Convincing Ourselves

After Happiness, there is Sadness Life is not always a party. It rains, clouds over over the sky and from time to time storms come and pass by. No one is immune from the rhythm of life and it is not something anyone can escape. No matter where you live, how much money you have or what you have become, problems will come and go. After happiness, comes sadness and that is how life is and the one who denies it, is the one who is unhappy. The problem It is imperative that we convince ourselves about this reality. Once we are convinced that this is how normal life flows, we can be prepared with tools, techniques and resources in order to cope with and deal with any problem or challenge life throws at us. We can have a close friend to fall back on after a bad day, or have savings in the bank for a rainy day or perhaps learn to let it go when we have a confrontation with someone.  Whatever the case only if we convince ourselves that life will keep throwing problems at...

There is no magic formula to success. We need to work harder and smarter and then there is luck/chance/right place right time. We can not do much about luck but we can surely work on everything else. There are many people who want to be successful in a certain field, but for some reason cant get themselves to be the best. What can we do? Well, as always I believe it is all about convincing ourselves of various truths and realities that we usually ignore. Step 1-Know what you want The first step to being good at something is to know convince yourself that this is something you want to be good at. I once wanted to do a PhD, but my proposal was never accepted. After getting rejected several times I realized that as much as I wanted to be 'known' as a good academic, it is not something that I really wanted to do. I believe I might not have even finished my PhD as I probably would have gotten depressed in between.  To be good at something, we need to give a lot of effor...

Let us get fit!!! Everyone wants to get fit nowadays. If they are thin, they want to bulk up. If they are fat, they want to slim down. Whatever the issue, no one is really happy with their body. Now I can take the very common 'New Age' concept and say that we should be happy with our body, however sometimes changing our bodies become necessary.I myself was obese and suffered greatly. Many in families had to get heart surgery, because of their lifestyle choices, which included bad eating habits and obesity. However, even when we know that something is bad for us and can actually kill us, we might not change our habits. This is true. Even when smokers known that smoking causes cancer, they know that is long way of and they go for the immediate pleasure and discount the risk. What to do? What to do when you feel you really cannot do anything? your will, your idea of time/delay of pain and pleasure, simply do not let you get through that barrier. The Solution I believe...

Why do we enjoy some things and no others? well, there are two reasons. We like to do things that are easy, but not too easy. This depends not only at the task at hand but also to our own ability to do the task. This is why, if we are good at a board game, but its challenging, we get hooked. It is also the same reason why we like to play sports with someone who can challenge us, but is not so much better  than us that we get frustrated. If we are able to convince ourselves that the task at hand is easy, in a challenging sort of way, it will become engaging and to some extent fun as well. We can convince ourselves for this kind of thinking for any task. It can be cleaning the dishes, or even talking a walk. Its fun, because its invigoratingly easy! To repeat, it is not about thinking or hoping that something that is hard becomes automatically easy (if that works for you, good enough) but acknowledging that it is tough, yet fun and challenging. When we say it is ea...

Overwhelmed! Convincing yourself to stay strong and positive through self talk, visualization etc is all great, but there are times in life we get overwhelmed. A surprise all nigher, a failure, a natural disaster, a death of a relative, even yourself getting hurt, are all realistic scenarios that can overwhelm us and leave us defenseless. Even though we may have remained strong, through eg a daily practice of praying to God, or self talk in general, it is these tough times when we have to be strong. So what to do? what to do when we feel nothing works? Despite our work with the therapists, or reading great self help books, and even taking assertion training, what to do when nothing seems to work!!!!? What to do? Once again, it varies from person to person, and I believe we sometimes cannot use the same tool again and again. However below are some of my suggestions. 1-Don't do anything! Sometimes one is overwhelmed with stress, work or the immediate need of the situation tha...

There are so many times in our lives when someone heckles us, harasses us, cheats us, or trumps all over us. They backbite, scheme, shame us or do any other thing to make us feel like absolutely nothing. The perpetrator is clearly wrong and needs to be taught a lesson but we meek out. Very often its because we are 'nice people', or we do not want to create a scene, and simply do not want any big 'issues' in life. It may be because we do not want to ridicule someone or, very importantly, we don't want others to think bad about us and ruin a relationship Why do we think like that? It may always not be sign of weakness, but very often it can be.  It got me wondering when I had a similar issue recently and I had to convince myself that I could get through this difficult feeling of helplessness. It was a time when I myself had a difficult time even talking to the person who had wronged me After a lot of thinking and finally a self hypnosis session I realized 'I...

I know every self help, new age book talks about it and therefore I will too. This may only seem as a reminder to many, but reminders too are important.However, where should I start the discussion from? Affirmations, self talk, positive statements, auto suggestion, also, when to say them, how often etc etc etc.In my own country of Pakistan, many believe that we should not say a bad thing, as it might just happen! Superstition aside, words do have power, but which approach to take? The reason why I started this blog was to help make things clear for a lot of people who see all this information about 'Power of Words' and how they impact us, but every approach that I have tried, has failed me. I tried affirmations, auto suggestions, and even actual CBT with a therapist (which has scientific backing). But the thing is, that for me, knowing about these approaches, and knowing when to use them and how to use them was very valuable, but they all seemed to lose their effectiveness....