Gap versus Gain

This is a term I heard from first Dan Sullivan, and similar terms then from Vishen Lakhani and Benjamin Hardy.

All of us want to grow. My team members and I all have a lot of aspirations for the future. The challenge that a lot of them face because of which they don’t enjoy the journey is that they are always looking at the horizon.

The horizon is such a place that you will never reach. It’s a moving target. It’s unachievable. That’s what gets us unhappy, depressed etc.

When you drive a car on the road, while your eyes are focused in the front, from time to time you look at the rear view mirrors to ensure that no one is coming too close to hit. When you look in the rear view mirror you also realize how far you have come. So while the destination is ahead and you are driving towards it, you also get to know how far you have come from where you were.

That’s the important thing that I learned from this term Gap versus Gain. While its important to be aware of how much is left to do, you can also from time to time look back and see how far you have come from where you started. That will cause you to feel happy in the progress you made from where you started.

Its just a perspective issue but it can make you happy and more focused for your future with renewed energy versus being anxious and depressed.

Till next time then, count your gains and make your journey worth remembering.

Carpe Diem!!!

Self Trust

Habits, self esteem, Trust

One of the biggest boost for self esteem is when you achieve those small small targets on a daily basis.

When you don’t hit a commitment which you made to yourself, it is more damaging to your self esteem and you start doubting yourself .

If you sub consciously start doubting yourself on your ability to achieve the small things, then you will not trust yourself to achieve the big things.

As Stephen Covey writes in his book the Speed of Trust, the onus of creating Trust starts with the self.

I have written multiple times earlier also, if you can take micro steps that B. J. Fogg talks about in his book Tiny Habits, the compounded impact is massive for your own self esteem. Once your self esteem grows , you create new capabilities and you tend to start getting more confidence. Once you get more confident you start looking at even bigger challenges to achieve.

That is a positive snowball effect and it all starts with your self trust.

This is all for today.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

You cannot have financial freedom without financial discipline- Part 3

compounding, Financial Independence, Habits, Human Brain, mindset

In yesterday’s post I wrote about how the urgent tasks took over my schedule and missed out on buying the asset whose deadline was yesterday.

Actually the middle class / service class people mistake busyness for success. For us the incoming email or phone is more important than taking financial education.

We keep watching the mail as if the next PO or promotion or next big challenge, is just about to come and it does not come that day, then it does not come the next day and we end up wasting one more day and another and suddenly we realize life has just passed us by.

The rich on the other hand first and foremost understand the discipline they have to follow. And it has nothing to do with education. Even if you discount the likes of Bill Gates, there are lots of others who don’t have college education but have become millionaires.

One of the reasons I think is that a University Degree makes us specialized in some specific area and we like to solve challenges in those areas. The human brain is wired to get attracted to familiar faces, familiar environments. So when we see an email with a familiar topic, we get immediately attracted to it.

Compounding only works in the long term, so you have to ensure that you start very early in life. If like most of us you start late then you have to ensure you are systematically investing over long durations without a break. Financial freedom takes discipline.

To bring in that discipline you need to ensure you eliminate the usage of your brain. Things should happen without your brain taking a decision. That’s where an automatic system helps. Today technology allows it so you should take advantage of it.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Keeping Commitments with yourself- Part 2

commitment, confidence, Habits, self esteem

Each time I read The Tiny Habits by B. J. Fogg, I get more insight on how I can improve my self even further in termsof my habits. I keep reading a lot of books to see how I can keep improving myself in various areas. Some of the insights that I gain, I also share with you.

If you see my earlier blogs, they were very erratic. Sometimes every Sunday, sometimes nothing for 6 months.

I reread The Tiny Habits about 6 months back and I also took a training in the Genius Experience with Joe Polish. That’s when I took it upon myself to write a blog post every day. These would be less than 3 minute reads, so you could read them while standing in the line for coffee.

When you keep thinking of writing something dramatic, you enter a writer’s block, and you don’t write anything.

On the other hand if you know you can write even small posts, as long as you write, then over a period of time it will become a habit and you will stop having a writer’s bl9ck

The other thing which helped me was a statement that Joe Polish made during one of the trainings – “it’s better to be prolific than perfect “

Once zi started doing this one day, then the next and so on, it became a habit for me to write about something everyday. By keeping the commitment to myself , to write a small post everyday, today I have reached a stage where I look forward to the time when I will write.

The happiness and increase in my self esteem due to this has been enormous.

When we increase our self esteem and therefore our self confidence eventually, we improve in all areas of our lives.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!