Pretending: Good, Bad & Ugly

Everyone at some point must have come across pretending. What’s pretending?? Pretending is behaving to be who we want people to think we are. While pretending, we hide our original personality and stage the artificial person in front of people to please or impress them. Below are the facts on pretending which can help you know more about the dos and don’ts of pretending.                    

   

Actions speak  

Actions express somebody’s personality. Yes, it’s true and words often show who the person pretends to be. Don’t believe in somebody’s words, try to analyze and see through their actions because actions and conduct tell the truth which words don’t. Therefore, if you want to find out if someone is pretending read their actions closely and carefully that will show if the person is for real or reel.

Pretending can be Good. It can be Bad. But it can also be Ugly. Let’s examine some situations to know about it.

Good

Pretending isn’t all about negativity 

Pretending doesn’t always possess negativity it also owns certain positive aspects. For example, pretending to be happy when you’re in pain is just an example of how strong you’re as a person. There’s also a moral from this example. Never show your pain because not many people will share your pain, instead they will celebrate for your pain.

Smile instead of sympathizing

Sometimes the best solution is to smile and move on with your day. That sympathizing feeling on your face isn’t going to help you. Hold back your tears and pretend that everything is well and good because others will feel happy seeing you smiling and cheerful and there may be opposite reactions to be ready for it.

Bad

Accept your mistakes

One of the biggest flaws committed by many is pretending to be blind to their own mistakes. Never ignore your mistakes at the same time never try to overlook your mistakes too. Stop pretending like you’re an angel everybody commit mistakes and therefore never underestimate your capabilities just because you have committed a mistake. On the other side don’t pretend to be deaf towards others mistakes because that will lead you into greater losses. 

Don’t lose your real personality

Be careful who you pretend to be because in the process of pretending you might lose your own identity. It’s never ever good to forget who you are and isn’t appreciable too. Always recollect where you are, what you are because only these things will boost your self-awareness which would take you places. If you pretend to be somebody else and not yourself, finally it’s going to take you nowhere.

Don’t accept things as they appear

Many people pretend to like you. At times even you might have joined the crowd for a good cause or for a bad cause. As people pretend to like you, all of a sudden you will start pouring out all your joy and care for those people who aren’t worthy of. Actually, doing so shows your foolishness because such kind of people doesn’t deserve your care and concern.

Ugly

Here are some situations when pretending turns ugly. There could be many more.

1.       A vehicle has hit someone who is bleeding on the good, you pan by pretending you   have not  noticed.

2.       A woman is being beaten by a man, you see if and pretend you haven’t and more on.

3.       A friend who is serious needs financial help from you, but you pretend you do not have money.

Some suggestions

Express your originality

1. Stop pretending for a while and express how you really feel towards someone. It can be a positive or a negative feeling but express it with utmost honesty. However, after the revelation observe how the relationship continues to sail.

Avoid pretending unless when ‘Good’.  

2. Live without pretending, love without depending, listen without defending, and speak without offending. There’s lots of wisdom in this quote. Live your own life with joy, don’t pretend or fake yourself to impress others. Love without any expectation, listen with peace, understand and then analyze. Use your tongue with caution because that’s the most dangerous weapon in the world that can pierce and hurt a person more than a bullet. Hence, stop offending others with your words. 

Live your life

3. Finally, live yourself and set your own identity. Yes, you need that skill to find out people who are pretending to be your beloveds but getting them erased of your life wouldn’t make a greater difference. Instead invest your time in finding the real people who understand and are really impressed with your originality. 

Pretending isn’t an issue when not practiced always!!

Never carry forward situations

4. Life is a handful of short stories pretending to be a novel. Yes, all situations are detached. When the situation takes place the matter comes to an end, it isn’t supposed to be carried forward and never get stuck to the situation. If it had left a lesson behind take the lesson and move forward.

      Thanks for reading. Your comments will be highly appreciated.

Modern Lifestyle; Thy name is Stress!

In today's world, one cannot perform traditional work at a modern pace. Traditional work has traditional rhythm for which you need to be calm. You may be busy, but you must remain calm which sometimes might not be possible in present environment. It is often assumed that having more money eases the path through life, but sometimes it also brings added complications. Proper Plan is always required to make more money in order to lead a modern lifestyle. You may wish to acquire clothes or things that are more expensive simply to show off, trying to create a big impression. Conversely, the style depends on, what you do with these things. Thus, Fashion is what you buy, while style is what you do with it.   

The modern lifestyle with its many fascinations, distractions and temptations can offer us several things, but the meekest of all goals – your inner peace – seems the one illusive thing beyond your reach. In fact, Modern lifestyle can destroy your peace. If not destruction it can disturb your peace. So do not ever let your lavish lifestyle steal your peace.     

The economic anarchy of capitalist society and its impact on Indian mind and ethos are one of the key factors that lead to stress. When you sturdily desire to have something which is difficult to acquire, then obviously you’re under stress. Modern lifestyle requires position which in turn requires money, your extra effort or corruption or anything that is unworthy.  Apart from the pressure of modern life, your stress level will also differ based on your personality, attitude, habits and risk factors. Expecting things to be easy that are normally not so - can further lead to stress which in turn requires you to change your habits and attitude which is difficult, but not impossible.   

Since the consequences of traumatic and chronic stress are serious, it is vital to find out ways to mitigate stress. These kinds of stress cannot be completely removed but can definitely be kept under control. The first step in managing stress is identifying the cause. Then it is necessary to contemplate on your values. Your values tend to give you a direction, to deviate your mind from unnecessary material acquisitions and positions.    

    

Meditation is undoubtedly one of the best stress management techniques known, since ancient times. Sit in a relaxed cross-legged fashion, try to control your mind and affirm that your life is in significance. And that implication will not allow you to feel jealous and envious of people and their positions. Avoid developing grudge on people who are leading an affluent life with a luxury car, bigger house, etc. It doesn’t mean that you should kill all your desires. Rather, have a clear goal, strive hard to achieve it, concentrate and then contemplate it.    

The only person you should try to compete with - is the person you were yesterday. Give up comparing yourself with others. Don’t change to be better than those around you. Instead, change yourself into a better person. Review everyday whether you are reaching towards your goal or not.  Achieving specific goals requires focus, approach and continues efforts. Perseverance is another vital aspect of life for which you require strong willpower and courage.  Take risks as this may lead to change in your attitude and make you stronger, courageous thereby mitigating your stress to a large extent.

Thanks for reading.

Bad News: Time Flies Away / Good News: You are the Pilot

If there is one thing that is equally distributed by the Lord Almighty, that is Time. And it is the most important of all resources. Proper use of time makes the people very successful and vice-versa. With the fast development of technology, executives are expected to be far more productive. It is possible. But it calls for more efficient use of your time.

In fact, over the years our attitude towards time has changed. Today, each one of us has become aware of cost of time.

One can effectively use time if the goals are written down. The specific goals make it mandatory to write down a plan of action. And when you have worked out your plan to achieve your goals in respect of important aspects of life, there is hardly any time which you can afford to lose.

I would like to mention here that some habits need to be changed to be more time productive. These are:

1. Procrastination is the most potent culprit which destroys some of your most precious time. It is only important tasks that you want to carry out as a priority. But if the task is challenging, many a time you tend to postpone it. In the process, you lose time but more importantly the burden or guilt of not attending to important work makes you time inefficient. So having a habit of procrastination even in the smallest measure is not permissible.

2. Time has the habit of expanding to work to the time allotted. Even if you are able to do a job in two hours, but you have four hours available, the work will expand to fill all four hours. So what is the remedy? Allot lesser time to the task. You may have to stretch yourself a bit. Do it. But, save time.

3. Another villain which steals away your time is indecision. Whenever you are not able to decide between two or more options, you lose time. You must learn to be more decisive. Normally decisions are not taken because of risks associated with the decision. We must remember that not taking any risk is the biggest risk of our life.

4. Verbosity in our speech is another time-wasting demon. We need to be terse in our communication. It just requires better focus and a determination of not using more words than are necessary.

5. If we follow the system of diving our tasks into four quadrants as propounded by Steven Covey of “Seven Habit of Successful People”, we can surely save time which is often wasted.

There are some suggestions to use our time more productively. These are:

• Keep a Time Log for 2-3 days. Understand the normal, routine use of your time. Now study the same to find out where you can save time. The exercise will not go waste. In process the credit balance of your time current account will increase.
• If you want to become really time efficient follow the rule of 60 : 25 : 15.You must try to complete your routine (daily tasks) in 15% of the available time. Besides, 25% time should be spent on ongoing projects. Finally, spend 60% of your time on developments, innovations, and new projects.
• Make a to-do every day morning and try to complete the jobs which must be done on that day. In this list, you must keep in mind the priorities. In fact proper prioritizing your tasks enables you to use your time very productively.

Working out priorities:
You must analyze your tasks. Then place them in three distinct categories:

1. Tasks which are important as urgent. These cannot be carried forward.
2. Tasks which are important but not urgent. For example, looking after your health and going for a walk daily is important but not urgent.
3. Tasks which are neither urgent nor important. These should always receive the least importance.

While making your to-do list you must be realistic. Don’t pack too many things in a day which cannot be completed. If is unnecessary to create a burden for yourself. This will decrease your efficiency.

Thanks for reading.

Changing Attitude is Difficult but Critical!

Attitude is your response to a situation, circumstance, person or an object.  But the detailed definition of attitude would be; a predisposition or tendency to respond positively or negatively to a situation, circumstance, person, idea or an object. It influences a person’s choice of action and response to challenges, incentives, rewards etc. These are called stimuli. Stimuli are challenges, incentives and rewards. Four major components of attitude are –

1. Emotions and feelings
2. Cognitive – belief or opinions held consciously
3. Inclination for action , spontaneity
4. Evaluative – positive or negative response to the stimuli

The first 3 components influence or determine the 4^th component.

The importance of Attitude can hardly be exaggerated

It controls our lives. This is why it is extremely important. We must also understand the difference between positive and negative attitude. It is important to know what these both can do for us.

Positive attitude brings strength, energy, motivation and initiative.

Person with a positive attitude will ask “How something can be done?”, rather than saying, “It is very difficult. We don’t know whether it can be done or not.”

It gives you power over your circumstances rather than your circumstances having power over you. That’s the power of positive attitude; it gives YOU the power. You control circumstances, rather than  circumstances affecting you or your behavior.

It is also an understanding of the fact that nothing can change until you change. Therefore, everything changes once you change. You have to identify what are your habits, what are the things that are holding you back. And you have to overcome those, and to overcome those, you have to change.

It is necessary to train your mind to see good in everything. To see something positive, so that it encourages you to go ahead in whatever you are trying to do. Life is 10% of what happens to you and 90% of how you react to it. Let’s make it positive.

It will be a good idea, to decide and say it to yourself every morning that you will face everything that comes to you today with a positive attitude. All things about you are important and you should give importance to all those things. Only when you are careful about everything around you, others will give you the respect you deserve.

While positive attitude will help you in every aspect of life, negative mind will never give you a positive life. It will create only negativity. Further, negative thoughts create negative situations.

A bad attitude leads you nowhere. You cannot go very far until you change it. Therefore, if you identify that your attitude needs some enhancement, do it sooner than later. A person with negative attitude sees difficulty in every opportunity. Whereas a positive thinker, sees an opportunity in every difficulty. This is a big difference. How can you change? You have to figure it out for yourself. Because it depends on your habits.

Positive thoughts are good, but they are not enough. They have to be followed with positive feelings and positive actions. Actions are most important. Without actions you cannot have the benefits of positive attitude. Attitude has to be supplemented and supported by respective actions.

The only disability in life is bad attitude. There is no reason why you should live with a disability which is under your control. There are some difficulties we have to live with. But it’s not so with your attitude. Your attitude is something you can change and the best thing is to change it. Whenever you feel pain in your life, think about its full form –

P – Positive

 

A – Attitude

I – In

N – Negative situation

If you have a tendency to self doubt it keeps giving more negative energy to feed on. That means you are actually attracting negativity. One American in his grey years said “my life has been full of misfortunes which never took place”.

Another man had said, “I don’t have time to hate people who hate me, because I am too busy loving people who love me”.

Thanks for reading.

Power of good Habits

What is habit? 

Habit is a routine of behaviour that is repeated frequently and tends to occur subconsciously. Bad habits intrude your life and prevent you from accomplishing your goals.  Breaking any habit can be difficult. For instance, if a person smokes regularly it becomes his habit and even if he feels to quit, it becomes difficult for him to give-up.  

Psychologist and philosopher William James proclaimed that the entire life is nothing but a series of habits that we form repeatedly. The power of habit is been explained by various authors and motivational speaker.  One of the famous Author Stephen R. Covey, wrote and published a book known as “The 7 Habits of successful People” describing an approach to being effective in attaining goals.   

To achieve excellence in big things, one should develop the habits in little matters. Keeping the desk clean, removing the clutter in your mind, etc. all these small things can be practiced again and again. If you can instill these habits into your life, you can create the foundation for achieving your goals. 

However, here are the 8 Habits of Highly Productive People that you have to adopt to get the best out of you!!  

1.       Ruthlessly Cut Away the Unimportant

That’s right. Try to focus only on the important things, and cut away everything that’s unimportant. There is no point doing something that is unimportant. So push yourself to quit wasting time, and bring yourself back to the production mode.

2.       Allocate breaks strategically

Productivity declines over time without taking brakes. Take plenty of breaks throughout the day. The rule of thumb would be to take a 5 to 10 minutes break every 2 hours of work. Breaks are a highly effective way to boosting your productivity. 

3.       Remove productivity pitfalls  

Things that limit your productive must be thrown out.  It can be the music you listen to when you work, your phone calls, alerts from your inbox, your slow computer, the internet, You Tube, Facebook, Twitter, etc. These things trap you and prevent you from getting things done. 

4.       Tap into your inspiration

No matter what field you’re in, your inspiration is the key to your output. So, channel your inner muse. Keep on thinking and contemplating the things that motivates you. And definitely you will find that your focus increases thereby upsurging your productivity. 

5.       Create barriers to entry

Don’t make yourself too accessible. If you’re too accessible then you will face a lot of interruptions. Nowadays people can connect with others very easily with the touch of button (text, emails, calls, etc.). Therefore, guard your time to improve your productivity.

6.       Optimize time pockets

Make the best of every minute. For instance, if you’re working for 10 minutes ensure that you achieve maximum outcomes in that 10 minute and then you can take time off.  You usually get time pockets while waiting for people, commuting, chess app, reading books, or planning. 

7.       Set timelines

Be clear on what you want to achieve, and then set your timelines for them. When you set timelines, you set the intention to complete the work on time, hence paving the way for the reality to manifest.  

8.       Automate everything possible 

Technology today has made automation possible for a lot of things we do.  Hence, find a way to automate every task and let it be your habit. If you outsource, delicate, automate your task   obviously your productivity will improve. 

Another important Habit that you must build to increase your productivity is Prioritization. Always there is a constant tension between the urgent and the important things.  Important activities should be of high priority because they are the things that contribute significantly in reaching your goals. Whereas urgent activities may or may not relate to your big-picture objectives, and usually they do not make any significant contributions.

Thanks for reading.