What's your Goal ?

Majority of the people, who would be reading this, would agree with me that this question was last answered when they were facing the interview panel for a job. A question like “Where do you see yourself 3 years / 5 years from now” was actually to assess the preparedness / planning the candidate had done while applying for the job. Now that we got the job, did we actually look back and check whether we actually reached close to what we had said at the time. If you are honest to yourself, more than 70% of us would say “NO”.  Some of us, including me, wouldn’t even remember what they had said at the time of the interview. The reason was because at that time, we were more interested to get the job rather than actually plan where we wanted to be at the end of 5 years. We are so involved in day to day battles that we spend all our times fire fighting and forget where we had intended to reach after a certain time. It is very important that we keep track of our goals and measure our achievement against the target. This ensures that we don’t fall off track and loose sight of our goal. We also need to know the importance of having the right goals because having a wrong one is as or more dangerous than not having any goal at all. An ideal goal should be realistic, achievable, should be of prime importance to us and we should be willing to pay the price to achieve it.

As the saying goes, “there’s never a wrong time to do the right thing.” Do ask this question to yourself and make sure that you pen the answer down today.

It's ok to fail sometimes....

I am very sure that most of the people reading this would think that such statements are out dated and in this fast paced razor sharp life we get only one chance.
As a good coach / teacher / parent would agree, it is very important to taste failure for true success.
Life is not a battle but a war. No matter we lose a few battles, but the war must be won !!
The American Army, for instance, would only hire people for their elite team people who had sometimes in their careers failed and bounced back. The thought was if the person has not failed ever, it is difficult to know how he would react to failure / situation of hopelessness.
Another example of this is the vaccines injections we get when we are young. They help our body fight the diluted strains of virus and ensure that we are not harmed in our future lives.
The only caveat for this mantra is that we need to use it very judiciously. We cannot use this on each and every instance of failure where didn't even try to do something whole-heartedly.

Failure is not in falling, but in not getting up after falling.

So everytime you don't succeed, don't lower your targets but raise your own standards of attempt!!

If you liked reading it, do check out a few more of my blogs by clicking on "Blog Archive" icon on the top on the right hand side.

Learning

Life is the biggest teacher and there are 2 ways of learning in our lives. The first one is through our own experiences and the latter by other’s experiences. However, the following quote “Growing old is mandatory, growing up is optional” is very true. I remember attending a workshop where the trainer asked a question “What is your experience?” Someone replied that it was 8 years. He asked “8 years or 8 times one year experience?". Basically what he was trying to make a point was whether we actually learned in the first year was brushed up in the subsequent years or we kept making the same mistakes every year without learning from our own experiences. When we look back in time, we realize that some of our biggest learning has come from our own failures. Though we can never guarantee success in every endeavor we undertake, the attempt in achieving the target has to be 100%. Every day we get new experiences either good or bad. The saying “when you fail in your attempt, never fail to attempt again” is old but still applicable.

Secondly, learning from other’s experiences is faster. Now in my view, there is a catch that we should not see the event in isolation but in totality.  We all undergo phases where we need some one to advice us because we are so glued to the situation that we are unable to see the bigger picture. If we look around ourselves for successful people, we find ‘discipline’ to be the most common trait amongst them. Discipline is the biggest asset in whatever field we are. Just by observing these people , you would realize why  they responded to a situation in a manner they did. Learning doesn’t only come from elderly people but from every person we meet in our daily lives. All we need to be is willing to learn from them.

There wouldn’t be a day when you would have learnt nothing new. So enjoy everyday experiences and don’t forget to learn the lesson!

My First Blog

Guys, I am not sure as i start typing for my first blog. I always like sharing positive thoughts because i feel what you give out to others is what you get back. Well I try and get my thoughts together in the coming time and hope you enjoy reading them as much as I do while posting them.