procrastination
Poem of the Day – Time
Time
Often,
Value of time is little known
for time’s inherent wealth,
scanty respect is shown.
Any other possession; if
we lose.
We can try to get it back
if we choose.
Wealth of time
will never return.
Simple lesson, though
often we don’t learn.
For time if lost, is lost forever.
It’s same for the stupid, and the clever.
Yet if asked, how much
you value your time
you may find, you care less.
With invaluable time;
should we ever make a mess?
We regret mistakes
committed in the past.
And for futures’ sake,
worry our tasks.
What about the present?
We seem to forget;
though ‘present’ is the best time, I bet.
Every moment of time you must use
Achieving anything significant that you may choose.
Five Ways to Break 10 Bad Habits
Bad Habits
Nearly everyone has a bad habit that they should break. Some people have less than others and some people’s bad habits are more grating than those of others. Bad habits like excessive drinking, smoking, biting the fingernails, etc., starts slowly and gradually. They jeopardize your health — both physically and mentally thereby wasting your time and energy.
Bad habits are hard to give up, they are like a comfortable bed, easy to get into, but hard to get out off. However, you can achieve anything with the right amount of willpower and a realistic plan of action. With persistence and right mind-sets, it’s possible to break your bad habits.
Here are some ideas for breaking your bad habits
1. Change one thing at a time
It is most important that you don’t try to break all your bad habits, at once. You’re not a superhuman and trying to quit all your bad habits at the same time is probably going to be hard to achieve. Instead, prioritize and choose the habit that you need to change most urgently and then focus on that accordingly.
2. Prepare for weak moments
A positive mindset is significant but if you’re not prepared for those weak moments this can be a biggest mistake. Try to remove temptations as that can help you prepare for those weak moments. For instance, clear the cupboards of junk food, keep some distance from friends who encourage you to smoke/ drink and avoid stressful situations.
3. Set regular reminders
Bad habits are often so deeply ingrained in us that sometimes they can catch us unexpectedly. To help prevent those accidental slip-ups, try setting yourself regular reminders to resist those bag habits.
4. Reward your success
The key to breaking bad habits is to make the process as rewarding and enjoyable, as possible. If you are facing difficulty focusing on the long-term benefits of breaking bad habits, then arrange small rewards for yourself as you go along to help keep you motivated.
5. Remind yourself why you’re breaking those habits
In order to successfully break a bad habit, you have to be sure of your reason for breaking those habits. Find a solid reason for breaking your habit that really means something to you – such as improving your health, relationship or appearance – and keep your goal in sight. This will help you to carry on and stay strong in moments of weakness.
10 habits you must quit to be happy
When you quit doing the bad things, you make more room for the things that make you happy. Aristotle, a great philosopher once said, “we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence is not an act, but a habit”. However, here are 10 habits that you need to give up in exchange for your happiness.
- Quit procrastinating on your goals
- Quit talking down to yourself
- Quit blaming others and making excuses
- Quit trying to control the uncontrollable
- Quit criticizing others
- Quit trying to avoid change
- Quit running from your problems and fears
- Quit trying to be someone you’re not
- Quit living in another time and place
- Quit being ungrateful
Thanks for reading.
12 Questions for Self Assessment in respect of your Attitude:
Scores: 36 and above – you are doing well. Excellence has no limits. Keep going!
24 to 35 – please work on the areas that need improvement.
23 and below – there is an urgent need to change your attitude.
Thanks for reading.
Three reasons why Blame Game is the worst!
Scenario 1:
1) An employee couldn’t submit the annual report on time. On enquiring he blamed the delay in work to the team’s noncooperation.
Many other commonplace scenarios occur in everyone’s life. And these are what we call as blame game.
So what exactly it means? Well, blaming others’ or situations for one’s own failures. This generally happens when one is not ready to take up responsibility of one’s failure because of ego or fear of criticism. Blame game means the activity by which one tries to identify the person or situation that can be made a scapegoat. In the above mentioned example the employee comfortably blamed the teammates for not co-operating with him. Sometimes the reasons are true but in most cases these are mere excuses one produces for hiding what one is incapable of doing. This makes them unsuccessful and then it becomes a habit.
Yes! Blame Game can become a habit if not consciously uprooted from one’s life!
And what does blame game indicate? The blame game is the game of timid. It comes easily to those who do not have courage to face life. Life poses several questions at various times. The people who are afraid of failures are the people who try to escape by blaming others. Life is two sided coin. It comes with the successful moments as well as failures. World hasn’t witnessed a person who hasn’t seen and experienced both. Then why to fear failure?
Winston Churchill once said,” Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm”!
Blame game is the worst played game which comes due to the following reasons:
1) Lack of courage: People who lack courage fear to face failures. They don’t want to take charge of something that they failed in. They want to shrug off the responsibility of failure and thus, they find an excuse for the failure. They blame the circumstances, the situations and many times other people who are involved in the project with them.
As the saying goes, “An inefficient workman always blames his tools”!
These gamers find excuses which would make them less responsible of the failure.
Certainly, the example quoted above is that of a blame game instead of an excuse. If people were not co-operating the employee could have arranged for a meet to discuss the issues!
People with courage often stand up for their failures. They analyze what went wrong in their efforts and if at all it is their mistake they accept it wholeheartedly. They are bold enough to accept their mistakes and learn from those for future projects. They firmly believe in the philosophy that “ In order to succeed in life you must first be willing to experience failure”!
2) Lack of Discipline: “The more disciplined you become, the easier life gets”!
Discipline is a must to succeed in life. If one doesn’t possess this virtue, he tends to play blame game when he fails. When one starts a project or a task one should be good at estimating the time it will take to complete the project. One needs lot of persistent efforts to finish the work in particular time.
Indiscipline interferes with the persistency of efforts and causes missing links which may not be connected again or may take longer to connect. This leads to loose ends and yes failure! One has to inculcate the habit of discipline in order to stop the worst game of blame game.
Discipline after all is knowing what needs to be done and doing the same when you actually don’t want to do it!
3) Procrastination: “Procrastination is like a credit card- It is fun until you get the bill”
And the price of procrastination is quite huge. Don’t put it off to tomorrow what you can do it today. People who like to blame others and situations for their failure are the ones who procrastinate the most. The tendency to avoid difficult work is the one which leads to procrastination of work. One needs to apply mind to difficult tasks at hand. One needs to manage time well, by prioritizing the activities one has. “Project prioritization matrix- Eisenhower matrix “ is a tool which can help anyone keep the track of importance of any activity based on its urgency. Once an activity gets delayed one may get entangled with other routine activity or countering an urgent task.
These are some of the reasons why one takes the rescue of blame game. One needs to change oneself and inculcate power of good habits. Habits change when one continuously works on them. It takes time but the self esteem it builds is totally worth it.
Thanks for reading.
Attitude
Life is a continuous interplay of problems and solutions. Every day comes with some kind of problems small, medium or large. It is our job to find a solution and resolve the same with our required action. Not finding a solution or alternative solutions is the biggest problem which needs to be avoided in any case. “It is said that every challenge offers new opportunities. No doubt it does. Then how is it that we are afraid of challenges. Two reasons. Our negative attitude and lack of courage. Then what should we do? How do we change? How should we develop a positive attitude? Certainly there is no quick fix. But the reward of bringing about this change i.e. from negative attitude to cultivating positive one, very well deserves, the efforts that we have to put in. And what are these efforts? How do we go about it? Chisel this change with following measures:
- Look for rose flower not the thorns. No doubt the rose plant is full of thorns. If you are afraid about the thorns you may never reach the rose. So focus only on the rose. Be careful about the thorns and get the rose. Rose is your reward. In fact that’s what you want- the rose. But the plant is full of problems. These are challenges. Don’t be scared about challenges and with careful efforts you will surely secure your results.
- Procrastination is the bane of life. It doesn’t allow you to go ahead and take action. Procrastination pushes you into laziness and a maze of indecisive thinking. It is the worst enemy of positive attitude. So defeat it. Always believe in ‘doing it now!”
- Anyone has the strengths and weaknesses. Rely on your strengths. Leverage these for productive work. Leverage these for overcoming your weaknesses. Identify the weaknesses and do all what it takes to overcome these. It will raise your self-esteem. It will develop your positive attitude.
- Banish these four negative emotions that ruin your efforts to develop a positive attitude. These are: Indecision, Suspicious, Greed and Credulity. Actually each one of these emotions becomes the reason for tragedy of Shakespearean Heroes as under.
- Hamlet was indecisive.
- Othello was an embodiment or suspicious.
- Macbeth moves to the tragic end because of unending Greed.
- King Lear suffered because of credulity. Being credulity leads to people hoodwinking you. This leads to disillusionment & suffering. In turn, it makes you a negative thinker.
- Breed Positive Assumptions about people and about situations. Often times, we do not reach out to people for help because we are afraid of rejection. Never be afraid of rejection. Even if it happens, take it in its stride. Often, you will be surprised that those very people regarding whom you harbored negative assumptions are happy to help you. I read a book which in the preface talked about success- Eleven important principles of success and what are these? Ask, Ask, Ask………..11 times.
- Marry the spouse whom you love. Otherwise start loving earnestly whom you marry. Our likes and dislikes are not writings on the wall. They keep on changing like anything else. So you can start loving your job and you must. It will make your attitude positive.
- Last but not the least. Avoid negative influences. Don’t have company of negative people, don’t read negative literature and don’t watch negative movies. All pleasure seekers end in pain. Those who lure you to undesirable stuff don’t deserve your attention or regard.
Thanks for reading.
Enemies of Happiness- Procrastination
Procrastination is the bane of life. It is a major problem. The procrastinator losses perspective. He/she tends to do unimportant tasks because either they are easy or to his/her liking. In any case this is a bad habit which must be eradicated all together.
Normally one tends to postpone difficult and time consuming projects. In case the project is likely to take a long time you need to decide that you must make a beginning. Long ago I had listen to a training tape where the trainer said that in such cases use ‘Salami Technique.’ Further he described when you look at the Salami it is very unappetizing to look at. But if you cut it into smaller slices it becomes quite palatable. Similarly if we break a daunting task in small pieces we can handle the small parts of the problem and solve it using this piecemeal approach. The best suggestion is that you focus on starting the project rather than thinking about how it is going to be finished.
Another suggestion is that you decide that you will devote only 10 minutes on the tasks which you have been postponing. Spend these 10 minutes. You may note down the steps that you are likely to follow. At the end of 10 minutes you should write it down when you’re going to spend next 10 minutes on the same job. Deciding and spending just 10 minutes will not create any kind of pressure in your mind. And that is the best way to handle the job which you have been postponing. After completing every bit of it you can pat your back with any such thing that you love to do. May be listening to your favorite music, watching a TV show, or any such thing. This will reinforce your good habit of taking on the difficult, challenging projects and delivering results with confidence.
Thanks for reading.
Enemies of Happiness 2
Yesterday I had talked about 8 enemies of happiness which resides in human’s body or soul. I had detailed 4 out of these that is anger, fear, jealousy and indecision. If you have contemplated as suggested, am confident that you would have found sufficient relevance of this discussion. Today I shall talk about attachment, hesitation, procrastination and greed. These are also happiness spoilers. Greed if goes unrefined, can cause disaster.
Attachment: Bhagwad Gita advises that any human should not be attached to anything. By attachment I mean you should never have such proximity that separation to that particular object may cause distress. Change is the law of Nature. Everything changes. These changes are bound to bring some objects (including people) close to you and some other away from you. In both situations you have to maintain your poise realizing that this is how life is. It was like this. It is so now. And it will remain the same in all times to come. So for our own happiness we can start practicing non attachment.
Hesitation: Hesitation for anything must be avoided. Your expression is important. If you hesitate to express or to take any action, the opportunity lost will never come back.
Procrastination: It is malady which inflicts some of us. Postponing tasks or decisions do not allow one to grow. Self esteem is lost and guilt inside the mind grows. Therefore it’s best to eradicate the habit of procrastination.
Greed: Greed grows like cancerous cells. Ambition is not greed so therefore both these terms must be understood in their proper perspective. Without ambition you tend not to set your goals and follow them. But greed of any kind mostly takes human to a disasters end. In life, we have example of Hitler. In literature, we have example of Macbeth. The character of Macbeth in Shakespearean play by the same name is nothing but an embodiment of Greed. So banish Greed, altogether!
In my next posting I shall talk about ‘Enemies of Happiness’ outside.
Thanks for reading.
