From Automatic to Deliberate

Sitting at a famous beach last week, watching my wife and daughters play in the water, I found myself filled with a sense of gratitude for how my life has turned around in last 2 years.

January 2017, I walked into a local medical shop in Sydney to purchase medicines for my mother-in-law, who was visiting us from India. The guy at the counter smiled as he looked at the list, mumbling something along the lines of “diabetes again!” My rather stern look made him explain that for years, he’d been fascinated by the fact that diabetes was pretty much a “man-made disease” and how most people from the Indian subcontinent ended up having it because of our eating habits whereas Chinese people have managed to keep it at bay. We ended up having a chat for the next 2 hours as he doled out wisdom about eating habits.

 He doesn’t know it and I didn’t know it then – that was the inflection point for me. As I allowed myself to be swept by someone else’s passionate knowledge and wisdom, I started challenging myself in ways that I hadn’t in years.  

What followed was a series of small changes, each building on top of each other rather than being distributed in a haphazard manner. These small droplets of water became a raging torrent over the last two years, touching every part of my life in ways that has left me surprised and beyond grateful. 

A lot of us live our life in an automatic mode – playing ball by ball, letting events drive our lives, allowing day to day priorities to take over our dreams.

When we were young, we didn’t know that doing something would result in failure. We hadn’t yet had experiences that would scare us from reaching out to people. We didn’t have the benefit of knowing that doing certain things in certain ways wouldn’t succeed. And we were not yet exposed to people who would constantly remind us how life sucks. The dreams that we had once when we were young did not just die – but crumbled away beneath these heavy weights of the obstacles. 

It is rightly said that we learn the most from our failures – and such is the bane of this otherwise positive statement, that failure imprints in our mind as something to keep clear of rather than the real opportunity it presents.

Those hard-learnt lessons – when 1 out of 100 betrayed us and that one person became, to us, a blueprint of how most people are. The ‘avoidance of pain’ set in as a core principle. If only it was replaced by the more prudent “make a conscious choice and then own the responsibility” – the more internal focused than external focused.

Those hard-learnt lessons – when lots of hard work just didn’t lead anywhere.  The “don’t try too hard” sets in as a core principle. If only it was replaced by the more prudent “don’t keep doing the same thing, but adjust for output – work hard for an output and adjust.”

Those hard-learnt lessons – when our choices hurt someone else unintentionally and we felt worthless ourselves.  Our mind learnt “let people have their space, don’t bother them much.” If only it was replaced by “repair your past by acknowledging and asking for forgiveness and then setting it aside – and continue to engage with people. You won’t get it right all the time. 

Those hard-learnt lessons – when we had accidents or unfortunate events outside our control, it created another complex layer of learning that “life is not in my control.” If only it was replaced by “there will be lots of external factors that I won’t be able to control, but I need to press on”.

Those hard-learnt lessons – our initial situation, which sometimes meant limited opportunities for education or limited expressions of language or learning, added another dimension of “I am not enough”; if only it was replaced by “I don’t know this now, but I will. 

For some, the picture I have painted here may look so bleak that you turn away entirely. To those people, hand on heart, tell yourself the truth this time – haven’t you been there at times? 

We may think that these negative learnings keep us in check, but that? That is that little voice is constantly gnawing in your ear about why you shouldn’t try new changes that have the potential to change your life for good.

I bet if you started writing your decisions – every one of them for a week, you will discover that far too many of the times you tell yourself why something shouldn’t be done, are because of avoidance of attached pain rather than of achieving something bigger and better. 

If only we were to start living a deliberate life. A life where we make conscious choices and then take full responsibility of everything we do. That would be enough to start us on a path to self-discovery, a path of beginning to stack the building blocks.

The feeling of invincibility this time would not a momentary thing to be kept hidden lest it passes or should other people pop their eyes at your brag. It would be something you wear on your sleeves and be comfortable with every step of the way. 

The end results or outcomes would not make you stop in your tracks with a “now what?” but rather push you towards further growth. This time, your gains would be disproportionately high.

If this creates a stirring in your mind and you want to start on a journey to take control, contact me for a complimentary session.