Dr Prithika Chary, Senior Consultant Neurologist & Neurosurgeon & Chief, Division of Epileptology, Apollo Hospitals, Chennai and Founder and Chief Resource Person, Creative Karma.
Mind and body are linked through a cybernetic loop, which allows a person to manipulate their physiology and can alter their emotional state.
By altering posture and breathing rate along with some other factors, one can improve their state of mind and even health. Growing personal power requires harmony between mind and body.
For you to bring out the best in yourself, you need to understand yourself. Take the time to understand yourself: your behaviours, your habits, your areas of focus, your daily rituals, your choices, and your unique talents. Become acutely aware of what you are creating in your life and discover the methods of turning your talents into strengths that will in turn transform your goals into concrete manifestations.
Brain plasticity refers to the ability of your nervous system to adjust to unexpected changes, to find new methods to learn, often following an injury or stroke, but more frequently when you are trying to learn a new skill, such as for a hobby or a career change. Brain plasticity is the infinite capacity of the brain to change and increase efficiency in response to environmental enrichment. It is possible therefore to change your life by the way you think and reap physical, emotional and mental benefits.
Every person, regardless of their age, whether they are a student, professional, baby boomer or senior citizen, needs to have brain fitness to succeed in everyday life.
Acquiring degrees, merit certificates, and being recognized and acknowledged for academic achievement is imperative. But learning is a lifelong process and extends beyond academics. Learning and openness to learning is the quotient for progress.
It is impossible for any of us to be the greatest, but all of us can be excellent. To quote Thomas Watson, the founder of IBM “ the only way to be excellent is to stop doing non-excellent things”.
What then is excellence?
Self-monitoring is the essence of excellence. Personal responsibility with personal accountability performed with total personal integrity and with 100% commitment is excellence, for no one can do better than their highest standards! We should learn to eat, breathe, sleep, work excellence. Excellence is an inner drive to do what we do immaculately. The path to excellence is quite simple – stop mediocrity and self-cheating and focus on true excellence.
Recreate yourself so you are better at everything you do, continuously, without being pushed or prodded by others. Try to make a better and better version of what you are – we are constantly making product improvements and innovations – why not do the same with ourselves? Aim to give yourself Six Sigma certification. Six sigma means 99.999997% perfection in a manufactured product. Work at giving yourself this level of quality.
The “locus of control” is within oneself and it is important to understand what can be controlled and what cannot be controlled and has to be accepted. This will influence our attitude. Attitude is any belief or opinion that has an evaluative component. Attitudes express positive or negative emotion towards a particular object, person, event or idea. Attitude has a utilitarian function that is acquired by direct experience.
It also has a defensive function to allay anxiety or boost self-esteem. It has a social function which we use for impression management, especially about what others think about us. Last but not least, it has a value expressive function which is deeply felt values that help us define the self and make life meaningful.
To enable this one needs to have several quotients in balance.
IQ (intelligence quotient) primarily solves logical problems and helps us get a job.
EQ (Emotional quotient) allows us to judge the situation we are in and behave appropriately and serves to keep us in the job.
SQ ( Spiritual Quotient) gives us the ability to decide if we want to be in a particular situation and it might motivate us to create a new one – SQ, therefore, has transformative power. SQ is the ultimate intelligence and needs both IQ and EQ and helps us stay contented and happy in a job.
Reasoning skills alone are not enough. One needs empathy, compassion, the ability to get along with people, good communication and the appropriate response to pain and pleasure – not excess euphoria or depression over small matters. Ethics and inner spirituality are important. This comes from happiness based on contentment and a desire to ease the suffering of others and form meaningful relationships. It is in effect an inner sense of being part of the whole.
It is important to have basic human values. A sense of caring, a sense of responsibility and a sense of forgiveness, both of ourselves and others. We need others and we need to be there for others. It is important to strive to be a good human being.
Of course, the skills of memory, creativity and problem solving will help us get ahead further. To acquire these one needs motivation. In Latin “motivus” means “to move”. Motivation, therefore, means the ability to act and has three components – positive emotions, positive expectations and an active role.
How does one motivate oneself?
Plan how to achieve your goals – keep the timeline as immediate, short term and long term – build in rewards at each phase, and start doing what you have to do to achieve it – just do it, be it and live it with all your being.
Assess your skills – make sure you know your stuff, network and get feedback on your performance, find a role model or mentor and just do it!
During the planning phase, make sure this is what you really want and know the price – is all this worthwhile for the end you are aiming for? This will keep you going, as wanting something with all your heart is the biggest motivator.
Good communication skills are essential. Learn to be assertive and not aggressive, respectfully claiming your rights, not destructively seeking what you want. Say “no” without creating a cloud of confusion. When you need help, first look at the end of your own arm. We have two hands, one for helping ourselves, the other for helping others. When you help others you may find the one most helped is you. When we empower others, the snowball effect empowers us all.
Working in today’s world has some constraints
- Time – there is always too much to do in too little time. Prioritize what matters in your life.
- Information overload – learn to take only what is essential and do not waste time and effort on reading what is irrelevant to you.
- Demanding bosses and unrealistic deadlines – this is a fact of life in many organizations. If you benchmark yourself and do what you do in accordance with the rules of excellence cited earlier, there should be no problem. Deadlines are painful if we shortchange ourselves and our bosses.
- Aiming too high – most of us want to start at the top. Remember one has to reach the top by climbing the steps – one by one or sometimes a few steps at a time – but never can one jump from below straight to the top.
- Greed vs need – learn to know the difference. It is easy for the two to blur, then the “more syndrome” sets in and desire has no end.
Do not just accumulate money during your lifetime. Live a life of love and abundance.
If you want to improve your employability quotient, remember “the me I see is the me I will be” – have self-esteem and self-respect and you can be confident. Be aware and have a purpose in life – don’t just drift and remember that all of us have the power of choice as to how our lives can be. Good health is important, so eat right, sleep enough, and get some amount of exercise and at all times have an attitude of gratitude for all that you already have.
Never forget the social laws of human dignity. Believe that every person is worthy of your respect. Do not label, categorize, stereotype and judge people and shove them into small boxes. Respect individuals for what they are. If you want others to treat you well, you should also treat others well. Don’t go through life always wanting to be a winner. Go through life looking at win/win as an option – finding mutually beneficial positions in all human relationships.
Co-operation and collaboration will get you farther than the competition. Grow allies, not adversaries. Do not aim to succeed at the expense of someone else. Trust people and stop blaming others for all that goes wrong with your life. Forgiveness of both yourself and others for not being perfect is crucial for this.
Understand also that life changes. There are no ideal situations in life – there never will be. Though we can’t control our circumstances, we can choose our attitude and how we respond to them. Circumstances are only like tools. You can choose what to do with a knife – you can save someone’s life or murder someone with it. It is the same with life’s situations. People and incidents will throw garbage at our feet or in our faces, but we have the personal power to start each day by taking our garbage out.
While organizing ourselves, most of us consolidate.
Eliminate instead - all the negative emotions, all the time-wasting activities, all the unnecessary files, all the delaying habits we have – clearing all this clutter will give you razor-sharp focus on what you want to achieve. We can have anything we want if we set our minds to it, but we cannot have everything we want and we need to understand this.
A positive attitude of “I think I can” will eventually result in “I know I can” and “I did it “. Positivity about ourselves and others is necessary. Love yourself, visualize success, control your inner voices of fear and diffidence, reward a job well done, even if it is yourself, and give your positive attitude to others as well.
Look at yourself and make sure you are a positive thinker, listener and performer. What picture of yourself would you like the world to see?
Suppose you received what you gave out to the world would you be pleased with what you receive? Make the first move and do not wait for others to start the change. Spend time with associates who boost your positivity, spend your spare time in enriching activities and not lazing around – rest is necessary, not aimless lazing around. Clear clutter in your mind, surroundings and in your attitudes and values. Build on your strengths and manage your weaknesses – we all have them.
Business in the new millennium is about freedom of choice to live as a human being and about building relationships. It is about IQ, EQ and SQ. It is about knowing your stuff, it is about tolerance and sharing, it is about fair play and caring, it is about personal excellence, love and compassion – it is about you and how you want to be. So go out there and choose what you want to be – never forget that like us, everyone has dreams and is going after them.
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