Chapter 5: 6 Magical Reminders to Keep You on Track Everyday

You just learned about rituals to be religiously followed in order to make them a part of your daily routine. Then you must be wondering why there is a need of additional chapter with “Reminders”?

I thought on the similar lines and was about to delete this chapter from the book. But I realized that there is a difference in following the rituals and acting on the quick reminders. Here is why I found the necessity of this chapter.

Following the rituals requires actively putting the efforts on doing certain things, until they become your second nature. On the other hand, the quick reminders are required to change your behavior or emotions to improve the quality of your regular actions on moment to moment basis.

Therefore, the current chapter, I have named as the quick reminders to you to act in a specific way in specific circumstances. You don’t need to spend additional time sitting for these activities, unlike the rituals.

These are merely a nudge for you to remember and change your behavior or reaction in a particular manner during the day. I am convinced that merely by changing your behavior or reacting differently, while doing some activity will change the quality of your action.

So far, you must have been convinced that the quality of our lives get better only to the extent of the quality of our days. So with the same principle, you must have realized that that our days are crafted, basis the way, we choose to live from moment to moment.

Therefore, to put it very simply, the way you take decisions (by applying the quick reminders) during the day, determines the nature of your day and ultimately the quality of your life.

That is the reason that successful people in any field are able to achieve so much in a week, which to the ordinary guys take months or year to achieve.

So let’s get started with a few reminders, which are very quick and easy to remember and apply.

Okay, I heard a new life rule recently, while listening to some podcast, called “18:40:60 Rule”. Dr. Daniel Amen coined this rule about influence which others have over us:

It tells us what generally human being thinks about others at different stages in his or her life. Precisely, the rule signifies:

While writing my first book couple of years ago, I always worried what other think about me that I should be writing only something about the legal profession etc. I continuously wondered what image I will have in people’s mind if they come to know that I write about this personal development aspect. Moreover, I kept on self-doubting myself, as to who I was to write on such complex life issue, as If I had sorted out all my life’s problems. But I am lately realizing that it is all in our own heads and nothing to do with the outside world.

Also the below message from Gary Vaynerchuk shows the tremendous benefits of being authentic.

“When you get rid of what others will think about you, you give yourself the Gift of Speed” Gary Vaynerchuk

So, why to waste time and live a fabricated life based on what other people think about you?

Live your own real life. And this brings to you a bundle of advantages alongwith it.

- You don’t have to maintain two different standards of living your life- so life becomes effortless movement in one direction only.

- You can easily connect with “your people”- as they don’t need to make efforts to unearth your real “YOU” Please be mindful that there would be some people, who would not like your true self, so don’t bother about them, they are not ‘your’ people). Because, authentic people have polarized reaction from the world i.e. they have people who love them for their authenticity, as well as there will be people, who don’t understand and therefore don’t like authentic person.

- You become laser focused as you are coming out of your true self and your speed of moving in your chosen direction becomes pretty fast (keep doing this and you would become ‘unstoppable’)

That’s the very reason the leaders and successful people have their own distinct aura, which comes out of genuine, transparent and authentic self. Such people seem to be effortless in whatever they do and are spontaneous, as they don’t need to put a different façade to their personality.

They get out to the world with the real supreme intelligence and that’s why people easily connect with such people.

But keep in mind some precaution for dealing some situations. Being real never means that you become indifferent towards your outside situation and fart out whatever comes out of your mind every time (sometime silence is gold, if you don’t agree to something). You don’t need to be bullying your subordinates or start behaving crazy with your superiors in the name of being authentic.

You must have realized by now that authenticity is being used here in a very powerful and constructive way. It simply means that if you feel the things in a certain way then don’t cover them up, rather be courageous to speak them out politely. The other person may take it otherwise in some situation, but generally people appreciate the authentic approach. However, even though someone gets offended, does not matter, because you would feel happy because you have stuck to your own authentic self.

Every time a situation comes, where you think that you have something to contribute, be upfront and speak up.

If you disagree with some approach of your friends, colleagues, family or any other stake holder, don’t simply say yes in that approach. Rather put across your point with the rationale, as to why do you think that way.

Keep listening to your heart and slowly keep taking baby steps towards showcasing your authentic self to keep creating wonderful days for you.

You must celebrate your small victories on a regular basis. Every small victory is a beckon towards winning some major battle of life.

Celebration doesn’t mean that every day, you should be throwing parties to the friends. It simply means showing some gesture as symbol of your appreciation towards your hard work, commitment and your actions. Usually a pat on your own back works, sometimes pampering yourself with a nice dinner with family is justified to celebrate your small wins.

Such celebrations create new and positive neuro-pathways in our brains, which associate winning with the instant rewards. Therefore such celebrations motivate your mind to keep taking action towards your goals.

If you know that celebration is ahead after your every positive accomplishment, your mind will get attuned to create more such wins. And there you go. You have already created a success train in your mind.

This is the biggest motivator for your mind and keeps you energized, inspired and geared up to win your day.

The Universe works on the concept of vibration of energy through nature, through living organism. If someone is communicating with you, then there is a flow of energy from universe through that living being (You already read some details about this in the previous chapter in the “Visualization” topic).

So listen with you full body means, listen so attentively that the energies vibrating through the person next to you starts getting transmitted to you.

It is because, if we try to understand something through the outer levels of our minds, then we as human beings have tendency to get distracted even by small surrounding things around. But if you listen through your body, then the level of connection with the person would be so deeper and profound that it will enhance your level of understanding of the particular aspect manifold. Since, you are anyways listening to the person, this practice works as a force multiplier and becomes catalyst to your enhanced understanding.

People keep on saying that one should multi-task. But the fact of matter is that if you compare the effectiveness of multi-tasking vs. the deeper understanding, the latter will always have more solid foundation. Once you have solid foundation of understanding, it will build upon that.

But then you would say that there is so much work to be delivered and timelines are always on yesterday basis, then, then one is bound to do multiple things together.

You may find some people doing multi-tasking very efficiently. But here is the difference. That is really not the multi-tasking. It is in fact breaking the task in so minute pieces in such a bite-sized proportions that one each smaller portion of the information, the person devotes full deeper attention and ends up in delivering great results.

To the outer world, it would seem like doing multiple tasks in one go, but the fact is that smaller pieces of information are being processed at very fast pace through deeper understanding of the subject (and that’s’ the way computers operate, seemingly doing multi-tasking).

This is the way it happens. I am trying to give you an experiment, next time you speak to someone.

Imagine you are listening to someone, when he is speaking. Pay close attention to all the expression of that person. Look deeper into the eyes (shouldn’t be seeming like stalking or staring-make your own judgment and at your sole risk!). With that pay close attention to each word uttered by the person and start feeling the reaction in your own body.

The reaction of listening through body would vary depending upon the person, whom you are listening to. Imagine again speaking to your best friend, spouse, a loving kid or an angry boss or your dominant business partner or any one coming across in our life.

Try this. The communication, as well as underlying emotion of that person will get coined in your mind so closely, that it will give you a huge level of increase in your understanding. Try doing this for one full day with every communication and then assess the results at the end of the day. You will definitely feel the difference. This is the power of total presence.

This is a daily reminder. It is equivalent to taking a bath every day to get freshen up and get energized to start your day. Most of us are able to see our families on daily basis (apart from some work related travel occasionally). So whenever we meet and see our families, we should be present with them for whatever little time, we are with them.

Thirty minutes of quality time spent with your precious relationships, may be with your better half- spouse or girl friend, your kids, your parents, will give you much more joy then spending hours together, but totally distracted by your office emails, social media, text messages etc.

Further, as and when you get a chance to meet your friends, try to grab that opportunity to strengthen your bonding with them. Depending your age and the occupation, the frequency of meeting your friends may vary. But again the key principle is to spend fully devoted quality time with them.

Remember the human face to face discussion can never be replaced fully even with the highest innovations in the technological world.

The reason behind this is that the human emotions are created by the supreme universe and technology is made by the man. Howsoever advanced the technology becomes, it may create almost similar robots, but the real human emotions and vibration of energy amongst the human being can never be exchanged through the technological tools. So the best advice is that use the technological means only when the physical meeting is not possible with your loved ones. Don’t use the technology to avoid the one to one meeting.

You can never hug and feel the body emotions of your loved one on skype chat, can you?

Technology can best serve our work related meetings and save tons of time, but let this not fool you that it can replace the real human connection.

THE HUMAN BEING FEELS fulfilled, if he/she grows in all facets of life. Giving and receiving love is the most needed human craving. Human mind always craves for love and belongingness. The emotion of love and affection creates chemicals like serotonin and dopamine in our mind responsible for the feeling of happiness.

One thing is ALMOST guaranteed that at the death bed, no one would want to talk about his office work, rather he/she would surely wish to be surrounded by his/her loved ones.

As best-selling author of the Book “The Charge”, Brendon Burchard has stated, at the end of our lives, the only questions that would matter would be these only.

So keep yourself always reminding that whenever you are with your loved ones or your like minded friends, keep nurturing those relations by all possible means.

This one, even to me seems to be easy to preach, but really very hard to practice and implement in life.

You must have heard that person who forgives is greater than the person who commits the mistake.

Some of you may feel that this is crap because if we forgive the wrong doer than he will do it again. Yes, that’s the way our society works. That’s why there are prisons and courts and police to maintain the law and order in the country.

Yes, that theory prevails and suits from the perspective of people, who have (or think that they have) the larger duty to stop the recurrence of such instances again in the life.

Think about it. If someone does something, which is not as per your standards or which offends you. What would a normal man think like in such a situation? Probably the answers would be like this:

- How dare he do this?

- He must be taught some lesson!

- I won’t spare him ever!

So watch it closely. Here you are getting busy in doing something, which is not at all productive.

Of course, you are right that the other person should have acted responsibly and you must express your anger on that. But you can’t be giving the total control of how you will feel about that.

Please remember that while the other person is responsible for his action, it is only you, who is responsible for feeling in a particular way. It would be stupid to give the remote control of “how you feel” in the hands of another person.

If you get filled with all negative feelings about the person or situation, it will surely impact your other important ventures of your life. The more time you dwell upon addressing something which creates a negative feeling, the less time you would be able to devote to the things that you value most.

It is because, until you don’t forgive the person who has done something wrong to you, it might remain clinging to some corner of your mind. If it is there, it will pop up again and again and disturb your flow of thoughts and action and hamper your progress.

Therefore the best way to remove that thing from out of your mind is to forgive the person and forget about it. There could be numerous reasons, which are sufficient for forgiving some, few could be:

Depending upon situation, you may find out some other genuine reasons to forgive the person.

I recall some short anecdote, which is relevant to put across the point in a humorous way here:

There was an argument going on between a tiger and a donkey on some matter. The tiger was totally sure about his argument with full reasoning and was trying to explain the donkey, but the donkey was not able to understand. He was arguing furiously with a different argument.

When the matter could not be resolved between the two, they went to king of the forest, the eldest lion to resolve their dispute. They told about their disagreement to the King. The King Lion was convinced with the Tiger argument and acknowledged the same. However, he announced punishment to the Tiger.

And so was the Tiger. He was very much frustrated, but he didn’t want to disobey the instructions and offend the King anymore. He after the gathering was over, went silently to the King and asked- Hey King, why it is so? You are convinced with my argument totally. But why did you still announce punishment for me and not to that foolish donkey?

The king stated very candidly-Hey You, you are a tiger, being a superior animal, shouldn’t have even gone into an argument with a donkey in the first place. This punishment is for that only.

The story is clear that at certain occasions in your life, you at the very first stage should stay away from causing any kind of mental disturbance from a person, who is not able to understand your perspective due to his/her own circumstances or situation in life.

That’s why you would notice that the successful people categorically are very careful to seclude themselves from negative people.

So forgive and forget quickly and move forward. That’s the only way forward in most of the circumstances in life.

Every day before we go to bed, we must count the best things which happened to us during the day and be grateful for those to the Universe.

We all may not be truly utilizing the benefits of the sleep. We might think that sleeping may be just passing of 6-9 hours of our time to relax our bodies.

But neuro-science has proved that the thoughts which are put in our mind before we sleep have the impact of creating the new brain waves in our minds, as they keep processing in our sleep time.

Therefore, whatever we do at night before we go to sleep has a very significant impact on our next day.

So why not utilize our sleeping hours (which most people think is non-utilizable time) to craft our next day by focusing on things which went really well.