What kind of story are YOU telling yourself?

Once upon a time, you read a story. If the story was good, you’re eyes got lit up like a Christmas tree. The perils of the day became a nebulous thought, slowly fizzling into nothingness. Nothing mattered, nothing was captivating enough. The only thing that mattered was “turning the page” — finding out how the story ended.

Stories are captivating. They make us believe in the make-believe. Reality can sometimes look unreal; distorted. This is wonderful for a mental reprieve, to escape. But here’s the scary part: you tell yourself stories every day.

Are you believing in the make-believe?

Your understanding of the the tiny, almost mundane, things that happen around you and your life are yours and yours alone. They may be influenced by others, shaped by others, but as a whole, you have your own virtual reality. With the power of internet and technology you can put a filter on the exposure, feeding your mind to things that interest you and you alone. You live your own story.

You can pick the channels that influence your thought. Your inbox is yours. Your music playlist is yours. Your movie collection is yours.  The way you perceive training, and everything that comes along with increasing your performance, is yours.

I don't want you to believe my stories or take any interest in them, but rather to give you freedom in choosing your own. To perhaps give you some energy to tear down walls that you want torn down, but are too afraid to bust out because of some story behind the importance of the wall.

Stories, when used appropriately, help do the same thing they did when you were little kid that couldn't sleep comfortably. They calm your mind. They help you zone out and enter a state of flow. 

So if you struggle with something, you might not need the truth. You might just need a better story — one that’s true enough to help you sleep at night and give you that piece of mental calmness that will get you by. Be interesting, be awkward, be witty - but have an interesting story to tell yourself every day!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Cheers!
RS

Motivation is Bullshit!

I come across people everyday who tell me that they are motivated by the exercise regimen I follow. I see motivation videos being liked on Facebook, I see motivation speeches being promoted on websites...hell, I even read about motivational theories. (Thank you HR presentation).

But in my opinion, motivation is bullshit; it doesn't get anything done. 

Sure, motivation gets you going; but DISCIPLINE gets things done. When it actually comes down to sitting down and working something out, you cannot rely on motivation. After all, it's just a feeling.

Here's my recommendation to you. Whenever you feel motivated, don't do anything grand or exciting or set any lofty/unrealistic goals for yourself. Get a pen and paper, and write down ONE or TWO things you are going to commit to doing every single day for the foreseeable future, no-matter-what. Use that motivation, and build a machine for yourself. For example, you commit on writing a journal every day. After, lets say two weeks, you don't think about writing your journal anymore. You do it because you committed to it. Every single day. No matter what. It does not matter if both your hands were chopped off and you had to write the journal with your freakin' mouth.

When a habit gets inculcated, your nervous system will not even consider writing the journal/doing that activity. It just gets done, because you committed. Write this down somewhere if you have to - Commit once. Do not commit again and again, and then do it.

Whatever it is that you pick on doing, it will help. Definitely, this thing will not be the sole responsible factor for that transformative action you are looking for, but the context of the discipline you are creating in the interim to grow stronger is what's important.

It's not the grand visions/plans; its the tiny actions that move towards a worthy ideal that's important. Stop getting motivated. You don't need motivation because it does nothing but affords some good feelings in your body. Discipline of following that regime every single day is what is going to get you somewhere.

Cheers!

RS

How to Destroy Self Doubt!

There is this question that comes to my mind sometimes, and I struggle with finding the right answer. That question is, 'How do I tackle self doubt'. How do you proceed in life if you are always doubting what/how to do the next thing.

The question most people ask

Without going into a lengthy rant on how society has conditioned us to always be in self doubt, and finding the right passage of expressing our true self, in fact our strongest self to the surface; always being stuffed down by others and questioned on our activities, I am going to try and find a solution to this.

So how do you remedy this? How do you get rid of this?

You won't find the answer the same way you found the question, i.e. letting things get in your head. Self doubt is purely a self taught phenomena; you taught it to your brain. Honestly, your heart and your ba**s have the ability to do some magnificent stuff, without letting your brain pop in the middle.

The fastest, most effective and Band-Aid rip-off solution that I find to this is 'TO DO THE THING YOU ARE AFRAID TO DO'. Do it. It is not about being confident enough going into a tough situation, it is not about having a plan, it is not about having the most detailed solution; It's about doing it. It's about courage. Courage is what you will experience if you doubt something but go ahead and do it anyway. So your problem is not doubt. Your problem is courage. Doubt will always be there, but it gets out of the way when you express courage.

Millions against 300? Bring the f*ck on!

You won't find success the first time. And success isn't supposed to be that. Success for me is moving in the direction of what my goal, my passion is. People think success is doing things with a plan. I don't quite believe it. For me, success is finding the path to progression; towards an ultimate goal. And courage is doing those things you don't know how to do. Your self-doubt will step out of the way when you build that courage to do the right thing - and the power will be added to you.

Cheers!

RS

Life has taken an unexpected turn!

In the Indian society, being 27 years old, unmarried and thinking of studying further is not the combination everyone looks favorably upon. After all, isn't this the time when you should be looking for a bride, thinking of settling in?

You see, my priorities in life are different, and something that irritates the living hell out of my family as well. I do not want to go according to the rules and regulations of what the 'society' deems fit. I want to live life the way I find it satisfactory. But does that mean that studying further was a conscious decision I took? Absolutely not.

A lot of external factors were a reason why I decided to take this course. Professional advantage, personal gains to an extent (which is somewhat not the case anymore) and overall development of my personality with an international exposure...some things that I found were worth investing money in. After all, "Education is something that lives with you for life".

As I was boarding my flight to London, I had butterflies in my stomach. I will miss my family, my friends, and more importantly the luxuries I have had at my home. Here, I will have to cook my own food, make my own bed, wash my own clothes, and set a budget for myself. Not only this, but also to meet and be a part of a cohort which will have different people with different backgrounds and to adjust with them was something I dreaded and looked forward to at the same time.

Reading!

So how far has this journey been? To sum up in one word - Exciting. I think this one year is going to help me in transforming who I am as an individual, how I think and execute, and how I live. I am beginning to enjoy life (something that had been missing for some time now) and realizing a lot of things on-the-go. I feel more independent, confident and mature to tackle whatever life throws at me. I have made some good friends and look forward to the coming weeks as a litmus test of my abilities as an individual.

The song below kind of sums up what I'm feeling at the moment!

Cheers!

RS