Find Yourself

We are so inspired by the famous personalities that sometimes we try to follow them, we try to be like them, for example, every new individual in the field of investment wants to be like Warren Buffett, every new entrepreneur wants to become like Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg and in every field, every new individual has a dream to become like the most successful person in that particular field. It's really great to be inspired by things that motivate you to be a good person, but do you really want to follow them? I mean to say do you want to be the 2nd Warren Buffett or the 1st you? Following them means you are trying to copy them, you are trying to follow the same path or routine that they followed, but do you really think following or copying the same path as they did will make you like them? 

Everyone has a different question paper in life. Trying to copy others will take you nowhere. For example, Jay Shetty is an Indian British Internet personality, storyteller, and motivational speaker. After meeting a monk when he was 18, Jay started redefining success for himself. He now wanted a life of service, impact, and passion as opposed to money, fame, and power. After graduating with a 1st class BSc (Hons) Degree in Behavioral Science from Cass Business School, inspired to make a difference in the world, at 22 he went to live as a monk across India and Europe. He traded his suits for robes, shaved his head and lived out of a gym locker for 3 years. And that's how he finds wisdom for himself and now he is simply trying to "Make Wisdom Go Viral." He is one of my inspirations. Now it doesn't mean that I should serve as a monk and then I will find wisdom for myself. He has a different question paper in his life and I do have a different one. Here the most important thing is not to copy someone, but to learn how they achieve those feet in their life. 

Okay fine, you are inspired by a person, you are not following them and are learning from them, but also you are unable to achieve the same height that the person who inspired you is having. And after trying for a few times, you change your inspirations and again the same loop starts and ever ends until and unless you don't be yourself or believe yourself. Let's discuss how it works.

The most common thing about all the famous personalities is that they believe in themselves or they be themselves i.e. when you go back in history and read or watch biographies of the famous personalities, you will find that there were a lot of people who never supported them for being themselves, who never believed them and in most of the cases, even the family members were against them for being themselves. But the thing that made them famous is because they believe in themselves, they never gave up on themselves and they never get affected by what people think and talk about them. 

The most important thing we lack in our life is we don't believe in ourselves and give up after failing a few times. And also we do so believe in others that we stop being ourselves and start doing something else according to someone's choice. I would like to put a situation which will make this clear. I am a blogger by choice. I do write what I feel and what I felt at some time in the past and about the experiences and story based on true events of my as well as other's life. So if now after reading my few posts and blogs, anyone of my family members or anyone friends of mine or any senior or faculty told me what am I doing, why I am sharing my true events or bad experiences in public like this and that. What I am doing is I am being myself, I believe in myself and I know I will not regret doing this. So here if I stop being myself or believing myself and act as per my family members, friends, seniors or faulty, I might be someone good or great in future in their eyes, but I won't be myself, I won't be great in my eyes or I won't be happy because I have achieved something that is not of my interest or choice. And don't take it otherwise. I don't mean you should go against your family or friends, but what I mean is to be yourself and try to convince your family or friends if you truly believe in yourself and believe in what are you doing. And exceptionals are always there. But the most important thing is to believe in yourself even if no one is there to believe you and that's how you get your success, your deserving success. 

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself."

— Friedrich Nietzsche

            

   

Be "Undistractable"

When you make a promise to someone, do you keep your words? Of course, you do.!! But why don't
you keep many promises you make to yourself?

We, in this era of modernization and new technologies, are so messed up that a single sound of a notification can disturb our focus and can divert our minds. Disturbance in our focus and diversion of our minds will not let us achieve our desired goals and also we won't keep many promises to ourselves. Let's discuss why do we get distracted and how can we overcome these distractions. 

I mentioned about the modernization and new technologies because these are the things we blame for distracting us. Back in the '90s, people were less distracted from their work as compared to today because the development of new technologies was less and the adoption of modernization wasn't there. But at present, the technologies (basically here I am talking about mobile phones, laptops, iPad, tabs and all) are the daily part of human life. Some of us take technologies as a boon whereas the others take it as a bane. People who know how to use it or how much to use it or when to use it takes technologies as a boon and those who don't have any idea when and how to use it or who are over addicted take it as a bane. 

It is simple, we are not focused and dedicated to our work that's why we get distracted. Here the new question arises is why are we not focused then? Don't we want to achieve our desired goals or we don't want to keep our words or what? Suppose let me put a case here to explain how and why distraction occurs. We blame our mobile phones, Netflix and many more such things for distracting us right? But why we in the first place go for those things? If we have work to complete, why we don't keep our phones on silent or why don't we close the wifi. Why do we watch Netflix instead of going to your scheduled workout? Here, in this case, distraction occurs because we are not serious and we take our work for granted.

While meeting anyone, if you are busy with your phones or with your own thoughts, the other person will never be with you again because you are distracting the meeting with your personal thoughts and phones. 

While reading a book, if you keep checking your phone or keep thinking about hanging out with your friends, you will not be able to complete it on a promised date and time.

While studying make sure your main focus is on your studies instead of thinking about the girl or boy you meet a few days back in social media or about your future which will surely sink if you keep distracting yourself.

Or when you try to be fully present with your family, friends and find yourself busy somewhere else can make a negative impact on your relationships as well.

Everyone reading this is well familiar with the things that I have mentioned above, but also we keep repeating these things again and again and are being distracted.
 
An American author Nir Eyal who is known for his bestselling book Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products, in a podcast of The Diary Of A CEO by Steven Bartlett explained about his new book Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life. He also shares how he regained and sustained focus while writing this book. I would like to share some of his teachings which he shared in the Podcast which changed the way I used to think.

• If you really think the smartphones are distracting you and you can't do anything about it, replace it with feature phones.
• If you can't give quality time to your family because you are busy with social media, you can buy an outlet timer and plug it in your internet router and set the time i.e. the internet will shut down automatically (you can also go and plug it out, but instead of doing so, make a little effort to have a quality time with family) between 9pm to 10pm so that you have quality time with your family.    
• Make a schedule and to-do list and strick with it whatever be the condition, until and unless there is nothing so important and serious.

Now I would like to share how can we indistractable by learning and adopting four key strategies from the book Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life :

• To master internal triggers, learn how to deal with discomfort, observe urges and allow them to dissolve, and reimagine the trigger or task. 
• To make time for traction, turn your values into time, schedule time for yourself and important relationships, and sync your calendar with stakeholders.
• To hack back external triggers, defend your focus, send fewer emails, get in and out of group chats at scheduled times, and turn off desktop and mobile notifications.
• To prevent distractions with pacts, plan for when you’re likely to get distracted, make unwanted behaviors more difficult, and call yourself “indistractable.”

Now finally I would like to explain in simple words how can we overcome these distractions. 

• Make a schedule for a day or a week and follow it sincerely until and unless you don't have an emergency.
• If anything you have written in the schedule to do, do it anyhow don't make it tomorrow work.
• Spending more time on social media might give you comfort or pleasure, but it is taking your valuable time and giving nothing important for your better future. But if your spending 10 to 12 hours on your phones or laptops for a good purpose that might be you are influencing the lives of others and making changes then it's not a bane for you.
• Make notification settings for the apps that you used the most so that while doing any important task, you won't be distracted by the notifications.
• If you go for a cheat day (to all the gym lovers) and have a sweet, it doesn't mean you can have anything throughout your day. Strick to your schedule. 
• If you tried to focus for a day and it doesn't work, it doesn't mean you have to give up and say I can't do it. Overcoming your comfort zone will only help you to stay focused and achieve your words.
• If you are facing a problem of focusing even after replacing your phones, try doing meditation. It will take time but will be helpful to you in the long run.

"Living the good life requires not only doing the right things but also not doing the things we know we’ll regret. Being indistractable, according to Eyal, is about understanding the real reasons why we do things against our best interests."