What do you Justify?

To learn about self-development, all of us attend various Training programs, Meditation sessions, Spiritual seminars etc.…. But still most of us remain unchanged in-spite of desire to change and develop ourselves… So the question is:

What is the missing link for self-development?

Let’s find out the answer with an example: During a coaching session, one of my friend Alok shared that he wants to change his habit of shouting at his subordinates. He shared that this behavior makes him feel uncomfortable and he just don’t want to be like that…

Now let’s take a situation where one of his sub-ordinate did some mistake and Alok shouted at him in front of others. When I asked Alok about this act, He told me that “His sub-ordinate was rigid and he was pressed due to project deadlines, so shouting was only option in that situation".

Well….in most situations we try to justify ourselves instead of accepting our mistakes. In this example Alok's response pertaining to Project timeline, rigidness of subordinate was a Justification instead of Alok’s desired behaviour (not shouting)…

“The biggest missing link for self- development is Lack of self-introspection”

You can apply this missing link to any part of life eg not getting up early morning due to weather conditions, always reaching late in office due to heavy traffic, eating junk food due to Lack of time etc…

My Mentor, Professor Manish Singhal at XLRI describe learning as “sustained change in behaviour”. If there is no visible sustained change in behaviour, means we haven't learnt.

May be Introspection instead of justification of our mistakes will make us learn our desired behavior and that would be our starting point for self-development….