Bamboo In The Wind

It seems almost impossible to recover from defeat in our earlier games! And yet, how do some people revive from devastating defeats while others end up dropping the ball? Why do unfavorable situations strengthen some individuals or groups yet make others quit under pressure? There are routine examples of how people have scored solid recoveries from what looked like an untenable situation. Their success may lie in a critical thinking attribute when in a troublesome situation. That key attribute is - the willingness to develop a muscle of personal resilience! Resilience begins to develop from a simple step of a view problem situation as an opportunity to evolve personal self. It shapes personality and approach to positively engaging circumstances. What gives root to resilience is in being optimistic . It makes thinking about a way out of the situation plausible. It provides the necessary hope and possibility of taking action. Resilience grows further with decisive actions of engagi...

When we need help, it is better to ask one specific person than a group. Messages to a broad group of people receive few responses and even fewer valuable suggestions! And that should not be surprising! People tend to think others in the group will step up to help. Thus, diffusion of responsibility kicks in! It is our loss when we reach out to a group for support and, in reality, see none! The generosity of support is highest when there is an exclusive opportunity for making a direct positive impact on someone in need. A sense of unique contribution is the reason people volunteer!

Those who genuinely don't care what people think about them do so purposefully.  There is a deep-seated underlying fear that leads to insecurity to know more about themselves. They detest finding out that they might not be perfect and need improvement. That makes them antisocial by their own design! A more confident and social people know precisely where their progress lies. They care about what people they immensely respect think of them and act on it blindly. The difference between being successful and being satisfied lies between the two approaches.

Happiness is never one size fits all. It's never about winning the big things every once in a while and getting the joy of life. Instead, happiness lies in increasing the frequency of joy.  Happiness is collecting joy in little things, the most unassuming settings, and the most unexpected yet regular aspects of life! As often as we can. Chasing the roller coaster of big bang pleasures will bring many disappointments amid some joyous breaks. Learning to spot and pick daily, tiny moments of joy is the only way to sustained, long-lasting satisfaction. It starts with being open to recognizing that bad is mixed good, and we must learn to discern good and cherish that!

We are surrounded by upheaval. Uncertainties grip us. It may look like we are on an impossible, neverending climb! We all need to focus on the next step, following one action, the next minute, the next hour, the next day, next test. Once we focus on winning every session, we approach things with a narrow area focused on the next and the next thing alone! That is when we are steady, composed, and intent!

It is such a complex concept.  You work hard for something and have it, yet you do not feel good about the achievement. Why is this so? You are in the spotlight, and your enigma is gone to become public. You have a loss of privacy. Another reason is your success. Everyone around you thinks it is their success. Everyone expects a share in it. Whether you like it or not. And then guilt creeps in! You owe it to others! That is social debt. You repay the debt with nagging discomfort and spend part of the success.  And that is a depletion you cannot avoid!

Saying you are committed and being committed are two different things. We think about the level of commitment because we are after something. So how you feel about commitment is essential. More important is how to act on that commitment. Thoughts follow expectations. We expect how things may turn out. Without actions backing the thought, we will likely see a deviation in the expected results. Often the result is a surprise! It shouldn't be! It's just the culmination of thoughts followed by actions! Fix them both. Results ensue!

There is no such thing as a right track. We are always in a way that we are on. Why are we constantly searching for whether we are on the right track! Well,  there are a few reasons for it. We don't listen to our own inner self. We are eager to get swayed by what others think of us instead of what our inner self signals us. Learning to listen to our inner self might open us to what we really want and what we are missing that we would like to work on. For the track we are on the make sense, we have to build the right surrounding that allows our best inner self to express itself. Unless there is an opportunity for us to express our inner selves, we cannot see the influence of what matters to us. Another thing that matters for the track we are on is to trust ourselves. Trusting makes us feel like expressing, sharing, and giving.  We do so with much more confidence that we come from a place of positive contribution. Such confidence enhances the value of the track we embarked on. F...

Misunderstanding arises out of an incomplete understanding of the matter under exchange. It stems from the fact that we have received information that does not match the version of points in our minds. Moreover, it differs from the beliefs we have. Together they create situations contrary to what the sender wishes us to receive with complete clarity, and we understand. The problem arises mainly due to expecting the process of the sender and receiver expecting an offline concurrence.  This requires patience instead of relying on assumptions about what we receive and making those the final interpretations. Most clarifications result from debates, probing, questioning, distilling, and reclarifying until a common understanding exists. Trouble is when any commentary about the inadequacy of what is in our hands triggers the feeling of insufficiency; it gives rise to insecurity. Dialogue breaks then and there, and assumptions start to become truths. That gives birth to gross misinterpreta...

Raising-the-moderate results in iterative linear improvement over the exponential progress we like to go after with the technique of raising the bar.  It improves the average work to excel to become incrementally better.  It builds the culture to look for pitfalls of the present and work on improving them without the shame, comparison, and looking down upon those that can only produce the unreasonable at the start. Raising the moderate considers why someone struggles to produce enough and gives them the tools to create adequately. It then puts the next challenge out to beat that until we have something of substance. However, once we have learned that we can excel by raising the moderate, it has an unintended side effect! It reduces the demand for best-in-breed excellence as we know it.  We learn to settle for adequate!

Our understanding of progress relates to achieving something worthwhile. Our notion of excelling at something is exceeding the past achievement. Raising the bar often means jumping over the hurdle, starting with the lowest level first and gradually moving the bar up. The notion high jump in the Olympics teaches us that unless you hop over the raised bar to win unless you better the performance of someone who came before you! While raising the bar for personal excellence is exciting, it also creates isolation among those you are unwilling to participate for the starting hurdle for participation it lays out. In real life, however, the contrarian approach builds a winning culture for collective efforts. Raising the bar is only sometimes necessary for excelling. In workplaces and group settings, setting ways to excel the performance of the groups requires distributing the work to carefully avoid burn-outs. That raises the average performance and generates interest. Innovations set rolling ...

Patience is a virtue. It reflects our considerate reaction to something that happens differently from our plan.  When things go awry, they have massive potential to shake us. We might feel insensitivity under the situation. The unexpected breaks us so much that we may lose sight of the commitment we made to ourselves. That is the time when patience comes to the rescue. It is a harsh reminder that we are one factor in making things happen. Many factors are at play where the probability that the dice roll falls in our favor is entirely unpredictable. We should look at the factors contributing to our desired outcome. When we learn to find all pieces that make the final outcome, it is a lesser surprise that many are not in our control. It requires no reaction from us. When reactions cease, we open the room for performance against all odds.

It is common to waver from our goal. There are so many distractions that take away our minds off of our priorities.  Temporarily veering away is perfectly normal. As long as we are not dropping what is vital to us indefinitely, engaging in distractions for a bit is perfectly okay. P Priorities essential to us must stay on top of our minds. Distractions, though, are engaging. They have the power to become habits in no time. When priorities are a cornerstone of everything we do, our mind recognizes the overtures of distractions.  Prioritizing ruthlessly makes room for bringing the schedule back on track. Prioritizing is the way we remain focused on what is important to us.

In talking therapy, we seek to unravel who we are. We expect to peel through the layers until there are none.  The goal of therapy is to find the bare-bone self. We are reluctant yet intentional. However, we are in a world of hard knocks in real life. It makes us wonder how to traverse through it unscathed. Experiences shape our temporary behaviors. Some accidentally or some others after reflection.  That goes on until we gather new experiences that shatter our beliefs and build new ones. In real life, our experiences teach us to remove the layers just as the therapy!  One may be an intentional process driven by self-awareness. In a few instances, we recognize that things need to change. Consciously.  The other one, however, is a bit like walking blindfolded. We depend on experiences and decide to change because of how experiences turn out. Unconsciously.  Both of these are processes of finding the bare metal self. That is individuation! The one that frees us fr...

New projects, new books, new friends, and new jobs all attract you. You continuously embrace newness. You find the newness enjoyable. Nothing wrong about feeling the excitement of novelty.  The novelty is forgotten when confronting something new one more time. The critical question is, how does this newness sit with what you already have? Can you keep the priorities you already have? In the absence of probing this question, all things new are compelling.  Embracing new leaves you swimming on the surface. Who knows, you are overextending yourself for the fear of what lies at the depths!

The greatest gift you can give yourself is to take the initiative. It might look like you are taking on more work at first.  The initiative sets the tone for responsibility you take. It also helps set a boundary for where that responsibility ends. Clearly, the initiative has other benefits. It tells others where they can depend on you. Such proactiveness makes the experience for everyone transparent and pleasant. Taking the initiative is a bold step. It requires broad mind, courage to volunteer and willingness to know. It may appear that the stature of what you do may not match with your past. With initiative, you can break away from the past, contribute. Initiative is the way you string together vital experiences. More critically, the initiative opens the doors. Makes connections. Expands learning. It also pleasantly surprises those around you.  The initiative, is highly potent experience. The one that may turn out quite revealing!

We understand well that actions and inactions are a way to make decisions. We recognize that each action we take incurs a cost. Action may trigger an outcome that advances us, in which case the price we pay is negligible. It may also get us an outcome that retracts us backward, in which case the price we pay is high. Either way, action is expensive! What about inaction? Inaction means doing nothing. We often consider that inaction has no price associated with it. After all, we are not acting to maintain the status quo. The status quo puts us in a poor position. Inaction costs us dearly. We just don't see it until it hits us!

Staying in the past and judging circumstances or people is futile. Most people detest getting judged rather than judging others. When we judge others, we lose precious sharing we might enjoy with friends, family, and acquaintances who hate to hear how we think they are wrong. We may not realize it, but most people enjoy being in our company. They are delighted about  everything we offer except the undue worry or deceit they might face in our presence. What we experience is primarily up to us.

It means being firm despite all odds. We know that not all will go as we want.  And yet, we are prepared to engage and give our best effort to be ready for the game. Storms come often. But they go only when we are resilient and tackle them with acceptance.  Acceptance beefs up confidence that we understand the lowest point if we don't deliver.  And once we know the bottom of any problem, our mind works magically to avoid the possible low point. That resurrects us and puts us solidly in what, until then, was a losing battle!

Speed is rarely a reflection of IQ. Faster reasoning can mean shallow reasoning. We can be faster on easier problems but slower on harder ones.  Our experience over time tells us that rush crushes and it is best to be thoughts until we get it right and after verification. It is best to decline trading accuracy for speed. That is undoubtedly a sign of intellect.  Striving for accuracy gives rise to rational decision-makers over time.

Why do some people perform at an ultra-performance level while others cannot? It appears as though sprint runners can be omnipresent. Can see over their shoulder where the co-runners are, measure their distance, maintain the correct posture while running, and maintain position in the running lane. In reality, they are not that omnipresent. They are ultra-focused on a special milestone in the sprint. Their run is concise, and the distance is well in their line of sight. So they are trained to focus on being at the finish line of their run in the quickest possible time. That is it. Creating an environment for quick experimentation and clear targets are possible. And we can use the technique to improve our performance in any field. The environment needs to be such that we can see progress or failure rapidly. This calls for periodic tests of our performance and frequent learning about what could have been improved. That is the best way to build solid foundational skills. Focusing on the go...

The role model is essential. It reflects the aspirational journey we want to pursue. It is our map of who we want to be like. It is always a good idea to think of where our experiences intersected with our consciousness and became believable to us and ingrained in who we are today. It is a rather personal journey. Posters on the wall usually represent various values dear to us and what we see in those around us. That is the guiding torch that keeps our march inspiring. If we think of asking them the most pressing problems on our mind - to those that admire and respect - we end up hearing their answers with certainty. And so we don't ask but still get from them what we need! 

Being associated with an organizational philosophy, ideology is always a function of beliefs and priorities at a specific time. While loyalty is about rallying behind those priorities, they are inferred as a permanent phenomenon.  Unless priorities are self-initiated, we are mainly inheriting those from others. When inherited priorities conflict with our value systems, they are suffocating. They constrain us from thinking freely. Acting becomes problematic when the conflicts are at their peak. Conflicts stem from the ideology we are associated with based on our earlier beliefs aligning with the cause. When they don't immediate reaction is a change in priorities. When priorities change, following a party line becomes unproductive.  The best thing to do is not sign up for following a party line but review beliefs and carefully correct them to match with real experiences from time to time. While following a party line makes us safe followers, being open to adjusting priorities to...

Uphill makes us breathless, tiresome, and impossible to climb. Our confidence, ambition, desire, and will is tested on an uphill battle. All these thoughts collectively make up our image of what we are capable of. And the uphill climb clears the fluff of our imagination of what we are capable of. We are still determining if we will make it to the top. That feeling of whether we will make it to the top clears all the inhibitions and fluff we have gathered for a while. We get grounded in reality. A sign of that is we begin to see things more clearly, are open to suggestions, and listen to our own signals better. With intent!