If you haven't listened to Mr. Sharma before, he strives to bring the best out of everyone, and provides tips and insights, inspiring quotes, and lessons to enable people to become world class. I just recently came upon him and some of his teachings, and I look forward to reading and listening to more from him in the future.
He started out his lesson about "Making Victory your New Normal", with a poem from his child hood.
"Spring has passed. Summer has gone. Winter is here....
And the song I meant to sign remains unsung. For I have spent my days string and unstringing my instrument."
- Rabindranath TagoreWhen I first heard the poem, the meaning didn't register for me, but he went on to explain its purpose and at that point it really hit home. He explained that it is about a person whose heart is filled with regret over a life half lived and although he always wanted to sing the great song that his life was meant to be, he got busy being busy, so his potential died with him.
How many times have you put off being the person you could be, only to be wrapped up in busy work? Or mindless activities? I think back to when I wanted to get to be a better speaker, or when I wanted to get in better shape, or when I got home tired after work and the kids wanted to play; I didn't just get up and sing my song. I let meaningless things get in my way, and watched a TV show instead of playing with my kids, or surfed the internet rather than going and exercising or looking for speaking engagements. I continued to just miss opportunities to "sing my song".
Mr. Sharma thought process was that there were really two things that we'd be concerned with on our death beds 1) Who did you become? 2) Did you leave the world better than how you found it? After taking in that simple prospective, I found myself questioning why I haven't sang my song. Why do I let myself continuously get buried in the busy or mindless activities rather than something that could make me even better, stronger faster?
Luckily for me, he gave five different executable tips during this video to help any of us become better people overall.
1) Know that the single fastest way to transform your thinking is to transform your behavior.
If you think about it, actions are always more powerful than words. As he put it "Ideas without action are fantasy, Inspiration without execution is pure delusion". The principle here relates a lot to the Be It, Do It, Have It principle that I spoke about in a previous post. Rather than sitting around and thinking and strategizing about how to be a better writer, start writing. Rather than thinking about reading more books, just start reading more books. Make it a habit. He sited a study by the University College of London, which indicated if you practice things as a habit for 66 days, it ends up becoming automatic, and at the end it actually becomes easier to do this new habit than not do it.
He gave this prospective as another way to look at the first tip
"Practice being spectacular long enough and being spectacular will become your default mindset and regular way of being"
- Robin SharmaI don't know about you, but for me, this first tip was very enlightening. I by nature, get caught up in over thinking things, and my take away here is I just need to move forward with the behavior I want to emulate, and it will eventually help me exercise my mind enough that my thinking will come along.
2) Remember that transformation is hard at first, messy in the middle, and gorgeous at the end.
He stressed on this point, that if things weren't hard, you really weren't making a change or progress, and if things didn't get messy than you probably are not striving for the genius or the mastery that could exist. He talked about the myth that exceptional people waited till the right time or when they were inspired to do amazing things, but in fact that all they did was just started. They didn't fear things getting hard or messy, they knew the secret of winning, is just beginning, and they wanted to take that first step so they could get to the end sooner.
I remember, teaching my son to ride his bike, he really didn't want to do it at first. He found it hard to peddle, he crashed a few times, but each time he got up and tried again and again. Eventually overtime, even this transformation step became gorgeous at the end. He was riding his bike all around the block without no worries in the world, full of elation at his accomplishments, and built up confidence to tackle whatever next transformation came his way.
Mr. Sharma said it well "Everything you now find easy, you once found hard". Although simple, its a very true statement, and a great reminder as we face any challenge, that we've already defeated or destroyed thousands of challenges on our way to this point in our life, and we'll face many more moving forward. Need to just continue to work through it, until we get to the end.
3) Live your future and dismiss your past.
When I first saw him lay out this point, I immediately wondered what it was about. At least I've always learned, learn from your past, don't repeat your past mistakes. If I dismiss my past, how will I get better? In this context though, he isn't truly talking about dismissing your past, he states the sole purpose to look at your past is for the reasons I've stated, avoiding past mistakes, and learning from things done before to potentially improve upon them in the future.
His goal here is just to get one thinking about where they want to be in the future. He suggested having a five minute fantasy every morning, where you would sit down and write a paragraph about where you wanted your day to go, or how would you want to be to living at your best, or about who you always dreamed about being, etc... Focusing your mind, your goals, and your objectives to those things day in and day out, so that you instinctively change your behavior and your mindset.
4) The words you speak predict the future you will live.
This one is really simple, and easy to implement, don't talk or be negative if you don't want to be in a rut. People who constantly talk about problems, other people, or create drama, all they are doing is creating a self fulfilling fantasy of having more of that in their lives. But people who are working at being world class talk more about possibilities, dreams, how grateful they are for things, ect... Attitude means everything in this world, and having a positive attitude does wonders for all of us.
5) To double your success, triple your dedication to personal development and professional learning.
Although, I agree 100% with the principle of this particular point, at least in this video this point really seemed to be setting the user up for signing up for one of Mr. Sharma's classes. That being said, everyone needs to continue to better themselves, they need to look at the opportunities to learn, and not necessarily focus on the costs of that learning, but the return on investment they can get from being more educated on a subject. As Mr. Sharma indicated, all it takes is one new idea or piece of information to elevate ones confidence, performance, or influence in the world.
If you find yourself, leaving this blog overwhelmed with ideas, just do me a favor and focus on one thing. Start changing your mindset today, change your behavior don't wait to think it through, if its right to do, just make the change. Hopefully when its all said and done, you'll know the impact you've had on the world and what you became and you'll be glad you made today, the first day of your best life.
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