Self Belief -cont...

As the Boxing Day Cricket match progressed between Australia & India, at the end of Day 3, its absolutely the match between the self belief of Australians and the self belief of Indians rather than cricketing skills between two teams.

Australia declared their second innings by setting a target of 499 to be achieved in two days by Indian team. Australia backed up their decision by their self belief that they need two days to take ten wickets and 499 will be a good amount of runs to defend. Now it’s the turn of the Indian team to display their self belief that they can do it.

The facts are that the pitch is doing absolutely nothing, which should make Indian batsmen worry. They have to believe in themselves and apply their skills acquired over the years to achieve the target easily. They have the skills, they have the potential, the only thing required is their own self belief. At this time they might require a good amount of motivational talk by their coach and the senior players to boost their moral.

They can easily win the match if they apply their skills and have patience to play to their potential without taking the undue pressure. Australians are definitely taking the chances available and clearly playing to win, in similar conditions many other teams including Indians play safe and surely does not give two days to their bowlers to get the other team out, so the other teams most of the time play to avoid defeat rather than playing for win.

Now, while writing this, the match stands at 124 with four wickets down, Rahul Dravid showed same lack of confidence & self belief and had already increased the pressure on the team by not contributing much while taking too many deliveries and staying at the wickets just doing nothing. The Indian openers had not added mush to reduce the target and so added pressure to the middle order to do the task. The middle order is also capable and can do the required task by just sticking to the basics and avoiding pressure and mistakes. Sourav Ganguly is doing the same & Yuvraj who had just arrived looked under pressure.

May God save Indians from defeat by better believers in themselves, the Australians…Enjoy the Game!!!

Self Belief -II

The day started with the usual look at the newspaper. I had expected the front page to be splashed with the gory pictures of assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the ex-Prime Minister of Pakistan. But, to my surprise, the front page greeted me with a big smile of Dhirubhai Hirachand Ambani, its the 75th birth anniversary of the great man with a vision & self belief.

The front page really displays the money power, which in Life, many a times over shadow all the basics of everything. Here, the newspaper is expected to give you the news, but it was forced to start with an ad, which is a basic financial viability of running the business.

The third page has some words printed which I like to quote

"If you have the belief to choose your road,

If you have the courage to stay on it,

If you have the conviction to surmount the rough stretches,

If you do... you will find that the road begins to follow you.

Dhirubhai Hirachand Ambani."

Above words are the words of a man, who wrote the history books of Indian Business, who will remain an integral part of "Rags to Riches" stories for many decades to come. These kind of people shows what Self Belief can do. These are the words to be understood, to inculcate, to follow & finally to be converted into action plan, to deliver the result, the unexpected result which makes every other individual stand up in respect for you & your achievements.

The second page showed some pictures of Reliance's journey, every pictures speaks of the Self Belief of Dhirubhai H Ambani, wherein he followed his self belief & succeeded in becoming the front runner in every aspect. The final picture shows a gleaming Mukesh Ambani standing in front of a big face of smiling Dhirubhai, which really tells us the impact/impression a person of Dhirubhai's stature leaves for times to come that even a person like Mukesh Ambani looks very small in front of Dhirubhai, although Mukesh took the Reliance's name & success story to a new unbelievable heights.

The newspaper also has a story of Rahul Dravid, who has lost his self belief and making a mockery of his abilities & stature. Rahul Dravid yesterday took 45 deliveries to take the first run in Boxing Day Test in first innings against Australia & finally made only 5 runs while facing 66 deliveries. Also, he got out lbw although he is the person known worldwide to be the one with sound technique, copy book style and wall like temperament.

On the other hand, the self belief of Australian bowlers like Brett Lee & Stuart Clark, gave the breakthroughs their team needed to get on top & dictate the terms, and finally the result, irrespective of the fact that the Indian lineup is filled with world's top most batsmen.

These things shows what Self belief can do to your life, it can easily help you to change the gears of life much faster and approach the destination successfully & with ease. The Self Belief in you can help to shape up your future.

So, believe in you & start moulding yourself for better future...Enjoy the Life!!!

Self Descipline

A few days back, I read an article ' Improve your life from one moment to the next' by renowned Filmmaker " Shekhar Kapur". He used the words " everything is something and for anything to be something, it had to be quantifiable. but nothing is quantifiable except in context of something. even a measure is a context."

It was a good article and specifically the words used are thought provoking, but somewhere down the line, you have to think too much to understand the meaning.

Also, the words in simple text points to the theory of relativity, wherein everything is in motion or at rest just because of its neighbour. So, it may means you live your life by looking at your neighbour, which is not the right approach in life.

My personal feeling is "Life is a balance between NEEDS & DESIRES", and as a human being you have to learn to balance these two important factors of life.

Some says, Look at people richer than you and try to set higher goals to grow in life. Some says, Look at people poor than you and be happy that you are living a wonderful life. I think everything in life comes with strings attached like two sides of a coin, both the sayings have its two sides, pluses & minuses. In case you always concenterate on people richer than you, you might fall into a trap of stressfull life & gets infected with "Inferiority Complex", because many a times you fail to match his growth, his spending, his lifestyle and may start getting stressed. In case you always look at the people who are poor than you, you might end up having a "Superiority Complex", so rather than growing, such people live is their own psuedo environment of air, without making an iota of effort to grow furthur.

So, it is better to understand, your own needs, go and fulfill those needs first. Then look at your desires, pick out the justifiable desires and set out the time frame against each one of those desires and go all out to achieve those targets.

It is always better to go for targets, one by one, starting with easy ones & moving towards the difficult ones. This way, once you start achieving even the easiest of desires, it gives you a sense of accomplishment & a strong desire to do more, to run faster, to go the another extra mile, to achieve more. This way you learn to grow and you feel the sense of achievement, step by step.

In doing all this, somewhere down the line, you may have to kill some of your personal desires for the sake of achieving big for your family, your near and dear ones. But the success achieved will make you forget all those small missed moments. Its the bigger picture which matters.

To do all this, you need to have a good control over yourself, over your senses & this is known as Self Descipline.

I still remember, people asking me " Why you reach office well before the time, no one ever asked you or questioned even those who are quite late?"I always replied that I liked driving on free lanes or working is easier early on, but really its my self descipline which forced me to reach on time, everytime, because I understand my need to be in office during working hours. But the self desciplined character in me also desire to add value to work I am suppossed to do, & the work done on or before time is a real accomplishment. Some feel it, some don't. But those do not feel this urge, do miss out on small-small sense of achievments, a feeling of proudness in always able to beat the time frame set to accomplish that task.

Always look at the value you are able to add, while doing something. This will make a difficult journey into a sweet one, cherised one & most likely, you will like to tred the path again in future without any fuss.

To end, I like to add a little more. Self Descilpine also teaches you to work at least, at least & at least seven hours and sixty minutes productively in an eight hour shift, so that when you leave your work place on time, you are destined to reach & be with your family, to make another value addition in that responsibility... Enjoy the Life!!!

Self Belief

"Conviction":"Self Belief", In Life, this one word allows one to raise his or her head in any circumstances and justify his or her own standing, irrespective of a huge crowd standing against the decision taken by him or her.

To grow in life, one needs to believe in his abilities. Understand "What are your limitations", "What do you lack", "What are your plus points", "What are you good at" and always base your decisions depending and relying on your plus points & good abilities. Once you take a decision in this fashion, you can justify the same against any odds.

In this fashion, you can go really a long way & make an impact. Once you do something good, you leave a footprint. It becomes your trademark. It becomes a quality in you to succeed. There are chances that you may fail, but don't take failures to your heart. Keep on working on your positives to grow in self belief to be more successful. Always remember, Steffi Graf played most of her tennis with fore hand shots, the rear hand shots is the real chink in her armour & every opponent despite good knowledge of same can not over shadow her with ease. So, she succeeded with her pluses and left quite a few pages of history devoted to her. Similarly, Sourav Ganguly plays most of his shots on ON side, every one knows it, but still after making many good strategies by every opposition, no one is able to write him down for long. So, he is still going strong just because he keeps on working on his plus points.

So, talk about what you know best, walk the path you are accustomed with, do the work in the way you believe in. Its the ultimate result which matters & not the way the same is achieved, most of the time.

Recently, I got to know the difference between "Confidence" and "Overconfidence". In reality, most of the times, it has nothing to do with the person in question, or his abilities, or his decisions, or the way the work is accomplished, its the result of the work which makes the ultimate difference. If, one succeeds, its called his confidence & if one fails with same set of parameters, its called his over-confidence. So, always look to reach the destination safe n sound and on time to be called a successful person and to make it happen, do depend on your plus points, your self belief.

You must have heard, the face tells ALL. And the eyes, are the most expressive point on your face. Try to control your eye expression. If, a person blinks too much, it shows his or her lack of confidence. such a person can not take a single decision on his/her own. Its the lack of self belief in his/her abilities, which reflects in his/her disability to focus for a longer duration of time at any object. So, the eyes blinks too frequently. One of the best ways to start with is to practice a simple routine known as "Hatth-Yoga". Just sit across a wall, almost four or five feet away. At the eye level, on the wall, make a small dark black circle, may be 2mm in diameter. Start concentrating on the circle, without blinking an eye. Again, again, again.....Keep on doing the same routine to always increase the duration between the eye-blinks. This way, you are conditioning yourself to suffer pain, to hold your nerves in difficult situation, to have a good control over your senses. So, your concentration level increases & your confidence will start increase with time as you practice harder & longer.

Do it, it will HELP......have self belief..be successfull...enjoy!!!

I, Me & Myself

To understand Life, first thing is to understand yourself. Start with an introspection, start asking questions to yourself. Because, more or less, its your life which matters most to you and your near & dear ones. And also, its you and only you, who knows about real you. Its only you, who knows what you expect others to think of you. So, you need to have a closure look at yourself first before embarking on a journey to understand "What Life is & What Life should be ?".

Start with questions like "what is the final aim of my Life". Then start weighing the options before you, start thinking of limitations you have. Even start questioning the aim you have set for yourself, like " What is the probability of me achieving this aim ?", Is it really possible; Is it too high or too low to achieve ???. Do think of your limits. Your aim should be justifiable to yourself.

It is always better to depend on listing down the thoughts rather than day dreaming. Because once you start visualizing things, there is always a chance of drifting down to other past memories & thoughts. Everyone has many sweet n sour past memories and the moment one drifts in that memory lane, it takes hours n hours to come back to the original thought process.

Be Selfish in Life. Its your life, your hard work, your decisions, your achievements, your money, your fame n glory, your party, your family, your near n dear ones,.....

So, all things should directly or indirectly start from you and end at you. All your decisions should at least be based on " What benefit I will get out of this ?" and " What is the possibility of any harm or loss to me by taking this decision ?". Even if you can not see any benefit, the decision should not bring any kind of harm or loss to you directly or indirectly.

Always, depend on leaving behind witness marks on the decision you take, for the work you do. Be prepared to justify your decisions and work. Never think that no one in this world will question you regarding your work n decisions just because you have weighed in all the possible pros n cans and taken the decision in the best interest of the organisation. A written document is a written document and remain written till its shelf life. The spoken words just get lost in the wind between four ears ( two yours and two of listener's). The spoken words are good enough to create an instant shock value, to judge the first hand face expression but written documents will always protect you against misguided mischiefs.

Remember, Pt. Jawahar Lal Nehru's written letters from a jail to his daughter Indira Gandhi, are history to us and will remain so. But, numerous mails written even by Bill Gates are lost in between the servers without creating any waves in the history books. So, a document will remain documented and might open new vistas of Life for you any time.

In the end, do think " What I consist of in your particular case" , is it only you, is it you and your spouse, or your children.....define clearly to yourself about this aspect to set goals to achieve in Life... in this and only this Life...enjoy !!!