Who are winners

 Winners are those who practice winning everytime. Yes, it is not like winning something is not under our control . I would debate that winning is always under our control.

Ofcourse if we are chasing an objective result, you will have a boolean answer of yes or no , did you win or not. But that isnt the nature of our work, life , relationships or plans or anything for that matter. The outcomes more often than not are not binary

When you start a task , you either accomplish it exactly the way you thought it would be or a part of it. Sometimes though you end up doing something completely different. That is the futile nature of whatever we do, so having a binary result as a definition of winning is also incorrect.

Then how is winning under our control ,when the results are not under our control? That is exactly what I hope to explain. For us to progress, we need to win more often than not. A win is nothing but progress. Progress can be bite sized or hill sized, but is progress and hence a win can be either also.

If you have made progress of whatever type in what you do , you have won. Sometimes we make huge strides and that is a more resounding win than a lesson learnt in doing a complete failure. But you still have a win , because this lesson will lead to resounding wins in the future, you have set the basis of a future win and that is progress.

And hence winning is an attitude and habit. We need to inculcate a habit of winning by winning more often. However small it may be. And if we do any task, we learn something about it. Looking for those little lessons, signs of progress is the habit of winning. We will have more wins in more successful endeavours of ours and less wins in failures. But there are wins, and if we make it our business to find our wins, our minds will be tuned to the idea of winning.

We will crave for wins but also we will find wins faster. We run faster when we know we are for sure going ahead. Doubts hold us back. How do we know we are going in the right direction? by winning more often. By finding our wins even in the more calamitous failures of our life.

If we make a habit of finding even the smallest strains of progress in our daily lives, we would win more often than that. As James clear says in atomic habits , even if we make 1% progress everyday of a year, by the end of the year we would be 37 times ahead of when we were at the beginning of the year. Habits, progress and therefore wins always compound. Once we cross a certain threshold our wins become bigger and more spectacular. Similarly if we hold back ,our fall becomes spectacular once we cross a threshold.

In my mind , my end goal is to be able to keep emotions aside even in the worse of moments and look for the little wins in those. I call it the "lobster theory". I will credit my friend Ankit for helping me with the name. But what it means is that there is something good even in the worse moments of our lives. Like the sinking of the sea boat is the worse of disasters but atleast the fish and lobsters onboard the ship who would have been dinner would have returned to their habitat. Now I am no marine biologist and cannot vouch for the validity of this specific example. All I am trying to say is to find a value in everything we face which shows us the signs of progress.

These signs of progress are what will help us compound our wins in the future. Now why is it for us to look for those wins? It is to register those wins in our minds, use those lessons for our next endevour. These will be the foundations of whatever we do next in our lives. These are the multipliers in our equations which will lead to compounding results.

These are the multipliers which will move the needle of success in the right direction, it will make us a better person and human being. It is the human culture to learn from everything around us which has helped us evolve to who we are now and where we are now.

So win often, every day , in everything we do. Don't worry about the size or significance of the win. That is compeltely pointless.

New Month and New hopes

The new month is 10 days in and I must say, I have a very positive feeling about this year. Why? I am not sure, but one of the things that I am noticing is ,I am getting things done that I wanted to and were pending for the longest period on earth.

The funny thing is, once I was done with some of those tasks, I questioned myself. Why did I delay this for so long? I am not the first one to criticize myself for sitting on my back side waiting for things to happen.

I have come to realize that nothing is standalone in life. Everything around us is linked, so for example, if we avoid doing something that we don't like, we end up also avoiding doing things that we like. How else can we explain the fact that , I know so many talented musicians, writers, singers, who are working at a 9 to 5 job and not doing extraordinary things they are capable of?

So we need to get the balance, balance between things which we must do ( whether we like it or not) and things we want to do. The important thing here is that , we must get things done. Getting things done is a habit, and we need to inculcate it, to be able to do it constantly. Like any habit, you can inculcate it in 40 days and you can break a habit in a week.

40 days in , and I have tried to inculcate the habit of getting things done. Where am I? I wouldn't say I am there yet, but I am closer to it, than when I started. The important thing is to keep at it and I am in the middle of figuring out my processes and ways to do things, which work for me.

These processes will help me avoid my weaknesses as much as possible and work with my strengths. It is similar to the Gallup strength finder assessment. It tells you, what your strengths are and in the order of their impact on your way of looking at things. It is amazing that many years ago, when this study was done, it talked about the exact same things that I am only discovering now about myself.

It tells me two things, people haven't changed much at the core- even with the passage of time ( centuries also), what has changed is the tools we use to express or emote. Second, I am on the right track. While everything I talked about is out there, the real challenge is in implementing it in our daily lives. Who says it is going to be easy? Will it be worth it? Hell yeah!!


Cheers
Shady West Side

2 weeks in

It has been two weeks since I last posted. Now is the time to give a quick update. So I listed down 5 things that I want to achieve this year. Each of those tasks range from long term to short term goals. The idea was to prove to myself that I can set targets and achieve them as well.

I learnt a lot of things( already!), that I had unlearned over a period of time. One of those things was that if everything does go smoothly as you want it to, DON'T WAIT till it happens smoothly. MOVE things around so that it happens. Case in point, I had ordered some raw materials, to move my saplings to a pot, from Pune. Unfortunately, they never arrived. I waited for one weekend, but the last weekend also, it seemed like it would get delayed. Now the saplings, really needed to be moved and so I ventured out in Chiplun. To my surprise, I found the raw materials, good quality and at the same price as in Pune.

Patience is a virtue and sometimes I have shown patience when needed. But , I am also guilty of sitting back on issues which have eventually blown up. This time, I almost did the same mistake. While I was forced to take action and make the move, I realized that ,I have to be proactive. I am sometimes so stringent on my methods and processes, that I forget that the process I set up is to achieve something and ACHIEVING my end goal is more important at almost all the times than following the process. I will always remember to think two steps ahead, but to also plan every day or revise the plans everyday.

There are four more targets for the year, and each of them is at an initial stage and there will definitely be more progress when I move to Pune. Now, I know, may be this sounds like procrastination but at this point in time, I want to take up one little thing at a time. It might make me slower, but I am surer that way.

That is all that I have for now, I will be back soon with another update and hopefully with some exciting news.

Cheers!!

Shady West Side

A challenging New Year

As 2019 has just risen over the horizon, I wish everyone reading this blog and everyone around the world all the luck for this year. I am sure this year will bring new challenges, surprises, smiles, some tears as well. That is par for the course.

Every year is the same, it is always about what we make of it. So how do we achieve more? How do we make sure that the year is the best possible year for each one of us?

By challenging ourselves to achieve more every year. And here is what I have set my priorities and targets for this year :

1. Grow 5 veggies in my terrace garden : The terrace garden is non existent at this moment. Heck, I am not even living in that house and wouldn't be in Pune till the beginning of February this year. But I have already dabbled in the gardening a bit and am preparing for some veggies from it, when I go there. I have already grown tomato seedlings in to beautiful plants and I hope to get some fruits later this year

2. Write Technology related articles on a blog : I am an avid technology guy, the gadgets section is the first place I walk to when I go to any mall . There were predictions and thoughts about tech in the mobile world which I got right quite a few times. And in this era , where coming out and talking tech is so easy and a pleasure, I want to jump on the bandwagon sooner than later.

3. I DIY : Making things at home, even the smallest of things are always a pleasure. My target is to make atleast 3 items in the whole year which will be helpful at home and would be created entirely at home. 

4. Get FIT : I intend to join the gym at office and run regularly. The idea is to get back to the fitness levels I had a few years ago, when the gym was an essential part of my daily routine. Obviously my targets have changed from having six pack abs to just a presentable physique ( my wife will be the judge)

5. Move to a new country : I obviously cannot reveal the name of the country , but I really am trying to move to another country. The reasons are obvious, better salary, better lifestyle and prospects. I will post more about it as there is progress.

As a welcome change , I have posted after years on my blog and to be honest, this blog post sounds , feels amateurish , hopefully the quality improves as it goes.

Cheers

Shady West Side 

( This feels so good!!!!!!!!!)

The dying embers of a passion

A long time ago, I used to look forward to what people think about my opinions and thoughts expressed on this blog. I knew I had a voice, but here is where a few people heard it. More importantly, I could pen down the thoughts that I had on my mind. 

As funny as it may sound, but I do not value my opinion as much. It has at times helped me improve because people tend to blow their self images out of the roof, but in the long term I think I have suffered more.

Letting your self image be dependent on the opinions and behavior of others is a very risky proposition. More often than not, anyone driving your self image will always do so for his or her benefit. Once, I acknowledged the fact that after living for more than a couple of decades on this blessed planet, I did not take the effort of creating a self image myself.

And just like that, I realize the reason to why people of my age ask this question to themselves
 "Who Am I?". Heartening as it is to know that there are more of your kind around, not many have answers to this question and continue to find happiness in other avenues. I am no one to judge what is right and what is not, but to me not knowing yourself is criminal.

The introspection told me something I always knew. I am a rebel, a rebel to who I become. I constantly rip my belief system for a new one, I look like I flow with the tide, only to reach somewhere different to where others have reached despite embarking on the same path.

Some might call this eccentric, unpredictable and to some extent it is just that. But this isn't a crime, it is who I am. While I would like to change some aspects of myself, i realize that treasuring what is essentially me is paramount to the entire exercise.

Once the edges are smoothed out, I think this rebel living with me will be ready to go.

Good Luck to him

The power of your words

In today’s world we communicate a lot more than we actually do a task. That’s what a connected world is on the contrary to the adverts by technology giants, where everything is easier and every-one knows everything. Sorry folks, but today, the technology has brought us closer because it is easier to stay in touch.

Statistics and data is all important, but the real thing is an actual connection. I would trust a set of numbers more, if it is a friend sharing those to me. And that is the case with so many more. So here is the thought that lead me to write this post. Our words are way more important than the importance we give them.

The words you say today, could be the basis on which a decision is taken by the guy next to you. It could be the reason for a person to hate another, and so on. Today, because of this connected world we live in, everyone has his/her own watering hole for sharing comments, thoughts, news. That watering hole could be facebook, twitter or some other social media platform which I am not aware of. See your single status could possibly be looked on by the number of friends in your account and further by their friends.

Imagine, if you have 500 friends in your friend list and each friend has additional 200 friends. A single post of yours could be read by a hundred thousand people. That is the equivalent of a city. Have we measured our thoughts to understand this impact of our words?

When I say India is intolerant, my words could change the thoughts of a town in Pakistan, where they think that India is hell for Muslims. If I say that Muslims are terrorists, a kid growing up in Europe would carry this image in his mind for years. If I say India is not a clean place, people worldwide will keep associating us with snake charmers, muddied roads and what not (A lot of people still carry that image, don’t they?).

What I am coming to is that your words today carry the power to change a life, I dare say change the world. Would you want your words to change the world for the better or worse, would you want the world to hate others or learn to accept every individual the way they are? While there would be difference of opinions, would you want the world to touch arms at every single provocation or learn to sit together and sort it out?

Let me tell you a story. I was in UAE for Eid last year September. I met an uncle of mine after a long time at a mall. I was very glad to see him. He asked me about my whereabouts and all, I told him that I am planning to move to the middle east full time soon, as my parents and brothers are settled out there and it is lonely out here in India.

He said , “All we can do is try. Every day, even today, I try to live the life close to my ideals. I try to make someone else’s life slightly better. Keep trying and sleep peacefully”

I recently heard that he passed away. I would always remember him for his beautiful words, and pray that someday when I am gone, people remember me for the words that I share with them.

 I hope each of us understands the impact of our words are beyond our comprehension and so rather than being discouraged by this, understand that words of encouragement, wisdom and happiness can be shared with the exact hundred thousand people at the click of a mouse.

Live happy, speak happy.

Cheers

Footnote:

Image courtesy:http://drthermanevans.com/

All about second chances

Ted Mosby was right, we all come to a phase when we want to give everything we rejected/denied/hated/ forgot another chance. For me the phase has been on forever. I think I have given everything a second or a third chance already ( Its called having an open mind).

This habit of mine is responsible for me being called "Some people"( a movie quote "Some people never learn". I am one of those some people). I am not a hopeless romantic, I am practical. I behave how I expect others to behave with me.

I believe in second chances because I know I will need a lot of second chances. No one is perfect, but I am a longer way away from being perfect. That doesn't mean that I do not expect perfection or quality, but if the effort is earnest and honest then I am not worried, because going in the right direction is always important.

The reason I am writing this post is not to discuss my quality of forgiving or trying old things again, but to give my self a second chance. A second chance to start writing again. Every now and then we need something new to start an old habit. I have installed Windows 10 and reset my laptop completely and that has given my laptop a new lease of life. I might add a new battery backup to my device as well.

I am not able to write much because, I do not get much time away from work. Every now and then there is an urge to write but I do not have a laptop which I can carry around easily. But does buying a smaller swankier piece of hardware ensure that I write often? The answer is definitely no. So I have decided that only when I start writing more regularly I will not buy anything with the reason to aid my writing.

I guess this is a justifiable ask from myself. After all a second chance cannot be without history.

Here is hoping a revival of my writing again.

Cheers