Importance of Goal Setting

I will begin this article with a small story.

There were two guys standing on a road. A car at high speed passed them and dog sitting nearby started to chase the car.

First person asked,” Will this dog be ever able to catch the car?”

Second person said,” This does not matter whether he will be able to catch it or not. What I am thinking is what will he do to catch it?”

Are we like that dog which runs after each and every car that moves nearby?

What is your answer to this question?

Yes or No?

Here comes the importance of goal setting. We need to set a goal and then chase it. It should not be the scenario that whatever we are chasing becomes our goal. Our goal should decide our path and not vice-e-versa.

Let me again consider a small situation.

You are one of the members of a group of five students who are planning to go for vacation to Leh  (deliberately using this place, I wish I could go there). Now I am considering that all the students live in hostel and then being short on finance becomes obvious (No offences to those who have lot of money). So you plan to go by train (general coach :P) to the nearest railway station and then by bus (remember: you are short on finances). And finally you reach Leh (No need to write this line because it is obvious that when you are planning to go to Leh then you will reach Leh for sure).

Did you ever think of boarding a train to Jaipur to reach Leh in this journey?  (You must be thinking that I am mad and talking such insane by asking this)

Answer is blunt NO. Why?

The reason is your focus towards your goal. You decided your goal and your destination before starting your journey and every step followed it. Same applies to our life. We need to decide our goals and destinations before hand so that whatever decisions we take follow it. We have to live a life in which each and every decision of our life is decided by us because we want it to be that way. Life should follow the direction given by us and not vice-e-versa.

Many people after reading this article will contradict my view point but I will ask one thing: when we can decide our small actions in life then why bigger decisions can’t be taken with utmost planning? 

Part-2: Do we need to pay for motivation?

I hope you gave a thought on previous post. If not please go through it on (Do we need to pay for motivation?) otherwise this post will be irrelevant to you.

So, what do you think? Is it really expensive and such a hilarious task to be motivated? Just read it and discover yourselves because obviously you can judge yourselves the best.

Let us consider a normal Indian day and see how your surroundings are and can be the best inspirations for you to get motivated. In this post I am listing how the people around you can motivate you in every thing to achieve whatever you want.

1)      The Milkman that comes to your house. Just ask him, At what time does he get up in the morning so as to able to deliver the milk packets at your doorsteps at 6-7am in the morning, which I believe is too early for us. I am sure the reply will make you realize that when you are awake all night to read an inspirational novel, watch your favorite TV series, and yeah, to study ( a day before the exam), he gets up at 3-4am every day, arrange the milk from some dairy and then get sets so that he delivers it at the right time at your house, otherwise your parents will say, “ kya bhaiya, 6 baje chaiye hota hai, aap to harr roz 6.30 kar dete ho ( we need milk packets at 6am, but you always delay it unnecessarily till 6.30am)”.

2)      The second most motivational person I believe is your vegetable seller. I would request you to ask the same question to him. If I consider that maximum of you reading this are Indians, you will notice that if you visit a Mandi ( Wholesale vegetable market: from where the vegetable sellers collect the vegetables to sell in your locality), you will find that though the “official” time for a sunrise is 5-6am, its already “out” in those Mandi at 2am or 3am. They sell vegetables all day, and then stay awake the entire night so that they can arrange vegetables to sell and earn their living. And we thought we are the biggest achievers staying up for 5 consecutive nights during our exams in our “luxurious” rooms.

3)      Have you ever visited a construction site? I recently got a change to visit one. On asking about the duration and type of work, a worker told me that he works 7 hours a day, and his job is to collect bricks from the ground floor and take them to the third floor the entire day as the construction work is going on there. (Studying 4 hours a day seems a tremendous victory).

I thing the post is getting a bit long, and some of you may not find it that interesting, so just the last one for today

4)      Visit a chaiwalla (a tea stall) by the road side, and ask him his work and his earnings from it. Once I asked him, and the reply was “Rs.1800 per month,” where from he should pay his room rent, educate his daughter, and arrange for basic food necessities? (Grail only offers 6lpa. :/, very less).

I think if you carefully observe, you will notice that all of them motivate you to work, to strive and to achieve and sincerely they are the biggest source of inspiration we have in our daily lives.

There is a third part of this post as well, which I will write if you guys like it. 

Do we need to pay for motivation?

This is my another attempt towards a post of such genre. Basically it contains the various lessons I have learnt from my teachers during my schooling. Obviously you don’t generally get motivated from your colleges professors. :P

Recently I was just reading newspaper and came across a small article that states “Do you have problems? We have the solution. Come to our motivational sessions. Workshop Fees: Rs. 5000”.

I thought probably I can do something like this, if not placed :P, but on a serious note I thought, do we actually need to pay 5000 bucks to get motivated? Is motivation so expensive?

Other major incident I observed some time back. A friend of mine was explained or counseled (you can say motivated) by his fellow friend (not me of course). Though I was also present at that moment and found his points quite relevant, but the person hardly listened to him and just walked away saying “khud par beethegi to pta chalega (u will understand when you yourself will face it).” Remember that you should always write the English translation of any hindi you use in a post. This is applicable for GDs as well because you never know who amongst the others do not understand hindi. The same person posted a picture of some inspirational quotes on facebook and pinged me to say “brother, read this: A great quote by a famous personality (I won’t mention the name). I am totally charged now. I can do anything.

Believe me; my friend on that evening mentioned the same points in the discussion which he just neglected.

Now, just think on these two points and ask yourself. Is getting motivated so difficult? Is it really something for which you need to explore the YouTube?

I think I will definitely like to give you some time to think on these lines. I will get back to the next part of this post very soon.  

The me I see is the me I will be

Many years back there lived a music composer who composed one of the finest music, world has ever heard. But, not so long, unfortunate fall upon him. At the age of 17, he started to loose his hearing sensation and by the time he turned 21, he almost became deaf. But, the part which made this music composer so great was that he composed some of the finest after the age of 21.  He gave the world the best notes on music. Beethoven was one of the greatest musician history has ever had.

The idea behind this story is that no matter what the circumstances are, no matter what kind of a situation you are in, no matter how many people are on the opposite side, you still have your dreams, your hope, your courage, faith in yourself. And if you have the will, the way is surely there, you just need to search for it.

There are two very common words in Hindi. People generally don’t understand the difference and use only one for both. ‘Dukh’ and ‘Sangharsh’ . These two words have difference in their meaning as thin as hair but if one understand the difference, then he will be the master of his situations. ‘Dukh’ is something which is natural, something which is not in our hands. A mother losing her child due to natural circumstances is considered as Dukh while Sangharsh is the struggle which is the inevitable part of life. The problems like poverty, unemployment which we face today are Sangharsh. It is in our hands to solve these problems. We need to learn to differentiate between the two. The moment you lose hope, no sooner your Sangharsh will be your Dukh. Never lose your hope and faith in you. Jesus Christ said,” If you have faith as little as a mustard seed, you can move the mountain from its place.” The difference between great people in the world and ordinary people is very thin.  People are never born great, they become great with their qualities and hope and faith in them. The moment you find these qualities, you are no ordinary person. You need not go to mountain or forests to find these qualities. It’s in you. All these qualities are present in you, you just need to search for them in you. 

Be a dreamer and if you already are then Never let your dreams die. Dream big, achieve big. Your dreams, if not anything else, are surely yours. How can you let your dreams die so easily? Go out, fight for them and achieve them. No matter what you do, you can’t run away from criticism. You are surely going to meet criticism at every step but don’t let this deter you. Instead learn from it and accept it in a positive sense. Show the critics that the difference between them and you is that you did it and they are still criticizing. Think, feel, write and imagine what you want to do and sooner, you will be there. “Think big, Achieve big” because “Thoughts becomes things”.

The Power of Positive Thinking

In a day, human mind gets stuck by around 10,000 ideas. But unfortunately, most of them are negative. Now you must be wondering, what to do in such a situation when you are surrounded by negativity all around.  The answer to this question is very simple. Don’t let these negative ideas come to your mind. Now you must be saying what kind of an answer is this. If at all we knew how to do this, we would have done it a lot earlier. 

The thing is that; don’t let these negative ideas overpower you. Ostracize these negative ideas and accept the positive ideas. Try to gain positivity from your surrounding leaving behind negativity. Train your mind for POSSITIBLE thinking. Possitible means positive and possible. Negative thoughts are like abyss. Once you fall in to their prey, you keep on falling until you reach impasse. Wilma Rudolph, the best athlete and fastest runner of her time, was paralyzed at the age of two. The doctors claimed that she couldn’t get up from her wheel chair in her entire life. But she and her mother refused to accept this and turned the impossible in to possible. At the age of 13, she won a race in her school and by the time she was 20, she had 4 gold medals in her bag in 1952 Olympics and the title of fastest racer of the era. 

The moment you think you can’t, you really can’t. If you start a work, then finish it. There is no point in leaving it in between. If you leave it in between, you have spent your energy and time for nothing. It is similar to water. It boils only at 100 centigrade. If you leave at 99, then all the supplied energy is wasted and water remains water.

This is our first attempt in this genre. So please post your comments and views under this article so that we can work on it in a better way in future.

Energize Yourself

These pictures are worth thousand words each.