It is said that Life is all about making choices. At every stage of our life, we might see different options and we tend to choose the best one for ourselves. But, do we really choose the best one? Not sure about it. At that very moment, whatever our mind or heart directs us, we pick the one thinking we are very sure about the choice we had made. Whether that choice seems to be the perfect one for the rest of your life is always a puzzle. For few of our choices, we might feel proud and really happy that we did it. But there would always be circumstances or instances in life when we are forced to re-think about few choices we had made in our past, which surely has an impact now or might have some influence in the coming future. But when we come across such situations in life, do we have an option to change the selection we had made earlier? Obviously no. Then why do we even have to think or talk about it? Definitely, we cannot change what was already picked up or done by us, but there is always a possibility to learn from that wrong choice made and give our best, if at all life gives us a second chance. Sometimes I wonder if all of us are really lucky to get another chance in life. The answer might be a yes or a no; may be it would depend upon our perspective towards life. Life always continues to give us chances, it is up to us to have an open mind to identify them and pick them up to change our life or just stick to the imperfect ones which we already have with us and keep complaining for the rest of the life. The choices or decisions can be either good or bad depending upon what circumstances do we face going further with those.
How do we know if the decision is good or bad, right or wrong? One might say if I know the decision which I would take or the choice I would make is wrong, why would I do it? This is so very true. The above quote answers to this in such a great way. The experience is the best teacher. And how does one gain this experience, it comes from those bad or wrong choices we had made earlier in our life. But now, I would rather say when it comes to choices, there are no right ones or wrong ones. This might be contrary to what we have been taught or what we might have been following throughout our lives. But, after experiencing these things in life personally, I feel and believe that each choice comes with its own potential merit and consequences further. We make the best decision we can at the time based on what we think and what we feel. If life would have been an erasable slate, how easy it would be to start afresh, right? But unfortunately, we don’t have that facility with life. So when we understand that the choice we made yesterday was not the perfect one and we are facing the consequences of it today, you always have a possibility to grab the best learnings from it and start again with a new choice. Remember, we cannot change the choice we already made, but we always can change the choice we make today. But to do this, the first step would be to take accountability of our own choices or decisions. Blame game is the safest escape route we all follow most of the times to hide the actual story. When I say we, I mean it. I myself had done it quite a few times in my life. It might always not be intentional to do it but the thought of surviving at the nick of that moment, we all do it. It’s a human tendency and we know that it’s not right to do that but still we end up doing the same thing intentionally or unintentionally. Better late than never at all. Though I have personally realized and understood about it quite late, I am glad that I am able to do it at least now and am keen on changing my thought process hereon.
Is it so easy to realize our own mistakes and accept the blame for our own life? Definitely not, but it is neither impossible to do it. It actually looks so difficult because we all have huge expectations in life. We get so influenced by the race of life in focusing what we want that we tend to miss the minute important things to understand what is good for our own life in real. We get carried away by the temporary satisfactions or happiness and end up loosing the permanent ones in our life. I have done it many a times in my life experience that I ignored truths for temporary happiness. Be it the professional life or the personal life, I had many a times ended picking up wrong choices for myself. Sometimes due to the influence I had from others and sometimes I failed to understand what was more real. I was in a phase when that temporary happiness or attention felt more needed than the actual ones. I have lost few best relations because of this attitude of mine for the ones who always saw me as an option and not as a choice. Today, I don’t have a second thought in accepting that I was wrong at that time and I could not understand what was actually best for myself. I know it takes guts to admit the mistakes and I feel doing so is courage and not weakness. Today, when I think about all the wrong choices and wrong decisions I had made in my life, I can connect the dots to get a clear picture, which were like a blurred vision till now. I might have hurt few people by not choosing them over the temporary ones earlier. This has definitely had a very huge impact in my life and I have realized this now when life has given me another chance to rectify my choices and move forward in life with a new positivity. In this process of gaining that attention and so-called temporary happiness, I had lost few amazing friends who were the most important part of my life once. There was so much of silence between us for years and trust me it has always been bothering me inside. I don’t know if it was a guilt that I could not live up to their expectations or if it was my wrong choice of giving other people the priority over the right choice of friendship. But, I am glad that I have got another chance to rectify the mistake I had done earlier. Sometimes, second chances work out even better than the first because we learn from our mistakes.
I totally believe that if the bond and affection between friends is true, nothing between them changes irrespective of a rough patch between them. There might be a small pause in the friendship, but there is never an end for sure. This is absolutely true not only in friendship but any relationships in our lives. Restored relationships give us perspective on our experiences, and deepen our lives. I am sure many of you might also have experienced some similar phases in your lives too. If yes, then trust me and give a try repairing the rough patch in your relations, if you feel they are worth the efforts. Tell the other person how you feel now, because opportunities are lost in the blink of an eye but regret of not sharing your thoughts might last for lifetime. Explaining your emotions or feelings might help you rather than expressing them. This will help you to open the door to a solution instead of arguments. Trust me, the journey of accepting and correcting your mistakes or wrong choices will never look easy. But the final output you get from the amount of hard work you put into repairing those patches would be really worth it and this time it would be much more stronger and would last for life. My life experiences have taught me that we should never leave a true relationship for a few faults. Nobody in the world is perfect, nobody is correct. In the end, affection is always greater than perfection. No matter what you have been through in the past. Remember, there is always a light at the end of every tunnel of the dark. It may seem hard to get to it, but definitely you can do it. Just keep working towards it and you will surely find the positive side of the things. If I can win over the chaos in my mind , I am sure each one of you will be able to do it in your own way with some amount of willingness and hard work. It is time for us to realize, understand and admit that life is 10% of what happens to us and 90% of how we react to it. Regardless of how it goes down, life goes on. Whether you take a chance to move on and take a chance in the unknown. Or Stay behind, locked in the past, thinking of what could’ve been. We cannot change what had already happened in our lives. So let’s not waste out time thinking and regretting about it for very long. Let’s move on, let go and get over it.
Yesterday I was clever, so wanted to change the world. Today, I am wise, so I am changing myself. Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced. I have put up myself at a point where I realize, understand and accept the choices I made. I am not afraid to start over. It’s a chance to rebuild things. Better this time and the way I want it!
There is nothing stronger than a woman who has rebuilt herself. Surya – The Light
Once upon a time, there was this calm, soft and a shy girl I had met during her college days. The memory of my first sight of hers is still fresh in my heart and mind. I joined as a Training Officer in the college where she was one of my students. The innocence in her face, the shine in her eyes and the radiance in her smile made me fall in love with her the very first moment. You all might think what is so special about these characteristics as most of the girls have these characteristics. That is absolutely true. It is said that the curious mind never stops questioning and curious eyes never stop exploring. I am sure you would surely agree if I say, though our eyes keep exploring many things around us, they do stop at someone or something which cannot be ignored. For me, she was that spark. I knew nothing about her till then but the thought in my mind that there is something about her and I want to explore her deep never left my mind. Gradually, I started interacting with her and started my trials in understanding her as a person.
As and when I started observing the deep nature of this girl, I always realized her to be quiet, introspective and deep in thought. I could not categorize her as an introvert though, but may be she was shy or I always felt there was something inside her which is probably stopping her to bring out the best version of herself. The curiosity inside me got more and more strong and I started observing every minute thing about her in the process. She had drew a circle around her and there were very few people inside that circle with whom she used to spend most of her time. But one question never left my mind was whether she was being completely honest and sincere in being herself with those few people at least? Her actions and her eyes always gave me a puzzled answers to that. Sometimes, the sixth sense of a person works so strong that your mind denies to accept what your eyes see. The same was my experience with her. Officially, I was their trainer and mentor during their engineering and used to help the students with their trainings & placements. But, I decided to mentor her specially and personally. I felt she was like an iceberg, showing just a part of her abilities and keeping the rest hidden from the world.
Gradually, she became quite close to me and used to share her feelings and emotions with me. This was quite an improvement in my project. I remember one day the students were practicing for their annual celebrations in the college. I was there with her seeing her actively participating in a group dance practice. There was a glow on her face and the happiness I could see and feel inside her that day was amazing. As and when I got to know her better than before, I started loving this girl more and more. It was then I started realizing that she had a great influence of the thoughts of few people around her. She always used to try to be as they expected her to be and not be herself anytime. She had literally buried all her likes, feelings and emotions inside her and had covered all of those with the likes and emotions of those influenced people. She was literally living their life rather than living her own life. Finally, I understood this but when I tried to discuss the same with her, she always used to convince me saying that she likes being that way. But her answer never could convince me completely and the confusion inside me kept on disturbing me for very long. I never stopped my trials of counselling her and making her realize that being oneself is the utmost happiness in the world and she needs to change her perspective towards life. I was never sure of her thinking towards it but whenever I tried to talk to her about these things, she just used to divert the topic by giving a lovely smile and trust me her smile is a killer one, and I used to get carried away with that. But the thought that she was hiding too many secrets behind that lovely smile never left my mind.
With these continuous efforts in understanding her and helping her come out of that circle, time just passed too quickly. I had moved out from that job and later she finished her graduation and was ready to take up a decent job. But, we continued to talk regularly and meet whenever possible. She, along with a group of few more friends used to visit my place and many a times, I used to go and meet them. So there was never a gap felt between us in our bonding. She joined a job in an organization and I was working with Novartis at that time. While talking to her about the job, I realized that may be she is not that comfortable with it and I thought it would be great if she could be with me all the time so that I can protect her from all the negative vibes around her. I am not sure if it was my attachment with her or my over-protective nature which made me think that she should always be with me so that I can make sure she is fine and safe from all the negativity around in the world. That was the time when I approached my colleagues for her job in Novartis and she got through the same. Believe me, that was one of the best moments of joy for me. By then, knowing this girl for so many years, there was a very special bond with her. I have no idea of what to name that relation with her, but the kind of affection and attachment I have with her is undoubtedly one of the best. It is said that we should always trust our intuition, because it never lies. I don’t know if it was my possessiveness towards her or a hint from my gut feeling that I got her into Novartis with me, but I still believe and feel it was one of the best decisions I had taken in my life.
That was the time when we used to enjoy each others company every single day. We used to spend so much of time together talking about every damn thing in this world. We gathered so many memories together that we can cherish them for lifetime. All the gossips, the parties, dance performances, outings, secrets and many more such crazy memories with her doubles my happiness in life. She is one such person in my life who knows every bit of my life, be it my past, my present or my future plans. She understands every bit of me as a person and believe me, she has been a victim of my mood swings and crankiness many times but she never complained it anytime. Sometimes, I wonder that how we both get along each other so well and understand each other immensely irrespective of the age difference we have. But our relation has yet again proved that “Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter”. For us, age never mattered and we were just the best versions of ourselves when next to each other. Many people used to ask me what is my relation with her. Shall I say she is a student, a friend, a sister or a daughter? The name just never mattered for us. When the bond is so strong, when we understand each other’s feelings without even talking to each other, when we compliment each other in the best possible way, why should anything else matter? In the midst of those happy and joyful days, there was a storm which just blew away all the happiness in our lives. Something unexpected happened in her life and she was devastated. Few incidents and few people for whom she has given the half of life completely had put her down and she was in the worst phase of her life. It was like people could not see her happiness and tried to knock her down by hurting her very badly. Though I was with her as a rock standing next to her but to take all that and accept the bitter facts of life was the biggest challenge. I was worried that how would she take all that as she was a very sensitive girl, she not only showed up the courage to face that situation but also knock it down with such a great confidence. She had proved that no matter what, the comeback is far greater than a setback. Finally, I could see my girl breaking out all the barriers of her circle and walking out of it with her head high. That was the best ever feeling for me as a mentor and well wisher for her.
When a ‘setback’ brings a ‘comeback’, that’s grace in action!
The way she handled herself in that situation and turned the biggest nightmare of her life into a learning lesson and moved on made me so proud of her. I always had loads of love for her but the way she fought with her weaknesses and brought out the best version of herself made me respect her to a great extent. Not only did she handled herself in such difficult times but since then she has been a greatest support for me in all difficult times. There have been instances in my life when I felt low and could not handle myself. She was the one who handled me and made me realize my self worth once again. It was a biggest surprise for me to see her motivating me and making me fight with circumstances. A feeling that when did that shy little girl had turned into a positive and confident woman surprised me. What else can a teacher expect from her student? She has surpassed me in many ways and that makes me so proud and the most happiest person in the world. I left Novartis few years ago but she continued her journey with the company for almost 7 years and now she is ready to take the next challenge of her career. I am sure she will do wonders wherever she would go. Not only career, but she also has proved that if you have a strong will, anything is possible in life. Life is all about accepting every situation, face it, fight with it and win over it to achieve the utmost happiness.
This has been my long pending wish to pen down my emotions and feelings for her. I wanted to dedicate this to one of the most and dearest persons in my life as she is in the phase of starting a new chapter of her career. I always wish she gets everything she wishes for in her life. May she reach to greater heights in her career and achieve utmost success and happiness both in her professional and personal life. There is only one thing I can tell her that I love her to the moon and back and no matter what, she will always find me next to her in every step of her life.
“A smile can open a heart faster than a key can open a door… So brighten the world with your smile.”
“Memories are timeless treasures of the heart that tell our story”
“There are certain people who make the world a better place just by being in it. You are definitely one of those people My Angel. Loads of love and blessings always.”
Fortitude is the mental or emotional strength that enables you to find courage in the face of adversity, whereas resilience is the mental ability to recover quickly from depression, illness or misfortune. Have you ever known a person who seems to be able to keep going and stay motivated when everything seems to be falling apart? This is called mental fortitude. Many people wonder how a person can be with such high mental strength and think if did he/she was born with this quality? But the fact is that we are not born with fortitude, it is something we develop in ourselves gradually as part of our life. I feel every person experiences this stage in their life at least once at some point of time. I, personally, have gone through this stage and have understood how developing a strong fortitude has helped me to cope up with so many tough situations in my life. It does not happen overnight and it does not happen easily, but it is always possible to do so. It needs lot of patience and efforts to tune your mind towards learning to get mentally strong. How you do it? Everyone has their own way of doing it. I am sharing my ideas and thoughts which I have been following and which have actually helped me to build a strong fortitude for myself.
Have Courage – The first thing to have to build mental toughness is courage. It is important to have the courage to face your fears and endure those challenging and at times uncomfortable situations. This is where your attitude towards such situations comes into picture. You need to believe that you can overcome the challenge and when you do, you need to reflect on how you felt at that time and how great you feel now. To have courage, you need to be prepared to fail and to learn from that failure. This will help you to improve your mental fortitude.
Be Determined – You need to be determined and focused on your goals and vision. It will help you to keep an eye on what is most important to you and to prioritize where you focus your energy and determination.
Be emotionally self-aware & calm – It is actually important for you to be aware of your emotions and how you feel in certain circumstances. What actions or behaviors of others make you feel uncomfortable, strong, confident or upset? By identifying these situations and how they make you feel will help you improve the self-awareness of your feelings and body language. The next and important step is being aware and controlling your emotions in these situations. Being calm under fire is an important trait of great leaders. It is very important for us to be calm and composed during difficult situations and help our mind to think in the right possible way.
Work hard at building fortitude – Building fortitude takes time so be patient and look at it as a learning process. We should not be too hard on ourselves but find someone to hold you accountable.
A great outcome of having fortitude and mental toughness is that you will develop resilience. In challenging times, you will be able to bounce back and remain productive and be focused on your goals. Acknowledging that we are not perfect but yet we can still be confident and have a positive attitude towards life is a great feeling. You might make mistakes in your life but you can have the toughness and fortitude to not let these mistakes stop you or derail your plan to move forward in life with confidence. Resilience is the outcome of having strong fortitude.
It’s your reaction to adversity, and not adversity itself that determines how your life’s story will develop.”
Dieter F. Uchtdorf
What is that one thing which can help us to keep going when you just want to quit? It’s nothing else but Resilience. It is to bounce back from negative experiences and disturbances in life. To some like me, resilience is a sort of “miracle drug” personality trait, something that can heal all wounds and right all wrongs. To be more precise, developing resilience basically requires emotional distress. If we never ran into disappointment in the first place, we would never learn how to deal with it. When you think about it in those terms, it’s easy to see that we all display some pretty impressive resilience. Some of us are more resilient than others, but we have all been knocked down, defeated, or disheartened at some of time in our lives; however, we kept going – and here we are today, stronger and more experienced with such difficult situations in life.
My Personal Memoir
We all have some kind of motivational factors in our life which help us to face the challenges life throws at us and successfully overcome those situations with confidence. I am no exception in this matter. I have been a very active child right from my childhood. I used to love to keep myself busy with all different learnings and passions I had which used to always help in having a positive atmosphere around me. I used to be a passionate dancer and an enthusiastic sportsperson right from the beginning. I was always a below average student when it came to studies but my passion always was in other activities. Things were quite smooth for many years until I was in my Graduation. That was the period when I had some medical complications and had to undergo a surgery and had quite a few side effects post that surgery. Gradually my health started deteriorating and got too complicated post marriage and even worse after having kids. As and when the time passed with these medical complications, I was forced to go away from my passions as they needed much physical strength. There were few years in life where I could not even think of anything else apart from my regular job and my routine activities. It was quite difficult managing the same but am blessed to have a wonderful family around who had been my biggest support in all these difficult times. Still, to fight with these challenges wasn’t easy at all for me and had gone through a bad emotional phase many times during these years. But the only thing which kept me going is my mental strength which I had developed for myself. The resilience I had developed was the only key factor in facing these challenges and fighting it back every time life knocked me down with some emotional challenge. Even after trying my best, I could not win over these medical challenges which had made my life very difficult. In every bad situation, life gives us a second chance to make it right. Some take it, others leave it and most don’t see it. Life had given me as well the same chance and I was fortunate to grab it by bringing back my passion of dancing again into my life. Dancing and sports have always been my biggest motivational factors which give me the utmost strength to fight with anything that comes in the way and successfully come over it over a period of time.
I am 40 years old today and would you guys believe me if I say that I had undergone 10 surgeries in past 20 years of my life? Many people don’t. In fact, I myself feel surprised when I think of these 20 years of my life. It has never been less than a roller coaster. But I am glad and proud of myself that I have been strong enough to face all these challenges and overcome them with self motivation and confidence. Recently, had to undergo a major knee surgery and may be I will never be able to dance or play sports in my life in the same way again. This had shaken my confidence in a worst way. But again, my resilience had helped me to motivate myself and bring a hope back again that I might not be able to lead my life in the same way as I used to do earlier but this would not stop me. I always believe in a quote which says, “When life gives you hundred reasons to cry, show life that you have thousand reasons to smile.” What if I will not be able to lead my life in the same way, I am sure I will still manage to make the best out of it. I always haven taken these challenges in a very positive way and I feel these tough situations help me to bring out the best version of myself every time. I feel life is too short and is very unpredictable. We never know what is in store for us the very next moment? We should live every moment of our life with positivity, try to be happy with whatever life gives you and make people around us happy in the best possible way.
Did you ever stop and think about how often we have seen people talking about one’s appearance? I have heard many times in my personal experience. Sometimes, it’s in a positive sense but sometimes it seems like a criticism. Many people in the society, especially women, have been through these so-called societal norms across the world. The widespread phenomenon of receiving the feedback from society when our bodies don’t meet the unrealistic beauty standards. I personally feel that we spend most of our time in self-critical thoughts, despising our body and comparing ourselves unfavorably to others. I, personally have faced lot of criticism from many people around towards body appearance and weight aspects. Probably, this is one of the reasons which has pushed me in writing this blog. But whatever I pen down here in my blog is just my perspective and my personal experiences towards it.
Body shaming has been the most used term for this. But I rephrase it as Body Shining or Body Positivity for myself. For me, personally, shaming seems a bit negative and I feel why should one feel negative about themselves in any way. As a child and a youngster, I was very slim and fit person in the normal societal language and am no more the same. But why should this bother someone, when I am fine with however I am. In my perspective, am still fit and active, might not be physically but definitely mentally and emotionally. I always have been confused about why people only think about being fit and active physically and don’t focus on mental fitness and activeness. Don’t you agree with me if I say this is equally important, or to be more precise, being strong, fit and active mentally is much more important than being strong physically?
There have been many personal experiences in life for me, just like many other women in the society. I have been through many situations when people around me had criticized me for my body appearance. The terms like “Oh! You are too thin, you need to put a bit of weight and become more stronger”, “OMG! You have put on so much of weight, how would you even manage to do anything in your daily life”, “It would have been so good if you were a bit taller”, “Oh! You are so tall; you look equal to those boys” are the common ones we can hear people talking about others. Some people think that it is just for fun. But pause there for a second and place yourself in that position and think if you would ever be able to take it as a fun if someone criticized you that way. It would be difficult for any of us to see ourselves in that position. But if we really empathize with the situation of the other person, we will understand the pain and emotional stress one goes through in such situations. I, personally feel, this is intended more towards women but still don’t understand why? One who has the mindset of criticizing others in this way will anyways do it. We cannot control the actions and comments of others, but we can stop ourselves from entering the vivacious cycle of body shaming.
“The next time you start criticizing yourself, take a split-second pause, step back and ask yourself where it’s coming from”, said Jenny Weinar, a Philadelphia – based social worker and therapist. She asks people to focus on whose voice we hear and says that voice could be of someone specific in our lives. Regan Chastain, a Los-Angeles-based fat activist who holds the Guinness World Record for heaviest woman to complete a marathon, spent a long time feeling angry at her body. Then, she realized she hadn’t spent a minute being grateful for its powers. At that point, she listed off everything she could think of that her body did for her. Going forward, every time she experienced a negative thought about her body, she replaced it with something from her gratitude list. This story of hers had inspired me personally to a great extent. I feel our mind would act as we tune it. If we focus more on positive, it will lead us towards positivity and vice versa. Since I had learned of this story, I had started following the same and I realized that there are so many positive things about myself for which I can really be proud of. I strongly believe the proverb, “Count your blessings, not your troubles”.
Embrace Yourself
Many times, I have heard people getting worried if there is any solution to this and how do they fight against body shaming? I feel there is no problem without a solution, it is just that we need to change our focus and mindset. I personally follow my own principles to allow myself to stay away from such negativity in life and love myself as I am. I am over weighted and fat – so what? Does this make me do anything less in my life than I wish for – Never. Then, why should this even bother me. I keep telling myself frequently that I am beautiful in my own way and I can do wonders in my life. “Self-Confidence is the best outfit, rock it and own it”.
Embrace our own – Body positivity as opposed to body shaming is learning to embrace your own imperfections and feeling content with how we are and how we look. Once we start doing this, no amount of judgement that may be directed towards us can put us down.
Maintain healthy relationships – Surround yourself with people who are body positive and accept you for who you are – without forcing you into society’s impossible standards. It is very important to spend quality time with people who will help you view yourself positively and prohibit any semblance of body shaming.
Educate those who body shame – The effects of body shaming are more emotional than physical. In most of the cases, the people around might not even notice the emotional trauma the victim is experiencing. This emotional stress accumulates and bursts out at some point of time. If you catch anyone body shaming another, confront and educate them. Talk out nicely and discuss the harmful effects of body shaming a person.
At the end, each one of us want to be accepted for who we are and how we look. Beauty is not about having a perfect body or amazing looks. It’s all about the person’s heart and soul. Every person is beautiful in his/her own way. When a person is meant to be in a particular way, why should we expect him/her to change for some baseless norms of the society. Size of your body doesn’t define your beauty. Be confident, be happy, love your body and embrace yourself!
We all might have had experiences where we felt like a fish out of water, or we were swimming against the current. Things were not just going well and we had to stop, revaluate and regroup. Chances are, many of these situations might be the result of unrealistic expectations we had on people around us and even ourselves. My belief is to expect more from yourself than others. Because expectations from others hurt a lot, while expectations from yourself inspire a lot. That is life.
Perfectly Imperfect Me!
From childhood, we are taught to cut down on ego – on an exaggerated sense of self, and to consider others before one’s self. This is very much true in our country, and more specifically with girls. This thought process of the society has always been confusing for me. As a kid, I always used to think that is it wrong to think about myself over others. The question that why we put ourselves last and why self-love cannot be a priority was left unanswered for many years. It is not that I do not agree to the feeling of putting others first. I, personally believe that we should be there for others, but never leave ourselves behind in this process. Is it that difficult for a person to have this balance? Few misconceptions had been imposed into our minds about the concept of self-love and self-care.
Self-Care Vs Self-Obsessed
As many of us think, self-care or self-love does not mean being self-obsessed or selfish. Taking care of ourselves strengthens us and enables us to support our loved ones in a better way. For me it took quite a long time to understand and agree to the point that self-love is an antidote to stress, as it builds resilience so we can better cope up with challenges life throws at us in this beautiful journey. Just think, how they tell us to put on our oxygen mask first on an airplane before we help others. It is just the same way. Yes, absolutely support others, but nurture yourself first.
We confuse “rescuing” with “caring”
People often sacrifice self-care because they are too busy trying to save everyone else’s life around them. But sometimes it is important to understand that people have to learn their own lessons in life, however painful that might be. It might be that while we think we are caring for them by rescuing them from the unpleasant experiences in their lives, we are denying them the opportunity to face their own challenges, and grow stronger or learn a lesson from doing so. This has been a hard truth for me to face, as I always thought I was being nice and caring towards others and vice-versa. I do not mean that we should not support others, but it is important to understand that there is a difference between providing support for someone who asks for help and taking upon ourselves to save somebody in our way, irrespective of what the other person feels. So, stop rescuing and start caring!
We teach people how to treat us!
We do not often realize that we teach people how to treat us by our own actions and attitude towards them. When we take a step forward and try to help others in any way, the question, which makes a difference, is whether they are willing to take your help or if we are voluntarily forcing upon our thoughts and process to the other person. No doubt, you have played your part perfectly by offering your help to the person in need but we cannot change the way the other person would receive this kind act. We only have control over our actions and not on the actions of others. It is always important to put ourselves in the shoes of others and try to think about all the possible outcomes before we deal with people. What is good and right for us might not actually be the same for others and vice-versa. So let us not teach people how to treat us and instead, let us leave the option to the other person. Seems confusing, but it makes sense when you think about deeply.
We often do not realize our worth!
Ultimately, it boils down to the fact that we think others are worth more than we are. If we are confident in our love for ourselves and treat ourselves as if we are worthy enough, that would make our life more beautiful and happier. Our outlook on life is a direct reflection on how much we like ourselves. Self-worth is how you value yourself and not based on what others think of you.
“When you know who you are, and you are pleased with the person you have become; you will experience a sense of peace through life’s inevitable ups and downs – Amy Morin”
I, personally have learnt this lesson hard way through the journey of my life. For many years, I always felt like I had to prove myself as worthy of everyone for everything. I did things that made others happier than it made me. I did this so often for so many people around me that I lost track of what I valued in this process of pleasing everyone around me. Thankfully, at one point of time, I realized that what made me happy mattered more than pleasing others. It was not an easy task to make my mind and heart go through this transformation phase. The work is still in progress, but now, I try to measure my self-worth based on my own sense of self rather than how other people perceive me. This mindset sometimes may not make others happy, but it definitely makes me happy as I am doing what my mind or heart asks me to. My idea behind this is instead of chasing things that temporarily boost your self-esteem, measure your self-worth by who you are at your core.
“Inhale confidence, exhale doubt”
“A strong positive self-image is the best possible preparation for success in life” – Dr. Joyce Brothers.
Self-Efficacy – The Secret Mantra!
“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t, you are right” – Henry Ford
When facing a challenge, do you feel like you can rise up and accomplish your goal or do you doubt your own abilities and give up in defeat? Most of us have the similar mindset in such circumstances. However, one thing, which makes difference, is how you train your mind to react in those situations.
“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change” – Wayne Dyer
It all depends on what and how we train our mind to believe. The body achieves what the mind believes. It is thus important to believe in ourselves to achieve anything in life. When we doubt our power, we give power to our doubt. The secret mantra for this is Self-Efficacy.
There are lot of misconceptions about what is Self-Efficacy? It is a person’s belief in their ability to succeed in a particular situation. Psychologist Albert Bandura described these beliefs as determinants of how people think, feel and behave. Self-Efficacy is part of the complete self-system comprised of a person’s attitudes, abilities and skills. I have had my own set of experiences and learnings on how Self-Efficacy plays a vital role in how we think, how we feel and how we act towards it.
Can we learn to develop self-efficacy by ourselves? During the journey of my professional and personal experiences, I have come across this question quite few times. Every time I faced it, my answer always was a Yes. Learning how to believe in yourself just needs a holistic strategy, which helps you to take control of your thoughts and feelings by yourself.
Developing a strong sense of self-efficacy can play an important role in almost every aspect of our life. Life is full of challenges and high levels of self-efficacy can help us better deal with these difficulties more effectively. Our belief in our abilities can predict how motivated we feel, how we feel about ourselves, and the amount of effort we put into achieving our goals.
“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment”
