An Unconscious ability

Just yesterday my mom pointed out on the call that you are lazy, you don’t like doing household chores, you don’t want to wake up early etc, in a stern tone, referring to one of my current crisis of being able to manage my day. This example is the source to this article honestly. The moment someone says that to me, it will make me angry because what mom told is totally opposite of my regular routine. I wake up at 6.30am, I workout, I do most of the work myself without being dependent. Although one part of me wanted to defend myself, BUT! I paused for a second, and thought, why did she say that. Where is she coming from. Because she knows me, she cant be entirely wrong. It took 2-3 hours precisely, but I figured out what she meant. In a nutshell, I was doing good, but not good enough to manage my day. In order to manage everything, I had to wake up even more early, I had to do 3-4 additional tasks of what I am currently doing. So, there indeed was a gap. Today, I tried to follow what she told me to, and Bingo! It worked.

So this could only happen, because I gave mom that benefit of doubt, that she may be right. Because I paused for a moment and realized there is a room for betterment. That will happen when we stop being too confident that we are always right. I believe we all have this ability which we should put into use.

This is a very prominent quality I have noticed in myself, my friends, relatives or the people I know. That we don’t like being told, we immediately get defensive on being pointed out. We are so comfortable and confident in our regular regimes, that we avoid disturbance. We are so much about ourselves than others, that the moment somebody has a different opinion/ or points us saying hey what you are doing is wrong, we immediately become defensive.

I think this is failing to look more on the outer, listen, absorb of what others are saying. I see this on a day to day basis, being a very talkative person myself I had a big realization last week, that I find myself silent in 9/10 situations. In retrospection, I realized I have started observing more than wanted to be observed. I have started listening more than wanted to be heard. I have picked up the outer approach more than an inward one. I notice many people around me who only want to be heard, I can say that because I know all their stories, and I don’t think anyone knows mine. Due to this, my learnings from experiences have exponentially increased. By only talking 24*7 I realized I had my doors shut to learnings. Today, I have changed, although I still haven’t lost my core. Given a chance I will crack a joke (mostly bad) wherever I want to talk, I will definitely talk. But I have realized now there is more value to your words, there are rich conversations, and better decisions.

Quoting another example of mine- there have been instances in the past where my friends have told me I react too soon on being told. I never agreed. For example- If I was told, I am a bad communicator* my immediate reflex would be- NO WAYS! Are you mad? This is because I firmly believe that I am a talker. Or I converse well. What I realized later, after reflecting was- I don’t ever convey/communicate my true feelings, I don’t communicate small things, if I am not okay with something, I don’t say it. I take the silent road in order to avoid discomfort and arguments. This creates a gap in relationships, I can say this with personal experience.

Quoting more of my experiences, I have come across multiple instances in the past when people don’t like it when they are told they are doing it the wrong way, and the right way to do so is XYZ. There is very less belief that there is a scope for betterment. One of my friends, plays badminton on a daily basis. She is getting better at the sport. She researches, watches matches, follows Viktor Axelson, PV Sindhu, Saina Nehwal, Lee Chong. There was an instance when a new player with us happened to tell her (when she was losing) that her stance is wrong. My friend, being very good at the game, said to me, “ Isko bada pata hai kal ki aayi hui”.

We laughed it off, but when I thought about it, I feel a lot of us unknowingly also rely on the credibility of the source. Where is the correction coming from? I mean, lets face it, she wouldn’t have reacted the same if PV Sindhu corrected her. :P

Its amusing how I, or her, didn’t even stop to think for a second, that maybe they have a point. Or maybe there is a little room for correction/betterment. I think most of these problems can solve by one thing, which my previous article was about (if you haven’t read it :p)- and that is REFLECTION.

I think most of us would be able to connect this to our day-to-day life, even when it comes to parenting. I know I am not big enough to talk about this, but I would like to say, many times our parents have a pre set belief that we will always stay kids and they know better. I agree to disagree, because I feel it depends. They obviously know it all, they have experienced the world, we are still learning. But, there could be a lot of scenarios where we know something better than them and it can only be enlightened if they are patient enough to understand that there may be a possibility of them being wrong. For example- My dad is a businessman, the old methods which have proven successful for him, might not necessarily be successful in this era. Considering we are living in the social media world, where Instagram is the home for few of the world’s richest people, in today’s generation an online store stands equal or high chances of success rate than a physical store. Which is somehow difficult for the older generation to understand in the first go. This can be solved if there is a neutrality in absorbing other’s opinions, than becoming defensive in the first go! This also could be because older people subconsciously believe youngsters know very little, and are mostly wrong. Again- credibility of the source questioned.

“If you have an open mind, you can develop so many things” -Sachin Tendulkar.

?I don’t know how many of you may have heard of this amazing incident in Sachin’s life. In a country like India where everyone from a panwala to CEO has an opinion on how to play cricket, it is difficult for such a legendary cricketer to keep his ears open for opinions. There was this incident when Sachin was facing a batting flaw and he kept getting hit on elbow guard which hurt him. He was in Chennai at Taj when a waiter who came to serve coffee to his room asked to give him an advice if he didn’t mind. He told Sachin his bat swing is affected because of his elbow guard which is restricting him.

Sachin took his advice and turned out the guy was 100% right. That is what obstructed him and then he improved in his batting and scored very well in his next matches. Sachin said, he was the only one person in the world who figured it out!

Source for reference- https://thefederal.com/sports/how-waiter-guruprasads-advice-helped-sachin-improve-his-batting/

If a legendary cricketer who holds the record of being the highest run scorer of all times in international cricket, having notched up 15,921 runs in test matches, 18,426 in ODI’s with a 100 international centuries (sorry if the numbers are wrong Sachin :p), can be so open minded on taking advice from a common man and reflect it back, I feel like successfully negating that advices/corrections can be only taken by a credible resource. NO, the source could be anyone. The only difference is how we stop, think about it, absorb and reflect by respecting every opinion that comes our way, rather than reflexively reacting negatively.

Thankyou! :)