Convincing Ourselves

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...

Confused Confused, indecisive, procrastinate? Sometimes we just cant make sense of things and because we cant make sense of things we don't take action. Of course, nothing is more important than action but when life overwhelms us with choices, information, chores, sometimes it becomes difficult to look past the immediate and take a birds eye view of the grand perspective. There are many such instances where we can simply not think right, ranging from small everyday things, starnge annoyances, all the way to big life decisions eg 1-Buying a new smart phone? --we can be confused about specs, pricing, plans etc 2-Eating out, where to go?-- what to eat, why to go there? 3-Do my classmates hate me? --why do they laugh at me? why do I have so few friends? 3-Which university to go to? --what will it cost, what will be the return, how far will it be from home? etc etc etc Once we convince ourselves that there is a path forward, we can break through all the clutter and cle...

I believe everyone should read this simple and short blog post of mine before they start university. I am not intending to give 'self help' and 'personal growth' advice over here. There are millions of books and webpages out there. All I want you to do is to look into yourself and hear what you say. That is it. Hear what you say to yourself. Do you tell yourself you will be the next Steve Jobs? do you tell yourself that you will be the best athlete at the school? or do you tell yourself you will out do everyone in the class? whatever it is, good luck and I hope you achieve it but remember that you know exactly how to achieve it. There are no short cuts in life and if you are smart enough to be going to university, you already know this. However like anyone, you may need a reminder. You know how much you have to give to reach your goals, you know who to talk to, you know what is to be done. Do not just dream, follow your inner wise person and do it. You ar...

Well, I am not going to give a solution as to what to do when you are confused and afraid. The idea of writing this blog was not to explain solutions to problem but to show how solutions usually reside within us already. It is we who cannot get out of our internal struggle and make things happen, even when we know the solutions already. We set block up to our growth by imagining an easier, better or simpler solution. By waiting for a magical event or someone out there to help us. If that does not happen, many of us just do into depression and feel victimized. There is nothing worse than feeling victimized. Warriors cannot be victims. We are all warriors after all. How you may ask? well, we may be confused about a future work plan or confused about simple things eg what to eat? or which university to join? All complex decisions [and as frustrating as these moments are], we can always get over these and make a decision. We cannot predict the right outcome, obviously, but we can...

Wish they were different Don't we just wish we could change some of the people around us. We wish for all sorts of things to happen. We wish our kid starts acting like a grown up, or our teacher treats us with a bit less harshness, or that neighbor we thought of saying hello to but looks so mean. Whatever the case, be it your friends, your boss or family, we would certainly like to change one thing or the other. However there is one, smart tool to get the change you want in the people around you. Start treating them as if they were already as you want! Another path to change You see, you do not have to wish for someone to change, you can actually make it happen. Now this does not mean that I am claiming this tool to be the 'end all be all' method of getting the girl of your dreams or tackling your problem teenage, however I think its a clever technique to have in your tool kit or skill set to use when required. You can start treating a subordinate as if they can h...

One of the reason why many flock to therapists, read self help books or go into depression is because they cannot get what they want or life simply did not turn out as they had hoped. They prayed, meditated, wished, kept a positive attitude, yet nothing materialized. Very often, we expect life to be easy and reflect our own mood. However, every now and then we have to remind ourselves and convince ourselves that life is not meant to be easy. Life is pain, struggle and discomfort, punctuated by moments of happiness and euphoria that make it all worthwhile. Life is about great relationships, with people who matter and yourself. Life is constant discomfort, be it tackling your willpower, going to the gym, having a difficult conversation or realizing a bitter truth. This is life and there is no need to run away. We have to convince ourselves that we have the capacity, strength, resources and the power to deal with life in the best way possible. We all have the ability to go through ...

Everyone truly knows the path to money, health and wealth. There is no secret to it. People have known how to achieve these things since the dawn of time, yet the reason why so many people are searching for the answer is that they are searching for the 'easy answer'. Everyone is truly out there looking for the shortcut to success, fame, wealth, fitness, weight goals, achievements etc. There truly are people who  get lucky and there truly are ways that can get you to your goals quicker, however the underlying principle is hard work, patience and a general positive attitude. We have convinced ourselves that there is a short cut and it is somewhere out there. We look for that short cut all our lives, waste years and years looking for it until others, who go through the pain, the hard work and at the same time, have fun, seem to get all the rewards, slowly but surely, beating us to the goal post, over and over again. Let us look into different areas of life separately and see...

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...

Just watched the Tony Robbins Documentary on Netflix called 'I am not your Guru' that chronicles Tony's legendary 'Date with Destiny' Seminar. At the end of the documentary Tony asked everyone that they need to ensure that whatever they take with them from here will stay with them for the rest of their lives and advocated a daily practice. As always, I do not recommend anything, but I do recommend trying an approach and seeing if it works for you. The Technique: The take away from the video was that once you know your values, beliefs, eg Love, passion, strength, fearlessness whatever you think is important, whatever quality or belief you want, you need to convince yourself of it. Tony believes that when we put emotion into something and focus on it, it gets embedded into our psychology more (Think surprises or trauma). In the same way, tony wants us to use all our sense and shout, scream, jump, whatever it takes, to make us believe that we are 'Strength' ...

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....