Do you know we spend more time and energy on planning our vacations than we spend on planning our lives? When was the last time you sat down and did some introspection on where you life’s journey is taking you. Do you know where you are going? Do you know what stuff you need to carry with you to make sure you have a memorable and enjoyable journey? Are you carrying things which are creating roadblocks in your journey? Life is a journey and the destination is the same for everyone. But how memorable the journey becomes and how you “arrive” at your destination is what makes the difference. Do you arrive as someone who feels strong, fulfilled and enthusiastic or will you arrive with unfulfilled dreams, regrets and feeling weak? The choice is yours.
In this 2 part series, I lay down my 26 golden principles (A to Z) on the things to pack on your Journey of Life. Initially I thought of writing all the 26 principles into one post but then realised that it was getting too long to read and decided to split it into 2 parts.
Attitude
This is the first thing you should make sure you carry with you on your life journey. If you have this, the rest will follow. Have a positive attitude towards life. A lot has been spoken and written about positive thinking and positive attitude. But like most self-help topics, this is most read and most talked about but not understood or followed. Positive thinking and positive attitude is not just about expecting the best in all situations. It’s also about accepting that whatever is happening is the best for that moment. Attitude is being able to stop asking Why Me and asking what can i do now?
Belief
Believe it and you will see it! I bet you have heard this before. When you hear this, you either believe it or discard it. If you believe it then you already believe in the philosophy. This is the classic battle between spirituality and science. Science says that unless you show it with evidence, I won’t believe it while spirituality says you have to believe it, then you can see it. I’m more of the spiritual kind. The reason I believe is that before anything came into existence someone, somewhere believed they could build it or create it. All the greatest creations/inventions of the world (planes, television, telephone, internet and more recently social media) started with a belief and then became a reality.
The absence of evidence is not evidence of its absence!
Courage
What is the opposite of Courage?
Cowardice? Today the opposite of courage is not cowardice but conformity. People want to be like everyone else and do what everyone does without knowing why. We like to play it “Safe” and confirm to what the society thinks we should be doing. Our classic excuse is that we need to be in line with reality. In other words, no one has don it, so wect do it either.We don’t have the same courage to stand up for our beliefs, values and vision. Being courageous does not mean having No fear. Instead as Susan Jeffers says it in her book, courage is feeling the fear and yet facing it anyway. Don’t be afraid to fail. There is no such thing as failure. You can only fail at things but you are only a failure when you fall and don’t get up. As long as you keep getting up, all you have are learning and growing experiences. Have the courage to be different. History is proof that anyone who has done anything which was even a little bit significant was the one who dared to be different!
Dreams
“I have a dream” said Martin Luther King. While his dream was magnificent, not all our dreams are as big as his. Yet all of us have dreams which we have either forgotten about or have them buried deep down inside. Why have we stopped dreaming? Is it because of the fear of not achieving them? If you don’t even try, how will you ever find out? One excuse which we take comfort in is to be “Realistic”. Who defines what is real and not real. One persons reality could be anothers illusion. Before Roger Bannister ran the mile in less than 4 minutes, everyone said it could not be done. Once it was done, his record lasted only 46 days!. I firmly believe that if you dream about something, it’s because that dream was given to you and that dream IS POSSIBLE. You may not know HOW or WHEN it will happen. But that should not stop you from dreaming. Others may not see it the way you see it. That’s because the dream was given to you. Any transformation in life first starts with a Dream. A dream is not some sort of esoteric concept which only a few should have access to. It is available to each one of us to make it a reality. So dream and dream BIG. As one of my favourite motivational speakers Les Brown puts it
Shoot for the Moon, Even if you miss, you’ll land amongst the Stars!
Enthusiasm
Have you met a person who is ever so enthusiastic about anything and everything they are doing? These people never seem to show any signs of tiredness or fatigue. Anytime you meet them, they seem to be always upbeat and ready for action. Maybe you are one of them! How do these people maintain this level of enthusiasm? Is it just a put on and they are actually miserable on the inside? I doubt it. You could pretend for a while but it will soon show. If it does not show on the person, it will show in what they do. Enthusiasm primarily comes from 3 things
- Learning something new or the having the opportunity to learn
- Accomplishment
- Hope of Future achievement
Be enthusiastic about what you do and see great things come to you. It does not work the other way around.
Life is too short to be sitting like a spectator. This is your LIFE. Get in there and be a PLAYER!
Forgiveness
Do you know that by holding grudges against someone, you are causing more damage to yourself than to the other person? If you think someone has hurt you, forgive this person and move on in your life. Honestly, think about it. How many people do you have in your life who you don’t like but yet they come up frequently in your thoughts and even in your discussions. Why should someone who has hurt you be allowed to eat into your precious time? Learn to Forgive and Forget. Remember that you are not forgetting the incident or the person. You brain will not allow you to. However you can let go of the feelings or emotions the incident brought about.
Gratitude
Every day I thank God for the beautiful life I have. I honestly have no complains about my life and am really grateful for all the things I have in my life. A great childhood, loving parents, beautiful wife, adorable children, fantastic job, great friends… I can go on for ever. I also am grateful for having had the opportunity to live this life, have a healthy body, a thinking mind and much more. Why is it that as humans we always focus on things we don’t have and conveniently forget about the things we have? While I can understand that a lot of people are probably not as fortunate as I have been, I do believe that there are always things we will find to be grateful for. Having gratitude for what you have does not mean you should not wish for more. It simply means to move your focus from what you don’t have to what you have. Moving from a scarcity mind-set to an abundant mind-set.
Have an Attitude of Gratitude
Happiness
What do you want in Life? These 6 words can often prove to be the most daunting question to many. There is no right or wrong answer and everyone has very rightly their own wants. However if we were to raise all our wants to a higher level (just as Maslow defined it), at some point we will end up with happiness. Isn’t it true that we are all in search of Happiness? As humans we have 2 eternal searches
- The Perfect Happiness
- The Perfect Relationship
The bad news is that neither of them exists. There is no such thing as being perfectly happy or having that perfect relationship. Happiness as we have repeatedly been told is a journey and not the destination. While we all will be quick to post this on our Facebook page, have you ever taken time to analyse what it means. One way of looking at this is to change your thought from “I will do this to be happy” TO “I’m happy as I do this”. I found a very nice article on Happiness. You can read it here. We must realise that Happiness is not something elusive and it is something which is intrinsic to each one of us. So instead of looking for happiness on the outside, understand, accept and enjoy the Happiness that you already are.
It only takes one person to make you happy and change your life: YOU!
Inspiration
Many people confuse inspiration with Motivation. I have been motivated many times but I have been inspired 2 or maybe 3 times in my life. Motivation means we have an idea and we are going to carry through on that idea. We work hard at it, and we are disciplined. A highly motivated person takes an idea, goes out there, and won’t let anybody interfere with them. Inspiration is exactly the opposite. If motivation is when you get hold of an idea and carry it through to its conclusion, inspiration is the reverse. An idea gets hold of you and carries you where you are intended to go. So inspiration is when something moves you from within so deeply that it stays with you. Motivation on the other hand is something which is more external. Don’t get me wrong. We need both inspiration & motivation to bring about the most challenging changes in our life. How do you get inspired? Well unfortunately unlike motivation, inspiration is something which happens to you IF YOU LOOK FOR IT! I can’t tell you where, when, what or who will inspire you. All I can say is become more aware of your life and when the time is right your inspiration will come!
Inspiration is a driving force, while motivation is a pulling force!
Joy
Joy and Happiness are used interchangeably by a lot of people. I’m not going to insult your intelligence and try and define these for you. I’m sure you can google the definitions. In my view they are very closely related with very subtle differences. Happiness in my view is something which is visible to people. When you are happy, it shows on the outside in terms of physical appearance or expressions. So you are excited, enthusiastic, smiling, etc. Joy on the other hand is a deeper level of happiness and it’s not something that is easily identifiable on the outside. It’s an emotion which is triggered in the inside as a result of an experience which touches our soul. A higher state of joy is what you will referred to as “Bliss”.
Knowledge
Knowledge is Power. Right?
Wrong! Knowledge is potential power. It becomes power when organised into a definite plan of action and direction to a definite end. Knowledge does not come just from attending school, graduating, working for someone or reading books. You could do all of this and still have very little knowledge. With information available to us at the push of a button, we are experiencing what is known as information overload. Most people today have knowledge which is miles long but tissue paper thin. Learn to filter the information which comes to you and be very careful on what you feed your mind with. Wrong knowledge is sometime more dangerous than NO Knowledge!
Love
Love! Love! Love! I fell in Love 15 years ago with my wife and since then I have kept rising in Love!. What is Love? There are probably as many responses to this question as there are people in this world. Everyone in this world (including the animals) are looking for Love. Is love all about being caring, feeling the pain when someone is in pain, experiencing happiness and pleasure when we are with someone or doing something? Love is probably all this and much more. Love is not just for people, it is also for your work, experiences and life in general. Whatever Love means to you, just remember to live your life based on that and share it with the people around you.
Also Read : Can Detachment and love exist together?
Motivation
Have you been to a seminar/lecture or a presentation and you came out, fully charged ready to change the world. All of us who have been overweight at any point in life have been motivated to get back in shape. Everyone with some form of addiction have been motivated to give it up. All of us have at least once in our lives decided to take charge of our life and put down goals and actions to meet those goals. What happens after a while though? We soon lose the motivation and drive. Sometimes it’s gone within hours or days. If you were really motivated it would last for a few months. Why does this happen? The key to understanding motivation is that it is temporary if you don’t take care of it. Just like you bath and brush every day to feel fresh and clean, you need to feed yourself with things which motivate you every day. Motivation is an attitude which you need to feed it every day. Get into the habit of reading/listening/watching something motivational first thing in the morning. Do this for a month and notice the difference. Heres an article which I found on 25 simple ways to motivate yourself.
While I write Part 2 of this series, let me know what are your lifes golden principles? What qualities have made you successful? What has life taught you? Leave your comments below.