MINDSET – THE ONLY DIFFERENCE

“Enjoy the game and chase your dreams. Dreams do come true!” Most of us know the master behind this beautiful affirmation. For some, he was a legend, for some he was a role model, and for others an inspiration. The “master blaster” – Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar. All of us know what he achieved. We are well and truly aware of his milestones, yet the fact that we so often tend to forget is – we all can do it. Not that all of us can be a cricketer like him, that’s our fascination and not our passion. LOL! What, I’m talking about is we all can achieve immense excellence while following our passion! Our inner passion! The difference is just one – MINDSET.

What is this secret portion then? What is mindset all about? Let’s break the word into two – Mind + Set. What’s there in our mind? Thoughts, beliefs, what more? Experiences. What’s a set? Something, which is well-defined. So, what mindset is? A set of our own thoughts, beliefs, and experiences. Now the work of our mind is to think and make us act. Hence, it does so and our mindset is what acts as a catalyst to it. Our mind acts on the basis of our “own” thoughts, beliefs, experiences, prejudices, and what not. And now I ask you, aren’t the outcome of the results of our actions? And that’s what makes the difference! The way we perceive a given situation and then the way we respond! Everything translates into mindset! So, here’s the secret code, change your mindset and excellence is there for you. Simple! Yet, we don’t achieve excellence. Actually, we achieve it so many times, yet we don’t realize it perhaps. The difference – I will once again say, Mindset.

Let us now understand a very typical aspect of our mindset – its formation! How often are we fascinated by the luxurious lifestyle of let’s say – our celebrity. Think of your Bollywood crush for instance. No doubt we are! The point is, in this ever-growing world of social media, we do fancy someone or the other! It’s natural, okay! Don’t worry! It may be one of your friends, your neighbor, his son, anyone in your relative, or anyone else. We feel that we have to be like them.

Let me give you my anecdote here. So, on the first day of college, I met a senior. Very persuasive, smart, good-looking, so much so that you want to be that kind of person. At this point, what developed in my mind was a fascination. Now, this wasn’t backed by my goals, my desires, my interests, and my passion! Yet, I started to act upon it! I wanted to join the college society he was in, I wanted to know how that person made friends and what not. I did join the same society, acting upon his advice. Yet, what followed was simply one thing, STRESS! And obviously, I didn’t like the work, and hence wasn’t able to achieve anything out there. Yet, I continued with it. For one long year! Finally, the seniors kicked me out and yes, I was relieved. Now, most people stop here. Imagine one year into college, you do not find a good society, you do not have a lot of friends, you are not that talkative. What happens at this point in time, our mind takes us into a “fixed” zone. We say, “Okay that’s the way it is”, and that often stops us from taking a different experience.

However, I felt that I needed to give it one more shot! Okay, I joined a bad society, (by “bad”, I mean “bad” for me), but okay, still I learned something! If nothing, then I at least learned how not to shape my mindset in a certain way, that is against my interest. So, I introspected, as to what’s left. It suddenly struck my mind, that I was a good CR. (CR – is Class Representative) and here, I saw an opportunity. I felt that I needed to talk to people. I needed to interact and I can interact well, so I decided to take it to the next level! I felt that I could help my friends, my classmates in college and thus, I decided to join the Student Council, and I know, I did well!

If I reflect today, what enabled me to do well was just one thing – my mindset. It changed from what I would say, based upon my fascination to the one based upon my inner desire to just talk and interact with people – yes, it was such a small desire, a simple one! And that’s what it ideally should be for its “your” mindset and so, it only can and should be based solely on your own desires, beliefs, and passion. You can’t let the society around you control “your own” mindset, say it with a sense of ego! Own it!

What I said above, was simply reflected here and I felt sharing it:

“Jahan hain, wahin ka maza lete hain”. It itself speaks volumes about what our mindset should be. Rather than, thinking on what is lost, we need to focus on what is left. What’s the best can we make of the situation in which we are? Simply, what I did in the Student Council was – that I just wrote some good messages to people, that was floated all across my college. People asked me queries, I resolved them, that’s all I did. Simple things right?

Yet, I say it with a bit of authority that I did in the best way I could. I enjoyed it and did it in the best possible way I could. In the process, I learned many lessons, and one post is just too short for those to be written down. So, simply put, develop a mindset based upon your own beliefs and desires and find your passion, that’s when you will start loving, even the smallest of the task that you do.

Now, one thing about following your passion and changing your mindset is, that people will call you crazy. Literally, they would. On your face! And the bitter truth is, you won’t have a counter argument. LOL! Well, that’s the way it is. As they say, “Everything’s fair in love and war, be it the love for your passion.” So, one thing you can do to counter these people calling you crazy is – simply acknowledge and ignore!

Next, once we follow our passion, every smallest feat achieved is a success. If you ask, what my first success in college life was, I would say, it was me giving myself a dare to go on the stage, unprepared and speak up an introduction of the speakers, without even knowing their names! Yet, I did it. Somehow, gave up my stage fear. Gave up my fear of addressing an audience. That was a success. I admire that, even today. Prima facie, it appears to be nothing. Yet, I hold it in very high regard. The same will be the case for you, enjoy these small feats of success and excellence. Excellence is not always achieved, when we reach our end goal, it is also achieved when we accomplish the first step, towards reaching our destination! So, never live in the oblivion of your end goal, rather cherish every step you took towards reaching that end goal.

Lastly, what to do when it feels like, “I have no passion.” LOL! So, I have been talking about mindset all this time and shaping it up as per your passion, but passion is nowhere to be found! So simply, find your passion. Okay, not your passion, what do you love to do, in such a way that it gives you intellectual satisfaction. Find that out. To find that out, start doing different activities all the time, try and do everything and anything! And find out your source of happiness. You will find one, for sure.

So, finally to conclude, to change that one thing that always makes the difference and make yourself future-ready, find your passion, celebrate the success in every single step you accomplish towards your end goal, take on challenges and commit mistakes and finally believe that you will achieve the desired result one day.

Looking forward to your story of excellence in the comments!! Stay tuned for more!