Keeping commitments with yourself

commitment, confidence, Habits, self esteem

One of the best ways to lose self confidence and therefore self esteem is to not keep a commitment to yourself

Its easy to not keep a commitment to a third party and then try to rationalize the reasons. Sub consciously you lower your esteem there also.

However when you don’t keep a commitment to yourself, inspite of all the rationalizing, in your heart you know you cheated yourself and that hits your self esteem badly and your confidence as well.

You however need to be careful with making commitments both in terms of quantity and the type of commitments. Too many commitments is a recipe for disaster because you don’t have so much will power or motivation in a day.

If you don’t have the capabilities and you still make a commitment, you are bound to fail anyway inspite of your intentions.

I have found the book Tiny Habits by B. J. Fogg to be an amazing handbook to create small interventions which don’t need will power or motivation and slowly become part of your behavior. He has a very succinct formula which he calls the Fogg Behavior Model

B=MAP where B is behavior, M is motivation, A is ability and P is prompts.

As these small interventions start having an impact and you start keeping commitments to yourself, automatically your self confidence goes up and you start aiming for even higher without doing any heroics.

I have multiple posts in which I have recommended this book. If you have not read it, please do. It will have a major impact on your self esteem and self confidence.

Till next time then. Keep commitments to yourself first.

Carpe Diem!!!

Persistence trumps Genius

Great People, Habits, History, persistence

I didn’t know what to write today. I was way too exhausted, having had a long day at work.

This word persistence was playing in my mind for a long time today. So I just started writing. As I started writing more and more examples started coming in my mind of whether great people in history were geniuses as we attribute them to be or were they persistent.

Was Michaelangelo persistent or a genius – was David a master piece because Michaelangelo had a vision for David – if he had not kept chipping away at the stone consistently day-in and day-out, he would have not realized his vision.

The Sistine Chapel ceiling would not be so amazing if he had not persisted in doing those paintings.

Look at Edison or Einstein in the scientific arena, they were persistent in their work. No doubt they were brilliant in their own right but that brilliance would not have seen the light of day, if they did not put in the work.

Having said this, identifying the leverage points and then doing the work will anyway give much better results than just doing “donkey”. Persistence does not mean wasting energy in entropy.

If you focus your energy on the key points and then work, chances are you will trump genius any day.

Till next time.

Carpe Diem!!!

A helper’s high – 2

charity, Habits, Happiness, History, Karma

Just a few days back I wrote on this topic. When you help somebody, the universe tends to give back more than 10 times over. It’s all about Karma.

Today I happened to be reading Chanakya Neeti. A little bit about Indian history. Chanakya lived almost 2500 years ago in India and was the advisor to two generations of kings Vikramanditya clan, the kings of Patliputra (now Patna the capital of the state of Bihar in India).

Vikramanditya was among the people who stopped the movement of Alexander the Great and his army, east of the Indus River. Alexander who had been unbeaten till then from Greece to India couldn’t continue on his dream to conquer the world and eventually died at a very young age

Chanakya authored some of the most elaborate thinking related to politics ,economics and general rules for living in a society. Chanakya Neeti is about the rules for the society to live a decent life. It was written in Sanskrit. I was reading the English translation since I haven’t learnt Sanskrit.

Now in this book in the 12th chapter, 2nd stanza, Chanakya wrote that if one does charity then God rewards that person ten times over. Even two and half thousand years back, he wrote that in a civilized society people should be giving or doing charity.

It’s so good to know that an idea that you believe today was also suggested more than 2500 years back.

Till next time then get a helper’s high by helping someone.

Carpe Diem!!!

Personal differentiation- what’s the Value, You get to the table

differentiation, differentiation, Habits, Positioning, Sales

In any relationship and more so in sales, it’s the value that you bring to the other side which makes people want to be connected to you.

When you are doing marketing, the agenda is to create a relationship between the company’s product and the customer. But when you are in sales, it is all about the personal brand of YOU.

That brand of You gets created with the Value you bring to the table specifically. If the prospect does not find you knowledgeable on different aspects of his business and requirements, he will consider you a waste of time. So even though you may have the best product or service in the market, they will not buy from You.

As a sales person today, its table stakes to get to know about the person you’re meeting, about their business, industry challenges, regulations etc.

You also need to be able to challenge the assumptions that the customer is making and showcase the same to them. Most professional customers today like to interact with equals. When you create a differentiation with Value, you become the trusted advisor. That’s how you also improve your personal “positioning” in the market.

Gone are the days when salesmen could just wing a conversation about the weather, the photo frame in the customer’s office etc.

Its getting more and more difficult to get an appointment with a customer for a meeting these days. Get better prepared, figure out Why should the customer even talk to you. That “Why” will then help you create your Value.

Till next time then, create your own differentiation with the Value you bring to the table.

Carpe Diem!!