LIFE - NeoStrategy

Life Productivity – Complete Series

INTRODUCTION

What comes to your mind when you hear the. word ” Productivity”?. To do lists, tasks, on time projects, accomplishments, time management, etc…what comes to your mind?. There are thousands of the books, tools, frameworks and philosophies on this topic. Most of them deal with task efficiencies, time management, planners and prioritisation. While these are important these are only at surface level touching only 10% of the depth. How does it really matter how many tasks did you complete?

Lets shift the gears now… What if you are super efficient at task completion but suffering with low esteem? How much productive do you feel internally? What if you have achieved super success but every minute you are insecure insider? And lets say you are living your life for other sake (for parents, society, xyz), how do you measure your life productivity?. Or lets say you are super efficient (mostly not possible) at your job but your passion lies some where else. Then how do you measure your productivity?

Sum of all our life activities should contribute to your life overall happiness. How much of your activities contribute to your life productivity? Shift the focus from tasks, plans and priorities to life productivity/happiness then you will the get real idea about what is important and what is not important.

The real productivity blockers and boosters are far different from what we have been told and taught so far. When we see things from new percpective you get different insight. You can look life from new dimension.

BLOCKERS AND BOOSTERS

There are certain things which will make you move forward in your life and which will give you long term happiness and fulfilment, etc..What are these things? We will see what these are. These are called “Boosters”. At the same time there are many things which will drag you down in your life (real productivity killers), what I call these as ” Blockers”. What kind of Booster and Blockers come to your mind? These are definitely NOT the superficial things. These are inside out items mostly.

For most people these are unknown for most of of their life. Lets look at what could be some possible blockers first? Listing down few..

BLOCKERS

Disempowering Beliefs (Beliefs which are not helping you in your life)
Low Self-esteem or Low Self Confidence, etc
All Negative Emotions (Fears, etc)
Negative Value System (too much Ego)
Wrong Goals (ego driven, revenge driven, insecurity driven, etc)
Your own biology (yes, this can be a blocker)
Any kinds of pattern and behaviours (negative)
All kinds of addictions

BOOSTERS

Having a mission or passion for life
Very strong empowering beliefs
Good Value system
Living beyond yourself
Awakening (this is not a light coming on your head but basically means you know what is useful and what is junk)

These are just to give you an idea on what will possibly and REALLY can give you productivity vs what will drag you down. We will go little deep into these boosters and blockers in the coming days.

Serious request to YOU – What has been your boosters and what has been your blockers?. Now think about your traditional productivity stuff in relation to these. I hope you understand where we need to focus when we really want to achieve REAL PRODUCTIVITY in LIFE.

BLOCKER – DIS EMPOWERING BELIEFS

Lets start with some of the BLOCKERS of Life Productivity.

BELIEFS are the foundational building blocks of human life. They will give you the meaning of the life, what is good vs what bad, etc. Your life happiness is direct correlation to how close you are living to your own beliefs/value system. You first need to understand how beliefs get formed. I have already written about this topic under “Building Blocks of Human Psychology” . Read this blog => Beliefs Formation .

How beliefs can impact Life Productivity? Actually wrong beliefs can completely damage ones life. Beliefs are of two categories – empowering beliefs and other is dis empowering beliefs. Empowering beliefs are the ones which will take you closure to your goals and bring happiness. Dis empowering beliefs will drag you down. But most interesting thing is you may not know what beliefs are empowering and which ones are dragging you down. In fact, you will believe both types of beliefs are helping until you really introspect them.

Lets look some of the examples of dis empowering beliefs (you may still believe in beliefs and continue …it is a personal choice)

Life is DIFFICULT
I am NOT good enough
I need to do better than OTHER people
I SHOULD NEVER fail
MOST people are BAD
I am SUPERIOR to other people
Things should go in ORDER
Living in India is difficult
etc etc

Imagine how your life productivity will go down if you carry these kind of beliefs. Will they help you?. Compare the usual productivity we talk about Vs this life productivity . Un comparable right?.

Now the question is how you can remove these BLOCKERS?. Read my earlier blog on => Beliefs Transformation.

Write down your BELIEF BLOCKERS and eliminate them. You can see 10X productivity (Life) gain. Test it out !!

BLOCKER – NEGATIVE EMOTIONS

The second biggest BLOCKER in life is Negative Emotions. Negative emotions would be mostly the result of combination of dis empowering beliefs, genetics and biology. Read the previous blogs on origin of Emotions and Understanding Emotions .

Do you know the biggest problem people face all over the world?. In fact this problem more so for highly successful people. It is the most hidden problem. “I AM NOT GOOD ENOUGH” – this is the biggest the problem people deal internally in different forms. The right psychology term for this is “LOW- SELF ESTEEM”. You must read and understand about this if you are not familiar with about this => Self Esteem.

We often hear famous celebrities and many other “successful people” killing themselves (suicide) after all the success. Why? Here is an interesting logic for you to think. If we ask generally anyone “what is the most fearful thing”?. We mostly get an answer saying “death”. But if the death is the most scary thing then why would some one kill himself/herself?. Because there is some thing more scarier than the death. That’s why death (less painful) was chosen than facing the actual pain. If we go to root of any intense emotional pain you will stop at “I AM NOT GOOD ENOUGH” or “PEOPLE WILL REJECT ME or DON’T LOVE ME” or “WHAT SOCIETY WILL THINK”. All these are same.

Anyway, this blog is not about suicides. But it is about the most painful and LIFE PRODUCTIVITY BLOCKER. Just imagine some one becoming super productive at his/her career or business but towards end of the life thinking miserable will be -1000% LIFE PRODUCTIVITY !!.

BLOCKER – ACHIEVING WRONG GOALS

How did you set most of your goals?. You are the most lucky person if you have chosen your goals and decisions based on your own will. I think many people (not all) set important goals and take decisions based on – parents influence, social expectations or most often you want to be better than some one else or you want to “prove” the world that you are good enough.

How will we know which ones are wrong goals?. Very simple answer – Any thing you regret later. Can you think of such examples in your life? Did you chose one career accidentally due to different factors like money, fame or just because everybody has taken that career path, etc and then change to some thing which you are passionate about?. Did you change to new company for salary hike then later you realised that hike did not make any difference in your life or at least you felt previous company is better than this new one? How about you have invested in some asset class because everybody rushed like mad to capture the “opportunity”. Did you try to prove that you are capable of some thing and later realised that tempoary ego satisfaction is not worth the effort? In fact you would have got tired proving all the time and one day you would have said enough !!. I am sure you are familiar about people who achieve all the money and fame and still feel miserable.

The list can be endless. Point is achieving some of these wrong goals can yield any where between 1 year to 30 years or more productivity loss. So it lot more worth to understand about if we are after right goals or not. This is 1000 times important than how you order your to do lists and doing them efficiently. This would be like “Operation Successful but Patient died”.

Past is past. At least from now on we must go after right goals (independent and conscious decisions based on wisdom).

BLOCKER – PATTERNS & BEHAVIOURS

While dis empowering beliefs, negative emotions and wrong goals can drag the life productivity significantly, our patterns and behaviours can be more damaging. Most often we would not be self aware about our patterns.

What are patterns? How we get those patterns?. Patterns are simply automatic behaviours. Like the we brush, drive, etc most of these patterns happens very automatically. Most deep rooted patterns are adopted from the childhood through parents and environment. I am sure you heard statements like ” he behaves exactly like his father” or “she is print like her aunt” , etc. These patterns might have some genetic linkage but most dominant factor would be copying the behaviours – patterns. Lets say if your father used to get angry when some worker is not performing his work, you would have watched this and copied this as is unconsciously. After you grow up you will almost behave in the similar way. We would have adopted many such bad and as well good patterns without any careful selection process. And this is not possible when we were child. And we continue to think these are correct patterns and worst thing is we might strongly believe that these are very correct. Anyway this is a deep subject.

The point is you need to identify all such unconscious patterns and examine them and eliminate the bad ones. You will have patterns in all aspects of life – starting from your diet, finances, business, career and social interactions. Just take one most critical area for you now and list down all patterns and introspect them.

This is worth doing it. It is like virus clean up exercise. If you seriously spend some time then you will find some of the biggest BLOCKERS of your life.

BLOCKER – INEFFICIENT BIOLOGY

We talked about dis-empowering beliefs, negative emotions, wrong goals and patterns under BLOCKERS. Will cover the last BLOCKER – INEFFICIENT BIOLOGY in this blog.

Everybody has different types of body makeup. Some have inborn high energy levels while others have sluggish energy levels. Some have high IQ levels and others may have low levels. Some follow good nutrition which fuels energy and others get addicted to carbs and sugars. The list goes on. In summary, I am referring Biology as combination of energy levels + Brain power + nutrition. We all can improve our biology to the level we need, for sure. But most often this element is taken for granted and we damage our biology to a level it becomes inefficient and becomes a major BLOCKER. No one looks at this as productivity parameter. I think your physical vitality is the most import productivity parameter. Because this is what defines how you think and act. Your biology/physiology drives your emotions and thoughts and there by the productivity.

There is tons of information available on how to improve energy levels, brain power, etc on internet. But the point is to recognise how efficient/inefficient your biology currently is. And understand how much % of life productivity efficiency it is giving or reducing. Just replace all bad biology practices with good ones for a week and you can realise the productivity boost.

I have just defined 5 broad level BLOCKERS and you can expand your own list based on your experiences. Main point is to give you the idea. I hope you got the idea and message clearly. We will look at what are the BOOSTERS in the next few blogs.

BOOSTER – HAPPINESS

We will discuss about some of the BOOSTERS for Life Productivity. These enhances overall Life Productivity. The first BOOSTER that comes to mind is Happiness. Based on my interactions with lot of “Big” & “Successful” guys and observations, I am very much convinced that Happiness is becoming (became) very precious thing now a days.

This why I think Happiness as # 1 BOOSTER …Let me explain. All human beings do things “to feel good”. Beggars to Billionaires – all crave for happiness. But in the pursuit of achieving “higher happiness” we lose the “basic happiness” and we start hypnotise ourselves saying we need to achieve more to feel happiness. Basically we go into this complex loop. And the hypothesis for achievement (to get happiness) fails. By the way I am not talking about this for someone else. This is applicable for you and me also. What is the use of all achievements if we feel anxious, fearful, angry and empty at the end. Normal assumption starts like this..after we complete good college degree we will be happy…then job..then marriage..then kids..then career success..then kids “settlement” then grand kids…then we can feel happy. Talk to people in 60s..70s..you get an idea…so this loop goes on. If we don’t built the muscle to feel good/happy then this will never happen. As some one says there is “Science of Success” and “Art of Fulfilment”. Science of success is actually procedural but if we don’t know how to feel Happy (Art of fulfilment) then entire our life efforts gets wasted.

Convinced? Why happiness is # 1 life BOOSTER.

BOOSTER – PURPOSE

We talked about the first BOOSTER – Happiness. I intentionally chose this as really the most important one because after all the so called success/achievement if there is no happiness then there is no fun. Very interestingly, there are few lucky Buddha souls who are generally happy irrespective of achievements or any possessions. But for most people Happiness is a big deal.

Now lets talk about the 2nd Booster – Purpose. What the hell is this Purpose?. It is simply knowing what will give you long term happiness (my definition). Knowing this will give you enormous amount of Life productivity. How?. Many people (who already have basic needs filled) reach to a point in life and find emptiness or can’t find meaning to what they are doing. This can lead to big downward loop. That is because we did not knew what would give long term happiness. Again some people know this very early in life and some keep looking for this throughout their life.

How will we know Purpose? Purpose is nothing but satisfying your values (whatever you give importance to). Read this blog on => Personal Values to know more on Values.

As per Victor Frankl who wrote Man’s Search for Meaning – “Frankl’s message is ultimately one of hope: even in the most absurd, painful, and dispiriting of circumstances, life can be given a meaning, and so too can suffering. Life in the concentration camp taught Frankl that our main drive or motivation in life is neither pleasure, as Freud had believed, nor power, as Adler had believed, but MEANING “ (Ref from Psychology Today).

Knowing and living Meaning/Purpose is real life BOOSTER.

BOOSTER – LIVING BEYOND YOURSELF

The 2nd BOOSTER we talked about was – Purpose. Purpose can be small or big. It can be as simple as living happily by yourself or live the entire life for 2-3 family members or it can be making huge impact to the state/country/world through whatever pursuits you take up. Most leadership and spiritual literature talk about contributing beyond yourself etc. “Changing the World” or “Impacting People Lives” is the new slogan of purposeful life.

How “Living Beyond Yourself” enhances life productivity?. It is simple math actually. If you just live for yourself or for 2-3 people then your life productivity is X or 2X or 3X. But when you impact more number of people through your life – your life productivity multiplies by that much. If you impact 100 people then it is 100X or if you impact one million then it is million X. You may be thinking why the hell I need to impact so many people and isn’t it sufficient if me and my family are happy. Yes, it is more than sufficient. Then why all the great leaders (politics, business or any area) are behind this impacting many people concept. Are they sacrificing more? Not really. Nature has a beautiful design and an accounting system to reward with happiness in relation to how many people you are positively impacting. They are not fools and they get kick out of it. Let’s say you postively impacted 100 people then you get that much of happiness. This concept of “Happiness ROI”, I will talk in detail in some other series. But the point is….

More number of people you impact positively then your life productivity will improve those many times
And, as a reward you get that much of happiness. Nature takes care of it.

Impact can be made through simple acts also !!

BOOSTER – LIVING IN-LINE WITH NATURE

This not about Living in the Nature. It is about how close can you operate your life in-line with the natural laws. This is applicable to every thing. Just take the example of health. If you practice the basic fundamentals of health that comes from nature then you will be more healthier. With the short pleasures we go out of this and nature will punish with the exact amount of imbalance you have created for your health. Same thing is applicable if you apply in wealth. All the the shortcuts end up with pain whether others can see it or not person who indulged will get exact amount of pain in relation to the shortcut made. Same thing goes with the damage we create to environment.

Basic point here is about nature’s design principles. Nature has created these design principles in all aspects of life. Nature has such a brutally accurate accounting system and no one can escape from it. Like a kid we may get temporary happiness with all bypass and shortcut models. But nature will close the P&L balance sheet perfectly. In other words this is called “Karma”. I never understood what this really means. My translation of Karma is this explanation.

How this is related to Life Productivity?. It is very much related. In fact this itself defines overall Life Productivity. More in line with nature design principles more productive ones life will be. Most often we deviate so much from baseline and then come back to it then we feel like we have achieved so much. But actually productivity is zero. Some even think this is Self Realisation – actually real life starts from that time.

Feels heavy concept?. Just make it simple. Natural laws are so simple. We complicate it.

CONCLUSION

We have looked at the importance of “Life Productivity” in the introduction article. LIFE PRODUCTIVITY – PART #1 : INTRODUCTION. This is the most most important building block under “Productivity”. None of other types of productivity comes any closer to this.

I have briefly categorised different “BLOCKERS” and “BOOSTERS” under Life Productivity.

BLOCKERS:

BOOSTERS:

The above list gives you an idea. Use your own thinking to build your own list that aligns with you.

The core take away is –

Traditionally (even till date), productivity has been looked at as “Task Productivity”, which is very much outdated (or will be shortly outdated) as we move into more automated/Digital life. Task based productivity is more applicable for Industrial Age. Not saying this is not required at all but less value in future..
Life Productivity is THE MOST important and core for Life. Pay more attention to this. Rest will follow through.

Along this series, I have enhanced my thinking on this whole “Productivity” concept. Between the core “Life Productivity“and “Task Productivity” , I realised that there is “Strengths based Productivity“.

This is kind of “DECODING PRODUCTIVITY”……Will write more on this in a different series some day…

Daily (Regular) Vs Adhoc

So far, I have written 118 blogs. I had started this as “Daily Blog” and could do reasonably well until first 100 blogs. Then few things came up and my rhythm broken a bit. Actually, I could technically bring the rhythm back. But I did not. Why? I think my mind took “advantage” of this situation and I got relaxed. And my mind started giving me all kinds of excuses why it is OK not to write regularly. And I got convinced with those excuses. What is the result? Below is the result.

May # 26 , June # 23 ,July # 16 ,Aug # 19 ,Sept # 15, Oct # 10

Nov # 4 , Dec (As of today – 10th ) # 1

In May, I have written 26 and by Nov the count went down to 4. This is the statistical proof of what happens when consistency is missing. !!. Ok point is proven.

I am planning to get back to the rhythm from tomorrow. I will be starting my most favorite and very close to heart topic – ADHD/ADD ( Attention Deficiency Hyper Disorder).

So far what I have written…What next?

So far..

As most of you know, I have completed 100 blogs so far. I have been writing my blogs based on a specific theme and publish as a series. Of course, some blogs are single posts.

Below are the 6 series topics I have written so far.

What Next..

From tomorrow, I am going to write on “Innovation” area. This being the main buzz in todays worlds and this is also becoming basic necessity for survival in the business world. For some readers this can be bit boring and for others it can be a serious topic. I will try to balance with “Human” touch. My main focus is going to be in the “Design Thinking” under the Innovation theme. I am very passionate about Design Thinking as this is a powerful problem solving method which can be used beyond business and it can be a huge help in solving social and personal problems as well..

Stay tuned..

Why…Complete Series

Introduction

Just thinking what should I write next series? For a change, I just want to pick up different topics on this “Why.” series. These whys could be from any area. For e.g. Why we pick up some new habit (eating too much food) once we quit (smoking) old habit or Why we follow some Babas or Gurus blindly?

Now in this introduction, I want to distill all 100s of complex life theories on “purpose of live” to “self-realization” to “Success”, etc into a very very simple concept. Of course, this is my view. Theory can be anything and logic can be anything…ultimately, we do everything for simple TWO REASONS.

ONE – To Feel Good

TWO – To avoid Pain

That’s it. You can test this against all the theories/religions/philosophies. Bottom line is we simply do either to feel good or avoid pain.

Of course, there area levels and qualities of “Feel Good” and “Pain”. This is altogether another subject. I have my own theory called – “Happiness ROI”. Will blog on this later.

Coming back to this “Why” series…while the broad concept is very clear (at least is for me), there are many many things we do and many times we may not know why we are doing certain things. I think this will be somewhat fun to read series.. Let’s see.

#1. Why…do we try to impress others?

As I said in the introduction EVERY THING we do mainly to FEEL GOOD or to AVOID PAIN.

We try to impress others to feel good. But you feel good for a different deep reason. When our self-esteem is low then we try to fill our inner void/emptiness by impressing others. Basically, filling the tanks with little and temporary happiness from others praise. We try to do this impression business everywhere…starts with parents, at home, in the society, to boss, etc.

Here are the reasons why this business is a LOSS MAKING one in the long term.

This is a big addiction. And most probably you will continue with this addiction for entire life. This is most dangerous than alcohol and drugs. At least with these you know these are bad from beginning. But you may not even aware the damages of impressing business.
It will kill your originality and destroy self-respect and eventually all the inner strength
It puts enormous amount of stress on you in continuous pursuit of impressing others

People with high self-esteem don’t need to impress others. Their inner tanks are filled sufficiently.

Try to get out of this impressing business and start living for authentic self. Living for yourself will automatically fills your tank and you don’t need external pumping.

#2. Why…we pick up a new habit when we quit old habit?

Do you know anyone who quit smoking and started eating more and gained weight? In the contrast – what about someone who started exercise and lost the desire for eating lot of food or became a conscious eater? Or you may pick up a new social activity when you stopped some other social activity.

Going back to our foundation premise – we do things to feel good or to avoid pain. From the first example – when you smoke, your brain produces a chemical called serotonin (which is a feel-good chemical). So, when you quit smoking your brain will push you do some alternative activity which can produce the missing serotonin. So, the easiest thing is to eat food. And people around and including yourself will think this is better than smoking so you would treat eating food as a reward.

Same pattern is applicable for all habit switching. But here is the trick. When you are switching from a “bad” habit you need to replace with a “good” habit. Both good habit and bad habit will produce feel good chemicals. For e.g when you switch from “smoking” you need to replace it with “regular exercise”. If you are lucky to start with a good habit like exercise, then your serotonin kicks in so you would not need alternate thing like food.

In a way, we all are addicted (to feel good). Having right addictions will help you and put you in the forward motion.

# 3. Why…hard work is simply not sufficient?

We all have grown up with the philosophy of hard working as the main real reason for success, etc. This obviously still have lot of weightage in the overall success formula. But I think weightage has reduced a lot in the era we are living. Let me quickly explain.

Let’s say there are two people – Mr A and Mr B. A is hard working but less self-marketing skills. B is less hard working but with good self-marketing skill (probably called as “smart working”). Whom do people think as more hard working/contributing? Unfortunately, the winner will be B. There will always be some “super smart” people who just try to manage with visibility management skills.

Do you think all these are “unfair” or “not correct”, etc?. May be. But the real real reason behind this is – “low attention span”. In the digital era, people have hardly any time to really analyze and understand who is really contributing. People are battling with many distractions and low attention spans. Basically, in the shortest span people form “quick perceptions”. As the saying goes we live in times where “Perception is the Reality”.

Of course, not all interested to do self-marketing or have good skills at it. Whether we like it or not the truth is you will be judged based on the perceptions. We get burnt severely if don’t learn this skill. I am sure you have your own wounds on this. This happens everywhere not just in offices.

Hard work was best suited for industrial age but not for smart digital age. We need “smart working” mind set for “smart era”.

# 4. Why…you see all the black cars when you want to buy a black car?

Let’s say you are planning to purchase a black car. Then, did you start seeing most black cars on the road? May be someone you know had particular health issue. Then, did you hear more of such cases through some people or news?. What about when you are very happy? Most probably you will encounter happy events and people. Vice versa is also true !!. I am sure you have encountered some similar experiences in your life.

Here is what goes behind the scenes…

Right now, your brain is focused on reading this blog. Take few seconds and just pay attention to your surroundings. There may be some sounds, objects and different thoughts going on around you. At any given point of time there is an infinite number of information going on around us. But your brain picks up what you are interested/focused on. There is a part of our brain called RAS (Reticular Activating System), which is responsible for goal seeking mechanism. What this means is whatever goal you set your RAS stars working towards it. RAS does not cater or have intelligence to differentiate between good vs bad. It simply starts focus on and get it for you.

In a different terminology, you call this as “Law Of Attraction” or “What you wish what you get”. In the Indian mythological world – “Devatas bless you whatever you wish for”. I am not sure if Devatas bless you are not but definitely your RAS will bless you. In the scientific terminology, you can link this to “Quantum Physics”.

The real reason why you need “Goals” is simply to help your RAS to achieve them for you. Without which it cannot target and it will pass the millions of information without any filter and you will get distracted!!.

# 5.Why…our feelings keep changing frequently?

Just for a change, I asked someone what she wants to know about one “why”. She said she wanted to know “why our feelings keep changing”. So, this is our topic for today.

Feelings are nothing but emotions. Now let’s trace it back to the origin. It is not straight forward but let’s try.

Your emotions are produced by your brain. Whenever your values/beliefs are deviated from the situation then you brain will produce negative emotions. Negative emotions can be anger, sad, etc.When the situation/outcome aligns with your value system then you will experience positive emotions like happiness, feel good, etc. Basically, the root goes to what you believes in vs out come from the situation.

On a daily basis, you will deal with N number of events. And if you have your belief system very “ideal” or then you will most probably experience sad feelings. While the ideal condition is you detaching from emotions, it is not possible for all. Also, your brain structure or “wiring” has major role in what kind of emotions you will experience. For e.g some people have more emotional brains and some have logical brains – this is also called as “Right Brain” vs “Left Brain”.

And there are other elements your physiology and environment also can influence how you feel. For e.g some people get really irritated in the hot weather.

In summary, your beliefs/values, brain, physiology and environments will influence on how you feel. Real solution to get detached from emotions is – being mindful.

You can control your emotions and it possible with mindfulness practices!!

# 6.Why…there is nothing really called as “Sacrifice”

“We have sacrificed our life to provide better life for kids”
“I helped my friend a lot but he does not remember my help not loyal at all”
“I have sacrificed many things to make my spouse happy but now I realize no use of it”
“I have done so much for my company now they don’t care or recognize my efforts”, etc etc

I am sure you are very familiar with these “Sacrifices”. I honestly think there is nothing called sacrifice. If someone puts a gun on your head and ask you to do something, then it is kind of force but no one would have put a gun in the above examples.

We do everything mostly with an expectation/return. Of course, some acts can be based on “pure love/service”. But rare.

Parents would have sacrificed certain things to provide better life to kids. But in return they would have got love, some personal satisfaction, society recognition or something. If you would have helped your friend, you would have expected some “praise” or “affection” or something else. You would have worked very hard for your company expecting some promotion or recognition.

In my view, “Sacrifices” = “Investments”. We have made these investments (called sacrifices) and expected certain return. When the return is NOT matching, we project our efforts as “Sacrifice”.

By removing “Sacrifice” from our dictionary, we can make avoid lot of “emotional drama” from our lives. Accepting this “hard truth” may require real openness and boldness.

# 7.Why…many people believe in Babas

Of course, this is most applicable in India. We have deep rooted culture in believing some form of God/Guru/Baba for valid and good reasons.

Unlike earlier days, now we have more need and demand for different Babas. Why? Because we have more problems than in the past. People may go to Babas to get solutions or to find some answers, etc. But most people go to them “to feel good“. Most ashrams provide very good environment (better than homes) and provide good food, etc. You will get a chance to do some yoga, meditation, etc. Of course, if we do these at home also you can feel good . Through their speeches, you will get a feeling that whatever problem you have is nothing and make you feel happy (temporarily). And whatever we hear from them comes like real “wisdom” even though we know about it already.

Babas are also under pressure now a days and lot of competition. They need to run their organizations like large enterprises. And we expect them to be purest of pure !!. Really tough job.

Overall there is nothing wrong in following a certain Baba or Guru. It helps some extent.

But I think building own personal philosophy based on your own personality helps in the long run than outsourcing it to some Guru ( just my thinking).

Read my earlier related blog Build your own ..Ism

# 8.Why…you should not give away your ideas for “FREE”

Our general tendency is that anything which is FREE we don’t value much, irrespective of its real value. Why? Because our mind values things which are scarce and ignore things which are available in abundance. Read more on this from my earlier blog => Scarcity.

Above concept is applicable for sharing knowledge, ideas, advice and everything.

There are two theories exist when it comes to sharing anything. One is share abundantly and nature will give you something back, etc. Another is get the value for your stuff so that people really value what you are giving. Both are correct. But you need to be very clear on the context clearly.

Context 1: You REALLY want to share with others for “FREE” then go ahead. But be very honest (brutally) that you are not expecting any back from any one. Even in so called “Charity” or “Help” scenarios also we expect “some things” back. We may expect recognition, praise or something. The moment you expect something back then it is no more FREE. Be clear on this so that you will not get much disappointments.

Context 2: This is more practical/day to day context. With “Innovation” being a big Buzz in today’s world, many people are generating many many IDEAS. And sharing these IDEAs freely, which is good. But unless you are part (directly or indirectly) of implementing that IDEA, you get no value back. If you just share the idea and not part of the idea, then you have to drum around saying that was your idea but no one cares. You don’t even get sympathy!

Ideas can change Life. Yes, make sure it is changing your life too. Not just someone else.

# 9.Why…Face is NOT really Index of the Mind

Neither what you see from person’s Face or Facebook pictures one can really reveal what is going in some one’s life. “Face is the Index of Mind” was probably very accurate in good olden days. But now we are expected to follow – “Fake it until you make it” or “Perception is the Realty” etc. mantras. I think this is not a problem at all as long as we are not influenced by “other” people. But I think we do get significantly influenced by what hear and see from media and other social media “updates”.

I have had enough observations and experiences in this area where, I thought someone is doing “really well” but when we give a close up shot then you will realize that the reality is very different from what is on the “Face”. This is applicable to individual people, startups sexy high valuations or even so called “great people”. Everyone goes through similar set of emotional highs and lows but depth/quality can different.

Point is very simple. Do not take get influenced by “other” people’s “visual success” and change your pace/plans/decisions. Following your path and your reality is the reality. Rest is all illusion.

# 10.Why…NOT taking RISK is the BIGGEST RISK

We have been taught from beginning to play safe, be nice and be a “good boy/girl”. So we start living in that mode to avoid any pain early in life….until we get a punch on our face with some sudden shock.

We start our careers with comfortable areas and with nice companies. We feel proud to get early job with good companies. We pity people who were struggling to get job and end up with a small company. Fast forward couple of decades, guess who will be at RISK?. The guy who sailed through all challenges will become much stronger mentally and emotionally. The one who has been “comfortable” all along will get sweating to face small pains in life. And after getting used with comforts it becomes so difficult to come down and face the pain.

This is applicable all areas of life. If you have been trying to be nice with people by agreeing what others are saying, then it becomes so difficult to voice out. You will be struggling to carry the “nice person” identity. If we don’t take risk of how to play with money then we will have life long risk of depending on money.

Early RISKS and lessons are much better. Otherwise, will have to take much BIGGER RISKS later.

Building Blocks of Human Psychology – Complete Series

Introduction

In our education system we would have studied every thing starting from learning numbers to history to computers. But not the most most important subject – Human Psychology. We some how get a feeling that this area may be for some one having psychological issues or disorders and not for us !!. And since we don’t know what is happening inside we reach out to Gurus, Astrologers, Psychologists, Experts and depend on Spouse/Friends/Parents, etc. Because this subject is like a puzzle for us.

While we are progressing at rapid speed on technology side, I don’t think we have built enough expertise to know basic human psychology. Why this is important?. Lack of understanding of human psychology (own and others) is the root of all major issues – starting from fight with your neighbor to war with neighboring country. Most issues can be solved with good understanding of psychology. Even if you can’t solve world problems at least you will be able to solve your own !!.

As usual disclaimer – I am not expert or have special education in this area. But have enough experiences. So I will share what I know.

You Are Unique

It all starts with what kind of base brain and body type we are born with. Genetics play a major role in this. With all these, unique DNA (except for identical twins) gets formed. Are you thinking why I am starting with brain, DNA, etc in Psychology topic?. This is very very important to recognize that we all are born Unique. And this fundamental basis is forgotten in our understanding and interactions.

Your base brain gets shaped based on the experiences you go through during early formative age. Environment, parenting and overall experiences forms your brain and associated emotions. Even though we are born Unique, mostly, no one (parents, teachers, etc) will take this into consideration. Then you are put in the society. It will be like a market place. Your unique nature will be taken out and will be measured with every one else. It starts with comparing you with your brother/sister and then in the school. You will be put in the education system irrespective of what you are made up of. And in parallel you hear the slogans like ” anybody can any thing if you have will, blah blah..”. These are motivational stuff. Reality is different. You will be able to do well what you are best suited.

You are born unique and then you get merged into the mix and then for rest of the life you try to uncover you uniqueness (mostly half of your age will be over by this time) and fight for it.

Recognizing your own uniqueness and other person’s will give most clarity and solutions to many human related problems.

Beliefs Formation

Once the base brain is formed, based on the experiences person goes through beliefs gets formed. Typically, the core beliefs gets formed between age of 0 to 7 years. This 0-7 yrs period is called “The Imprint Period”. The set of core beliefs defines the the core personality.

Base brain plays a significant role in the formation beliefs. Lets say, even if we take identical twins and expose them to the same situation they will perceive the situation differently and form different beliefs. For e.g, if both grow up with an alcoholic father, one might never drink in his life and other person might get into this habit. So how beliefs gets formed is a complex process. To simply you can either think this as pure probability or predefined destiny, etc.

There are 3 different levels in Beliefs. First level is simple opinion level. This can be changed with enough evidence. Next level is belief – some thing you believe as truth. Next level is most advanced – conviction. Conviction is very firm belief. With conviction person can/will do any thing. The extreme form this is terrorists who are ready to die (as an example) for what they believe is true.

If you have to change a person (by himself or by others) then the belief needs to be changed. Core beliefs are difficult to change unless the person goes through real transformation or experience extreme pain/pleasure. This is the one of the main reason why it is very difficult change a person. But change is possible if you willing to change your own beliefs and go through the process.

In reality, no belief is right or wrong. Each person thinks their beliefs are right and try to live for them. This goes from a person to nation. When there is mismatch in beliefs conflicts arises.

It will be very useful and fun to list down all your main beliefs and test them if they are really true. You can delete all dis-empowering beliefs and install empowering beliefs.

Personal Values

Values are nothing but your core beliefs. For e.g if you believe honesty is very important in life then you will give value to honesty. So honesty will become part of your value system. Unless your belief on honesty changes, you continue to give value to honesty for rest of your life.

Why knowing your values are important?. This is very important as living your values are directly proportional to your happiness. And values determine who you are. Formula is very simple. If you are living your values then you will be very happy. Any deviation from your values will make you unhappy, angry, hurt, etc…Let’s say if freedom is one of your value, any time when some one is trying to take away your freedom you will be upset. This is true every where – at workplace, family and even with friends. Values are not just for persons. Values are basis for organizations and nations also.

Values have hierarchy. If freedom is # 1 and financial security is # 7 in your value list then if some one offers you a job with a very big package but if you have to work in a rigid environment then you most probably will not go for this job. If you do out of some compulsion or impulse then will be upset and you will quit this job after some time.

How do you know your values and hierarchy? There are many tools available on internet. Check out Dr Demartini’s tool => https://drdemartini.com/value_determination/determine_your_values

Values drive your life and happiness. It is worth to understand them well.

Emotions

There are multiple theories on emotions. Theories on how many emotions are there, how emotions are formed and why emotional intelligence is more important , etc.

In my understanding, basic emotions comes with base brain. Feelings of happiness are linked to prefrontal cortex. Anger, fear, sadness, etc kind of negative emotions are linked to amygdala. I think, based on various factors like genetics and others your base brain and emotions gets formed. This is like you are born with out-of-box feature (in software product terminology). Then the customization happens to your brain and emotions. How does this happen? Customization happens based on beliefs, experiences and how you interpret those experiences.

I am sure your heard the phrases like “This is how I am “wired” or born with”. You see some people by nature are very happy and optimistic. While others are pessimistic and sad. These people brain is wired with these emotions. Until very recent time, scientists used to think that you can’t change your brain wiring. But fortunately, now scientists have discovered “Neuroplasticity”. This means your brain can change on its own based on what you feed (experiences, interpretations, ect) in. So the good news is you can be optimistic – called “learned optimism” with practice.

Sequence is some what like this (not necessarily real sequential) Brain <-> Beliefs <-> Emotions -> Actions -> Out comes. Finally what really drives you is emotion. This is why it is very important to have a handle on own emotions. But this is not easy and it is complex. This why there are many theories and books are written on emotion intelligence. All leadership finally end with EQ (Emotional Quotient).

All the decision making happens based on individuals own emotional strength/weakness. Every relationship is based on the emotional mix of two different people.

So how do we get to know our emotions well?. While there are many tools on this, I think the single most tool that is far more effective is Mindfulness.

Find your own tool/approach to master your emotions. Most problems can be solved with this single mastery.

Self Esteem

Interesting thing in psychology is that you will realize that each and every aspect is very important building block. Self Esteem is really one of THE fundamental driver for one’s success and happiness.

What is Self Esteem?. Self Esteem is simply loving & respecting yourself. And, believing in your own worth. This looks so simple right? Just respecting & loving yourself. But, unfortunately loving self seem to be so difficult. It is difficult mainly due to childhood experiences, upbringing and social conditioning. If you would have got an early impression saying you are not good enough( by any measures) ,then the disease of comparison starts and self destruction begins. For most people, this process continues until end of life unless they detect and correct this problem.

Low Self Esteem is not going to impact just you. It impacts relationships and you will become burden for others. Low Self Esteem results in symptoms like – comparison, self critical, anxiety and over control behavior on others, etc. Unless you examine yourself deeply, it is very unlikely you will find you have low Self Esteem issue. Often you will have convincing story saying your behavior is based on the “other” person’s acts. But it is very like your own self esteem issue.

It is very important for you to accept your low Self Esteem problem (if you have) and take necessary help (self help or any Psychologist help)to increase your Self Esteem. It is not your fault. Some one has pushed a deep belief on you at early age and you may be carrying belief all along.

Delete those old dis empowering beliefs and install new ones. But be patient with the process. It needs deep root cleaning.

Emotional Dependency

One of the main problems of low Self Esteem is emotional dependency. Most often emotional dependency might feel like real love, affection, etc. There is a big difference between actual love/affection vs emotional dependency.

Below are some of the symptoms of emotional dependency.

Need lot of attention from some people to feel happy
Seeking approvals from others
Not trusting own feelings
Afraid to be alone
Feeling empty inside
Often anxious and jealous

Emotional dependency impacts most in relationships. I have built a simple theory on this – “Emotional P&L”. Let’s say if there are two people involved in a relationship (any kind) and if one person is lacking emotional wealth (basically emotionally dependent) and the other person is having emotional richness then the first person try to take the wealth from the second person. Like in financial transactions it has to be balanced – give and take. But if it is one sided then that relationship is not going to be sustained. Second person can give the loan (emotions) for some time but after some time this will become burden.

Healthy relationships work when both people have emotional richness and ready to exchange. When some emotions are needed other person can loan for some time and then take it back. Overall accounting should be healthy and your relationship P&L should end up with profits. One person gives the emotions that other person does not have and in exchange some other emotions are given.

Emotions are not really some fluffy stuff as we generally think. In reality they work like business partnerships. Give a deep thought.

Self Love

In the previous parts, I wrote about Self Esteem and Emotional Dependency . Main root cause of low Self Esteem and Emotional Dependency is lack of Self Love.

What is this Self Love stuff?. If you pay more attention to this and go little deep then you will discover very interesting things. Do you know any one who is generally optimistic and happy irrespective of any achievements, growth, status, wealth, etc? And at the same time do you know people who live in hurry, anxious, always achievement focused, etc (kind of Type A personalities) and live without contentment and real happiness. The most significant difference between these two types of people is SELF LOVE.

When you have sufficient self love you are generally happy – independent of achievements or any other things. Does this mean these people don’t achieve and live in just simple happy life – not necessarily. In fact, people with real self love would emerge as authentic leaders. When you have self love you do things with love and also like/love people around you. Basis of optimism is self love.

Contrast to this, people who lack self love might achieve more – but to prove a point and to fill their emptiness inside. But this kind of achievement ruptures. Most importantly SELF. Lot of ego, controlling behavior, etc are just some of the offshoots of lack of love.

Lack self of love mainly would start at childhood – from parenting, experiences and it can be genetic as well (based on how you base brain got formed).

Building self love is not a quick fix. It is a real transformation work and you need to re-design your core beliefs. Self love is worth Billions !!

Narcissism

Extreme of opposite of Self Love is Narcissism.

Healthy level of self esteem is very much required and it is essential to lead a happy life.

When a person is having low self esteem there are two possible routes.

One is to recognize low self esteem and try to focus on improving
Second option is to feel very high and think very grand about oneself just to cover the same low self esteem – This is called Narcissism.

Narcissism might look like very very high self esteem. But it is not. In fact, narcissism is more dangerous than accepting low self esteem (and working towards improvement).Self esteem is a positive way of feeling good about oneself and narcissism is most negative approach to feel good.

Below are some of the symptoms of a narcissist.

Arrogant behavior
Grandiose sense of self importance
Lack empathy
Believes he/she is very “special” and try to associate with high status people
Fishes for excessive compliments

Some of the very strong type A behavior people and people who focus on very high accomplishments (with above symptoms) may be narcissist category. Recently there was some debate on Donald Trump if he has narcissist personality. This is just to give an idea but I do not know if he has it or not. And, you will encounter narcissist people in offices, businesses, politics and ever where.

You can Change

If you have any narcissist people with in your close circle of people, help them understand this concept. Most narcissist people are not aware that they have this issue.

Even if you have formed some dis-empowering beliefs, have low self-esteem, etc, the good news is you still can change !!. Your whole personality is combination of brain, genetics, beliefs and other factors. While some of the real core factors like genetics, body nature, etc are difficult to change, you still can change your beliefs and your base brain.

Until recently, neuroscientist believed that your brain wiring can not be changed. But now the real good news is that you can change your brain wiring. This is called “Neuroplasticity“. What this means is you change your brain through your thinking. Your thoughts are like software commands through which you can control your brain. Through the repetition of new thoughts you will form new neural path ways in your brain. Technically, it is possible to re-design your base brain.

Why I am talking about neuroplasticity in the psychology subject?. Because your brain plays a major role in every thing. And this is mainly to emphasize the point that you can change for better and your brain is ready to change if you would like to. Most often we take it very granted about brain and many people have less awareness about how brain runs.

One of the best book I have read on this topic is “Super Brain” by Deepak Chopra and Rudy Tanzi. Explore more on this and uncover the super power of your brain.

I am sure you heard and read about “Positive Thinking”. We would think this is very basic stuff. True. It is very basic thing. But very hard to implement if you have a default mode of negative thinking. For many people the default mode of thinking (esp in difficult situations) is negative mode.

Learned Optimism

I have written bit more detailed about building optimism in “Romance with Fear” series. Read more on this here => How to Build Optimism .

In yesterday blog, I have written about Neuroplasticity . The basic step to make changes in your brain is to start with positive thinking. With positive thinking, you generate positive emotions which results in positive and productive actions. And this will in turn erase your dis-empowering beliefs you would have formed at early stage into empowering beliefs.

This is very much technical and process driven. But most often we tend to attribute our current situation to destiny, astrology, blaming others, etc. Why?. Because this is easy. We can always simply pass the responsibility to others – parents, environment, genetics, etc. In turn, we can expect some secondary gains like sympathy from others. And you might get addicted to this kick unconsciously. That’s why some times even though we know we can change, we (our mind) conveniently push the ball to “others”.

Bottom line – When people say “my life got changed”, what actual changes is not life but just the interpretation. Try to interpret events, situations, people and out comes in positive way and you will start experiencing different life.

Understanding Emotions

There are hundreds of theories on “Purpose of Life”. In my view, all boils down to a very simple thing – We want to FEEL GOOD. How do we feel good? We experience through positive emotions. But what blocks your positive emotions are your negative emotions.

Some of the negative emotions are – Anger, Regret, Fear, Guilt, Sadness,Jealously, etc. Like any thing else in life, negative emotions also have a role and purpose. All the negative emotions mostly indicate you that either some thing is unfulfilled or danger of loosing some thing. But most often we carry with the negative emotions instead of understanding why we are experiencing these emotions in the first place.

For example, if you are experiencing the emotion of guilt then that means you have done some wrong thing that deviated from your value/belief system. It is kind of compass to your value system. Similarly, you get angry when some one deviates from your values. Do you really understand why you got angry? Mostly no. We carry with anger emotion. Try to analyze your anger situation couple of time and most probably you will get good handle on your anger. Try it out !.

Many times we try to suppress the negative emotions. Any suppression is not good. They will eventually come out. Too much of suppression will result into different kinds of disorders. Both suppression and carrying with emotions are not good.

You need to understand your emotions (esp negative emotions) and get to the root and get meaning. This is the way to create to path to positive emotions and feel good.

Envy & Jealousy

Out of different negative emotions, the emotion of Envy/Jealousy is most dangerous one. Just this one emotion can make you never happy. It can negate every positive thing in your life.

Let me start with a simple distinction between Envy and Jealousy. Envy is a reaction to lacking some thing that others are having it. Envy is comparison between two people. Where as Jealously is fear of losing some thing (esp in relationships). So this is between three people. But both are basically in the business of comparison.

Why this comparison in the first place?. I think this is mainly because of internal inadequacy – low self esteem. People with low self esteem tend to compare a lot. And the second reason is the mindset of scarcity. In the animal world food used to be limited so if one gets and most probably other animal will not get it. So our brains still think in the old mode. Actually we live in a world of abundance not in scarcity. If your neighbor got a luxury car you can also get if you work toward it. Actually this is very simple logic to understand but our brain fools with the old emotion.

I have noticed couple of very interesting things about comparisons

In the first place you should never compare. It is a losing game. There will be always better than you in some parameter. Even if you compare, do the overall comparison of life. Don’t just compare your wealth with other person’s wealth. Compare overall life then you will realize you are better off in other areas (may be in relationship, family life, etc)
Second thing is very interesting. In reality (most cases), the person whom you envy may not be actually enjoying what he got. Either he may be chasing some thing else or he may be comparing with some thing else ;). Below quote summarizes it very well.

“Our envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy” – Heraclitus

You can instantly become happy if you know how to handle just this one emotion!!

Self Respect

Self Respect is different from Self Esteem. Self Esteem is about evaluating and feeling positive about Self. Self Respect is about the actions you take in line with your values. Self Esteem is more on evaluation and Self Respect comes from what you do. Self Esteem is very basic requirement. But Self Respect is much more important.

Main anchor for a person’s life is values. Values are nothing but your core beliefs. Let’s say you have one of the value as Freedom. If you continue to compromise on your freedom then you will start losing the inner power and ultimately lose self respect.

Any one who lives in line with values will have greater inner power. All great leaders have enormous inner power. Which leader comes to your mind? Mahatma Gandhi or Nelson Mandela?. Self Respect is what drove them to stand up and nothing could stop them. That is the power of Self Respect. This is what I call as “Inner Currency”.

We may not and need not become Mahatma Gandhi. But we can definitely need to become ourselves. In the pursuit of chasing different things ( Career, Relationships, Money, etc) we would have compromised our values. You may get temporary benefit out of this. Soon you will realize that it is not worth all. Retrospect and correct it !!.

“Self-respect knows no considerations” – Mahatma Gandhi

Pain & Pleasure

We all know many things in terms of what is good, what needs to be done, etc. But why we don’t do? Here is the secret…

There is a powerful concept i believe in called ” Pain-Pleasure“. Basic principle is your mind/brain try to avoid pain and seek pleasure. Human beings try to avoid pain even though they know they can get more pleasure after going through the pain. This is the reason why we avoid risks and challenging things in life. We avoid criticism, failure, hard work, experimenting, pain, rejection and any kind of psychological, emotional and physical pain.

But pain is great gift if we know how to use it. Maximum number of transformations and changes happened in the history are through the pain. All major humiliations and discrimination lead to fighting for freedom and human rights . People who were thrown out of a company or job would have started much better companies. Refer to history or look around and you will find plenty of examples on this.

Change can happen through extreme pleasure also. Examples of this can be – deep love on some person or passion for some thing also can bring major change. Ideally if change comes from through pleasure then it would be joyful ride. But we may not get this way of change all the time.

Embrace pain and go through it. You will become tough and grow stronger.

Scarcity

I had an interesting observation recently . There are two people we are offering similar services. One person charges for the service and the other offers for free. With some variation both offer good service. Very interestingly people are so keen going with person who charges fee. While the reasons can be any thing, subconsciously we under value anything that is “Free”.

We humans place much higher value on the things that are scarce and lower value on the abundant things. Basically any thing that is become available to us easily and abundantly we don’t value much and take it for granted. When suddenly same thing become scarce then we start valuing.

This scarcity psychology concept is fully leveraged in business – in marketing, advertising, sales and negotiations. Examples of this are – “Out of stock”, “Only 1 item left” and “50% off until this mid night only”

Scarcity psychology acts in all areas of our life. When we are healthy we don’t pay attention to health. One emergency visit to hospital makes health as # 1 priority of life. Then once health stabilizes we push it to back burner. Same thing goes with relationships, career and money. This also the reason why we have less gratitude towards what we already have. We crave for what we do not have – scarcity.

Watch out the areas which you are not currently giving importance…they may become very important soon. Catch them early.

Happiness Secret

If you are not happy here is the magic reason…Personal Rules !!

Between beliefs/values and the emotion you feel there are some rules. These are the rules you have setup consciously or unconsciously. Some examples of rules.

IF I get promoted to XYZ then IF I am given ABC = Feel Happy
WHEN I lose weight and build lean muscle and run a marathon = Feel Happy
WHEN people respect me = Feel Happy
IF I make 10 times more money = Feel Happy

Like computer language you have an inbuilt logic/rules with in yourself to FEEL HAPPY. What is the problem with these rules?. The problem is we would have set too many complex rules to feel happy. We would have set these rules in such a way it becomes very difficult to feel happy. Why is this so? Most probably because of parenting and social hypnosis. Just because our parents had these rules we would have copied their code/logic or every around you builds such a complex rules. In fact, you may be passing your legacy logic to your kids and making it very difficult for them to feel happy.

There are few lucky souls who have very simple rules ( like “I am happy whatever I have “) and others beat themselves to the death with complex rules.

Because of conditioning we may feel bit uncomfortable to feel happy without much reasons/logic!!. This is the power of conditioning !!. Simple way to unconditioning is to review your current rules in all areas – how people should be and behave with you, how much money you need make, career progress, social aspects, etc. Then see if you can rewrite your old complex rules to make it very simple.

Aspire to build this ultimate logic: IF ALIVE = HAPPY

Miracle Emotion

If you trace the entire chain of psychology and find out the root of all evils you will stop at Love. Since this emotion has many contexts and connotations we may write it off this as some fluffy stuff. But Love the most powerful emotion and this is the driving force. If you deeply notice most people crave for this emotion in different forms – appreciation, praise, connection, recognition, friendships, relationships, etc. This is basic human nature and need.

Lack of this emotion results into many issues. Read earlier blogs on Self Love and Emotional Dependency

If some one has not received/experienced this emotion during early childhood then this will result into all issues. Actually there are no “bad people”. These “bad people” are simple ones who not fortunate enough experience this deep emotion. All the criminals, sadistic and narcissist people have missed this emotion. Lack of this results into hatred and fear. Out of fear and hatred all evil actions starts.

On the contrary and positive side, all amazing things happens with the emotion of love. We may have different names for this – passion, mission, interest, happiness and life. All major and good transformations resulted out of deep love.

Love is the short cut cure to all issues. Starts with self love. Observe yourself and others around you will get the key.

Physiology

We all heard about the strong “Mind-Body” connection and how each impacts other. To feel happy and be successful, etc we need fundamentally strong Psychology. You can think of Psychology as software. But you need strong and supportive hardware also. You hardware is your body/ Physiology.

Your Physiology directly effects your Psychology. It directly impacts how you think, how you feel and how you behave. Let’s try this. You drop your shoulders, make your face serious and walk without any power. What kind of thoughts you get – very creative and up beat kind? No !!. Mostly negative and dull thoughts. Do the opposite. Walk with power and add authentic smile and raise your chest like a body builder (just for experiment). How do you feel now? Very very different right? – Positive thoughts and feel of high confidence. This is the power of Physiology and your body.

The are two ways you can impact your Psychology. One is through mind and another is through body. Via mind is more powerful but it takes lot of effort and practically not easy. Things like meditation, mindfulness, visualization, affirmations, etc. Most easy and practical approach of influencing your psychology is through body. This can be through – following a fitness regime (of your choice) and consciously maintaining right posture and breathing patterns. This is the precise reason many many people now days following different varieties of fitness activities.

Right Physiology is quickest way to feel good and alter your Psychology. Venture into this path and it is very addictive (good way) !! . You will start seeing your God in this path.

Conclusion

Time to conclude this series !!

Psychology is a huge subject. This subject can be very interesting if you are hooked on to self improvement and if you can see this as the main magic behind every thing we go through. But it can be boring if you don’t have much appreciation for this. I have written this series mainly to create little bit of awareness and appreciation !!. Just a small attempt from my experiences !!.

As I wrote about different building blocks/parts, one thing that consistently came to my mind was how systematically our Psychology was built. Brain/Physiology <-> Experiences <-> Beliefs -> Values -> Actions <-> Emotions/feeling -> Actions/Behaviors and goes back to Brain plasticity, etc.

On one side I think humans can be replaced with machines if they can replicate the above building blocks. It all looks logical including emotions. But the other side, I feel what makes humans so special/unique is the self transformation ability. As long as humans can cross the boundaries and limitations we continue to retain our uniqueness.

To maintain human uniqueness we need to thrive on understanding and improving our own Psychology !!

Building Blocks of Human Psychology. Part 15 – Pain & Pleasure

We all know many things in terms of what is good, what needs to be done, etc. But why we don’t do? Here is the secret…

Embrace pain and go through it. You will become tough and grow stronger.

Building Blocks of Human Psychology. Part 14 – Self Respect