Everyone is in search of happiness/success and the measurement for the same is mostly done with the monetary value you earn. Think of it this way, if I give you a home, food, clothes for free with a condition that you need to do come to office every day, sit, do nothing and go away. Will you be happy and content? It might seem like, Wow, do such roles exited, this is the space I want to be in and it’s a big ‘Yes’ as you will be measuring it with a yardstick of freebies, no work, basically free money but it’s a big ‘No’, After a few days of bliss, suddenly you will start feeling suffocated and toxic. You will feel lost and without purpose. You will start questioning your capabilities and you will fall into a pit of darkness. Hence proved, money is not a source of success and happiness. What you do to achieve it matters the most.
If you are having a feeling of anxiety, depression, insomnia, PTSD and so on and are at an early stage in your career there is a way of going back.
At the beginning of your career definitely, money will drive your decisions and the more you earn the powerful you feel but parallely you will also be soul searching and want to do things you like. So as you progress in your career you would wish to make 2 ends meet – one end is doing things you like and other end getting paid for what you are doing.
Then why do people get stuck into it after few years into their career?
Phase 1 – As you get ahead in your career you start getting comfortable and lazy with your job – I believe the route cause is fear and greed that dominates our decision making, hence most of the decisions we make are circle around money because money brings you a sense of security. One start drifting away from your inner self and starts doing a job that pays one well. Soon you start finding yourself carried away in the glittery world and get into the peer race.
Phase 2 – You don’t realize but you have got everything you want, but still you don’t feel happy from inside. You stop growing from the inside and start living a split personality. I call it a ‘Zombie Phase’ where there are no feelings, no emotions and everything starts looking mechanical. A lot of relationship issues also crop up here as the importance of balance for everything goes for a toss. To top it all, in this zombie phase, one feels entangled If you have taken a loan, taken retired parents’ responsibilities, got married, have kids. This just adds to the woes.
Phase 3 – A stage comes, where you are not confident anymore and start feeling scared with what you are doing, it affects your performance. Anyone who dominates in office/home will intimate you and press you to the lowest level possible to get things done. You will get succumbed to everything as the pressure to give your family a better life takes precedence over your own goals and ambitions.
Phase 4 – You look in the mirror and see a shabby, tired, untidy, lost, and confused personality staring at you and asking wtf happened to you? There is no response from your end, and you feel like crying out loud without reason and beating anyone and everyone who comes near you. No one will be able to understand you as you will not be in a state to express. You just don’t know what to do? You enter a phase of depression.
Sorry if it feels scary, but don’t worry there is a solution to it. I will help you heal and come out of this, just follow some simple steps and things will start falling in place.
Step 1 –You just need to be aware of the whole problem that surrounds you. You need to act as a doctor and a patient at the same time because honestly, no one else can help you. Take it one day at a time. Start writing it down however you feel on a daily basis. As a human physic works, if you write something down, a signal goes to your brain saying that now you can forget it as you have already noted it down. So, you need to keep writing whatever you feel like on a daily basis, don’t think just write in one flow at night.
Step 2 – It’s great to pursue a hobby that is close to you. This will give you some escape from the world you are living into the world where you belong. This will start healing you from within and start bringing a smile to your face. You will not know but will start enjoying it subconsciously.
What did I do for step 2? I am a very passionate dancer, got myself enrolled in weekend classes, pushed myself to class for the 1st 6 months, and then it became a way of life. Started uploading my videos on Instagram (for a change use social media as a booster) and the comments and likes pushed me to post another one and another one. It just helped to keep up with the momentum.
Step 3 – Start focusing on your health, I personally believe if your body is healthy, your mind follows. I am repeating again, I am not talking about reducing few inches and admiring yourself in the mirror, I am pushing you to make it your lifestyle. A lot of people lose momentum in 1st few days, the reason is simple the purpose is not strong enough to keep the momentum going. It’s again a human physic a person runs after temporary pleasure vs enduring pains. (e.g. You smoke or eat junk food as it gives your immediate satisfaction but health issues in the long term. Same way exercising now gives you immediate pain but a lot of benefits in the long run.) Attach a strong purpose to it, link it where it will hurt your ego/ self-respect. (My purpose was– I lost my dad due to health issues, he fought with it for almost 9 years, which caused me and my family a lot of pain.) I picture myself in his shoes if I don’t work out every day.) Once you start getting into a flow of doing a 30 min workout every day, you will think straight, and it will instil some sense of calmness within you. You will start feeling fresh and energetic, your decisions making capabilities will become better, and you will become more rational in your approach.
What do I do for step 3? As soon I get up, go to the washroom, splash water on my face, eat a banana, put on my earphones and out of my house within 20 minutes. Listen to self-affirmations and biographies while walking for 20 min. do yoga and stretch for 20 minutes. I don’t measure my weight or look at my waist every day, I just try to get persistent to absorb it in my lifestyle.
Step 4 – Keep yourself & your surroundings clean – A lot of times it’s a blind spot w.r.t to where are we sitting and how are we looking. Start keeping your surroundings, cupboards always clean, always wear ironed, clean clothes, take bath every day, throw away unwanted clothes, gadgets. Go for minimalistic living. It’s a bliss trust me.
What do I do for step 4? I clean my bed as soon as I get up, call URBAN Clap for deep cleaning every 3 months. Throw away unwanted things every time and start moving towards minimalism. Always wear clean clothes and put on a tinge of perfume.
Step 5 – Spend at least Rs. 1000 every month on yourself – Buy anything like clothes, toys, gadgets, etc. It will give you a kind of self-gratification. It’s very important to self-love and celebrate yourself on a regular basis. It helps regain confidence and makes you feel gratified.
What do I do? I started doing it, and after few days as I was leaving for the office I recalled I have purchased a new shirt, I wore it and went to the office. A lot of compliments came along, ‘You are looking great’, ‘Where did you buy it from’ etc. no wonder I was smiling my way back for no reason.
Step 6 – Every day when you are in the process of getting ready stand in front of the mirror for 5 minutes and say loudly, “I am the best human being ever born on this planet and soon everyone will know.” You will never know the power of self-affirmation until you do it. This will go deep down somewhere and start registering by itself. You will gradually start feeling confident and happy about the way people are perceiving you. Your body language will change, and you will become more confident as you speak subconsciously.
Step 7 – Start doing a side hustle – This is the toughest to crack but if you can do it, nothing like it. Keep in your mind, take it more as a game that you will play to experience and not focus on winning or losing. So do anything which makes you happy like blogging, writing, a small business that can just kick start your side hustle. Just make it happen. Tie it up with a timeline and get moving. It’s ok if you lose 10-20k but just go for it. It will help you come out of your shell, talk to people, increase awareness, knowledge and overall gives you a bigger purpose in life that is bigger than your job. Your circle will expand and at the end of the day you will end up learning something even if you lose.
What do I do? I did a lot of things, I created my own website, took dance workshops, conducted workshops and webinars, sold things on amazon, and learned how to publish. I mean I just went on and on just for the fun of it. Here is a secret, I cracked one of my jobs due to one of these projects and not what I was doing in the office. Isn’t it amazing?
Step 8 – Be close to peers and colleagues who are of the same mind-set – It’s a known fact that we spend at least 6-8 hours in the office. Indirectly spending time with colleagues. So we need to choose our peers as friends carefully who we want to get close with. My criteria of choosing is they should be light-hearted, have a growth mind-set, be keen to learn something new, have a life outside job, have empathy and honesty. I know it’s hard to find but you will eventually land there if you are from the same DNA.
Step 9 – What you think is what you do – See it’s very simple, what you keep thinking about is what you do, right? So if your goal is to become the CEO of the company working in you need to keep thinking about what is the CEO doing right now, how is he handling situations, and is it bearing fruits. What I mean is you need to feel connected to your goal and need to work equally hard to not lose sight of your goal. The more you think about a problem statement, the closer you will be to the solution. I disconnect myself from crap news and gossips.
Don’t keep a mind-set of I will not work after 7 and weekends are for the family so I will not think about work. The approach should be that you keep thinking about it at the back of your mind but let the outer world not know about it. I know I am sounding a bit weird, but this is the only way to achieving success in the long term by keeping your relationships intact.
What do I do? Whenever I go to sleep, I keep my phone a bit far away on silent so that I feel lazy to reach it. Now I close my eyes and think of how my day was and what are my bottlenecks, can I resolve it, do I need help in it… I mean I start thinking out of the box to get things done on time and I go to sleep with it. (Note: I am challenging and giving deadlines to myself, no one is pressurizing me to do it, I am doing it so that I can outperform myself. So, no external stress attached to it)
Step 10 – Let go of what compromises your peace and tranquillity – As human nature, it’s very natural to feel jealous/insecure from your siblings and peers. If a person makes it a purpose and builds a castle of glory and growth on the pillars of jealousy and enmity. You will feel like you are growing but it’s actually at the cost of empathy & peace where the real happiness lies.
Stop carrying the baggage of family & career issues, let these negative traits go and let no one disturb the peace within you. Keep challenging & outperforming yourself. You are your only competitor. Let the outer world say what they wish but don’t get affected and handle it with a smile. If you get stuck in a fight, walk away and don’t respond. You should react only when you feel the other person is affecting you on a physical level and silence is not the answer to it.
. As an output, my mind uses to always think about how to outperform my peer or brother out of jealousy and bitterness. You are actually building a castle that might look like you are growing in life with this enmity within you but it’s actually stealing away the empathy, peace where the real happiness lies.
Step 11 – Life is a form of a game nothing else, take it lightly – When we think of others’ life for e.g. our neighbours, we see them as characters. If the person dies also one does not get affected, but why is it not the same with us. Why do we take ourselves so seriously then? Why don’t we treat ourselves as a character in a game?
If you are playing a video game, what do you do if you lose, you play it again right? (In reality, we lose ourselves and start blaming ourselves for our failure)
Do you like to play the same level again and again or do we want to go to the next level until we win? If we don’t like the game, we can also change the game and become a different character (In reality out of family pressure, we fear to change jobs or experiment, take a calculated risk, but at least take)
If you are playing a video game, what do you do if you lose, you play it again right? (In reality, we lose ourselves and start blaming ourselves for our failures and start self-doubting and whatnot)
Step 12 – How to overcome the fear of the unknown – As we know our 96% of the decisions are influenced by greed and fear. Think of ‘death’ as the most ultimate fear and think of it this way, if you know, you have 1 year more to live, will you still be afraid of fear or greed, or will you be completely out to get everything done in your capacity to do everything you always wanted to do. Like
You will go up and say things to people who you wanted to speak to for a long time.
You will take a trip and go to places where you always wanted to visit.
You will acknowledge small things, which people have done selflessly for you.
You will speak up your mind and be free from fear and greed. It will flow like a song from your brain translating from words to action.
Suddenly everything will be within your reach. Your perspective to see life will change, you will cross every huddle in a blink of an eye. You will become a new version of yourself who will be unstoppable.
So, lets get started and moving – Here is a To-do list –
Write down the fear you have, known or unknown
Write down the purpose, it should be strong and simple. Attaching is with the goals.
Now write a letter to yourself 5 years from now (after 5 years, you are successful and have accomplished your dreams. Absorb this feeling then write it..), write about how you have achieved your goals and are living in the moment and enjoying every bit of it. Keep it in your wallet and read it whenever you feel you are losing direction. It’s fine if you stumble and come back but the bottom line is that you need to keep moving ahead even if it’s by an inch.
Let’s get the ball rolling….
Note: All that is mentioned in the blog is completely based on my experience and do not have any medical evidence or whatsoever. Please connect with the doctor if the condition is serious.
good stuff