Why Mindfulness is Critical for Success ? In't Yog Day Special

Why Mindfulness is Critical for Success and Joy (International Yog Day Special):
"I know..." - frequently used two words that close the doors of curiosity in many conversations. And many times it is true also that we know... but for most of us, the number of favorable outcomes in our life are not proportional to the expectation and knowledge we all have. The main reason is the famous "knowledge-action" gap. I hope the message in this video will connect with you and trigger a transformation on this auspicious International Yog Day! I will look forward to hearing your thoughts on Mindfulness and/or your life experiences.
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Living in Heaven on Earth...

Heaven and Hell - We all have used these terms in different contexts, but have you ever given thought to what heaven and hell actually mean? In today's JoyMantra, I will share my point of view and I will be keen to know your point of view. 

Jesus said, "The kingdom of heaven is within you, and that is where the kingdom of hell is, too."

Instead of thinking of heaven as something good up there and hell as something fearful down below; I see them as two mindsets that create heavenly or hellish experiences right here on earth. For me, heaven is created when we choose virtuous end goals, pursue them with virtuous means, and expect the best outcome from our efforts. On the other hand, hell is created when we expect the worst outcomes of our efforts, which may be because somewhere deep within we know our end goals or means are not virtuous. 

In addition to good and bad, in India, we also have the concept of 'paap' and 'punya' - results produced by good or bad actions, now or hereafter.  As per the concept of 'dharm',  all human actions have a tangible immediate result as well as an unseen result. The unseen results of human actions keep accumulating in our 'karma' account and fructify in time for us as a good or a bad experience; an experience of pleasure or pain. The subtle result of virtuous actions ('punya') fructifies as an experience of pleasure or something desirable, and the subtle result of bad action ('paap') fructifies as an experience of pain or something undesirable. 

We as human beings have the ultimate freedom of choosing our actions thoughtfully. We can be in any circumstance in life, good or bad, but we will always have the freedom to choose our actions. We can either choose the path of 'punya' or the path of 'paap'. One will create heavenly experiences on Earth, and the other will create hell. And the easiest way to choose the path of 'punya' is to choose our actions neither to please others nor to please gods; but for our inner peace. Let us be nice to people not because they are good, but because we are nice! 

I hope you will reflect on this thought and may your life blossom with many heavenly experiences. 

The Art of Networking

In today's connected world, collaboration with the cross-pollination of information, expertise, and resources is the key to success. Simply put - "Network is our net worth." Even if you find that statement debatable, I hope you will at least agree that our network plays a critical role in determining our success. Also, global research on mental well-being has found conclusive evidence that our network has a significant influence on our happiness as well. So the question is how do you build, grow and sustain a good network? Let us reflect on the art of networking today. 

I had once picked up a book in the US - "Dig Your Well Before You Are Thirsty". Many of us dig our wells only after we are thirsty. We reach out to people when we need their help. And after quenching our thirst, we move on until we are thirsty again. You can well imagine how you would feel after someone has done that to you. 

This book suggested that we should invest time and effort in meeting people, establishing relationships, and building networks with people who may be of help to us in the future. 

The key to doing that would be:

• To meet people with similar goals, shared thought processes, and common interests; 
• To build connections by being interested in people, being a patient listener, and being curious about people rather than being judgemental 
• To sustain relationships by exchange of value

But for me, the best lesson on the art of networking came from one of my spiritual mentors. He saw the book in my hand, heard its essence from me, and then told me that Indian Sages had a different take on networking: "Dig Wells Because It Is a Good (or Virtous) Thing To Do." 

I had a wow moment. After I reflected on this amazing thought I realized that the "Dig your well before you are thirsty" philosophy may make our interactions prone to judging others because we may start evaluating if our interaction is going to be useful in the future or not.  

Whereas, "Digging wells because it is a good thing to do" is a thought originating from a virtuous value system that believes in The Laws of the Universe. A Universal Law that "Wherever you can - do a good deed, without worrying about where would it lead; The Universe nurtures such a seed, and gives you the harvest when you need where you need."

Let us meet people with a genuine interest in knowing about them and network with them for the joy of friendship. Let us be good to others not because they are nice or they will useful to us; but because we want to be good human beings living a life of joy and inner peace. With just this one thought brought alive in our actions, the world can be a much better and happier place.   

 I have shared quite a few JoyMantras with you now. I have a question for you. I am eager to know if you were able to utilize any of the JoyMantras in your life to create positivity and joy? If yes, please do share; that will inspire others to utilize JoyMantras as well. if not, today's JoyMantra is especially for you. 

When we learn we grow, else we age. Constrained by the chains of habits, human beings are fast becoming a machine. The fast pace of modern life has negatively impacted our attention on acquiring new knowledge. We seem to be lacking the time and energy required to translate our learning into our behavior. If this is the bitter truth for many of us then we need to ponder on how to bring any positive change in our life. Let us contemplate this topic today.  

To bring the desired transformation in our life with a JoyMantra or a wise thought, I am sharing a three-step process with you. The first step is to have a growth mindset and to keep yourself open to new information. When you reflect and meditate on acquired information in the light of your own life experiences, the information turns into your wisdom. Now we move on to the second stage of the transformation process i.e. Doing. Putting your learning to use. For example, if you have heard the JoyMantra "The Art of Silence", it is possible that when someone triggers a negative emotion in you, you may respond with a smile or silence.  When you use this JoyMantra consciously a few times and experience a positive outcome, you may achieve the third and final phase of the transformation process - Being. Now in adverse situations, instead of getting angry and putting yourself in a negative mind frame, a response with a smile or silence will become part of your personality. And you will be able to utilize the transformative power of JoyMantras and enjoy positive life experiences resulting in a joyful life.

Let us not stop at only learning new ideas; let us meditate on them and put them to practice in order to create desired positive outcomes in our life.

The Art of Silent Response

Smile and Silence are two powerful tools to live a joyful life. Smiling can help us solve many problems, and silence can help us avoid many problems.

A genuine smile represents a state of inner peace and positivity that helps us respond to even difficult situations in life with progressive alternatives to create stepping stones to a joyful life.   

It is not necessary to react to every situation in life, silence can be a good alternative. And there are circumstances in life when silence is not only a good alternative for a joyful life but a necessary, most effective, and potent response. Since many of us do not know the art of not responding and staying silent, let us reflect on situations when silence can be a wiser option. 

First, in a mental state when your power of thinking is clouded by anger, exhaustion, biasing, or any other reason, anything you say can add to the bitterness in life. In such a situation silence may be a better option to live a joyful life. 

Second, when your views are not relevant, persuasive, or impactful because you are not an expert or you are not well prepared; in such cases before speaking you have to think if your input will be valuable or not. You may find that silence is the best option. 

Third, when you are unsure what you want to say is true and you have no evidence to prove it, you may be challenged and that may stress you out. In such situations, staying silent may be a good option. 

Fourth, is what you want to say pleasant and helpful that will create value for someone? If not, you will only feed negativity. In such situations, silence may be a better option. 

Finally, when someone is requesting you to remain silent but your ego is coercing you to say something, in such situations for your inner peace and joyful life - silence may be a better option. 

Let us reflect on these five ideas and utilize our power of speech only when we can inspire creativity, value creation, and joy in the world. Otherwise, we should learn to make silence our happiness shield to preserve inner peace and bliss to live a joyful life. 

Defining Happiness

Let us reflect on a couple of questions to start the conversation on an introspective note today. My first question is - Are you happy today? Give it a thought. My second question is - Why? If you are feeling happy - Why, and if you are feeling unhappy - Why? Have you given it a thought? Most of us want to be happy, but many of us have never introspected the definition and causes of happiness in our life. Let us dedicate today's JoyMantra to start demystifying happiness. Because, until we have clarity on what happiness means to us and our happiness influencers, our happiness will be at the mercy of fate. 

Happiness is such a profound and subjective experience that it is not possible to contain it in a single definition. I am sharing not THE point of view but A point of view based on my experiences and research. I will be keen to hear your thoughts on what happiness means to you. My only request is to share your personal understanding as original thoughts, not a forwarded social media post or lines picked as it is from a book. 

In my experience, Happiness is an inner feeling of elation that liberates me from the bondage of time, space, situation, and desires. The fountain of inner joy pauses time and makes me feel complete, with nothing more to be desired. The experience is that of extended FLOW. Happiness for me is an inner compass that keeps me on the path of morality and goodness. Whenever I violate any of my core values the inner compass of happiness triggers a discomforting feeling immediately to inspire a course correction. 

Let us now also introspect on the causes of happiness in life. 

To begin with, the fulfillment of small desires itself gives a feeling of pleasure and we consider that as happiness until we realize that the feeling of elation caused by the fulfillment of a short-term desire is temporary. I call this as "pursuit of pleasure" phase of life. With experience, we realize that achieving personal, social, and professional goals gives us a bit of sustained feeling of elation and timelessness as we have better engagement with whatever we are doing. But after achieving one goal, we start pursuing another higher goal and this cycle limits our experience of elation. I call this as "pursuit of happiness" phase. 

In my experience, when we are engaged in a cause beyond our selfish interests, when the end goal, as well as means to achieve the end goal, are ethical, and the actions are not pleasure or materialistic gain driven but inspired by a higher purpose; we no longer work for joy, we work in joy. We move from the 'pursuit of happiness' to 'happiness in pursuit'. We are enjoying whatever we are doing with the intent of doing our best. This is when we are able to utilize our full creative potential. We are happy and we are at our best. The cycle of peaks and valleys may appear in our lives, but with a happy mindset, we have a better chance of bouncing back much faster. We realize that the way to happiness is - happiness on the way. 

Let us do what we love, and love what we do. 

These are my thoughts. Please do share your understanding of What Happiness Is... 

The Art of Winning Hearts

There is a popular saying, "Some people brighten the room when they enter, and some by exiting the room." I am sure after listening to me, some names have popped up in your mind and you started visualizing some faces mapping to both categories. 

But today I invite you to reflect on when people are thinking about you, which list are they assigning you to? Are you perceived as the source of positive energy and vibrancy or the energy drain? 

I think it all depends on if we are able to touch human hearts and create an experience of enhanced positive energy during our interaction with people. I feel most of us have an invisible message written on our hearts in bold letters - "Delight Me" or "Make Me Feel Special". And hidden in this invisible thought is the secret of winning human hearts as well as enhancing the joy quotient of a room with your presence. 

Let us analyze one sutra that is often stated about improving the quality of interaction with others - "Treat others how you would like to be treated". I think there is a need to upgrade this sutra to enhance its effect in the modern world - "Treat others not how you would like to get treated but how they would like to get treated". I am not promoting flattery, I am suggesting the inculcation of sincere appreciation as a virtue while interacting with others. This will happen more spontaneously if we become less judgemental and more curious to know about others. 

If I have made you curious to nurture "The Art of Winning Hearts" then ask yourself one simple question, "How can I make anyone interacting with me or in my presence feel like a million bucks?"

Let me know what do you think? 

 

Engaging with Thoughts

Buddha said, "All that we are is a result of all that we have thought." Our thoughts might not singularly decide our destiny, but they definitely influence our future. That is why we always aspire to nurture productive and positive thoughts in our minds. But mostly this is not the case. Without our willingness, unwanted thoughts enter our minds and echo there to strengthen negative mindsets and weaken the joyfulness of our lives. 

Let us reflect on how to regulate and manage unwanted thoughts. 

What do you do when you are sitting at home, doing some important work and someone knocks at the door? You have a choice of not opening the door but that also can mean missing a potentially good opportunity. The person can also be persistent and may keep knocking at the door, and finally, you will open the door. 

If the visitor is unknown and unimportant to you, you may finish your interaction at the door only and close the door to move on with your important work. Now, if the visitor is a person of importance, you will invite him inside to find out the purpose of the visit. If the purpose is of interest and benefit to you, you may engage with the visitor for a while; but if it is a social visit without any important purpose, you will not engage in deep conversation to keep the engagement short. 

We don't control who knocks at our door, but we have the choice of opening or not opening the door, inviting the visitor into our home or saying bye at the door, and engaging with them in a long conversation or not. 

Similarly, the origin and nature of thought are not fully in our control. But if we are aware of thoughts appearing in our mind and we are consciously evaluating their nature, we have the opportunity to manage them the way we manage visitors knocking at our door.  When a thought crosses your mind, it is important to acknowledge it and evaluate its nature. Then it is up to your wisdom to decide if the thought knocking at your mind's door needs to be entertained further and reflected upon or if you should be saying goodbye to it at the door itself. Some thoughts are also like false friends. They appear important but after evaluating you figure out that they will cause harm in the long run. We should disengage immediately from such thoughts and friends. 

We human beings have been blessed with the power of self-consciousness, introspection, and free choice. We should use this power to allow only positive, progressive, and inspiring thoughts into our mental engagement arena. 

In the coming weeks, when you become aware of a thought knocking at your mind's door, allow only the beneficial ones to enter into your heart. 

Wishing you a joyful life ! 

Handling Difficulties in Life

You might have noticed many times that people including yourself complain: "I didn't have a good day". Often the root cause of this feeling and our other complaints from life is not getting the desired experiences in the course of the day. When our desires are not fulfilled, the unwanted experiences of unfavorable circumstances make us feel as if our lives are joyless and we are unlucky. 

I believe that a happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes. I read a thought recently that connected with me well, "We don't get what we desire, we get what we deserve." And to deserve desired results, we have to make an important change in our way of thinking. Instead of living the effects of our unwanted life experiences, we will have to become the cause of the desired experiences. 

Unfortunately, we are often only interested in favorable results and not concerned about required efforts. And the irony is that we only have effort in our control, not the desired result. I invite you to reflect on this thought. Let us not just live with the desire for a happy life, but also put our best effort to become the cause of joyful experiences in life. 

A happy person is one who has the least number of complaints in life. 

Let us light a lamp of positive efforts to drive away the darkness of unwanted experiences from our life. 

Building Confidence - Monday Motivation by arunb

There are two important foundational pillars of achieving success in any field of life- Competence and Confidence. These two complement each other and both are required to achieve anything of significance. In our educational and sports institutions, a lot of focus is given to building competence but the onus of knowing and following the process to build confidence is left to individuals. Everyone says and knows that confidence is important, but how to gain, enhance and sustain it is not clearly communicated. 

Confidence means having the awareness that we know something so well and that we have practiced enough to be able to provide an appropriate response under any circumstance without conscious effort. 

The question is what process do we need to follow to build such confidence in any of our abilities?  

Confidence is not something you can gain once and be done with it. It is a continuous process of creative and positive thinking, which largely depends on two factors: 

The first factor is to learn from our successes and register that in our memory, and the second factor is to restructure experiences of failures in such a way that we can extract learning from them without getting entrapped into the vicious cycle of regrets. 

Confidence is a fragile thing. Therefore, it is important to give constant attention to enhancing it and put consistent efforts to prevent any erosion. Just experiencing success does not enhance confidence. We have to extract relevant learning and consciously commit that to our memory to enhance our confidence. Similarly, failure does not necessarily reduces confidence. We have to observe failures with a detachment to learn from them without getting sucked into the quagmire of negative thoughts. 

In summary, the growth of confidence does not depend on our experiences of life but on how we interpret them and what we choose to retain in our memory. Our confidence then is the net result of the positive and negative deposits we make in our psychological bank. 

The Science of Motivation - MM Feb 13

 

Many times in our personal, social, and professional life we have to play a role to motivate others. The research suggests that with the most popularly used carrot and stick model we may be able to instill fear or exploit greed to force people to act in the short run, but we can not kindle a flame of inspiration in their hearts to perform at their best in the long run.

I believe after survival is taken care of, ultimately the root cause of motivation is the same for all human beings: A desire and hope to live a purposeful life; a life towards experiences of happiness and away from sufferings of sorrows.    

There is no need to plant the seeds of inspiration from outside, we all have seeds for being our best. When those seeds of great capabilities are nourished by the hope of a meaningful life, fueled by the sap of passion, they sprout in the form of positive progressive ideas. These purpose-driven ideas are inspired by the laws of nature to follow the rays of hope for progress and joyful life. 

Therefore, in summary, motivation is not an external force but an inner drive that can be activated by the hope of a meaningful life in the presence of a favorable environment. We do our best when we want to do something willingly, and not when we are forced to do something against our will. 

An inspiring vision and a desire to achieve something meaningful in life nurture commitment, accountability, and ownership - the virtues that form the foundation of peak performance in individuals and in teams. But the human mind seeks a few empowerments to translate inspirations into outcomes. 

- We want to have a say in the decision-making process and have the freedom to choose our actions

- We all want to have the right to be treated with respect, trust, and fair treatment   

- We want our efforts to be appreciated and good work to be recognized.

When we experience such a favorable environment in our personal, social, or professional life; the seeds of unlimited potential that are inside all of us transform and manifest as the fruit of greatness to make this world a better place. 

The question is -  Is the environment in your personal, social, and professional life favorable to inspire peak performance? If not, what are you going to do about it? 

More importantly, if you are in a position of power and influence, are you mindful of what you say and what you do to nurture a favorable environment that inspires people to be their best to perform their best. Because when people are propelled by an inner drive, everything they do becomes the expression of joy. 

When we are happy, we are at our best, and everyone wins. 

4 Dimensions of Inspirational Truth

If we take the analogy of the human brain as a computer, then the human mind will map to its operating system. This inner operating system processes the information acquired through our sensory organs to create the experience of happiness or sorrow.    

With the power of intention, positive thoughts, and practice, we can program our inner operating system to perform at our best. Similarly, we also have the power of words to remotely program the operating system of others and influence their life experiences. We can enhance as well as diminish emotions of joy and sorrow in others with our speech. If we understand this secret and utilize the power of inspirational speech meaningfully, we can inspire ourselves, our loved ones and our colleagues to live a life of excellence. 

You might have experienced that some people take pride in saying they are straightforward and truthful. They believe they speak their heart out and call 'A Spade - A Spade'. Some even believe that the sharper the words, the more effective and useful their truth is for others. Have you ever experienced someone doing this to you? Were you ever the reason for such an experience for someone else?  

Let us reflect on how can we enhance the quality of our speech to ensure that our words do not cause sorrow and do not diminish the confidence of someone vulnerable. 

Inspiring speech should have four virtues: One, whatever we say should be the TRUTH and not a lie, rumor, or inspired by the intent of flattery. But that is not enough. What we speak should be AMICABLE and should not create agony or embarrassment for the listener. The third virtue of an inspiring speech is that it should create some VALUE for the listener, and the fourth virtue is that what we say should be FOCUSED on the intended value and not vague so it is effective.   

Embellished by these four virtues, an inspirational speech has immense power to inspire positive introspection and transform the listener's life. 

With the hope that in the future you will not utilize the pretext of being straightforward to hide your feelings of jealousy and to 'give piece of your mind' to someone; instead, your speech will have the four virtues so that you can touch hearts of people and also experience inner joy in your own life. 

Creating Happy Relationships for Joyful Life

The responses I received during my decade-long happiness research clearly established a strong correlation between amicable relations with our loved ones and joyful living. The absence of relations as well as unpleasant relationships are major causes of mental stress. If you are wealthy yet lack good relationships, would you be able to live joyfully? I think money can add pleasure to our life but without healthy relationships, we cannot have a joyful life. 

Let us reflect on what are the foundational pillars of a good relationship. We primarily form relationships with people with whom we share common values, common interests, common thoughts, and common purposes. But often we fail to give desired time and attention to these foundational pillars of healthy relationships in our personal, professional, and social life, which often causes the weakening of relationships. 

One year from now,  the taste of your relationships with your family, friends, and colleagues will change. It will either become sweet or salty, and that will depend on whether you add the nectar of love, compassion, and uplifting words; or the poison of jealousy, ego, and hurting words to your relationships during your interactions. 

Introspect on your important relationships and identify the factors why you formed those relations and how you strengthened them. Take time to strengthen the foundational pillars of your relationships, and keep adding the nectar of love, compassion, and uplifting words in all your interactions. 

And for all those relations gone sour, let me share a secret to turn them sweet as well. If lemonade becomes too salty or sour, we add sweet water to make it enjoyable. Similarly, keep adding the sweetness of love, sharing, and caring to your sour relations to turn them sweet over time - all this not to please anyone or impress others, but to live a joyful life yourself.  

The Happiness Equation: Happiness = R - E

The deep mysteries of life are often simple but difficult to navigate and put into action in our day-to-day life. The intent of JoyMantras is to serve as a reminder so we can continue to put our best effort towards creating a happier life. 

Today, I am sharing a simple definition of happiness in the form of an equation: Happiness = Reality - Expectations. The experience of happiness is an outcome of the relationship between the realities of life and our expectations from life. When the reality, life circumstances, or outcome of our efforts in life is greater than our expectations, we experience joy. On the flip side, if the reality we face in life or the results of our efforts are not as per our expectations, we experience unhappiness. Since we do not have control over our life circumstances and the outcome of our efforts is also not fully in our control, we only have two alternatives to live joyfully: First, have no expectations or set low expectations - which is often not practical in today's materialistic world; Second, accept the circumstances and reality faced in life with joy. We can not change reality but we can adjust our expectations to reality. Accepting circumstances in life AS IS and taking measures to continually improve the quality of our efforts is the best possibility for bridging the gap between expectations and reality.   

I hope this JoyMantra will come to your aid when circumstances of life are troubling you. Let us accept What is - as it is, and then make our way forward toward the intended outcome from this realization. 

Wishing you a joyful life. 

Project Happier 2023 - Attitude of Gratitude: JoyMantra by arunb

Namaskar. There is a famous proverb, "Action without wisdom is dangerous, and wisdom without action is of no use".  Many of us would have made a new year's resolution to bring a positive transformation in our life in 2023. But have you taken any positive actions so far to give life to your new year's resolutions, or are those resolutions once again suffocating because of procrastination? 

In the New Year JoyMantra, I shared an idea of the Happiness Project to make 2023 a happier year. Have you made your "Top-10  To Be Happier" list yet?  If not, no problem. I will share with you a simple idea that can have a huge impact on making 2023 a happier year. But you will have to put in sincere efforts and follow daily discipline to gain the benefits from this time-tested wisdom. You can include your family also part of this Happiness Project so that you can collaborate and keep inspiring each other. 

The idea for a happier 2023 is simple - An attitude of Gratitude. 

Please dedicate a designated time like after waking up, before dinner, or just before sleeping, to reflect on at least three situations or experiences of the day when you felt joy in your heart. Now offer your gratitude towards whoever was the cause of that joy. This can be a living being, anything else, or maybe divinity. This attitude of gratitude will also help you realize the prosperity in your life. If you take an additional step to make a phone call or send a message to express your gratitude, not only you will double your joy but also add joy to someone else's life. 

The attitude of gratitude is an evidence-based proven JoyMantra to make your life happier. The question is would you put sincere effort to bring this small change in your life? Because ideas don't work until you do the work. 

To begin with, I express my gratitude to you. It is because of the inspiration to share these JoyMantras with you that I also get to reflect on them once again. With those thoughts of gratitude towards you in my heart, this is Arun Bhardwaj, wishing you a happier 2023 - Namaskar.