10 Simple Steps to Kill Stress

Dealing with stress is a topic of genuine interest, and always will be. 

Killing stress is 100% in your control. 

Here is a compilation of my Research-based top 10 tips for a more joyful living:

1. Jim Rohn, the famous American motivational speaker says,” walk away from the negative 97%”. Keeping yourself away from the “Bunch of pessimistic” is one of the effortless and surest ways to remain stress free. They are everywhere. You can’t change them. You can only disconnect from them. Turn a deaf ear. Don’t go where they go, don’t speak what they speak, don’t do what they do. Associate yourself with the rest of the 3% optimistic. The key is to identify the negative people we are surrounded with.

2. What’s your passion? Don’t say I don’t have; everyone has. Something you have extreme liking for; something you are never tired of doing again and again even when you are unpaid. You need to dig deep inside of yourself and find out. It’s never too late to embrace the passion that gives you immense joy. Moreover, you are not going to get another life to chase it.

3. Have you ever wondered why small children are so happy all the time? Because they do what they want to do. Gandhi, as a person he is, has given a simple way to remain stress free. Being stress free is easy if what you do is in accordance with what you actually want to do. Do something about it every single day; no matter how small it is. This will feed your subconscious, makes you happy, and gives you the mental strength to pursue your aspiration.

4. I know this has been said many times before but I could not overlook the powerful impact of music on one’s life. Music is an effective tool to clear a clouded mind and reinstate a positive frame of mind. Compile your all-time-favourite songs. Create an album. Listening to your most-loved songs, for even 30 minutes a day, changes your way of looking at a problem.

5. We spend our day giving more time to less important jobs. At the end of the day when we land at bed and run out of time, we realize something really important was left undone because it did not cross our mind earlier. This happens over and over again. Now here is a simple and faultless solution: Buy a small pocket size diary. Jot down all the jobs to be done next day. Take your time; make sure you haven’t missed the important ones. Once you finish writing, prioritize it by putting numbers 1, 2, 3… next to it starting from the job with high priority. This will make sure you end up completing all the jobs the next day helping you escape a huge amount of frustration.

6. Shift your mind to something nice and positive; for instance, open your laptop or take a notebook and write down one beautiful moment of your life when you were elated and thrilled. Put it into words. Alternately, you can tell your story to someone very close. This will calm down your tumultuous mind.

7. Wake up 30 minutes early than you would normally do. It’s not painful at all. Do this for one week in a row and you will be amazed in getting many tasks done that was left incomplete from ages. This will organize your life and make you feel a lot better.

8. No matter how old or young you are, you can never ignore the impeccable influence of regular exercise on one’s life. Find that crucial 25-30 minutes in the morning. It could be Gym, Yoga, Swimming, Aerobics, Running or whatever suits you. Do it regularly and see how your day changes. Your physical fitness and mental clarity will improve instantly. You will be smiling for the rest of the day.  

9. Money is a prime source of happiness for many people. My best practical advice, based on my research, is open a different Bank Account. Every month deposit 5% - 15% of your salary to this account. Don’t tell anyone. Don’t spend it. Just save it and wait for the right time to invest. It could be a small beginning but you will feel at least you’ve got something to start with. This Psychological edge will minimize your stress level of emptiness.

10.  A relation that is built on faith, love, care, and respect is one of the tremendous sources of happiness. To keep your personal relationships in good shape, don’t speak anything negative about anyone to anyone. It costs you nothing; no extra charges. Just a little bit of self- control. I know it’s not easy. If it’s beyond your control then you better write it down. It will dissipate from your mind later on.  This will save you from many clashes, conflicts, and arguments. 

      It will make you a Star in front of everyone.      



  

Hope: The Beginning of a Miracle

History has witnessed this many times. If there was no hope the stories would have been different.

The beginning of a miracle is hope; that makes people think and act differently; that’s when darkness begins to perish. Everything else follows but what it all starts from is hope.

Let’s go through some of the extraordinary achievements of mankind and analyze the power of hope. 

Thomas Edison, responsible for lightening the world, failed more than 3000 times, worked for one and a half year, before he was successfully able to invent a practical incandescent filament bulb that could serve the purpose. 

 Wilma Rudolph, prematurely born, stricken with Polio on her left leg, had to wear a brace all the time, overcame weakness with tremendous determination and some physical therapy. She went out to become the first American woman to win three gold medals at a single in Olympics 1960. 

                                         

Nelson Mandela was jailed for 27 years of his life for leading the fight to independence to eliminate the apartheid regime in South Africa ( apartheid was a  system where Black people was provided with inferior services than White people in terms of education, medical care, beaches, public services). He led the peaceful struggle before he was elected South Africa’s first Black President in 1994. He exterminated country’s apartheid system and was awarded
Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.

    Click here to watch informative video on Nelson Mandela's life and his struggle to independence

Abraham Lincoln, born and raised in poverty, is one of the greatest example of poor beginning ended in being world’s most influential man. He had faced series of setbacks 
throughout his life though each one of the stumbling block turned out into a stepping stone. He lost his job and was defeated for state legislature. He failed in business. His wife died. He had nervous breakdown. He was defeated for the position of speaker. He was defeated for U.S. senate, defeated for the nomination for Vice President, and finally in 1860 he was elected as the President of United States.

All these four stories are powerful display of hope.

Hope is the beginning of all and without it the fall is not too far.

 Do we have enough hope to turn things around?

Train Your Brain

I am sure this has happened to you many times. When you are told to do something you think you can’t do it you say,” No, I can’t do this because of such reasons.” Your mission is just to get away with the task. You give all the possible reasons you can think of. You wouldn’t bother to take a second look. You wouldn’t dare to rethink. You step back and take your hands off.

After a period of time, you confront the same situation but this time you run out of choices. You are at a stage where you have no excuses; no alternatives; no one to pass the buck on. It is simply unavoidable. Now look at yourself and observe how you approach.

You don’t think about the reasons why you can’t do it. You don’t think about the weaknesses, excuses or limitations. This time, you think in a totally different way as if it’s a totally different person.

You rack your brain, scratch your head and look for solutions: meet all the people you need to; call all the people you should; you study, learn, or practice all sorts of things. When it comes to your shoulder, you get that fortitude and vigour to begin until you finish. You pluck the intellectual assistance from your subconscious that will guide you all the way. Your body, mind works superbly, in co-ordination, to complete the task beforehand. At the end, you end up finishing the job you thought you couldn’t do it earlier.

You might not achieve excellent result, at first, but at least you proved that you are capable of doing it ― and you will also realize that it was painless than your anticipation. It is the wild imagination of the mind that magnifies the problem and enlarges every time.

We know the secret but still we keep on cheating ourselves whole life. We limit, restrict and hold back. We don’t accept the fact that we are stronger than we think we are. We are more capable than our estimation. We have that physical, mental, intellectual, and spiritual ability to create the results we want to. 

Why don’t we install this fact permanently in the warehouse of our mind and proceed without pause, fear and doubt. Just release the negative thoughts and let it go.

Self-limiting thoughts are the biggest obstacle for success.

What if we don’t put a limit in what we can achieve?

How We Learn Things

When I was an infant I wasn’t able to crawl. Nature taught me how to do it. When I got a little bigger, I stood on my own feet. Later on, as I grew up, I learned how to walk then leap, and eventually how to run. I was taught how to utter a sound, and then I was able to speak a proper word before I could frame a sentence. After few years of practice, I was able to speak fluently. 

I was made familiar with 1, 2, 3...When I got strong grip on it,I was taught addition, subtraction, division and so on. As my brain developed, I started learning arithmetic, algebra, and geometry. Many years later, I was taught derivatives, integration, exponential, and advanced mathematics. What I am trying to point out here is: in any walk of life, we start from the very basics; from the zero level. Someone who is good in it approach us, or conversely we approach them, and they teach us. We start learning something new. As we stick to the same task with the desire of learning more, along with the time, we are given deeper understanding of the subject. We fail each time but we retry and we grow up. We gradually become better and sharpen the skill. But before we reach to that point, we have to pass through a series of failures, embarrassment, frustration, and disappointment. Our resilience, persistence, and hard work takes us to the next level. We overcome all the hurdles, with persistence and patience, and are left behind with certain skills and achievement.

 Way back when I was in the 7^th standard, my father bought a bicycle for two of us: me and my brother. It was a blue coloured Atlas bicycle. We both started learning at the same time. When I would practice he would hold from the back. When he would practice I used to control the balance. That’s how we learned cycling simultaneously. I was unable to keep the balance at first; in fact, it took many unsuccessful trials before I could maintain the balance and feel confident. I failed badly and hurt myself few times. Sometime the cycle would go to another direction and hit someone else. We kept on practising and mastered the skill. Down the line, after 6 months or so, cycling became a real fun and we both used to enjoy it.

 Similar incident occurred while learning motor-cycle. I couldn’t control the accelerator. I would release the accelerator abruptly. Then the bike would go round and hit something. It took me several attempts to make a smooth and spontaneous gear-clutch-accelerator-break combination. I knew the logic, but wasn’t able to implement it. Eventually everything was learned properly and I was the king of the roads.

 I still remember the day when I took my first call in a call centre. Even after completing months of rigorous training and being supplied with sophisticated software, I was shivering, panicking, and sweating when I held the hand set for the first time. The superfluous support was outweighed by the lack of experience which was blowing my head. First day: a terrifying experience. Second day: got slightly better. One week later, I felt a lot more comfortable and after one month of span, I was much confident. I was rocking the floor in six months time.

 It gets better with time; it has to. No matter what the task at your hand is. When you keep sticking to it will eventually get better. This is a universal law. It applies to everything. What we think a problem is merely a state of the mind. When the mind is trained with a perfect solution, followed by adequate practice, the problem loses its strength, its intensity and the grip it had on mind.

 Not only technical things but non-technical stuffs like maintaining inter-personal relationship, improving personality, and strengthening specific skill sets are all learnable as long as the person is willing to put the effort into it.

A Self–Made Millionaire

One who rises from nothing and reaches the summit. We are talking about a person who has conquered himself; faced uncountable hurdles; overcame threatening challenges and is in a supreme state now: he is a self made man with millions in his pocket. He is not only wealthy but also living an exemplifying life.  

When we look into the past records we find many people as such. Most of the millionaires, the world has seen, are self made. Our books are filled with examples of the people who dared to conceive unthinkable, believed in them and achieved what people said earlier was insane. Needless to say, these brave men with their arduous effort created billions arising from dusts.  

He had humble beginnings, faced deprivation, fought poverty, ailment, had lack of support and finance but at the same time he displayed firmness in decision, consistency in action, tremendous faith in his goal and abilities; he achieved what it looked like a stupid idea.

 These victorious people keep the world going; the world is alive because of them. They have been an example; they have shown that no person, in whatever circumstance he may be, is doomed to live in mediocrity. They have proved that human can rise from any background with persistence and faith. Excuses are for lazy bones. Winners go after results not reasons. If you are extremely motivated then no force can hold you back.

Yes, they have been defeated many times; they have witnessed and overcame failures before they were declared victorious. They made sure each failure teaches them something for lifetime before it gets its treatment. They took a lesson, gained strength by strength and built success on the peak of failures. Failures have helped them more than anything else. Once determined what to do they put everything they have left into that task. They kept moving on. Never slowed down, quit, or surrendered. They show tremendous character with awe inspiring patience.

 A self made millionaire is a person who keeps learning all the time. He keeps reviewing. He is brutally careful in making decision. He is considerate and unafraid of taking calculated risks. He has the guts of taking decisions and following it through; he believes in himself. He creates the blue print of millions in his mind before he converts it into concrete reality.

It’s easy to keep going when things are improving or getting better, but it requires tremendous character and fight back to keep yourself applying when things aren’t appearing bright. They review, analyse and find out what was going wrong with their effort. They take a different approach, rectify the past errors, and come back strongly. They persist in spite of failures just like dark night penetrates all alone until it sees glimpse of sunshine. They end up being winner. They defeat the resistance and emerge splendidly.

At the end of the day, this is what separates the extraordinary self-made millionaires from the rest of the world: the ability to forge in spite of failures, fears, doubts, superstitions, negativity all around and the inability of many people who were unable to achieve the same task before. They persist, in spite of all these hurdles – this is exactly what makes them different – this is  exactly what makes them successful. It should be great lesson to all mankind. Whatever you aim or pursue go after it with all the vigor and give everything into it. Nothing is impossible – as long as you keep working hard on it persistently.

You never know, you may be one of those self made millionaires one day.

All the Best