Living life to the fullest

Liberated day: a day when you live the life you want without limits.

Gaze: living a liberated day, every day of your life.

How to get there: 

1. Explore and identify what areas of life (self, family, friends, career) would be like if the bravest version of yourself was in charge.

2. Become aware of self defeating habits, patterns and blindspots.

Cue ----> Routine (Perfectionist OR Saboteur OR Martyr OR Pessimistic ----> Reward.

3. Honor the value of change (unlearning, learning, relearning)

4. Understand the process of incremental change.

5. Execute and conduct periodic self assessment.

Self management: Attention

Interest in a particular type of morsel (physical, emotional, mental) ---> what we pay attention to ---> nature of life experiences ---> Quality of life we live.

Attention management: 
Step1: Awareness of distractions (triggers, events, thoughts) and associated digression.

Step2: Remind self of what is of interest in present moment. Deliberately choose what you want to attend to (Decide which morsel is appropriate and a priority)

Step3: Separate self from distractions: This should be intentional and not reactive. Calmly and peacefully, redirect attention away from distractions using breath awareness and other breathing exercises.

Step4: Find a state of flow.

Step5: Maximize focus (reinforce) + breath awareness.

Facilitators:

1. External factors: Technology and tools, Environment.

2. Internal factors: Own behavior, awareness of thoughts.

Precious learning opportunity

 

This life is precious,

A rare opportunity,

Gifted with tremendous potential,

Endowed with all that is needed,

Not to be wasted on mundane endless pursuits,

Not to be wasted on imaginary conflicts in the mind,

Not to be spent in Guilt,

Not to be driven by hatred.

But to show up in love and acceptance,

To learn and improve,

Develop holistic understanding,

Strengthen awareness,

Embrace uncertainty, insecurity and fear and watch them dissolve,

Gain confidence,

And once ready settle in one's own bliss.

Goals, Goal seeking behavior and Gaze

This blogpost is aimed at describing the difference between goals and components within a gaze.

A. Goals: commitment and persistent pursuit of a desired outcome of intrinsic value (endpoint, physical/abstract object of interest) in the short of long term future. 

Driving force (motivation): insecurity, uncertainty, fear, and desire. 

Process: It involves the following:

a. Explicitly and specifically defining goals in a structured and holistic manner. Refer to past documented and real world experience as well as know-how; seek peer feedback (other perspectives) to enrich goals.  

b. Understanding applicable and contextual processes and nuances that will facilitate achievement of goals.

c. Planning: identify, map and allocate required resources and time, define workflow, milestones, assessment windows, endpoints (primary, secondary). Also contemplate on and plan for potential limitations and possible unintended consequences. 

d. Undertake efforts (physical, mental) in the form of activities and tasks aligned with the mutually agreed workflow. Ideally begin with a pilot run to ensure that the resources, documented process and workflow are aligned.

e. Periodic qualitative and quantitative assessment of real world milestones to: 

(i). Verify alignment of objectives, overall plan, process, workflow and outcomes. Carry out course correction in case a deviation is observed.

(ii). Identify gap between current state and anticipated future state and confirm when anticipated outcomes are achieved. 

(iii). Note unintended consequences if any, make corrections in workflow if required.

Pros: 

a. Structured approach that guides and facilitates real world experience. 

Cons: 

a. Blind pursuit (obsession) of goals can lead to "tunnel vision" and lopsided growth. An individual may lose context or might burn out or indulge in unethical methods to achieve goals. Blind pursuit of particular goals might also delay and hamper other goals, real world urges and activities. 

b. Highly specific goals might be difficult to achieve.

Experience: A sense of momentary satisfaction, accomplishment, fulfillment, gratification might be felt when the desired outcome is achieved. 

B. Goal seeking behavior: The gap between current state and an anticipated future state drives goal seeking behavior. It might occur in response to consciously planned goals or unplanned ones. They may be driven by a biological urge (Physical), subconscious urges and desires (emotional, mental); unconscious urges and desires (emotional/mental). 

C. Gaze: 

A gaze sets an unbinding intention for a broad set of open ended, direct, real world experiences. It facilitates unlearning of biases; patterns; blindspots, and bridges learning gaps. It aims to enrich oneself through incremental development of self awareness and right understanding. It maps the journey but does not strictly mandate specific paths. The experiences may or may not be related. The experiences may manifest in diverse ways over time and could be partial. 

Driving force (motivation): observation, learning attitude, empathy, and compassion.

Process:

1. Look inwards, contemplate to identify and understand what really matters (~pull, connections, experiences) for the self. 

2. Observe self and the evolving journey. Periodically revisit and reassess progress and map it to the components in the gaze. 

3. Acquire new life skills, sharpen existing life skills to prepare for upcoming journey.

4. Seek open ended feedback and include it in mental model driving the journey towards the gaze.

5. Physical, emotional and mental wellness facilitate achievement of components within the gaze. They prepare the ground for required flexibility and creativity to overcome barriers and roadblocks.

Self assessment: 

a. Is one self motivated enough to patiently take required efforts? 

b. Is one grounded enough to see through the noise, connect the dots, see the underlying learning lesson and how the experience complements the larger learning journey?

c. Is one flexible and creative enough to see through limitations and understand how each part of the journey is contributing to the fulfillment of the gaze?

Pros:

a. Partially structured.

b. Unconditional, Flexible

c. Focus on learning and self development through real world experiences.

D. Comparison between Goals and Gaze

S.no.	Criteria	Goals	Gaze
1	Flexibility	To some extent.	Largely flexible.
2	Specificity	Narrow, Specific.	Broad, less specific.
3	Time	Time bound.	Not time bound.
4	Driving force	Insecurity, uncertainty, fear, and desire.	Observation, learning attitude, empathy, and compassion.

References: referred to the content and/or ideas in following references while writing this blog-post.

1. Goals, Wikipedia, URL.

2. Pattanaik, D. (2013). Business sutra: A very Indian approach to management. New Delhi: Aleph Book Company.

Silence

Silence.

Natural, unconditional,

Watchful, aloof,

Subtle yet profound and potent,

A fertile ground,

Separates the self from the noise and crowd,

Allows attention to what really matters -

The bliss of the breath,

The fleeting present moment.

And the divine self.

Aligned and settled in moment to moment experience,

Refreshing and relishing it,

Empathy takes root,

Compassion stems, 

Acceptance flowers.

The fragrance of love spreads.

With time an inward gaze develops and strengthens,

Incremental inward journey,

Finally the self fully becomes aware of the self,

No further seeking,

Just silent and blissful being.

Managing negative thought patterns

When faced with negative thoughts, classify them into following three categories: 

1. Can control

2. Can influence

3. Can't control. 

This makes it easier to manage attention and move away from things beyond your control.

When we have fallen into the rabbit hole of threat perception (stress) after experiencing a demand supply gap, we may encounter a barrage of diversely negative thoughts which align with different narratives. Despite being quite convincing,

these thoughts are not facts. They give us a skewed idea of reality. They strongly push us into aligning with one or more narrative. They are consistent, persistent and even if we try our best to not get carried away, they do succeed in getting our attention. Sustained attention and involvement reduces motivation and energy.

If one is unable to watch these conversations and maintain a distance,

one way to extricate oneself is to do a reality check/reality test. This process helps us to create space between ourselves and the negative thoughts facilitating their objective examination.

Here are the steps:

a. Argue the opposite case.

b. Question the absoluteness.

c. Look for counter examples. 

d. Ask yourself what is the learning here?

e. What am I not seeing in the narrative?

Improve self talk: Reframe thoughts