Looking Inside Ourself-5

Fear of Failure

Courage is not the lack of fear but the ability to face it

In Ramayana we know about twin brothers Vaali & Sugreev used to fight among themselves for Kingdom and Supremacy. Always Vaali used to win, as he had the power to absorb the opponent’s potency, with those who fight him directly. Till Lord Rama supports Sugreev & kills Vaali from behind the bushes, during their fight.

Here we can see this part in an interesting and different observation. May be Vaali & Sugreev was one and the same person, who was depressed and dejected. Sugreev might have the fear of failure from achieving the dominance over his Kingdom. May be Lord Rama motivated him and made him to overcome his fears. Sugreev was inspired to raise his potential and made to challenge his belief to control over his senses again. Also the factor “Vaali” can be figured as “Fear or Doubt” which was the absorbing power.

Fear is nothing more than a habituated reaction to a perceived threat.

As we begin to test our beliefs and potential, we may face some fears along the way. We tend to avoid situations that make us feel uncomfortable. Our fears are a direct result of our beliefs. Or, more particularly, our fears are the result of CHALLENGING our beliefs. There are many more ways to challenge our fears, but the main point is to avoid letting them control our life. Fear can be so relentless that it SEEMS to be out of our control, but fear is nothing more than a thought. As long as we remember that WE are the one in control, not our fears.

Doubt is the Dream Destroyer. It’s the Anti-Hope. It causes us to abandon our dreams. We simply decide they are NOT possible and drop them. Doubt can cause us to fall back when we would rather be moving forward. Doubt can make us to question our own inner knowing.

Doubt is another destructive force in our life, and is a lot closely related to fear. In fact, fear can cause doubt, and doubt can cause fear. They can act as magnifiers for each other, or co-exist together and make our life misery.

Doubts are simply another form of limiting beliefs. If we doubt our ability to do something, we won’t do it. We won’t even attempt it. If we doubt the availability of opportunities, we will quit ourselves to what we already have. If we doubt the goodness of other people, we will resist any help offered to us.

In order to push our limits, we need to take doubt right out of the equation.  We do this by embracing the opposite of doubt “BELIEF”.  Sometimes we have to take on the role of detective to figure out what’s really going on inside of us. With a little scrutiny and a lot of brutal honesty, we will see things more clearly.

No matter what, let’s make a promise to ourselves that we are going to give it our absolute best. Even if there seems to be no way to create a favorable outcome and even if the going gets rough - we will still try. It takes courage and determination to do this; but more often than not, we will be pleasantly surprised by the results.

Looking Inside Ourself-4

Cultivating the Mind:

Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking.

During a lecture, a wise man cracked a joke to the audience. All laughed crazily.  

After a moment he cracked the same joke again, lesser people laughed this time.
He cracked the same joke again & again, when there was no laughter in the crowd, he smiled and asked:  "When you can't laugh on the same joke again & again, then why do you keep worrying about same thing over and over”.

No-one plants the weeds. Weeds come from nowhere and grow wild to take over our yard. Negative thoughts are like weeds. Weeds are automatic; they do not need our permission to blossom. All we have to do is to leave our yard unattended for few days, and we’ll start seeing them everywhere.

On the other, we would not wake up and see tomatoes or potatoes growing automatically in our yard!! We have to actively grow what we wish in our yard. And that requires determined resolution.

We have to go to the store and buy the seeds. We have to prepare the ground to get it ready. After we plant those seeds, we have to continue to nurture them in order to have a great harvest. In Simple, we have to attend our garden.

Our mind is no different than our yard. Leave it unattended, we will be in trouble. We need to deliberately plant some positive thoughts in it. We can’t wake up and hope to eventually get into a positive frame throughout the day. We have to create it.

There lots of people in our workplace or in our circle, do nothing to cultivate their mind positively. They rarely have positive thoughts. That means we are surrounded by lots of negative people. It means we are surrounded by a bunch of undesirable weeds.

It’s a known fact that weeds have a way to choke the life out of our good vegetables if you don’t pull them out!!

That goes to say the negative people around us can choke the life out of us, as well if you don’t flood your mind with positive thoughts. We have two things to take care. We have to watch out the thoughts that we contemplate and the negative people that are around us constantly feeding us with negative thoughts.

We are gardeners, and based on our habitual thinking, we plant seeds (thoughts) in our mind. We should begin to sow thoughts of peace, happiness, right action, good will, and prosperity.

Think quietly and with interest on these qualities and accept them fully in the mind. Continue to plant these seeds (thoughts) in the garden of the mind, and we will reap a glorious harvest

There is only one person who could ever make us happy, and that person is you. Be First or Be with the First!

Looking Inside Ourself-3

Determination :

Only he who can see the invisible can do the impossible

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An old man used to live alone, wanted to spade his potato garden, but it was very hard work. His only son, who would have helped him, was in prison. The old man wrote a letter to his son and mentioned his situation:

Dear Son,

I am feeling pretty bad because it looks like I won't be able to plant my potato garden this year. I hate to miss doing the garden, because your mother always loved planting time. I'm just getting too old to be digging up a garden plot. If you were here, all my troubles would be over. I know you would dig the plot for me, if you weren't in prison.

With Love,

Dad

Shortly, the old man received this telegram:

For Heaven's sake, Dad, don't dig up the garden!! That's where I buried the GUNS!!

At 4 am the next morning, a dozen police officers showed up and dug up the entire garden without finding any guns. Confused, the old man wrote another note to his son telling him what happened, and asked him what to do next.

His son's reply was: "Go ahead and plant your potatoes, Dad. It's the best I could do for you from here."

Moral Conclusion:

The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a person’s determination.

No matter where you are in the world, if you have decided to do something deep you’re your heart, you can do it. It’s always the determination that matters !!!

The will to win, the desire to achieve, the urge to reach full potential ….these are the keys that will unlock the door to personal excellence. Great people are not great because of their talent and technique; they are great because of their attitude and passion. Passion is the trigger of success.

Passion is the engagement of our soul with something beyond us, something that helps us put-up with or fights against overwhelming all odds, even at high risk.

Change takes guts. It takes imagination. It takes commitment. Cease to toil, seek to be an artist. So celebrate what you have accomplished, but raise the bar a little higher each time you succeed.

I found that I could find energy, that I could find the determination to keep going. I learned that our mind can shock our body, if we just keep telling to ourself, I can do it, I can do it, I can do it!

Looking Inside Ourself-2

Dreams:

Our world is as big as dream it.

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A dream is a creative vision or road map for the future. Success can be seen twice, first in our dream, second after attaining. We need to have dreams, everything starts with it. And our dreams are who we are.

Vision without action is mirage. Undoubtedly one thing should follow our dream on the road to success is Hard work or Struggle. It’s the struggle which makes our dream to triumphant. Luck favours the brave, those who struggle and work hard, to attain success. If the hard work is not put, our dreams will become our own nightmares.

Our dreams become thoughts.

Our thoughts become words.

Our words become actions.

Our actions become destiny.

What we are today is result of our past actions, whatever we wish to be in future depends on our present actions. We can decide how we have to act now.

We will be what we think about ourselves. If we think we can achieve, we can. If we think we can’t, yes we can’t. When we believe in ourself, we should believe in it all the way, implicitly and unquestionably.  What ever we believe about ourselves and our ability comes true for us.

When we change our thinking………….we can change our belief

When we change our belief…………….we can change our expectation

When we change our expectation……we can change our attitude

When we change our attitude…..……..we can change our behaviour

When we change our behaviour………we can change our performance

When we change our performance….we can change our life

The 2 C’s i.e. Confidence & Courage and 3 D’s Desire, Dedication & Determination make us to excel. In apt the combination of 2 C’s and 3 D’s can be termed as Attitude, which showcases our inner image.

Looking Inside Ourself-1

Prelude:

No one fails until they fails inside

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We all know in Ramayana about “Hanuman” growing massive, flying to Lanka and finding “Sita Mata”. Ironically, before this act, he even was not aware of the wish he had, to grow bigger. Someone had to remind that he had that inner power.

Similarly we also unknowingly have tremendous potential inside ourselves, which needs to be discovered. That hidden potential can make us to scale the heights, which we dream. We just have to awake that sleeping giant inside us.

Even “Vamana”, the incarnation of “Lord Vishnu” grew bigger and suppressed “Bali”. Here growing can be percepted as growth in confidence and suppressing means defeating the fear.

Most of the times we are reluctant to put our dreams into action.  The fear of failure demoralizes us.  Such thoughts should be strongly shunned off. On human chessboard all moves are possible. This needs to be carved on all the walls of our mind. We should generate self-belief. In simple we need to look inside ourself.

This article “Looking Inside Ourself” makes an attempt to focus on the hidden treasures in our “Mind Fort”.

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