What to Do When Nothing Goes Right

He had started to realize that it wasn’t going to happen for him.

He was in his fifties. 

He was suffering from a disease that had led to muscle weakness and fatigue. 

Hepatitis B had already finished his liver by 75 percent. 

His new venture had collapsed. He had to mortgage his home to pay loans. 

After decades of unparalleled success, his fortune had changed and he became bankrupt.

That was Amitabh Bachchan before he began his second innings in Bollywood and bounced back to a stage all of us are aware of. Today, he has an international following and is worth more than ₹ 3,000 Crores ($400 million).

We all get bad days. It is one thing to have a bad experience, but occasionally life takes us through entire stretches of time when nothing goes right.

Like a row of dominoes, one thing after another comes crashing down.

Overcoming difficult situations certainly takes time, but it also requires grit, self-awareness, and recognizing the moment when to take a break.

That’s what this post is about – finding out ways to pause, recover and get going again.

First thing first, tell your heart this happens to everyone. Accept it, even if you don’t see others going through it right now. You don’t know what their past has been or can say anything about what they are going through just by looking at their faces.

When factors leading to a tough situation are out of your control, you may feel completely singled out, like a victim. Don’t fall in that zone. It drains too much energy, making you grumpy and sometimes hopeless.

Trust me when I say – each of us stumbles. Those success stories that you read on social media are only a crux of all the struggles a person has faced in two lines. Everyone falls. Even the world champions. But the grace, the real struggle is getting back up, faster, stronger, and unshakable.

That’s what Amitabh Bachchan did.

But easy for someone like him to bounce back, right? After all, many rich, influential people know him.

The truth is that for someone like him, the failures are more difficult to overcome. Because of the mammoth amount of visibility he gets, his every downfall is also magnified 10 times. Not to count the shame, trolling and fall from grace. If someone like me fails, only my family would know; but if a celebrity fails, the whole world is there to scrutinize, give unsolicited advice and make snide remarks.

Setbacks allow us to put a little perspective in order and reignite passion to succeed. Here are a few strategies to help you stay positive and get back on track, no matter what happens.

Be ready, adapt to change

When things don’t go according to the plan, change the way to plan.

As we set meaningful goals, we tend to push ourselves full throttle. When nothing goes right, it can disrupt our momentum and throw us off course. This feels extremely discouraging, especially when you’ve already worked so hard toward your goal. One of the ways to destress is to use positive affirmations. On the days your hard work isn’t paying off, be ready to adapt to newer ways.

Brave Souls

They ask me to say something about Guru Gobind Singh;

They ask what is He to me?

I tremble when they ask, "What is He to me?"

I think of history,

Wars, fierceness & days of victories; 

Warriorship that raised generations,

Courage, which had no limitations.

I learnt early,

When things get tough

Don't be girly

When up against trouble,

Meet it squarely, 

Burst the bubble;

Set the shoulders,

Plant your feet,

Take a brace,

And that's how & when,

I remember a Guru's face.

Never Give Up - Use Positive Affirmations to De-stress

She had started to realize that it wasn’t going to happen for her.
She was in her thirties.

She hadn’t found the right home to stay in it for more than a year.

Her first marriage ended in a divorce. She was jobless with a dependent child.

After twelve failed attempts at submitting her manuscript, she had enough energy to try just one more time, or give up.

She chose to follow her heart, spent months in finding the right agent, and sent her writings again for a review. It was a year before she heard back from a publisher in London whose eight-year-old daughter had shown great interest in the initial chapters, and that’s when J.K. Rowling became famous, progressing to hold the title of the world's first billionaire author.

Her creation – Harry Potter is now a global brand worth US$15 billion.

Moral: Never ever ever ever give up. Your time is coming.

What does Never Giving Up mean?

It means having the courage to believe in yourself, to be prepared to accept tough times so that you can grow and adapt to the change. It also implies never compromising on the values that are close to your heart and be a strong-willed person to walk the talk, literally! When you find your will somewhere shaking you down or energy depleting somewhere in the race of life, refer to positive affirmations. They are one of the richest resources of instant happiness & gratitude.

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What to do when you feel overwhelmed?

We all have those days when we feel a little bit itchy with intense emotions taking up the charge of thoughts. While it is natural to feel stressed sometimes, but when the stressors go on for a long time they make a person overwhelmed. Different people may have different reasons, but some of the common ones are:

• Relationship problems
• Physical illness
• Tight-scheduled jobs
• Unhealthy eating habits
• Changes in life
• Constant feeling of insecurity
• Death in the family
• Lack of sleep

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The Superhero

She's from Bhuvneshwar. 

She works as domestic help. She has no family. She isn't educated, doesn't speak/understand our language much.

She earns just over 5500 a month.

She is poor, but she has empathy.

Last night, when the news of Amphan got worse, she arranged to send a tempo-full of essentials to her village. I asked her how she managed it, especially in these times when the households she works at have halted her services.

"I took a loan", she replied.

"Why?"

"Because didi, this year, the world needs hope more than ever before."

Some hearts know no boundaries. Some hearts are just ordinary, with such extraordinary depth of courage that knowing them becomes a privilege.

Not Giving Up

One of my acquaintances struggled with cancer before losing life to it. On this World Cancer Day it seems fair to share something we wrote together as a tribute to her & thousands like her who make us realize how precious being alive is! 

3 Step Plan to Control Ego

This Monday, I had an argument with the guy who washes our car. Though my point of rebuking him was valid, letting the disagreement go out of hand wasn’t. It took me almost half a day to bring my mind to calm & another two days to pacify my maid, since he came from her reference. And that was after I call myself a spiritual, level-headed person. It was a small test of my control over words, and I blew it.

This small incident opened my eyes to the biasness that we have towards our own thoughts – ego, in other words. Years of doing regular meditation has brought it down to some level, but it still exists. The spiritual idea of knowing myself as a whole, and finding different (more positive) part of personality needs more practice. The self-important, self-centric part of doesn’t need to be destroyed. It just needs to be understood, and used only in the times of criticality. Keeping in mind the delicate balance this task requires, here are my three points of action:

1.       Recognise your size in proportion of the universe: If you think about it seriously, you are tinier than the speck of dust in the proportion of this whole universe. What you do in your daily life hardly affects things at this scale. The liberation of accepting your insignificance gives relief from self-centricity and helps to put self in the perspective.

2.       Recognise others’ importance: You know why so many people get stuck in traffic jams? Because everyone thinks that he’s more important and so tries to ram in between. Your journey is only as important as the person’s traveling next to you. So next time when your ego starts to jump up and down in the moment of showing who the boss is, remind yourself that every other person and every other work is as important as yours in this universe.

3.       Recognise the temporariness of every moment: Today’s headline is tomorrow’s forgotten fact. So many instances could have been avoided if we hadn’t let Ego blow them up into monumental proportions. Most of these are now forgotten moments. Change is inherent. Nothing lasts. Nothing stays in the same state as it is now for even a second. Go for your goals, and love the journey. But recognise the passing nature of time that makes everything seem as just a castle in the sand, to be washed out to sea by the waves of time.

Source: Brain-storming while writing for new client at Writing Routes

Positive Thinking & Meditation

Positive thinking is overrated.
How?
Let me give you an example – do you remind your name to yourself every day? “No”, right? Because you are so sure of it. You have been hearing it ever since you remember. You have developed a personality around it, and act according to it. That’s the surely you name has brought into your life.

So why not be sure of everything? Every task, situation, relationship – why not have the confidence that you have the power to sought it through? Why not practice spirituality at work and become the most awesome version of yours?

Searching ‘Positive Thinking’ on Google gives 2,96,00,000 results. More the interpretations, more the confusion over it. Let’s simplify:

1. Positive thinking is the art of believing that everything is perfectly like as it is supposed to be. It doesn’t mean you keep on reminding yourself that. It means, you believe that.
2. It is constant meditation. Being positive means to be in touch with your inner being and taking even the minutest decisions like ‘what to wear’ or ‘how to lose weight’ (in my case J) with peace. Playing meditation music in the mornings helps to build the mood.
3. It reduces influx of stray thoughts, and keeps your mind focussed.
4. It induces creativity. With a calmer mind, you observe more, and become less judgemental.

Nothing else, but a lot more. Keep on discovering!

And if you get, read these simple rules to make life better, happy & light. Send your comments at nitima@writingroutes.com

Shine on :-)

1 Step Plan to Kill Arrogance

As you know from my two previous posts, Being Humble and Time, Spirituality and Happiness, I’ve been an avid encourager of practical spirituality.

Usually during the middle of week, I feel the urge of sharing my experiences. Today, in honor of the “Tolerant/Intolerant” debate, I’m going to share the best self improvement tip in my arsenal. This may not be the most valuable advice on killing your arrogance you ever had. Heck, you might not even remember it after an hour, but I’ll still share. Are you ready?

Accept others’ mistakes.

That’s it. Whether it’s once or even 10 times – accept the people as they are and move on. Day by day, build this habit. Keep a journal of your feelings, challenge yourself in new situations. Seems pretty simple, but it’s something all of us struggle with at one time or another. Improving oneself is important, and many posts on this blog and others can be helpful – but you can’t progress unless you try. I know that’s not what you want to hear, and I truly wish there was an easy way, but I’m sorry. That’s just the way it is. Nothing is easy, especially not being tolerant in relationships.

I also know you want to improve – otherwise you wouldn’t be here, would you? Maybe you are thinking about making yourself a better human being, and once you’ve read everything, you’ll become a stunningly amazing individual. May be you’ve tried to shed arrogance but it attacks you at your weakest moment, and disheartenly you backed out. But not anymore.  

Just do it. Become more receptive to others’ ideas, their nature and their way of handling daily crisis.

Accepting others the way they are is hard. Only people who have never worked on themselves will tell you otherwise. You’re not alone in feeling that way. More than one of great saints has likened acceptance of others as living the awful parts of life,  wounding yourself, bashing your head against the actual feelings. But you still need to do it. For now, don’t worry too much about how may hurt you again, or you might not be taken seriously, or any of that serious stuff. For now, just worry about taking a step into practical spirituality and divorcing the arrogance.

Maybe you are already aware about your feelings and know the ways to overcome them, and you really just want to know how to control your frustration, irritation, anger, or a different method of finding your peace. That’s great. Please see the tag cloud to the left. I’ll be back soon with another practical spirituality article. This week, however, I need to work on a few writing projects.
Super Blog Directory

Would you do good to someone you don't like?

Managing self is overrated. Knowing what you are going to do and how to do it — approach — is everything. But many mull over too much doing and do not spend enough time on thinking. That’s what I am doing right now.

I know what is right; just don’t have the courage to do it. May be writing it aloud will help me staying on the morally correct path. The only challenge is to stop the excessive thinking and focus on the big picture. Though managing self-attention is not as simple as blocking out time and turning off your devices, but mind can be shifted. I can do it.

Making everyday a Perfect Day

Making a usual day a perfect day can be a struggle. But for most us, what to do to make it perfect isn’t the hard part.

Come on, think about it.

You normally don’t struggle (too much) over what to do. The question is when to do to make your day reasonably good.

Here are four pointers that help me making my day better than others. They are yours to use –

Get up early

Almost 85% of people sleep till 8 and miss the wonderfulness that an early morning has to offer. One of the best gifts you can give to yourself is ‘getting up early’. Of course, trying it suddenly is going to be difficult but if you make it a habit, you’ll have so much extra time to think, read, exercise or anything you like to do. I meditate, cook, and go for a walk when people around are sleeping and enjoy it thoroughly. 

Appreciate & Learn

Try this – spend 5 minutes twice a day in gratitude – it will reshape the way you perceive your day. With appreciation will come the desire to learn. Focus on what is best right now and block the rest.

Have a schedule

When we write our thoughts, we become conscious of doing them on priority. Success doesn’t happen by accident but through conscious choice. Plan out what is most important to you so that you can get them done.

Accept changes gracefully

Change in the only constant thing in our universe. To live perfect days, get rid of your attachment with things (my home, my car, my laptop, my idea etc.), situations (at home, work, financial, emotional) and people (parents, children, friends, spouses) – love them just like you love everyone else. Attachment doesn’t let you move out of your comfort zone and your growth becomes ZERO. It costs you your happiness.

John Wooden (American basketball coach) once said “You can't live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you.”

How will you alter your choices to make your days perfect is on you.

Living with Courage

I just saw a beautiful program on Discovery. It was a documentary on a man from Congo who lost his wife, job, estate and home to the rebellions. He has three kids and nothing to feed them. What struck me hard was this man’s will to survive and to raise his children successfully. He doesn’t have a place to live but his eyes still sparkle of hope, of a better tomorrow. When the interviewer asked him how he plans to live now, he said that as long as he can walk on his own foot, he doesn’t fear future and will work hard to begin his life again from a new edge.
What an amazing fellow!

It’s being said that “Courage is not the absence of fear but the ability to walk through it.”

There are many among us who are ready to devote their energies to the positivity in life. We all have troubles in our own way but how are we helping those who live around us? What are we giving the world each day? How do we inspire others? Why can’t we be different from others who just know how to take, how to crib and how to gain self importance? Let’s be a ‘giver’, let’s all give peace, smile and good wishes to others and Mother Nature and let us all be incredible citizens. We have lot to be thankful about; start feeling grateful about gifts of life before it gets too late and you miss your chance to do so.

Learning From the Courage & Compassion of Indian Army

Whenever I am down, I read stories of Indian Army. Knowing that people can sacrifice so much, live in sub zero temperature, leave their newly born kids to a single whistle of duty, guide expeditions to places where no one has gone so far – all for the love of country – is amazing.

India was born rich but unfortunately our neighbours weren’t. Being surrounded by countries like China, Pakistan & Bangladesh there is not much scope to rest for these brave men. When we talk of stress, we fail to consider those who eat, sleep & work in stress, the stress of life, not knowing what would tomorrow bring and still they manage to spread the good cheer around– there is so much to be learnt from life, literally.

In management, we offer talk about ‘mindset’ of doing things & of getting them done. But what about ‘heartset’? Heartset is not even a word in English – isn’t it necessary for leaders to have heartset as well? A high performing individual operates with articulated strategy and displays mental excellence in every step.

Courage always goes hand in hand with compassion. This is what Indian Army has – unlimited courage and undying compassion for country. This is what I strive to achieve

Losses of Mumbai

My sincere condolences to General Manager Karimbir Kang at his great loss - and my admiration for his steadfast performance of his duties - that is how terrorism is defeated. Sir you are an outstanding example to the free world.
For those of you who do not know Mr. Kang - His wife and two sons were staying at the hotel Taj, Mumbai. During the terror attacks, all three of them were killed mercilessly by terrorists. In spite of this tradegy, Mr. Kang (GM, Taj) continued to work endlessly to save the life of other innocents. Such is the courage of people of our country.

COURAGE UNLIMITED

Today when we see global economies tumbling down, it’s natural to be gripped by the fear of recession. My concern is a small one. I want to know if we have enough courage to sail through this period of uncertainty? I read a very disturbing article this morning about how people worldwide are losing confidence in government systems. Well, just a request them– be patient at this hour of time, and you will remain to see the wonderfulness that this time will bring to our children. Remain brave and do not let your courage leave you.

Courage, my friends, is not the absence of fear but the willingness to walk on the path that is not very well laid. You ride on it through the fear, in pursuit of your goals that means life to you. Living in comfortable safety of the known is like ‘living dead’, when there are no more challenges to conquer. Fun of life is to let your heart beat strong into the territory on the unknown and explore places/vision for something which is deviated from the usual. Everybody follows a set pattern of life, are you making any difference to it? You ask this question to yourself to know what your real goals are. Courage is the adventure of living, the thrill of life – do not let it go ever!!