Simplify Your Life This New Year!


This is the season for resolutions. I reckon you have considered one or two yourself. Unfortunately, as the year progresses, most New Year resolutions tend to fall by the wayside and end up as mere intents. Here’s an insightful approach towards creating a life that’s not only happier and more fulfilling, but one that also automatically responds to your most meaningful resolutions.

We complicate life
Driven sometimes by ambition and other times by a sense of inner incompleteness, we instinctively immerse ourselves in a myriad of pursuits. We often act out of the fear of losing out, compared to our peers or our social network.

We would rather be overwhelmed than miss out on the slightest chance to please the boss, make more money, enhance our status, accumulate more clothes or gadgets, or go to the extra social event. We also find it hard to let up on instantly responding to text messages, checking our e-mails or facebook accounts multiple times a day or randomly watching television.

What suffers in the process is our attention to our most important priorities – the ones that actually make us feel fulfilled and happier. No wonder then we are unable to see through many of our resolutions, the New Year ones being no exception.

First, the familiar lesson
“A philosophy professor stood before his class and had some items in front of him. When class began, wordlessly he picked up a large empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with rocks, rocks about 2” in diameter. He then asked the students if the jar was full? They agreed that it was. So, the professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles, of course, rolled into the open areas between the rocks. The students laughed. 

The professor picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled everything else. “Now,” said the professor, “I want you…

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Posted by Rajiv Vij | Leadership, Personal mastery, Self-growth | 7 Comments

Are you the Aggressor or the Victim?


Photo by Tiffany

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new lands but seeing with new eyes” – Marcel Proust

Our childhood experiences, coupled with our genetic makeup, significantly influence the type of emotional personality we acquire as adults. Our sense of self-esteem, temperament, perceptiveness, relationship skills, and ability to give and receive love are directly impacted with these factors.

Based on different combinations of these attributes, there are surely a large number of distinct personality types possible (please also see my earlier post on Being Myself). However, there are two types namely, the aggressor and the victim, that are prominently displayed in our relationships. Unfortunately, living either of these archetypes limits us from enjoying deeper and more loving relationships.

The Victim
As the title suggests, people with a Victim personality believe that they are the victims of the world – that the others do not care for their emotions and that they are routinely left alone to fend for themselves. They tend to be inward looking and are easily given to self-blame. Experiencing any setback, they are quick to judge and blame themselves for their situation. These aspects are partly a reflection of their low self-esteem.

They also have a propensity to be reserved, introverted and uncomfortable with any form of confrontation. Operating from a strong fear of rejection, they would rather conform than confront, to avoid the risk of being in the wrong and not being loved. Consequently, instead of sharing freely, they are prone to instinctively suppressing their true emotions.

However, these suppressed emotions of frustration and disappointment eventually do get released, in the form of sudden bursts of anger. To the others, these bursts are usually unexplainable, as the immediate trigger is generally somewhat insignificant. Some of these factors make it challenging for such individuals to have deep and honest relationships – in fact, many of them have difficulty with intimacy, lest their true selves be discovered.

The Aggressor
The Aggressors are almost the opposite. They…

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Posted by Rajiv Vij | Relationships, Self-growth | 3 Comments

Demystifying Death


Death is not a subject we often think about or are even comfortable talking about. In fact, a number of contemporary sociologists believe that despite widespread liberalization of thought in modern times, death is one of the topics where the extent of taboo has actually grown. What is death?

An important law of physics, the law of conservation of energy, states that the total amount of energy in a closed, or isolated, system remains constant over time. What this means is that in such a system, energy cannot be created or destroyed. It can however change forms. We also know from Einstein’s theory of relativity that mass and energy are one and the same thing. Thus, we can infer that in a closed system, the total mass and energy of the system stay unchanged over time.

Given that the universe is such a closed system, it is understandable that there is no new energy or mass being created inside it; there’s instead a shuffling and metamorphosis of forms that’s happening constantly. Take the example of a snowflake, an ice cube, a water droplet and a steam vapor. What do you notice is common in here? All these are nothing but different expressions of the same entity. While the underlying essence of each of these forms is water, we attach different labels to each of the forms and, in the process, get distracted from connecting with the truth.

This is what explains death. The universe is constantly evolving and, in the process, continues to take different forms– galaxies, stars, planets, animals, plants and humans. All the forms arise from the universe and dissolve into it, but are neither born nor die. Death is a concept of the mind and of its identification with the body form.

Consider the life cycle of a butterfly. It starts with an egg that gets fertilized and hatched into a caterpillar; the caterpillar grows in size, sheds its last skin and…

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Posted by Rajiv Vij | Personal mastery, Self-growth, Spiritual | 5 Comments

Discovering Your Calling


In one of my earlier posts (Are you following your calling), I had talked about the difference between pursuing a job, career or your calling and the impact pursuing your calling has on your level of happiness at work.

Now, following your calling is understandably easier said than done. How do you even go about the crucial step of discovering your calling? If you are not one of the lucky few, who somehow landed themselves in what they truly love, what can you consciously do about it?

Here are some steps that can support you in that discovery.

Set aside time for reflection
I believe each one of us is uniquely gifted and has a special purpose on earth. However, we get so caught up in the treadmill of our fast-paced lives that we fail to discover this purpose. Slowing down is essential for developing deeper clarity.

You need to create time and space to reflect on what is most important for you – do you want to be more successful or make a significant contribution; do you want more money or be happier; do you value social recognition or inner fulfillment; what role does family and community have for you and so forth.

Plan for those reflective moments, maybe 10-15 minutes every day or at least some every week.

Create a powerful vision
As is said, “If you can see it and believe in it, it will happen.”

We all have fleeting ideas, from time to time, of what we would like our life to be about. The idea of a vision is about articulating them cogently.

Write a note, describing in vivid detail, what you envision your ideal life to be like – not just work life, but your entire life. What kind of work would you be engaged in, what would you like most about it, what would your typical work day look like, what would you be busy with outside of work,…

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Posted by Rajiv Vij | Leadership, Personal mastery, Self-growth | 4 Comments

The Grand Illusion!


One fish said to the other, “Do you believe in this ocean that they talk about?”

So goes an ancient Chinese saying and I think it well illustrates how narrow our vision of the world and the universe can be. We see the world from our limited perceptual framework. Despite an overwhelming evolution of the human race, the human mind is severely restricted by what it can perceive through the senses.

What we hear is limited by the frequencies our ears can process – dogs can hear many higher frequencies and hence have a very different perception of the same sounds. Our sight is limited by the light frequencies our eyes can relate to; since pit vipers can sense heat from infrared rays (somewhat like the night vision goggles), they must construct the same world rather differently.

Further, from our knowledge of science, we know so many things are just not what they appear to be – the sky isn’t blue, only the scattering of the blue light absorbed by the atmosphere makes it appear so; the moon doesn’t rise in the night; and the house we live in is not standstill, but rotates along with the earth. Essentially, we see, hear and process what we can and not what the reality is.

Besides the human handicap in picking up the absolute truth in the first place, our perceptions are further clouded by our personal thoughts and emotions. As Anais Nin, the French author, beautifully articulated, ‘We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are.’ Our thoughts and emotions project their own hues and colors to whatever we observe.

What is the truth then?

The ultimate truth is that everything in the universe is made up of energy. All beings- the plants, animals and all of humanity- are manifestations of the same energy. This vital spiritual force breathes life into every living being and sustains every cell and organism. This enormous field, of…

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Posted by Rajiv Vij | Self-growth, Spiritual | 3 Comments

3 Steps To Highly Engaged Employees


“The task of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there.” ~ John Buchan

One of the top challenges that leaders face today is related to creating a highly engaged workforce. We all know that a highly engaged workforce not only helps nurture a happier work environment, but also means better business and leads to higher performance results. Moreover, it’s expensive to have disengaged staff – unengaged workers are estimated to cost their organizations billions of dollars annually.

What builds employee engagement?

Coaching style works
I have previously talked about how when leaders employ a ‘coaching-style’ of leadership, it significantly supports the process of creating higher employee engagement. Coaching style focuses on self-directed learning, by relying on the other person’s self-awareness and their sense of self-responsibility.

It effectively helps employees feel autonomous (the employees drive the agenda of the discussions not the boss), learn and grow (through self-discovery rather than being directed), feel valued (coaching is a non-judgmental conversation, of equals), and empowered (by discovering their own solutions) – thereby helping them become highly engaged.

Another unique and supportive perspective
I recently came across a short video, by Dan Pink, which provides a unique, and yet a supportive, perspective to creating meaningful employee engagement. His video led me to his latest book, Drive, that’s revealing about what really motivates us.

He makes the point that money is not an effective motivator for people who are involved in jobs that require reasonable cognitive skills. In fact, he argues that the traditional carrot and stick approach has the risk of negatively impacting such employees’ ability to come up with most effective and creative solutions. Although, he agrees that money does matter in a limited way in that employers need to pay employees enough to take the issue of money off the table.

Instead, he highlights three specific elements that he believes make for deeper engagement for any individual, and specifically for employees. These…

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To Create a New Reality, Start with Your Beliefs…


“Our life is what our thoughts make it.” – Marcus Aurelius

One of the principles of the journey of personal mastery that I have been writing about is self-responsibility: taking charge of ourselves and putting into practice all the meaningful ideas that emerge from our efforts at raising self-awareness. It is about making conscious choices that help us breakaway from our conditioned responses and instead create a new reality for us.

Self-responsibility is grounded in the tenet that the real change lies within us and that the only way to change our world is to change ourselves. It demands that we are open-minded about the capacity in each of us to discover- and implement- our unique solutions to our personal dilemmas.

It relies on the conviction that all of us do have a choice in every situation – the notion that it’s not what happens to us, but how we react to it that makes the real difference; the understanding that our inner thoughts have the power to create the reality we want to experience; and that we are indeed the co-creators of the world we inhabit.

Changing habits
Since humans are creatures of habit, real change is possible only by changing our deep-rooted habits.

Instead of trying to undo well-ingrained old habits, it is more effective to introduce new positive ones. Working with new habits makes the process of change far more positive and solution-oriented and is hence more empowering. For example, instead of working on how not to get angry frequently, it’s more effective to focus on being calmer more often.

These habit changes often operate at different layers of our personality. Starting from our behavior patterns, they encompass working with our thought processes, emotional responses and our fundamental beliefs. Practicing to stay calm in the face of a disturbing stimulus, becoming accustomed to actively appreciating one’s colleagues or sticking to a diet plan are all examples of desired behavioral changes.

Even so, at a deeper level, they…

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Posted by Rajiv Vij | Personal mastery, Self-growth | 4 Comments

So, what are you addicted to?


“People often expect different results from doing the same   actions” – Alcoholics Anonymous

When we think about addiction, the first image that crosses our mind is that of someone addicted to alcohol, tobacco, gambling or drugs. However, addiction includes any form of fixation, obsession or habitual indulgence in an activity. So much so that when addicted, we cannot resist this indulgence despite being aware of its injurious impact. While in some cases this dependence on a substance or an activity is apparently physical, in most situations it’s essentially a psychological one.

Addiction starts with our initially flirting with the substance or the activity, mainly to enhance our mood at that moment or seek some momentary pleasure. However, with frequent flirtation, this indulgence becomes a habit – one that we find difficult to live without. All the same, overtime, once we get addicted, engaging in this fixation merely serves to make us feel normal.

Many more of us are addicted than we know.
Addiction then includes any uncontrolled obsession that we have – for example, for food, sweets, watching television, work, shopping, buying latest gadgets, facebook, or loveless sex. It refers to any deeper emotional dependency that we develop to feel good. While some of these may be less harmful than the others, they all have  a significant negative impact on us. Defined this way, I feel we all are perhaps guilty of multiple addictions. Furthermore, while many of us escape the more visible addictions, we do get caught up with our own set of inner demons. Our recurring stream of thoughts and feelings about stuff- routinely getting anxious about situations, our persistent desire to control outcomes and the volatility of our temperament that we find challenging to moderate- are all examples of a compulsive behavior.

To my mind, all these are addictive patterns we live with, but are ignorant of, for the most part. These instinctive responses get so ingrained in our state of being that we…

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Posted by Rajiv Vij | Personal mastery, Self-growth | 1 Comment

OMG…kids these days!!!


“Adolescence is a period of rapid changes. Between the ages of 12 and 17, for example, a parent ages as much as 20 years.”

Are you too a parent struggling to cope with the stress of bringing up a teenager? Do you often catch yourself screaming, audibly or otherwise, what all is wrong with your children? “Why can’t my son remember to throw his laundry in the basket rather than leave it on the bathroom floor or put away his shoes in the shoe rack and not in the living room, despite daily reminders?” “How do I get my daughter to be more focused on her studies, she just doesn’t seem to care about her grades?” “Why are kids these days so irresponsible, when are they going to start putting some real effort towards achieving results?”

It is our nature to judge people. And as parents, we seem to appropriate a carte blanche to do so with our children – constantly evaluating what’s good about them and what not, what’s acceptable and what not? All their perceived shortcomings are then a source of disappointment and angst for us. To make matters worse, when our coaxing often does not yield desired changes, we feel frustrated and stressed.

I believe it is important to understand that it is not what happens to us that’s the real source of stress, it’s our thoughts attached to what happens to us. No sooner than we notice something about the kids that seems amiss, our hyperactive minds race ahead with thoughts of concerns – how his lack of responsibility towards organizing his life is a precursor of a distraught adulthood, how her limited zeal for excellence is bound to result in recurring under-performance, and how their inability to follow parents’ guidance spells doom for their capacity to deal with the real world. As these thoughts recur in our mind, they gain traction and solidify as definitive future scenarios. Needless to say,…

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Are You Following Your Calling?


I have written in previous posts about the issue of a growing lack of meaning in our life. Specifically, I would like to highlight in this post the role our choice of work and professional pursuits play in contributing to the level of fulfillment we experience in life.

How do we choose our profession? We decide it based on whatever offers the best mix of career prospects, financial rewards, status, security and challenge in the overall context of our skills. Why are so many people not that happy with their work then?

A variety of research reveals the lurking sense of dissatisfaction among a large proportion of the employee workforce. A leading indicator of this is the level of employee engagement in the workplace. Towers Perrin, a leading employee research and consulting firm, found only 17% of 35,000 employees surveyed as ‘highly engaged’; studying over 20,000 diverse employees, Harris Interactive concluded that only 37% of the employees had a clear understanding of what their organization was trying to achieve and why and only one in five was enthusiastic about their team’s and organization’s goals.

While the leaders of the organizations have a role to play in correcting this dismal situation, through greater empowerment, creating opportunities for greater learning and growth, better matching employees’ skills and jobs, and employing a more of a coaching style to leadership, this state is a reflection of the prevailing confusion at the individual employee level. Either we are in a job that doesn’t match our skills or we are pursuing it for the wrong reasons. Lacking clarity about the core purpose of our professional life, we are easily swayed by what seems like a popular ladder to climb. For example, with disregard to their real interest or aptitude, we have hordes of MBAs chasing investment banking or consulting jobs. Looking out for quick success, individuals are then disappointed at any pace of personal growth that’s slower than expectation.Besides, attuned to…

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Posted by Rajiv Vij | Leadership, Self-growth | 5 Comments