life that I will try and improve

5 people who I am most blessed to have in my life

5 embarrassing moments of my life

5 dreams that I have yet to achieve

2 most glorious moments of my life

2 most painful moments of my life

My favorite color/ animal / book/ movie

This post is courtesy www.actspot.com

You are also invited to visit our Inspirational and Motivational Blog

www.poweract.blogspot.com

Create your own rainbow

With the monsoons already arriving, most days seem like Monday’s; dull, gloomy and too tempting to laze around in bed. Yet, it is time to get up and get going and the process is just a tad too boring and uninspiring. Just as the wonders of the rainbow appear in the monsoon, await the rainbow each day and there would perhaps also be a pot of gold at the end of it to lure you to energetically look forward to each day.

Look for things that brighten the day – it could be the chirping of the birds, the sunlight that is streaming in, the laughter of children playing, the pealing of the temple and/or church bells. The key is to look for things that make you happy, contented and peaceful. It is a proactive responsibility that you must take on in order to change your own world.

See the variety of positives that you are blessed with – Make a conscious effort to over look  the hurt, the pain, the sadness of the past and instead focus on the blessings you have been bestowed. Good health tops the list, financial security, a loving world of family and friends, the comfort of a blessed home perhaps and a secure job too maybe.

Smile, forgive, listen, appreciate, thank – This is such an easy formula to memorize; a tough one to put in practice but the easiest to embrace once you have consciously adopted it. Each of it helps you exhale the toxic within and inhale the pure clean emotions.

Embrace love, laughter, hope and faith – Just as a good diet and exercise is a choice you make, add a heap full of love, a ton of laughter, perennial hope and unwavering faith to your daily mantra. You will find yourself empowered, optimistic and energetic to make your presence felt in the world and to make a positive difference around you.

Spend time with family, nature, self – Since we are social animals, we need to connect with other,  the world around and with ourselves. Spend time with family and friends. Spread good cheer and goodwill amongst them. They would seek to spend more time with you. Nature helps us embrace the spectrum of life; the flora and fauna, the sheer variety of wildlife and the beauty of the hills and valleys, the rivers and the seas, the changing seasons. Spend time thinking, reflecting and connecting to inner self. Never forget you are world yourself; filled with emotions, thoughts, feelings and passion.

Find silence despite the noise, find order despite the chaos and discover peace within despite the turbulence around –  Life is full of noise, chaos and turbulence. In our journey through life, we must be able to filter out and choose everything that would make our journey more pleasant, comfortable and enjoyable. Learn to enjoy silence; then you will master the art of finding it despite the noise around. Like getting through a maze, look hard at the chaos around; anger, frustration, hurt are some  feelings that you need to get past before you get out of the maze and reach peace, tranquility and bliss.

Look back with fondness, look forward with hope and be awake in the present– Every day there must be something pleasant to reminiscence about, a goal set to give meaning and purpose to each day and one must make each moment count by being mentally and physically alert and active.

Notice how you have created a beautiful rainbow for yourself. The success, satisfaction, happiness, contentment and the peace that you get is the pot full of gold at the end of your rainbow.

Try these

• List out 3- 5 colors that you like.  Look around you and for each color you chose, write down at least 2 objects having that color. Did you notice the color of those objects earlier. Do you notice the rainbow of colors around you?
• Sit with your eyes closed for 5 minutes. Identify the various noises around you. Also imagine the aroma of your favorite food. Can you feel the rainbow of myriad sounds and aroma that you normally take for granted.

This post is courtesy www.actspot.com

You are also invited to visit our Inspirational and Motivational Blog

www.poweract.blogspot.com

Happiness holds the key to success

There is a popular misconception that all successful people are relatively much more happier than those who are not so successful. As a result, we also tend to equate success as the measure of happiness; the more successful the happier the individual is. The second misconception closely linked with this line of thinking is our definition of success. We equate wealth as the primary indicator of success, closely followed by fame and following. The third misconception is that we equate happiness to be primarily reflected in what can be displayed especially material wealth, power and influence.

Now if we simply reorient our thinking and focus on what is happiness, we would make a startling discovery that the very concept of happiness in our mind is flawed. Happiness is being at peace with ones self in good times and in bad ; it is a choice we make every moment and that happiness just requires the right attitude. Now if we work backwards to arrive at the factors that nurture happiness you would make another startling discovery that happiness is defined by each of us differently and that being happy is a choice we make consciously.

No matter what work a person is engaged in, if he/she has a song on his/her lip, a smile on the face and no semblance of anxiety or tension writ on the forehead you are in the company of a happy individual who is also successful in meeting his/ her goals in life. On the other hand anxiety, tension and unrealistic expectations are the bane of individuals who chase success in the hope of finding happiness. They are like a dog chasing its tail. Happiness is visible but elusive; within grasp and yet just out of reach; a mirage so near and yet so far.

If you can do anything legitimate that brings you happiness, success is sure to follow. If you can follow your heart, dare to work on realizing your passion and be prepared to brazen out the challenges, happiness accompanies you and success is surely awaiting you at the summit. Why would a passionate mountaineer not attempt the toughest peak despite knowing the risks; to embrace happiness every step of the way. Not every athlete is a winner in a major meet; yet they derive pleasure and experience happiness in the small improvements they notice in their practice and training. Focus on happiness and the journey is fun, the destination never too far and the view always exhilarating.

Happiness likes in our ability to enjoy the process and not wait till we reach our goal; any progress towards our goal, is happiness on the move.

Try these:

1. Pick up your old photo albums and go through the pictures in it. Notice how each photograph revives a pleasant memory, triggers a happy thought and recaps a moment long past but never forgotten. Happiness is all about re-living and reveling in those moments. Success is not even a factor in those moments.
2. For no particular reason surprise the following :

• Your family members
• Your pet
• A stranger
• A long lost friend
• A former teacher / mentor / colleague
• Visit the sick in the hospital or the old age home
• Make a visit to the local prison

Does success play a part in your happiness or does your happiness in the process make you realize that you made a success of your life?

This post is courtesy www.actspot.com

You are also invited to visit our Inspirational and Motivational Blog

www.poweract.blogspot.com

My happiness jar

Ever thought of maintaining a happiness jar? Perhaps this year you should focus on just maintaining a happiness jar.  If you have already made your list of New Year resolutions, just make this the first one on the list. If you haven’t don’t worry; just make this the only resolution for yourself. Just see the positives that you have been blessed with week after week and you would be surprised to note how blessed you have been round the year. To make it more exciting, perhaps you could also add for yourself one or more of the following in each week’s list

• A time when I made someone else happy.
• A situation where I acted assertively.
• A risk that I took that was worth it.
• A time I said No and am happy about that decision.
• A situation in which I failed, but learnt an important lesson.
• A risk I took of trusting someone and he/ she turned out to be worthy of my trust.
• You could also perhaps drop in a few coins or notes that could add to the contents of the jar and make it even more appealing when you open it.
• As and when you get a bright idea jot it down and also drop it into the happiness jar.
• Perhaps you could cut out a cartoon from the local newspaper or a quote you found interesting and drop that too into your happiness jar.

Try these:

• Source a jar and some colored paper to get going. Ideally have a slit on the lid of the jar and ensure you tape the lid so that you are not tempted to open it off and on.
• You should make an effort to  send a letter of appreciation or thanks to an old classmate/ teacher/ colleague during the course of the year and surprise them.
• Think of 2- 3 changes that you can make to your home/ your wardrobe /  your personal style / your habits so feel a difference and enjoy the change.

This post is courtesy www.actspot.com

You are also invited to visit our Inspirational and Motivational Blog

www.poweract.blogspot.com

Finding your passion

One question that often baffles an individual is how one finds his / her passion. It is largely by a trial and error method in most cases. Some lucky individuals do get to know their passion from early childhood; others discover it in teenage and some stumble upon it much later. For the overwhelming majority though, finding one’s passion is almost as elusive as trying to find the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. We would focus on what is common to every individual’s passion and what is the ideal passion to pursue.

What you love – The primary test of what one finds passionate is how much we love it. Passion comes from having a deep, abiding interest and obsession with something. Now most times our passions, especially in our growing up years keep changing. Similarly we discover new and fascinating things that grab our attention and make us pine to for it. Varied dimensions of technology in particular fascinates us as do creative pursuits and self driven concerns like environmental pollution, garbage recycling, health etc. What compounds our choices is the combination of passions that we seem to revel in. Let us say writing or art or cinema is our primary interest and now technology offers us blogs /video platforms to express ourselves and reach worldwide audiences. Pursuing new applications to leverage our expertise combined with the power of technology available on with smart phones and computers opens up new frontiers to explore. With wider choices, we have more opportunities to explore; we must experiment and discover what we truly find fascinating.

What you are good at:  While it is difficult to zoom in on to a couple of things that fascinate us, what is more important and more challenging is finding out if we have the skills, the aptitude and the ability to pursue and make those passions an extension of ourselves. Having a fascination and obsession is relatively passive, the true test is if we can translate what we love into a profession that makes us happy, allows us to use all our abilities and makes us happy each single day. One critical test to know if our passion is real, is to test if we have the intrinsic motivation to pursue it every single day. Do we keep thinking about our work and how we can improve it, make it more fascinating, keep ourselves updated about it and get a thrill out of sharing about it. Once you know what you love and what you are good at, you can feel a sense of happiness every single day.

What pays you well : While you can be happy pursuing your passion, the reality is that we live in a world that requires us to fend for ourselves and our families. This is reality that we cannot escape from and we must be alive to this facet of living. The ideal passion would be one, where you can follow your heart, use your head and turn it into a profitable venture. This means that we make use of our talents, our obsessions to ensure a good living. There are times when we realize our strengths and leverage it to make a good living but our heart and mind are into something else. That is when you are financially well off but bored because you are not fully engaged in what you do   E.g. We are academically brilliant and hence you get a good degree and pursue a job that pays well.  Perhaps your first love is to spread your knowledge and become a teacher but that profession is relatively less acceptable socially and financially relatively less rewarding than your current profession. It is then a compromise passion not the ideal passion that your pursuing.

For many people, once they have met their financial goals, they find it simpler to follow their ideal passion. They would take risks to pursue eco farming, teach the economically weaker, be involved in social activities where their skills sets are fully used etc. Till one reaches that stage, the ideal passion is one where your love for something, your skill set /aptitude/ expertise in that area and your returns/ benefits from pursuing that combine, to provide you happiness and bliss every single moment.

Try these:

1. So what would your dream job/ profession be? What is stopping you from realizing that dream job/ profession?
2. Make a list of the following:

• Appreciation received from parents / teachers / classmates/ colleagues
• Encouragement received from all of the above
• Advice/ suggestions on what you must pursue as a profession
• The events/ occasions when you felt elated and valued
• The activities that make you delighted/ thrilled / blissful
• The above will give you pointers on where you can find your ideal passion

This post is courtesy www.actspot.com

You are also invited to visit our Inspirational and Motivational Blog

www.poweract.blogspot.com

The 3 P’s that make your life better

The challenge for each of us, is in enjoying our own company. True there would be family, friends, colleagues and strangers around us for large periods of time but definitely not all the time. We also may like some, dislike others, ignore a few, enjoy the company of quite a few and yet the one person we cannot keep at bay is our own self. Therefore it stands to reason that we better make friends with our own self and keep ourselves happy. We need to accept our successes and failures, our joys and sorrows, our pleasure and pain with equanimity so that we remain in perpetual bliss. This can be best achieved by adhering to 3 principles.

Be pleasant – Nothing like starting the day with a smile and smiling as often as possible during the course of the day to feel happy and to remain pleasant.  Of course there could be unexpected crisis, some arguments and disagreements, irritation and frustration, raised voices and some sarcastic comments to deal with in everyday life. Yet, once a person has learned to find something pleasant to focus on no matter how grave the situation, that individual would always be comfortable with his/ her own self. By remaining pleasant, one also influences the surroundings and the people just like a flower that emits its fragrance at all times. The bees may take away the nectar, the human race may pluck it, the harsh weather may destroy it but it continues to share its fragrance till it gets destroyed.

Be positive – Hope is the beacon that beckons us to attempt the impossible, dare to be different and persist till we succeed. Hope is nothing but a positive outlook no matter what the situation. The fears may not completely vanish; the pain may not subside easily; there could be tears and confusion but you would always quickly regain your composure and deal with issues with poise, calmness and confidence once you master the art of finding something positive in every moment.

Be peaceful – A good sailor never fears the sea but always respects its power. No matter how rough the sea, how forceful the wind, however terrible the weather, the captain and crew know that they have the power to overcome the adversity. They don’t panic, they act decisively, they take precautions and they prepare for all eventualities. This comes from their training, their preparations and their self belief; all of which are directed towards making them master their emotions and remain calm and peaceful even when they face their greatest challenge. Each of us is the captain our ship and the master of our fate. Let us like a good sailor, imbibe the art of remaining peaceful at all times, so that we can steer our life to all the right ports, through the turbulence and challenges of life.

Try these:

1. Think of the 3 most stressful moments of your life. What caused it? How did you overcome it? Did you get worked up, annoyed and vent your feelings on others? Were you a victim of someone else’s anger and frustration when they were under tremendous stress?
2. How do you deal with the following types of individual’s?

• Some who you dislike immensely
• Someone who is a terrible bore
• A person who you know will always be having woes and complaints
• An introvert with whom you have to interact often
• A person with wild mood swings who is a genius at work.

This post is courtesy www.actspot.com

You are also invited to visit our Inspirational and Motivational Blog

www.poweract.blogspot.com

B C D of Life

Life is often over simplified as being a journey from birth to death. What this does not consider, is the enormous opportunity / potential / alternatives that life freely bestows on us, to make that life a voyage of adventure, thrill and fulfillment. Each of us has the choice to pick from the alternatives, explore and select the opportunities around and utilize our potential the way we want. Our individuality is expressed through the choices we make. Our choices determine our future, our progress and ultimately lead us to despair, indifference or fulfillment. So the quality of our life, the way we go about living and the impact we have on the world around us and vice versa is all linked to the choices we make every moment. Choices are boon for those determined to use it wisely and it is a bane for those who get overwhelmed by the alternatives.

Making the right choice is again dependent on the individuality of the person making that choice. Yet there are some pointers to enable one to make the right choices.

Align choices with your values – Our values or principles that we imbibe and choose to follow would have an overbearing role to play in the choices we make. It is essential therefore that we are aware of those values we cherish and ensure our choices align with it. If these are not aligned, the choices may yield expected results but it will taunt your conscience, negate your happiness and depreciate yourself worth. E.g. You appear for an exam which is tough. You have a choice to copy from another and possibly get more marks but for the rest of your life you will find it hard to shake of the feeling of having been a cheater provided you value fair play and honesty as critical uncompromisable virtues.

A choice is your commitment- fulfill it – A choice is a commitment you willingly make.  Once you make that choice, it is essential that one make the best effort to fulfill that commitment. Self doubt, rethinking, confusion could possibly occasionally peek in and sabotage your commitment. Unless there is absolute clarity in your mind that you made a poor choice, the way forward is to fulfill the commitment you made when you chose a course of action. E.g. You chose a branch of study for your future. Somewhere along the way you begin to realize that the choice is not aligned to your passion. If you are convinced that a change is warranted immediately make an informed choice to deviate else fulfill the first choice you made before you rethink the alternatives.

Consider the risk reward payoff when making choices –Many a choice is placed before us by circumstances. There are shades of choices that come before us. Some are tempting but unethical, sometimes the choices are unpleasant because the alternatives are less than palatable but frequently the choices we have to make are thrust upon us with a deadline that forces us to choose. Ironically not making a choice, which is letting the status quo remain, is also a choice. Subconsciously we are always making a risk reward payoff analysis when making a choice. What is important is to view reward as the cumulative long term effect of our choice rather than immediate short term gains which could cost us dearly in the long term. e.g. watching an exciting final match of a game could be a costly price to pay if a critical exam in a paper in which you are not too strong is due the next day.

Make your own choices – don’t follow the pack – Most erroneous choices are made because we are impulsive, we are influenced by those around us and because we don’t think through with calmness and intensity. Branding is one of the marketing strategies to which many of us unconsciously fall prey too. We are tempted by the hullabaloo about a product / style and often are under peer pressure to follow the trend that others follow.  Your choice must be based on your own personal understanding, your evaluation and your need. Your individuality in many ways is reflected in your choices.

Take responsibility for your choices – No matter what method you choose to make your choices, the most important aspect of the choice is to take responsibility for that choice. Owning the choice empowers the individuality to face the consequences of the choice. It also makes the individual more confident, competent and clear headed all of which are vital traits of successful people. Ultimately our successes and failures are largely influenced by the choices we make.  If our choices go wrong and we take responsibility for our choices, we would examine the reasons for our mistakes and take corrective measures not to repeat our mistakes.  If our choices are right we can take pride in our abilities to choose wisely.

Ultimately, the quality of our life from birth to death are the outcome of the choices we make every day of our mature life.

Try these:

Rank these choices in the order of what you think is the worst choice, terrible choice and bad choice

• Good outcome ethically wrong choice. e.g. Getting good marks by copying in an exam
• Bad outcome lazy choice made e.g. Failing in an exam because you didn’t choose to study
• Ugly outcome silly choice made. E.g.  Not appearing for an exam for fear of failing.

You win a lottery of Rs.10,00,000. Unfortunately you will not get a single rupee from it. However you must nominate 5 people to get the winnings in any proportion you deem fit.  The only condition is that the 5 people must include just one family member, one friend, one junior work colleague, one senior work colleague and one absolute stranger. Who would you choose to receive the amount and how much would each be entitled too. You would be telling each of the 5 people about the total prize money and how much each member is getting.

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