There will be times in your life that you might feel stuck and cornered. 2017 for me turned out to be that part of my life. The more I felt stuck the more I pushed hard and the more I didn’t make progress. It was having the opposite effect of what I wanted to happen.
I took a trip to an Ashram near by when an accident changed my outlook — I was driving into the parking space with an SUV with 1–2 feet of snow in the ground, I figured with a SUV 1–2 feet of snow I should be able to navigate with ease until the car got stuck in a 2 feet ditch. I figured accelerating would get me out of there! Nada — the more I accelerated the more the car got stuck. I had to take a time out and breathe in out. Unexpected and having a SUV didnt help. I had to walk down to the Ashram get a shovel and shovel and then get into the car accelerate a little (back and forth) and back to shoveling again. Repeating this back and forth I was finally able to get out.
Meanwhile a taxi van got stuck in a similar spot in the parking area and he continued accelerating and burnt his engine. Had to towed.
This taught me an important lesson — there will times in your life where life throws a curve ball and you will get stuck. How you get out of them determines who you really are.
Accelerating harder isn’t going to solve the problem. Instead take a breather/break — focus on making small but methodical changes they eventually snowball and lead to bigger changes.
This is just the first step but for this strategy to succeed you need to persevere and be consistent. As one grows older inculcating a habit is one of the hardest things to achieve. Requires a conscious effort to get there.
Good intentions are just the start never the end.
I found myself lost again even though I knew the trick to getting out, I failed to institutionalize it. This is when I realized I needed help. Keith Rabois has recommended some amazing books on his Twitter feed (Thanks Keith Rabois) and I had picked up a few of them. I needed processes and tools that could help get of this mess.
Here are a few that really changed my perspective.
- Ego is the enemy — Ryan Holiday
- The obstacle is the way — Ryan Holiday
- Mindset — Carol S Dweck
- The Upside of Stress — Kelly McGonigal
I highly recommend each of these books. Behavior change requires you to come up with tools and processes and make these small changes but ruthless and dedicated in staying steadfast.
Your biggest friend and enemy is your mind, find a way to conquer it.
P.S: I hope to get back to blog on a regular basis. Have consistently written a private journal for the last two months and its liberating.
