Getting out of our comfort zones

Getting out of our comfort zones

In our fast paced life, we are always in a search of stability. In other words, we always find a comfort zones in our mind. For example, our body set its own system to keep our blood pressure, glucose level, body temperature and many other processes to keep the particular ‘Stability’ of our body. These processes and a particular stability are functioning to make a specific ‘Balance’ in our body. It means our daily routines have specific ‘Balance’ in our home & working environment, tasks, thought process, our potentials, our patience and many more. As we continue with the same, this particular ‘Balance’ become so normal and un-noticed to us. Actually, this ‘Balance’ is creating specific comfort zones in our mind and shaping our behaviour with the same. It always continues to as we realise to make a change in it.

Now we will see the impact of this ‘Balance’ on our body and mind. This fast paced life has given us lot of impatience and habit of excess expectations in a lesser time. Even many self-made motivation experts are contributing by imposing us to set high goals for fast actions. But we fail to understand that our fast actions are going against our stabilising or balancing factor in our body. We are trying to change and coming out of our comfort zones but it is a un-natural way of doing it. Rapid change confuses our body and mind so our ‘Balance’ start restoring it. If you are going rapidly beyond limits of your normal performance, your body and mind ‘Balance’ blocks you from doing the change.

Let’s take a simple example.

Every year we make many resolutions at the start of the year. Getting up early in the morning, going for a walk or exercise in the morning, doing cycling or swimming or gymnasium, reading at least 10 pages a day from a favourite book and joining a music class are the examples of typical resolutions, which we do. We start to do such decided activities but end up doing these things after 3 or 4 days. We just start a walk in the morning but our work keeps us busy for next few late nights. We are about to go for a music class but guests walk in at the same time. We just start reading a book, our relative asks the same book to borrow from us. Day by day, these reasons become endless and we pull ourself back in our previous routine.

We definitely can make a change in our life and come out of our comfort zones. We have to set a smaller change, focus on small wins and lesser percent of improvement. As we get success in the decided small change, we can go further for next smaller change. This means we have to give enough time and patience to our body and mind to accommodate that change in our specific ‘Balance’

If you want learn more in details, get in touch here +91-98220-24674 or jeevan@mindhealth.in

Do you postpone your tasks daily?

Do you postpone your tasks daily?

Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans – John Lennon

We are living in a so dynamic world that we have minimum bagful of tasks to do in a day in our professional as well as in personal life. We always want to complete all the tasks but all tasks could not get completed in a day. So here we start postponing our tasks. But first question arises in this situation that why couldn’t we complete our tasks? Lets find this answer first. We need to question ourselves that how many times we are present with our mind at the time of doing the particular task. If we can keep our mind in the present where we are doing our tasks, we can do the same task in a lesser time. Let us see an example to understand it more easily.

When we brush our teeth every morning, we take 5 minutes or sometimes 10/15 minutes or sometimes 10 seconds would also feels like ages. We should give enough time to brush our teeth but why do we need variable time to make it. This instance shows us that we are not present there in the task but wandering with our mind in many other things and that is how we delay to our tasks. We will see another example. If I have a task of cleaning the table everyday. It takes me 5 minutes to complete. Now if I keep my mind in the present and do the same activity, I can do it in 1 minute. This is how I can save on 4 minutes at my disposal. Do this experiment with yourself, you would definitely realise, how much time we can save in an entire day.

Postponing tasks or procrastination generally does not have anything to do with number of tasks or complexity or responsibility or lack of confidence or lack of skills. We do not keep our mind in the present so our mind starts wandering, it becomes an entertainment in our mind and we start postponing our tasks. Sometimes we wander in some of our happy moments in our past and sometimes we wander in sad or fearful moments in our life. We wander in our imagined future too with sad or happy feeling. These imagined feelings become our emotions in the present and we could not concentrate, where we are now. According to general behaviour of a human being, we tend to choose things, which are easy for us to do. We start choosing things or tasks, where our mind presence would not require to complete the task. We start postponing the important but critical or complicated tasks, where our mind presence is required. So lack of mind presence is the culprit of procrastination in most of the cases.

If you really want to learn to keep your mind in the present, get in touch with us here jeevan@mindhealth.in or +91-98220-24674

Breathing helps us in decision-making

Breathing helps us in decision-making

Conscious Breathing is a simplest management tool for rational decision-making

Our inhalation and exhalation is actually involved with our every activity. Now we will do an experiment, observe your inhalation and exhalation. What would we realise, we can observe different patterns of our own breathing. If we start observing the breathing with more involvement, we can define the specific pattern of breathing with specific emotion. It means we have slightly faster inhalation and exhalation when we are anxious or very sad. When we observe our breathing with normal or slightly slow in speed  without any internal disturbance, you will feel joyous and happy.  Our breathing cycles have impact on our emotions and vice versa, our emotions also have impact on our breathing. So emotions can be regulated with slower inhalation and exhalation.

Breathing is so inherent activity in our body, which made us unfocused about our breathing process. We are going through different emotions & thoughts throughout the day. We are concerned about tensions, so called ‘Deadlines’, sound sleep, over-loaded responsibility; which we are actually creating with our own thoughts and emotions. But we forget one more important thing in this process that is, to have ‘conscious’ breathing or having awareness about our breathing constantly in our routine life. But we have easily forgotten to keep a watch on our breathing, which can actually regulate our emotions & thoughts.

Decision making is a crucial activity in our personal & professional life. We need peaceful environment inside ourselves to take the right decisions. But we are always chaotic in our mind with our own thoughts, imaginations with good, bad and worst results. If we can analyse our breathing cycles, we can regulate our emotions and thoughts. We can make ourselves rational with a right pattern of breathing. When we are feeling joyous from within ourselves with normal breathing cycle , it is easy to take rational decisions without having any emotional impact. Decision making is so inherent part of our life process that we don’t recognise actual decision making moments. So we take some decision with a particular thought and in particular emotion, which result in disastrous situation. If we make ourselves aware with our breathing cycles, we can make ourselves more and more conscious. Consciousness helps us to keep ourselves more and more involved with our present situation. As we can keep our mind aware and conscious with present, it helps us to take any decisions in any moment our life.

If you’re facing similar kind of problems and need professional help, get in touch here:

+91-98220-24674 | jeevan@mindhealth.in | www.mindhealth.in

Making movies in our mind makes us Un-productive

We love to watch movies. Many times we have our own choices. We choose to watch a movie if its genre, music, actors, actresses and a few other ‘influencing’ factors appeal us.

Behind the camera, when a movie is made, it’s story is always based on some creative imaginations. Even in cases where movies are based on true stories, they need to be fabricated in order to make them more appealing to the audience. This ‘appealing’ factor engages us and increases our involvement in the movie. Some movies create a serious impact on our emotions for a longer period of time.

Now, there is a small secret about our mind..! We also have a habit of creating our own movies in the mind. We start making movies due to our inabilities to face realities. We become very creative when we make such movies. Subconsciously, we start becoming habitual to such kind of a phenomenon.

When we start making movies in our mind, we may pick up characters from real life or many times they may even be fictitious or imaginative (e.g.: my perfect man or my perfect partner). We usually associate different contextual references and experiences from our real life with these fictitious characters. As we start enjoying our own creation, we get habitual to it and start making more movies in our mind. Sometimes we visualise very disturbing probable results of a simple situation. It may not even be a problem. Many people pass number of hours in making such mind movies. Surprisingly, these movies may have thrill, suspense, horror, romance and comedy also. You may have seen people smiling or laughing for no reason when they drive alone on a bike. It happens with us also. We choose to become the main hero or heroin in many instances. As it is dramatic, it is very addictive in nature.

Gradually, this fun of our mind movies gets worse and detaches us from the present realities. Unknowingly, we start living either in the past or the future with the fictitious support of these fake movies. We reject the choice of living in the present. This is how we get habitual to it and start forgetting the daily tasks in our work lists. We drop our level of understanding and recalling capacities. We prepare ourselves mentally for important business meetings but we miss out few important points in a meeting. We recollect and remember all those points just after the meeting ends. Or when we are relaxed, conscious or alert.

A very common example of such a phenomena is a disturbance in our reading capabilities. When we start reading a book from page 1 to page 10, we leave our conscious reading somewhere around page 4; but still our eyes keep reading physically up to page 10. Somehow, we realise by the 10th page that we understood the context only up to page 4. Then we start reading again from the page 4. This is where the movies started. Somewhere between Page 4 and Page 10..!

This phenomenon peeps in many aspects of our life. According to our research, lot of us are facing this serious problem within ourselves. Making unnecessary movies in our mind create stress. Resultantly ir affects our productivity and we start facing imbalances between our work and personal life.

For professional help, contact: +91–98220–24674 | jeevan@mindhealth.in

How ‘Rational Thought Process’ helps in strategic decision-making

“Decision-making is the process of identifying and choosing alternatives based on the values and preferences of the decision-maker.”

Decision is an element which is a source of confusion in our mind in a variety of circumstances. When we are shopping for grocery and vegetables, normally we have confusion and need to take some decision. Even choosing a school for our child, we are in confusion but need to take a decision. On a larger scale, when a company faces an opportunity to enter into a new market, acquire another company or launch a new product, where management’s decision is important and critical. These are the strategic decisions, which involves developing a long term direction and vision & objective of the entire organisation. Thousands of employees, stakeholders, vendors, customers are dependent on the strategic decision made by the management. So we can imagine the mental pressure in the minds of top executives, entrepreneurs and business owners. Now we will see how the thought process helps in strategic decision making.

In our last article, we have discussed about belief system and introspection of assumptions in our mind. Our thoughts themselves ignite for making assumptions in our belief system and make impact on our emotions. In strategic decision making, we need to think from different perspectives and need to consider variety of circumstances but we always think through the assumptions in our mind. When we are introspecting our assumptions, we need to make those assumptions logically structured and reasonable. This process results in Rational thinking. Now we will see the famous example of rational thinking in strategic decision-making.

Toyota cars entered Indian market in 1997 and launched its first multi-utility vehicle ‘QUALIS’ in 2000. Toyota QUALIS has picked up the market in a very less time and was selling like a hot cake. QUALIS was most selling multi-utility vehicle in India at that time but suddenly Toyota had taken a decision to withdraw QUALIS in 2005 and launched ‘INNOVA’ in the market. Toyota wanted to project their cars as most customer-value driven cars. QUALIS was famous as Tourist car but Toyota wants to make their vehicle’s identity as a family car so they launched INNOVA.

Toyota had taken a strategic decision with a rational thought process to withdraw their most selling vehicle in India. We also can make our thought process channelised and rational to take best strategic decisions in business and any decisions in our personal life. But it needs consistency and persistence to change our thought process. As we mentioned earlier, emotions also play a vital role in making rational thought process.

For any professional help, contact: +91-98220-24674 | jeevan@mindhealth.in

“Belief System” – The secret to Happiness

“Each of us have set of assumptions about ourselves and perceptions about the world, which guide us to determine our reactions to the various situations we encounter.”

Corporate! it is such a dynamic world. Many times what we visualise ‘Corporate’ as something looks sophisticated from outside but dirty from inside. We have lot of common sayings or assumptions in ourselves about corporate world like “Boss is always right”, “People are very diplomatic”, “having dirty politics in corporate world”, “corporate gives you money & dignity but it steals your personal life”, “This world is always stressful & workaholic”. How have we built these assumptions around us? Many times, we have these assumptions before working in real corporate world. It has been created around us by many sources like parents, friends, society, education system, media. Everyone does not have the same experience but we have common assumptions.

As we take birth on this earth, we are somehow clean and assumption-less. But from childhood, everyone around us starts giving us unsolicited advice about people in this world and its different facets. But we get very less chance to experience everything without any assumptions in our mind. These assumptions become beliefs. When we get a job in a campus interview, we believe that this company and our profile will make us successful but very less people believe the same after five years working in same company. Entrepreneurs always believe that this venture is going to make us very successful but very less entrepreneurs feel the same after twenty years working in same venture. Why is it so???

Our assumptions make our beliefs and we start thinking through these beliefs. In our last blog, we have seen perceptions; actually we develop our perceptions through these beliefs. Every reaction in our life reflects our beliefs, when it becomes a part of our life; it becomes a part of our thought process i.e. Belief System. Every decision in our professional or personal life has a big role of our belief system.

Our belief system need to be thoroughly introspected, when we want to be successful and want to live a happy life. We need to introspect our assumptions about everything in the life very carefully and need to do it one by one. We will see a common example to see the impact of a ‘word’ in our life. We use the word ‘Deadline’ many many times in a day. But in a reality, is it really our deadline? Are we going to be dead after that line? We are slowly creating stress in our subconscious mind by using this word. This type of detailing is expected, when we are introspecting about our belief system.

We definitely can make change in our belief system, which will help us to live stress-free, happy and successful life. But we need to have patience, consistency and persistence to make these changes.

For any professional help, contact: +91-98220-24674 | jeevan@mindhealth.in

Does Psychology define Success?

“Emotion is the consciousness of the resulting conditions – of success, failure, adjustment, compromise and balance.”

Success!!!

If we ask people to define success in their lives, everyone will have different answers. Actually, our own definitions of success are also never constant. For example, if we ask a child what is success, he might say “being a good boy and winning a chocolate from my Dad is a Success”. Later, as he starts going to school, “being a hero in the school & friends” is success for him. Later in his life, “A high paying job or an elegant car” might prove to be his symbol for success. However, in the late phases of his career, he realises that “Nothing of the above actually mattered. A peaceful life is actually what defines success in our lives.”

However, the definition of success is not constant in the society. Not every person considers a high paying job or an elegant car as success in their lives. For some people, a respectable position or a social connect would be success. For some others, it may still be different. This happens as a virtue of our experiences, social circles, thought processes, and perceptions. With ‘Thought Processes’ and ‘Perceptions’, the ‘Science of Psychology’ comes into picture.

So, the real dilemma begins here:

Do we need to handle our ‘Psychology’ as per our ‘Definition of Success’, OR

Should we handle our ‘Definition of Success’ to fit into our ‘Psychology’?

Confused?

Let’s make it simple.

Through our experiences and beliefs, we construct our perceptions. These perceptions, in turn, shape our lives and thought processes.

Still too philosophical?

Let’s try to understand this with a story.

A man is in comma and lying on the death-bed. His beloved wife sits at his bedside and waits for him to get well. She has no other choice but to wait for him to wake up. One day, her husband comes out of the comma, starts looking here and there, and finds her at his bedside. He signals her to come closer. When she des, he takes her hands in his and says, “You were with me when I was not earning anything, and no-one was ready to marry with me. You were with me when I was struggling to shape my business. You were with me when I was at peak in my business. You were with me when we bought this bunglow and our cars. You were with me when I got into huge losses in my business. You were with me when someone shot me with the gun. You were with me when I got paralysed. You were with me when I was in comma, and you are still here. So, I think you are the reason for all the wrong things that happened in my life.”

Shocked?

This man had nurtured only sad emotions. He had created a completely negative belief in his mind about his wife. He was reluctant to accepting his own faults. Hence, he constantly blamed someone else for his failures.

This is why his (emotional) state of mind created a very negative picture of his wife in his perception.

This is one of the perfect examples regarding ‘how we conveniently choose our perceptions’. Similarly, we always have our own perception towards successes and failures.

To conclude; through our emotions and beliefs, it’s our perceptions that build our psychology. If we can maintain our perceptions in a positive and rational manner, we can define a well crafted definition of success for our lives.

For any professional help, contact: +91-98220-24674 | jeevan@mindhealth.in

Role of Psychology in our lives

“Our bodies can develop through leaps, but the transformation of our mind demands a consistent and structured process”

Mind is the manufacturer of emotions in our lives. Whereas our emotions play a big role in shaping our perspectives. When it comes to handling our perspectives and emotions, we start speaking about the patterns of ‘Psychology’ amongst people.

Psychology is one of those fascinating things that we relate to almost regularly through our lives. We do not even consciously realise it. Majority of us constantly give an effort to understand the science of psychology on subconscious levels.

So lets explore how the science of psychology can help us in our careers and lives through this Blog series.

Psychology plays a vital role in our success as it influences every aspect of our life. It is concerned with our mind, our mind’s different facets, and its operations. Hence, psychology is essentially the study of people’s behaviour, performance, and their mental operations.

Primarily, Psychology is the study of human behaviour and thinking. It helps us understand ourselves better. Psychology observes why people act and think the way they do and how someone can improve or transform themselves.

Psychology helps us through the following facets of our lives:

  • Learning
  • Motivation
  • Perception
  • Personality
  • Behaviours

I help individuals from Corporates, Businessmen, Professionals, Artists, Sportsmen and Students to transform themselves amongst these psychological facets.

“Keep Walking… Keep Breathing…”

For any professional help, contact: +91-98220-24674 | jeevan@mindhealth.in

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