Promise Yourself

Many times we make promises to others, but how often does one make a promise to oneself. Let the words of wisdom by Christian D. Larson, be a promise to yourself. Long time back I had seen these words on my Dad’s table and since then my world changed forever. Hope this New Year my first post makes a difference in your life as well.

Promise yourself to be so strong
That nothing can disturb your peace of mind,
To talk health, happiness and prosperity
To every person you meet,
To make all your friends feel that there is something in them.
To look at the sunny side of everything
And make your optimism come true.
To think only of the best,
To work only for the best, and
To expect only the best.
To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others,
As you are about your own.
To forget the mistakes of the past
And press on to the greater achievements of the future.

To wear a cheerful countenance at all times
And give every living creature you meet a smile.
To give so much time to the improvement of yourself
That you have no time to criticize others.
To be too large for worry,
Too noble for anger, too strong for fear
And too happy to permit the presence of trouble.

Wishing you all a very Happy, Challenging and Fulfilling 2010.

Peace Amidst Confusion

In times of crisis, when our challenges/ trials look larger than life itself, every individual has a choice as to what his or her personal reaction will be.

Thoughtful person, shall go for the hidden meaning and learning from the trails, attain a sense of personal peace amidst the confusion of the world around and move on.

Person, with proper sense of time, can bring the difficulties of the day into their proper proportion. No matter how great its magnitude is, no crisis can over whelm the spirit of a person whose inner eye is fixed on the everlasting God, one who has the inner sense of God’s power. The difficulties of the day must be labored upon, with our mind, will and strength. But behind them and beyond them there is God, who is working out His purpose in his own way and to His own glory. Which we may not understand at the given point of time, in relevance to given context, but He is the master painter and He is the one who knows the complete picture, we are viewing it in parts, bits and pieces. At the end of the journey, when all the pieces can be combined, we would love the creation of this master Painter, if we actually let him paint our life.

If you live intimidated by circumstances or people, then you need to come to terms with your lack of peace. God is bigger than any person or situation. Develop a relationship with Him, he is always available for guidance, we got to look up to Him for assistance, we need to hold His hand, giving our finger to Him, so that He can create something wonderful of our life.

‘Peace’ is the ability to wait patiently in spite of panic brought on by uncertainty. But if you cast everything on Him – Everything! And that includes unfulfilled dreams………unpleasant circumstances……. and an uncertain future, you can be peaceful. As that is the origin and end of those emotions, which you carry with yourself, it’s just an additional baggage, which is difficult to carry. It is emotional garbage which is using lot of important space of your hard disc (brain). Once you delete this, there is so much of empty space available where you can create anything new you want.

We may hold any position at work, work with anyone, anywhere or any part of the world. God wants to use us as His own “clerk”, in order to bring peace to someone else’s life. He simply wants us to be available for this work only in whatever we are doing. And that is how ultimately peace comes to one’s own life. Let’s hope and wish that we should be a part of His work for peace and not add ourselves any chaos and confusion to His peaceful world, by any of our actions.

SUCCESS Beyond FEAR

FEAR is False Evidence Appearing Real.
There is the light at the end of every tunnel. The very fact that you are in darkness and trouble right now, means that light is few yards away, success is not far off. As the fear dissolves, you will start to see options and possibilities and become optimistic about the change. And this fear can only be dissolved by moving forward taking action, embracing the fear itself and dissolving it.
The wild ride between hope and fear is unavoidable. Fear is the necessary consequence of feeling hopeful again. Contrary to our belief that hope and fear are opposites where one trumps the other, they are a single package, bundled together as intimate, eternal partners. Hope never enters a room without fear at its side. If I hope to accomplish something, I’m also afraid I’ll fail. You can’t have one without the other.
Hope is what propels us into action. We’ve been taught to dream of a better world as the necessary first step in creating one. We create a clear vision for the future we want, and then we set a strategy, make a plan, and get to work. We focus strategically on doing only those things that have a high probability of success.
As long as we “keep hope alive” and work hard, our endeavors will create the world we want.

Motivated by hope, but then confronted by failure, we become depressed and demoralized. Life becomes meaningless; we despair of changing things for the better. At such a time, we learn the price of hope. Rather than inspiring and motivating us, hope has become a burden made heavy by its companion, fear of failing. Liberated from hope and fear, we are free to discover clarity and energy, but the journey there demands behaviors we’re not familiar with or have actively avoided. Those who have persevered and maintained steadfast focus even when their efforts have yielded little or no results. How does one make this possible?
I’ve noted that those who endure, who have stamina for the long haul and become wiser in their actions over time, are those who are not attached to outcomes. They don’t seek security in plans or accomplishments. They exchange certainty for curiosity, fear for generosity. They plunge into the problem, treat their attempts as experiments, and learn as they go. This kind of insecurity is energizing; people become engaged in figuring out what works instead of worrying about how to avoid failure.
A willingness to feel insecure, then, is the first step on the journey beyond hope and fear. It leads to the far more challenging state: groundlessness. Knowing that nothing ever remains the same, learning to live with the unrelenting constant of change, realizing that even the good things won’t last forever, accepting that change is just the way it is.
All fear (and hope) arises from looking backward or forward. The present moment is the only place of clear seeing unclouded by hope or fear.
Don’t prolong the past, don’t invite the future, and don’t be deceived by appearances, just dwell in present awareness. Of course, trying to be present when everything around you is crashing down is not easy. It takes enormous effort and discipline to keep recalling ourselves back to the present moment. Only in the present moment, free from hope and fear, do we receive the gifts of clarity and resolve. Freed also from anger, aggression, and urgency, we are able to see the situation clearly, take it all in, and discover what to do. This clarity reveals “right action”—those actions that feel genuinely appropriate in this moment without any concern about whether they will succeed or not.
Hope as an attribute we carry in us always, a state of being that is not dependent on outcomes.
Hope is a dimension of the soul … an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart. It transcends the world that is immediately experienced and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons.
… It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out.
Hope is not related to accomplishment. It is, quite simply, a dimension of being human. To feel hope, we don’t have to accomplish anything. Hope is always right there, in our very being, our human spirits, and our fundamental human goodness.
If we know that we are hope, it becomes much easier to stop being blinded or seduced by hopeful prospects.
Do not depend on the hope of results … you may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect. As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results, but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself.
Beyond hope and fear, freed from success or failure, learning what right action feels like, its clarity and energy. You might still get angry, enraged, and frustrated. But no longer let your activities be driven by these powerful, destructive emotions. Learned to pause, come back to the present moment, and calm down. Take no actions until you can trust your interior state—until you become present in the moment and clarity emerges undimmed by hope and fear. Then act, rightly with hope. It isn’t outcomes that matter. It’s people, our relationships that give meaning to our struggles. If we free ourselves from hope and fear, from having to succeed, we discover that it becomes easier to love, everything you do and everyone around you. We stop blaming, and we stop being disappointed in each other.
Can we do our work without needing to see results? Can we be content that our work might bear fruit, but not in our lifetime? Can we cheerfully plant seeds with little concern for the harvest?

Have Faith in Yourself – Achieve Success

How much faith do you have in yourself? 100%, 200%, if it’s to this scale, then how can you be under a state of self doubt in any challenging situation? Difficult situation is not new to any one of us, perhaps in a day we come across it many times, but there if we have complete faith in our self, our abilities, our courage, and our intelligence then we should know that this situation is nothing else but the test of that faith. In school do you remember, just minutes before the exam, that state of fear, uncertainty, self doubt, but if and only if we have faith in our preparation, we are confident that we shall secure good marks; then for sure we shall pass the test not only with good marks but also come out stronger and achiever.

The higher standards/classes you reach in school and college, the more difficult the exam gets. But in the end even the degree achieved is higher, which is achieved only and only after passing the exams. Just similar is the situation in life now, the only difference is you are not in school or college there is no set time for the exam and test does not come in the form of an examination paper. So next time you are in a challenging situation, remember it is the test of life you are going through just to become stronger for the next level, to achieve more success and happiness in life you have to go through it. And how well do you go through this, would depend upon how much faith do you have in yourself, how well are you prepared for your test? Trust me we all have a diamond inside, only thing it is hidden somewhere. We are never given a situation we can’t deal with; it just requires some additional effort, some more introspection.

Have Faith in yourself, you have the ability to achieve things not known; this is the most important faith of all. Something which you are not aware today, with all science and logic not possible today, but with your faith and sincere persistent efforts, it is possible tomorrow. If you don't believe in yourself, then it will be impossible to truly believe in anything else that you cannot see, touch, feel or physically behold. I mean your dreams, your goals, if and only if you have faith in yourself, you shall have faith in your dreams, that yes you can make them possible.

Look at the word impossible, I look at it and read I m possible. This change in the vision is required, how you look at things, situations and your tests. Remember that having faith in yourself will lead you to having faith in others, as well as in the achievement of things previously thought to be unattainable in your life. Improve your own self-image, self-talk and self-confidence, make your life better and this world a better place, it starts from myself, having faith in me.

Few steps to start with:
• Always thinking that you’re capable of succeeding can help the thought sink into your subconscious. Remember, failure begins with disbelief. And success begins with FAITH to succeed.
• Stop thinking of what you can’t do but begin to be think, of the things that you can do. Be a “yes” type of person. At least to yourself.
• When grabbing opportunities, place your heart into it. Again, believe that you’ll make things happen with this opportunity in hand.
• Think BIG, believe BIG. As that realistic proverb says, “Aim for the roof, you fall on the floor. Aim for the sky and you fall on the roof.” But just concentrate on soaring upwards.
• As you can see, it’s all in the mind. Start with positive thoughts and the rest will follow. For a month practice only positive talk with yourself, even if a negative thought comes convert it to positive.

If you think, you can achieve very little with faith, then don’t forget you can do nothing without it. HAVE FAITH, its possible, you can do it.

Challenge Yourself, Don’t Challenge the TIME

Whenever we face a situation which is difficult to handle, we feel cornered, not finding any way out, desperate, frustrated, don’t know which way to go. The immediate reaction is we start challenging the time, the people around us and the circumstances we are in. We start a blame game, blaming the time, the people, the situations, but ignoring the most important link our self. We are unable to see our own limitation in the situation. When ever we are put in such a situation, actually we need to grow ourselves from there, the very fact that we are desperate in it, means we are still lacking in some area of life, there is some hidden blind spot which we are not able to see.

Man is a great machine, and if we challenge our own self, to be better in that situation we can create wonders, at times we don’t know who we are until we see what we can do, until we stretch ourselves beyond our limits, until we actually CHALLENGE our self. Go beyond what you know you can do. And just like that, you'll know how much more you can do.

Go beyond again, and again. Grow past the limitations you've imagined, they are only in your head and your thoughts, outside there is no limit. Do a little bit at a time, one step at a time.

Challenge yourself, and then do what it takes to meet the challenge. As you feel your strength increasing, resolve to add to it through your own efforts. The way to have real confidence is to build it. Every day is your opportunity to make yourself more confident, competent and effective.

The skills and abilities that seem out of reach are really just a number of steps away. Challenge yourself toward them, and with each effort you move closer. Push yourself beyond the familiar, beyond the comfortable, and into a higher level of ability. Feel the unique joy of breaking through your limitations again and again. And experience yourself fully, a whole new yourself, which you were not aware in the past.

If you are challenging yourself each day, it shall keep you feeling vital and vibrant. You may even develop an entirely new appreciation for who you are and what you can do. And I am sure you would love that.