Post: 3 basics of a balanced life.

When your mind, body and heart are in a balanced state, you feel more free, calm and grounded.
A balanced life cannot have set standard rules for everybody. What work for me may not work for you? So a balanced life cannot be followed according to a rule book but instead can be created by each one of us in our own life.

For me, like many of you, balance life is a balance of personal, professional and social life. It is also a balance of mind and heart, both practical and emotional aspects of life.

In life, it is important to remember, that like time, energy is limited. When we feel that any aspect of life is consuming too much attention and energy, it is time for a change and correction otherwise it will affect the life’s balance.

Imbalances not only affect the mental health causing stress, anxiety, sadness or unhappiness but also affects the physical health causing sickness and diseases.

Many successful people and business leaders have been giving their success formula, their tips of creating a balanced life in the form of books, interviews, lectures. But do they really work for me or you? Each one of us leads a unique life, and it is up to us to create a balance in our unique ways.

3 basics which go to create a balanced life :

1.Set Priorities: It is important to acknowledge my priorities and boundaries. At whatever age or stage of life, we are, it is important to know which aspect of life such as professional/financial, personal, family requires more attention and energy. Accordingly, we need to divide our focus and plan. It is important to have goals and aspirations in terms of career/ finance but also keep a balance on the personal/family life. Too much attention on either side may create a whack. Be it personal, professional, social life, it is important to set our priorities right.

2. Self love and care: An important aspect of balance life, is taking care of
your physical wellbeing. In spite of your daily grind, you should always take out time for yourself. Practically speaking, if you don’t have physical wellbeing, how will you cope up with everything? Meaning your professional or personal/family life or grinding towards your goals and aspirations. Taking care of yourself, eating healthy, maintaining an active lifestyle are all very important for good physical health. Whatever be the day , good or bad, always keep loving yourself and stick to your healthy routine.

3.Enthusiasm for life : In today’s stressful life with continuous adversities, it is very important to have an adequate mental balance. Keeping an open mind, carrying an optimistic attitude is the best way to approach and deal with life. Things don’t turn out always as planned. Although you keep thriving for your goals and success, you need to have a bigger purpose in life. Life is not only about materialistic success. And it is too short to live with regrets and unhappiness. Some day, even if you may achieve your career success, you may not feel happy or contentment in personal life. So, it’s important to create a balanced life on every aspect of life to experience peace, calm, happiness and sense of fulfilment. So, enjoy and live life to the fullest.

2 intrinsic rewards behind adapting to a healthy lifestyle.

“Happiness lies, first of all, in health.” George William Curtis

Whatever your goal is, maintaining a fit body, weight loss, maintaining your blood sugar, cholesterol or reducing stress, adopting changes in lifestyle is not hard. But maintaining them is a tough calling. Old habits are hard to quit.

Avoiding a piece of brownie, or an extra glass of wine during Christmas or thanksgiving is far less appealing than on a normal routine day. You have no time to think about that extra calories in those moments. Hitting the gym or jogging in the morning on a cold chilling winter doesn’t seem appealing at all even if it may affect your lifestyle changes goal.

Evidence-based researches have shown that people get motivated to adopt and maintain their lifestyle goals based on 2 types of reward system.

1.Hedonia; When lifestyle goal is associated with more superficial outcomes like you are looking good, losing weight, your wrinkles have reduced, your belly fat has reduced. These rewards are short-lived, gives you superficial pleasures and temporary satisfaction but lack a deeper meaning or a purpose. So, when you default your routine, may give you unhappiness as you will miss the superficial outcomes.

2.Eudaimonia: When your goal is attached to a more deeper meaning or a purpose, you tend to get motivated longer or even life long. In the process, lifestyle changes don’t become a forceful routine but instead, turn into spontaneous habits which gives you more lasting benefits. Emotions are mainly expressed due to the limbic brain. When we are deeply happy, contented, this feeling has a lasting memory in the structures amygdala and hippocampus. So, when you have a purpose, a satisfying meaning which gives happiness, attached to your lifestyle changes, you are always motivated to follow.

Some examples of different scenarios while attaching your lifestyle goal to a purpose :

A middle-aged woman has started to become physically active, taking her exercises regularly to build up more stamina to look after and play with her grandchildren.

A young loving husband who was obsessed with junk food and alcohol, have started to quit his habits and adapt to a healthy lifestyle for the sake of his wife and his newborn child.

A young man or a woman who had a past unhealthy way of eating, irregular routine start to adapt healthy eating and lifestyle for the sake of his/her career.

A doting grandfather starts taking care of his diet and maintains his routine physical activity so that his diabetes is better controlled and that he can be alive for a long time to spend his days with his growing grandchildren.

Attaching lifestyle goal with a purpose, not only help you in overall health-related aspects but have also other hidden rewards. You are more in charge of your life, you have self-acceptance and self-respect as an individual, believing yourself better, improved relationship with others and overall personal growth.

Thanks for reading.

Peace and love 🙏

Post: How to change a fixed mindset to growth mindset ? 4 simple realisations.

Growth is dynamic. Scientifically, we grow till our last day in this world. But as we age, though we keep ageing physically, our mindset get stuck at some point in life. We start developing certain thinking pattern, a mindset which becomes very difficult to change. The problem arises when this mindset starts interfering through our challenges in the journey towards our goal or ambition.

5 observations to change from a fixed to a growth mindset.

1.First of all, you forget that you have a super brain. Age has no relation to our learning abilities. Any kind of intelligence, skill, a habit can be acquired if you put necessary effort. Therefore, challenges in professional, or in personal life can be overcome if you aim to do so. That is how a growth mindset response.

2. When you have a fixed mindset, you are unable to take any kind of criticism. Instead, you become too self-critical of yourself. Your response to criticism is more emotional than practical. You take things personally. With a growth mindset, criticism can be big learners. You tend to learn from the criticism and find out ways to improve. Instead of being critical and judgemental of other’s success, you tend to get inspired, appreciate and learn from other’s success story.

3.Unlike in a fixed mindset, you get disappointed and give up easily, but with a growth mindset, you tend to continuously make an effort to achieve your goal. Take each day as a challenge, and thrive towards your success. You have this never giving up spirit.

4.The most important aspect of a growth mindset is believing in yourself. In a fixed mindset, since you are self-critical, you tend to see your limitations only. But with a growth mentality, you never argue with your limitations, instead, you focus on the opportunities and possibilities to achieve your goals and success.

Post : 5 takeaways from failure.

I have failed and you have failed. We all have failed. Yet, when we fail, we are so upset 😭, torn , collapsed that we don’t like trying again. Because none of us like failing in life, at work, at play, in business or even in relationship. But it’s actually the failures that teaches us the most. 5 take aways…

  1. Lesson taught : Failure teaches you the best lesson on why ,how and what went wrong in any task you did. It helps you become intelligent and frame better strategies.
  2. Grounded : It keeps you humble and grounded. Even when you get success , you cannot forget the pain and struggle you went through.
  3. Committed to goals : You are more determined to achieve your goals. Recommits you towards your goal.
  4. Overcome fear: You don’t have fear and insecurity any longer. Its keep you focus rather than anticipating the future or outcome.
  5. Support system : Tough days are good to acknowledge your true friends and family who stood by you and support you.

Post : 5 inspirational thoughts to begin your day.

‘Each morning we are born again, what we do today, what matters the most” Buddha

As soon as you wake up in the morning, the first thoughts that come across our minds are the worries and challenges that are niggling us for some time. It happens because of our habitual thinking and default subconscious mind programme. We get carried away by the same habitual programme. We follow the day with the same habits, actions, and end up with the same worries or some more to add up. Nothing new is expected or doesn’t happen.

So how do we change? Remember, change starts in our thoughts. The biggest source of motivation is our own thoughts. So start thinking differently, start breaking your daily thinking pattern.

” Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today with a new ending”

5 thoughts to begin my day.

1.Gratitude; Waking up with gratitude and being thankful for having a life and with loved ones around. ” It is through the gratitude of present moment that spiritual dimension of life opens” Eckhart Tolle

2.Openminded: Waking up with an open mind with optimism. I am open to endless possibilities that the Universe can offer. Keeping an open mind, all struggles and challenges seem very small and can be easily worked out.
” There are no limits to what you can accomplish, except the limits you place on your thinking” Brian Tracy

3.Worthiness: Waking up with a feeling of self-worthiness is immensely self-empowering. A sense of self-worthiness can itself be self-motivating and inspirational. You don’t have to look outside.

4.Goal oriented: It is important to set some goals in the morning for the day. It gives you a much-needed clarity, to begin with.
But set higher goals in life which are beyond your reach at present. So that you can always have something to look forward and work towards it.

5.Fulfilment: Waking up in the morning with a sense of fulfilment, satisfaction so far in your life journey gives the much-valued joy and happy state of being.