Are you invisible?

Are you choosing to be invisible in life? Are you convincing yourself that you don’t need to be noticed and you don’t have it in you to get noticed? You couldn’t be further away from the truth. 

No matter how small, how insignificant, how unimportant we are, none of us should ever downplay ourselves by choosing to be invisible. A small smile from you can make a person rethink their suicide plan, or give relief from their feeling of not being cared for. A simple acknowledgment from your end can make a person feel noticed and worth their life. An appreciation from your end can make someone feel their efforts are valued and might motivate them to do better.  

When we focus on our pain, our life, our misfortunes, or our lack of confidence, and our fears, we’ll never be able to overcome them. To notice another, we need to shift our focus from ourselves. If I am choosing to be invisible, I may be self-obsessed, since I may be spending all my time only thinking of my own fears and discomfort. Life will grow gloomier by the day, no solutions will ever be good enough, and life will never feel worth it. Instead, if we focus on others every once in a while, we’ll notice how lonely or thankless their lives might be and consider adding to the quality of their existence. 

There are so many true stories of how a casual smile, or a simple hello from a random person has made someone feel worthy of themselves again or at least given them the hope to approach someone for hope again. The only way to find the strength to deal with your problems is when you stop obsessing over your own and look at others’ too. Think about the security person at your apartment or office, think about the cleaners, think about so many people who are constantly contributing in their own ways towards making you feel safe, secure, and clean. Know their names, remember their names, enquire about their well-being. Appreciate those at home, notice the small things that they do for you and thank them. The more you give these small gifts to others, the more you will receive too. The more you receive, the more you understand the value of life and the simple gestures. You don’t have to move mountains to change the world. You just have to smile and stop trying to be invisible. No one will care for you if you don’t care about yourself. Just as well, no one will care for you if you care too much about yourself too! The fact that you are here and alive today means your presence is essential for the world. Which means you cannot and should choose to be invisible or insignificant. 

Take a chance, put yourself out there. Even if you get hurt, the universe will send someone again to help you heal. When you get hurt, you understand the importance of not hurting others. When you feel judged, you understand you shouldn’t be judging too. Life is offering valuable lessons. Don’t hide! Put yourself out there and live life king size. You’ll have yourself to be thankful for, whenever your life ends! To go through good things in life without being thankful is the most ungrateful thing we could do! And the worst thing you could do for yourself when life is about to end is to regret that you never lived! 

It doesn’t require talent, intellect, great knowledge, money or power to make a positive contribution to the world. It takes a grateful heart, pleasant face and kind words! That’s all! That isn’t much, is it?

Imagine in your favour!

Rather than live in the fear that something might go wrong, live with the hope that things will go right. It’s anyway unknown. It is anyway yet to happen! And if you can’t imagine in your favour, no one else can. So, imagine in your favour .

There are some things that are in your control – like exercising, taking care of yourself. There are some things that are beyond your control – like natural calamities and epidemics. If you focus a lot on things that are beyond your control, you will feel helpless and un-resourceful. But if you focus on things that are in your hands, you’ll feel empowered and inspired to take action.

Whatever you do, it is important to imagine in your favour. If you do the opposite, regardless of the result, you will feel stressed right from the beginning. Imagining in your favour gives you the strength and positivity to do what you can do in any situation! Cheers!

Why do relationships commence, continue, or collapse? (Part 2)

Picking up from where we left in the last blog — For most romantic relationships to start, the first thing that kicks in is hormones. Next is a need that is being met (mental, physical, emotional, spiritual). The third step is understanding and appreciating the good in the other person, respecting them — when we reach the third stage in a relation, it gets more beautiful, productive, and lasting. So, we move from a state of pleasure to a state of dependence, to a state of enablement.

There’s one common cause however, that hinders relationships at times. In the initial stages, relationships fulfill some needs. In time, we move on to other things and might miss out on fulfilling those needs. We might move to fulfill wants. All in good faith and best intentions. But that’s when dissatisfaction creeps in. For example, your spouse might need a specific object, let’s say a functional item for everyday use. You don’t agree with that. You feel it is not required. And you instead get them something much bigger, better and more expensive. However, you might not get the reaction you hoped for. They might not jump out of joy. They might go on the reverse and question your judgment as to what made you buy such a thing and create a waste when you could’ve done with something much smaller and more functional.

Two things happen then – you may get a sense of not being appreciated for your larger than life gesture. The other person might get a sense of not being understood well. Over time, with growing instances, dissatisfaction grows, unless both make a conscious effort to explain their understanding and clarify. And also, learn to respect the needs before progressing to wants. If you do a great job or taking care of needs, there won’t be much to complain even if you don’t fulfill wants — because there will be a level of understanding in the relationship that you are always giving your best.

Most people who complain, do so because their basic needs haven’t been met. And that unconsciously plays on their mind and makes them shoot out in all other directions. An awareness of what are your needs will greatly help. Most of us aren’t even aware of what we need. Hence we get frustrated and can’t communicate our frustration in a manner that is easily understood by others. So, it is important to understand what are the basic needs that absolutely matter. Communicate that to your partner and help them understand what’s important about it. Don’t blame them or hold them responsible, however. State your needs without saying that they have to fulfill all of it. And more importantly, first, seek to understand what are their needs and how can you meet them. Once you help people understand, (in a non-threatening and kind way), they are more likely to respond appropriately. And even if they don’t, you will be more aware of what exactly is bothering you and will be able to communicate that in the right way.

Needs are necessities that help us function. Wants are nice to have but don’t prevent our capacity to function. To have a beautiful relationship with yourself too, understand what are your needs and how can you fulfill your needs. Self-love and care begin there.

Why do relationships commence, continue, or collapse? (Part 1)

Most romantic relationships begin out of a need. Where both partners find their needs fulfilled in some way, they enter into a relationship. The first thing that usually kicks in, is hormones. Nature has built us in such a way that we get attracted to each other for the sake of procreation. But there’s more! Hormones are only the initial step. Needs play an important role. We get into relationships out of various needs. Our needs determine our nature of relationships too, among other things.

For the sake of exploring this topic further, there are two kinds of us, when we enter a relationship:

1. Who like to take care of others
2. Who like to be taken care of

Both of the above are needs. Wanting to take care of others is as much a need as wanting to be taken care of. There are people who love taking care of others so much that they won’t know what to do with themselves if there’s no one who needs them to care. If you see most relationships, one likes to take care of, and the other likes to be taken care of.

The ones who like to take care of others may have more of “I know”, “Listen to me”, “Let me help you out” or things of similar nature.

Those who like to be taken care of might have more of, “I don’t know”, “You decide”, “You tell me what should I do”.

It compliments to have these 2 kinds of needs. However, no matter how much a person likes to be taken care of, they also want to add value. So, if the other person comes across as too strong and never needing any help, then they might feel they are of no value and treat the other one like a God and their own selves as useless and not worth it. They will lose their confidence eventually to be able to do anything on their own.

Hence, for those who have a strong need to take care of others, watch out! Be mindful if you are overdoing the protective part of it and making the other person incapable of standing on their own feet. Love and concern have their own place. If done in excess, it can render a person useless in their own life. Every once in awhile, demonstrate vulnerability and seek help from your partner just to let them know that they are equally adding value to your life. If you portray yourself as intelligent a bit too much, the other person can land up feeling like a dim-wit. Don’t overplay or underplay. It is important to be mindful of each of your space in a relationship.

The reason why you need to think of this is, life comes with an expiry date. As flattering as it might be to our ego to have someone depending on us, it gets that dangerous if we were to cease to exist tomorrow. Eventually, our goal should be to ensure we give each other the space to grow on our own and be independent in some aspects so that if life demands, we can step up and take charge.

On the other hand, if you are someone who needs to be taken care of, ensure you are maintaining a balance too. After a point, it can be taxing and tiring for one person to constantly fulfill your need to be taken care of. So, please ensure that you are self-sufficient at times and also taking care of the other person when needed. Challenge yourself to do some things on your own. Tomorrow if this person doesn’t exist and if you have a down moment, you can’t collapse. You’ll have to hold your fort. No harm is leveraging someone’s support, but not at the cost of realizing your own inner strength. Strike a balance between both.

Instead of creating relationships of dependency, think of creating dependable relations. They are more fruitful.

In tomorrow’s blog, there’s going to be a focus on one key reason why relationships go through a rough patch, or even worse, fail and how to avoid it. Thank you for stopping by and meet you here tomorrow. 🙂 Until then, have a great day!

9 tips to develop confidence

Confidence is that ornament that only you can make for yourself. No amount of social acceptance, name, fame, power, money can give you something that’s truly an inner quality that you can build for yourself. There are several distractions though, that come in the way of building your own confidence. Just like if you were to build a house. Here are a few tips that help us steer clear of things that damage our building. As you know, your confidence influences how the world sees you. If you don’t believe in yourself, others will find it even harder to believe in you. Hence, it is so important to build our building first. And it isn’t rocket science. If you operate with enough awareness, you should see yourself build a beautiful sense of self for yourself pretty quickly: 

1. Stop comparing yourself to others. You aren’t here to be better than or worse than anyone. You are here to explore yourself. Compare to learn, not to judge (read a blog on comparison here).
2. Don’t judge yourself. Observe and improve. Judging is to evaluate and say good or bad. It pulls down confidence. To observe means to notice and see if it’s working or not and figure out what changes need to be made. 
3. Stop listening excessively to others’ opinions of you. Everyone has a perspective. It doesn’t mean they are right. It is just another perspective. Have a perspective of your own and value it because it is yours.
4. Don’t seek validation or approval from others. The more you seek, the more elusive it is. People’s validation is not a certificate for you since it represents their state of mind and their thought process. Do things for the joy of doing it. Not because you expect someone to applaud or recognise you for it. When you do things for the love of it, you’ll do your best and you’ll know it. And that’s when you’ll be happy with what you do. The biggest geniuses in the world were not approved by the world because they were extraordinary and it takes an extraordinary mindset to recognise another extraordinary mind. Some extraordinary things need time to be accepted. 
5. You aren’t here to be perfect. You are here to progress. Just because you don’t know something well, like a language or a skill, doesn’t mean you can’t be confident. Be confident always of your ability to learn. Not your current level of skill. Skills can always be improved if you are confident of yourself as a learner. See if you are making incremental progress every day. That’s what counts. Not perfection. The need for being perfect has stopped many from getting started on their dream projects. It’s always progress that is important. Incremental progress each day will pave the way for perfection someday. Don’t wait! Just get started and embrace learning and progress versus perfection. 
6. Be happy that you are making mistakes, because at least you know that way you are trying. Mistakes aren’t to be frowned upon. There is no human in this world who has ever learned a thing without making a mistake. Mistakes aren’t bad. If it is intentional, then that’s something to watch out for. But otherwise, if your intentions were right, find ways to correct that mistake. If someone doesn’t forgive you, that doesn’t mean it’s the end of the world. An end of a relation doesn’t necessarily mean you are terrible. It means you are not working out together. Besides, there’s no human who goes through life without entries and exits of relationships. At all points, see what is it that you can do to make things better. 
7. Don’t blame others – one sure-shot way of losing confidence is by holding others responsible for your life. You will never get the confidence to change your life if you constantly blame others for it. Take charge, take responsibility for whatever happened because it is your life – and you can’t be the victim in your own story. You are a hero – whether you see it or not right now! Rise to be the hero of your own story rather than spending time being the side-kick in someone else’s story. 
8. Don’t measure yourself the way the world wants to measure success. Have your own measures. Having a house, education, degrees, jobs, marriage, kids, the brand of your vehicle, etc. don’t define you. They are still objects at the end of the day. Anything has as much value as you attach to it. Ask yourself are you attaching value to things based on what’s your reality or others’? And at the end of each day, see what is it that you can be grateful for. Is there anything that’s really bothering you today? Tomorrow can be taken care of when you reach there. But if today is okay or some things are okay, be grateful for it. You can never lack confidence when you notice what’s right with you and your life.
9. Remember life is too short. Anything that’s bothering you, ask yourself will it matter if the world was going to end today? Most things that we get worked up about, aren’t things that actually matter to us in the long run. Like someone’s judgment of us, or an unsuccessful attempt, etc. These aren’t the kind of things that people pay attention to when we die too. They only think of the good in us. 

To improve your confidence, the biggest thing to be aware of is what’s impacting it right now. That should be the starting point. Once you are aware of what’s impacting, you can coach yourself by asking if it is really that important to lose your confidence over it. Nothing in life is worth losing yourself really.

Would you read it if you don’t know what it is about?

It’s going to add value. But you still don’t know what is it about. Thank you for coming this far and continuing to read. If you don’t know me, and if you don’t have any idea of whether I could possibly add value and if you still continue to read, congratulate yourselves! You have what it takes! You have a quality that will enhance the quality of your life! Even though the stakes are low here, yet, if you have demonstrated that skill in this context, it means you have the ability and can demonstrate it in other contexts too. 

Life is uncertain! Even the best predictor says 99% chance of something happening. Which means there are no guarantees in life. And there are no guarantees for life too! The only guarantee is that of uncertainty. Hence, this one quality can either make or break your life.

What happens to you when things get uncertain? Are you able to deal with it or do you feel jittery and anxious? Are you someone who likes to know the agenda, outline, or plan before you get into anything? Or are you someone who can take a few risks and feel enthusiastic in an unknown situation?

It doesn’t mean it’s wrong to want to know or plan ahead. But life doesn’t always go as planned. Are you comfortable dealing with sudden surprises that can come along the way? This means the need for certainty, predictability, or a plan doesn’t control you. You control your need.

The quality we are exploring is TRUST! Do you have the capacity to trust – no matter how bad your past has been and how bleak your future is appearing?

To trust life – there are two things that we need to believe in:

1. To know that nothing that is truly yours can ever be taken from you. If someone took something, then maybe we owe it to them somehow or their need is larger than ours. 
2. That every experience brings with itself valuable learning for us. It wasn’t a coincidence that we landed ourselves in that situation. It was meant to be since it was important for us to learn something there. It is going to make us richer in some way.

When we find it difficult to trust, it means we don’t trust that we have the ability to deal with any situation.

When life gives us what we want, trust comes easily. That’s not called trust. But when life doesn’t give us what we want, if we still believe that life has better plans for us – that’s when we’ll be able to look at the bigger picture and know that it isn’t the end of life.

If you are looking for watermelons and life hands you lemons instead, what do you do? To make lemonade you need to trust that life has better plans for you. Else, you’ll only find the lemons bitter.

Life, with all its experience, is always adding value to you. To see it, you got to trust it!

Gifting ideas and their effects

Imagine this –

It’s a loved one’s birthday, so you wanted to give them something. There are several ways to go about it (nothing right or wrong. Different strokes for different folks, as they say):

1. Give them money and ask them to buy whatever they want
2. Ask them what they want and buy it
3. Put in a lot of thought and effort and buy something for them

And, there are several ways of giving it too –

1. Hand it over to them saying happy birthday
2. Keep it on the table and ask them to take it
3. Gift-wrap it and present it to them
4. Make the moment so memorable by presenting it in a way that makes them feel special (Note: This doesn’t involve moving mountains. It only involves making a moment special).

Here’s what they do with the gift-

1. They take it and thank you for it
2. They like it so they keep it
3. They don’t like it much so they recycle it or exchange it
4. It’s not about the gift but the way you give was so memorable that they cherish it for a lifetime.

Likewise, when you appreciate — there are several ways of doing it:

• You say, ‘good job’ and leave it at that
• You talk about yourself and how they remind you of yourself
• You list out their qualities — like loving, kind, intelligent, adorable, etc.
• You tell them what they are good at and what they can do better
• You appreciate them with all your heart, listing not only their qualities but also the incidents with them that you remember the most. And let them know what that means to you or the positive effect they had on you

This could be their possible responses:

• Respond with ‘thank you’ but never really know what you appreciated in them.
• They might feel it as a compliment or not depending on how much they look up to you.
• They thank you but might not know where and how you saw the qualities so they may not internalize and remember. They may just remain as some words.
• They are more likely to remember your advice and might not remember that you also appreciated them.
• Even if they ever forget what you said, they’ll always remember how you made them feel special. It will be a memorable experience.

So, what would you wanna do?

The upside of rock bottom!

We fear to hit rock bottom because it appears super scary, like a forbidden place from where we usually are – a point of no return. It feels like we can’t take it and we’ll collapse. However, most people who have hit rock bottom realised that it was their rock bottom only when they looked back at it. We might not have the clarity that we’ve hit rock bottom while we are still going through with it – because anything that was worse than before would appear like a  rock bottom until the next bad phase comes in. When you going through that phase, it might be overwhelming, daunting, uncertain, and hopeless. Somehow you push yourself to go through it moment by moment, day after day. And finally, when you look back at it, you’ll be so surprised that you made it through all of it. 

Life sometimes turns out much worse than anything we could’ve imagined. If anyone ever asked us to imagine going through such a situation before, we would’ve said, ‘No way!’ And we would’ve dreaded it.  But, we surprise ourselves with an unimaginable amount of grit and strength when life decides to shock us. We would’ve never known that we could’ve done it ourselves. And hence, hitting rock-bottom has its own benefits as below: 

• You’ll know the depth.
• You’ll know that you can still last.
  • You’ll have significant insights and realizations about yourself, people, and the world around you.
• And you’ll be fearless knowing that you can face anything. 
• You get a renewed sense of confidence and self-worth as a result of emerging from rock-bottom and springing back to life. 

If we remind ourselves that we always have the strength corresponding to our troubles, to meet with them and see them through, we’ll stop spending so much time worrying and trying to be perfect all the time. We’ll be gracious learners and enthusiastic humans. We’ll also be compassionate beings knowing that rock bottom is something that can happen to anyone anytime. It is not an exclusive event reserved for a few. It could be emotional, financial, or something else too. Like everything else, it is a phase, and it too shall pass! 

Do you need an apology?

Most of us believe that when we have been wronged, the other person has to ask for forgiveness, or come back with an explanation, and only then can we forgive or resume talking to them. It seems commonsensical. What if that’s not the only way? What if there’s a more influential way of being that gives you peace? No! I am not asking you to forgive the other person! I am not saying forgiveness is divine. There’s something more than that which nips the problem in its bud. 

I recently figured this is the recipe for some people to maintain their peace and rapport, and influence others better. 

Let’s take an example – you were supposed to meet a friend. You both had decided but then last minute you don’t hear from your friend. 

Another time again, your friend calls and says he/she really wants to meet you and fixes a time to come to your place and meet. You wait on that given day but neither do they show up, nor text, nor call. 

After this, what are you most likely to do? 

Either call them and ask what happened.

Or, maintain silence till they come back and apologise.

Or, stop talking to them for a while until they get back. 

And at this point, quite a few relationships get too fragile to continue (If you imagine bigger situations in life). The other person sometimes never gets back because they feel you may be too angry to want to talk to them. So, they assume punishment for their own-selves and become distant and awkward because of their own guilt for having disappointed you. And we’ll never know that because we never communicated further with them too.

The ones who trust themselves and love themselves, do two things differently:

1. They hold the remote for their television sets in their own hands. Which means, they don’t let others’ actions determine their feelings. They observe that the friend didn’t turn up. But rather than judging them as people who don’t keep their word, or don’t mean what they say, they do something else. They understand that there’s more to this situation than them and their feelings. They seek to understand. They genuinely find out if everything is okay. They don’t let this affect their rapport. They continue to be their usual self and do what they would do, had this incident not happened. No! They are not super-human. They are just people who understand that humans are driven by reasons beyond their conscious understanding at times. 
2. They pay more attention to the fact that their friend had expressed interest to meet them multiple times by themselves and hence reach out to them to see if they are doing okay.  

People are being what they are being, beyond your understanding AND also much beyond their own conscious understanding. No one wakes up thinking, ‘I will not live up to my word today.’ Everyone wakes up wanting to be the best. But somewhere, their unconscious habits and patterns take over. If we give up, they’ll have no incentive to change. If we remain neutral, we are giving them an incentive to live-up. I am not saying put yourself in jeopardy. Safeguard your interest in whichever way you can – and remain neutral to this person, if you wish to have a positive influence on them.

Your capacity to influence is directly proportionate to your ability to maintain rapport. If you can’t maintain rapport, you can’t quite  influence too. It is easy to have faith in people when they keep up their word. But it is important to have faith even when they don’t. If you can continue being your usual self, without letting their past behaviours impact your present behaviours, you will give them a compelling reason to change. Think for yourself – there are some people in your life for whom you’d be ready to do anything even before they ask. You’d go all out for some. Who are they? And what is it about them that makes you so, with them? For the most part, it is for the people who believe in you, that you are ready to, and willingly exceed your regular average self and run the extra mile. Not for people who don’t. 

When you judge, you lose the capacity to influence your own-self to be neutral. Let alone the other person. And once you build a strong impression about someone, they also tend to live up to it, for the better or for worse – unconsciously!

Whenever we get disappointed by someone, it is not about them, but about ourselves and our expectations. 

But, how far does it go? You don’t want to be on the receiving end forever! So, 

• Be upfront with them and ask them if they can are certain of it, else to let you know, so that you don’t pursue them. And tell them, that it’s perfectly okay even if they can’t. If they know that you won’t get upset, they might be more upfront. Most people prefer silence to confrontation. So, they know that there isn’t going to be any need for confrontation, explanation, or justification, they might find it easier to be upfront with you. This means it is important for you to maintain your emotional state. Fear of upsetting you makes people who love you, lie to you, or keep away from you sometimes.  
• Don’t complain or whine. Be an adult about it and say you wanted to double-confirm. 
• If it goes beyond a point, then you can respectfully back-off – giving them their space. 

Nothing has to be done all the time, with everyone, in all situations. But keep the above in mind in places where you want to maintain rapport and have the ability to influence. This would be helpful there and anyplace else where you tend to get too upset or disappointed by people.

The question of forgiveness doesn’t arise when we are ready to understand. An apology is important if the ego is important. An apology is important if your judgment is all there is to reality.  If peace is important, we don’t judge. We observe. We learn. We take necessary action, but without getting too affected by it. 

Don’t give others the power to determine what you feel. Give yourself the power to influence others in what they are!

The right side of wrong

It is better to be on the right side of wrong rather than be on the wrong side of right.

The right side of wrong offers valuable feedback and experience to learn from. It gives us an opportunity to be humble and apologise where required. It also gives us the sense and patience to have more empathy and acceptance of others and their mistakes in the future.

The wrong side of right gives us the arrogance of being right and a pride to look down at others and demand apologies. We tend to prove others wrong to be right ourselves. That’s a sense of discrimination, condescension and judgment. All of which, alienates us from others. 

Besides, any relation that is built over the premise of ‘I am right , you are wrong’ or You owe me an apology’ – will be a shaky one.

Of what use is being right, if we are left with none at the end. Better use is a wrong that gives us a direction that’s right. 

However, wilfully do no wrong! That’s definitely not right. 

Being right is never a problem, unless you are being on the wrong side of right.