Personal Development

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What stops me from writing?

June 21, 2007 in Personal Development, Writing | 6 comments

Writer’s block? Not exactly. In a simplistic sense, writer’s block characterizes lack of new ideas. But I am full of ideas to write. There are so many things going on in my head but I am not able to sit down and write. So I thought why not write about what’s stopping me from writing.

Fear

Yes, I do fear writing on some of the topics of my interest. Why? I am afraid of criticism. I am afraid to reveal myself to my readers. It feels like being naked in public. I am afraid that my blog won’t have any common theme other than the fact that I am writing it. But I am overcoming this fear gradually. Steve’s post on ‘the hidden inner life of existential depression’ made me realize my weakness. It takes courage to write on topics that reveal parts of you. I am sure he must have been criticized and ridiculed by some. But it helped me. It must have helped others. So, I am going to shed my fears and try to help others like Steve. See I am writing about my weaknesses in this post hoping that it’ll help you to shed some of your fears.

Anytime you work with materials that are deep parts of yourself, you feel revulsion at showing things about yourself that you don’t want people to know. – Janet Flitch

Writing skills

Earlier I used to write drafts that I would delete eventually. I know I should have saved them if not post them but I couldn’t bring myself to hit the save button seeing the poor writing. Now I regret. I am still new in this writing arena. Also, I have not been an avid reader until recently. So, I never developed a good writing style. But I am trying. John at ‘Pick the Brain’ is one of my inspiration. His post on ‘how to attract an audience by writing with style’ provides useful suggestions for writers to improve. The process is slow but I believe I am improving.

Why bother?

It is difficult to realize that Educated Being is helping others unless someone communicates it to me. Sometimes I start writing and then just delete it thinking why bother, does it matters. Recently I received an email from one of the readers on how Educated Being has helped him, and how he wants to hear more from me. Another one asked for my permission to nominate it for best education blog at blogger’s choice awards (though I haven’t heard back from him yet). This surely flattered me but it also opened my eyes. I realized that there might be other Educated Being readers who enjoy my posts but just don’t communicate for some reason. Most of us are like that. I am no different. But I’ll change now. And I won’t let it bother me anymore. I’ll write.

Ph.D.

Well, this is just an excuse though I have to fight for time away from my research.

After writing all this I am contemplating if I should publish it, save it as a draft or delete it. After re-reading what I wrote I have decided to publish it. I am trying to walk the talk. So, here it goes.

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Dang, I promised more than I can deliver (Part 2)

April 22, 2007 in Getting Things Done, Motivation, Personal Development, Planning & Action | No comments

We are social animals. We cannot survive alone. We develop relationships to grow and prosper. In each relationship we are branded, sometimes without us knowing. Agree or not, but every day we are marketing our personal brand, ‘Me Inc.’, in personal and professional worlds. Everything we do is either enhancing or damaging our brand. The simplest way to improve the brand image is to keep the promises we make. It is easy to say, but difficult to do. It is even harder to deliver more than promised. In the previous post, we discussed about why we tend to make promises that we cannot/don’t intend to keep.

Promises may fit the friends, but non-performance will turn them into enemies. – Benjamin Franklin

A promise gives other person a basis to expect something humanly tangible from you. He is then less worried about the uncertainties and this makes him at ease to some extent. But if you want to rise beyond expectations, over deliver.

Why to deliver more than promised?

1. For personal satisfaction: I try to keep promises I make. That makes me a responsible person. But there is nothing unpredictable in it. Fun is when I over-deliver and exceed the expectations. Whenever I deliver more than promised, I feel good for doing a quality job, and my confidence gets a boost. Moreover, my ‘extra’ efforts are recognized and appreciated by others.

2. To gain trust: Once people around you know that you put in extra efforts to deliver beyond expectations, they start trusting you. They will stick with you as long as possible since they know that at the least they are going to get what is promised. I am a vegetarian and I face problems when I go out to dine because of limited choices. But in a few restaurants, they understand my plight and offer me more options than stated on the menu. So, I visit those restaurants more often.

3. To take relationships to the next level: Delivering more than promised makes you extraordinary. You not only gain trust but also win a following. You create evangelists for your brand. Why people love Google, Firefox and Apple so much? Why their users become their marketers too? It is because they deliver more than what other search engines, internet browsers, and personal computers offer. The relationship between them and their users has advanced to the next level. Please find me a user who is not happy with them.

Have you ever under-promised and over-delivered? Do you put extra efforts to rise above expectations?

However, sometimes we are not able to keep our promises, even if we want to. After all we are humans. Things do go wrong and mistakes happen. It is important to remember that mistakes are allowed provided we accept and don’t repeat the same.

What to do if we could not keep our promise?

Instead of hiding, ignoring or lying about it, if we just communicate and accept it openly, we can still maintain the relationship and not lose the trust.

- Accept it. Tell the truth. Move on.

- Learn from your mistake or keep your mouth shut next time.

[Update]

Also Read:

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Protecting my relationships from the myth of common sense

March 26, 2007 in Personal Development | 1 comment

The myth of common sense needs to be shattered.

Earlier I couldn’t understand why people, especially some of my friends, are not able to comprehend things that are simple and quite obvious in my understanding.

I believed that a person in any given situation would act/react based on logical thinking by default. But it doesn’t work exactly like that.

I believed in existence of common sense and it led me to confusion and frustration. But not any more.

I have learned that actions and reactions that are obvious to me are not necessarily obvious to others and vice-versa.

FriendsEvery individual has different origin, experiences, and way of interpreting the situation. Based on which we feel that we have acquired the knowledge to act/react in a particular situation in the best possible way. In fact right now I am assuming that this is common sense by saying ‘we’ on your behalf. But of course, you might disagree with me. So it is not common sense.

Belief in existence of common sense doesn’t lead anywhere, definitely not to happiness. When we believe in common sense, we are disrespecting people who don’t ‘get it’ according to us. This is not a healthy attitude and eventually it leads to clashes in relationships.

Instead, now I believe in existence of responsibility. Responsibility to become a better person, an educated being. Responsibility to understand the world around us and our actions/reactions. Responsibility to respect others’ views and opinions. Responsibility to make relationships work.

I have stayed in many different cities over the years changing schools and making new friends every time I moved. Fortunately, I have been blessed with great friends everywhere. Like others, I have seen and experienced the making and breaking of relationships. A group of friends disintegrates on petty arguments while another sustains through disagreements. Common sense has no role in it. Obvious is not obvious. Each individual has to become responsible to maintain relationships.

RelationshipsI have come to the conclusion that only those relationships survive in which each individual takes responsibility to accommodate both differential and integral aspects of the relationship. Yes, you read it right – differential and integral aspects of a relationship.

You might be thinking that I have lost my mind to talk about mathematical concepts. Not exactly. Let me explain what I mean by the differential and integral aspects of a relationship.

In differential approach an individual takes responsibility to keep and develop his own identity, and pursue individual goals. It helps in preserving who you are as an individual. It is a must-have feature. Flexibility and freedom play important role in it.

Whereas in integral approach each individual takes responsibility to respect each others’ identity and invest in each others’ goals. This too is a must-have feature. It helps in preserving who you are together. Cooperation and compromise play important role in this.

(Sounds simple but there is more to it. I will save it for another post.)

The presence of both differential and integral aspects is important to make and maintain good relationships. In absence of the differential aspect, an individual might feel suffocated where as in absence of the integral aspect, one might feel alone and disconnected. In either case, the relationship disintegrates.

I am not a relationships expert. But I am learning. Even if there exists something like common sense, I prefer to believe in responsibility, responsibility to become an educated being.

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Bend it like Beckham. But how? Part 2

March 2, 2007 in Getting Things Done, Motivation, Personal Development, Planning & Action | 6 comments

In my earlier post (part 1), I said that two individuals practicing for same number of hours might not progress at the same speed. This means that they might not get the same results from their endeavors. Why is that? Is one person having more natural talent than the other? Not likely. The difference is in one’s ability to choose where to focus. Choosing where to focus, what to practice on is not easy as it sounds. You might say, “Just focus on the barriers and you’ll be Barrierfine.” I am sorry to break this illusion but it doesn’t work this way. If your focus is on the wrong barrier, you won’t accomplish your goal, and your under performance will lead to frustration.

So the key is to identify different kinds of barriers. Based on my experiences and readings, I consider mainly two kinds of barriers.

1. Primary barriers

First type of barriers are those which hamper your progress. These barriers interfere with your strengths and that’s why you are not able to reach your full potential. These are the primary barriers.

2. Secondary barriers

Second type of barriers are those which do not block your progress. These barriers do not prevent you from exercising your strengths to full extent. These are the secondary barriers.

CricketFor example, in cricket fastest bowlers are not the best bowlers. So, lack of speed in my bowling is not the real cause of my average performance. Speed is the secondary barrier. My primary barrier is the lack of good length and tight line. So, instead of practicing for fastest delivery, I should be practicing for good line and length.

What to do?

The trick is to distinguish between these types of barriers and work only on the primary barriers. Working on secondary barriers is a waste of time unless you have already overcome your primary barriers and overcoming the secondary barriers will help you perform better. Overcoming primary barriers will allow you to play to your strengths with full potential. Do understand that this will improve your effectiveness but not necessarily your efficiency. In essence, to become a great performer what you have to answer is – how to be more effective (in practice sessions).

To be able to distinguish between these two types of barriers requires clear understanding of what you want to achieve. If your goals are not clear to you, you will never be able to identify and focus on your primary barriers. Another important thing to remember is to keep your mind open to suggestions. Sometimes, when you can’t see the primary barriers, external sources, like your teachers, parents, siblings, or friends, might help.

For example

When I was in 7th standard, we were learning how to balance chemical equations in our chemistry class. Every one was practicing hard on it because that was the only topic that was supposed to be in our midterms. Like everyone, I was alsoBalancing chemical equation practicing a lot to solve the equations using mathematical concepts. But maths alone was not enough to make it work. I was not getting the right answers, no matter how much I practiced.

Thanks to my mother, she saw me in frustration and came to help.

The first thing she made me to do was to memorize the periodic table and learn the atomicity of all the elements in the table. Knowing whether the element is diatomic, triatomic, etc. helped me deciding what multiplication factors can be used to balance the equations. Then we set up some rules, e.g., tackle the complex molecules first and the independent elements last.

So, this time I practiced with the knowledge of atomicity of the elements keeping the rules in my mind. The result – I was the only student in my batch to get all the answers correct in the midterms. That definitely made me popular in the school but the important thing was the lesson I learned. Jump over the barrier

Finale

Lesson learned was: know what is obstructing your progress and work only on it.

What really matters is your ability to recognize what really matters. You cannot run blindly for one thing today and for another tomorrow. Identify the limiting factors, differentiate them into primary and secondary barriers, and focus completely on the primary barriers.

Practice with a plan and the knowledge of the primary barriers. Some people are able to do it subconsciously, while others, including me, need to be explicit about it.

Read also: Bend it like Beckham. But how? Part 1

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