What is my greatest obstacle to success?

I’ve been reading  Jonathan Mead’s blog for sometime now, and the ideas and questions he posts are a source of inspiration. He’s currently doing a series on “Making your dreams become reality” , and in his latest post, he  asks the question “What is the greatest obstacle to success?”.  In this post, I’ll try to explain it as it applies to me.

I’m a very ambitious person in all walks of life (,and there’re times when this ambition borders on delusions of grandeur). There’re a couple of reasons for this:

• A desire to contribute something significant to the world before I die. 
• A belief that if I’m not successful, people will not love me.

I’m down with the first one (for now), and am thankful I’m gifted with it. It’s one of the reasons why I started this blog. But the second one is one of my most restraining beliefs. This stems from a low self-esteem due to a lot of things which were said and done to me over the course of my childhood and adoloscent years. This gives rise to 2 very interesting and amusing fears which seem contradictory at one level:

• Fear of failure – This is obvious. When I start out with something, I’m focused on the outcome, and the adulations and acceptance I’ll recieve when I succeed. I don’t think about going through an enjoyable process, and the fact that the journey is what matters.  Consequently I WANT to finish it ASAP, and do a mind blowing job of it; I make mistakes, the process becomes absolutely shit, and  I lose motivation.
• Fear of success – This is the more exciting one. Due to my low self-esteem, I have also developed the belief that I do not deserve good things in my life. So I’ve a tendency to screw things up when I come close to finishing them, which validates & feeds both my lack of self-worth, and my fear of success. See the vicous cycles here.

All of this can be summed up into the following:

• “I’m not good enough. I’m indequate.”
• “I want to be loved.”

PS: Inspite of this, I’m living a life of my concious choice. I have had the intelligence to not get stuck in dead jobs, or relationships. I love what I do, I’ve a great circle of family and friends, and I nurture myself. So no, I’m not frustrated.

How do you handle fear?

(This is a rough draft. This is part 2 of a 2 part series. Part 1 is available here.)

In the previous post I talked about 2 widely different scenarios in which fear erupts. Here I’ll talk about MY solution to deal with it.  I highlighted the my because this currently works for me. If you something constructive to add, I’m all ears. But if you want to argue, I’ll delete your comment and block you. I love constructive criticism; I hate shitheads.

In both scenarios, I mentioned that the underlying theme is – fear means something threatens your survivability. Now this threat could be real, or this threat could be due to my perception of reality. 

In scenario 2, the threat was real and I don’t think I’ve to explain it anymore.

But scenario 1 is more interesting. The fear may be primal (I haven’t explored the origin of fear in this case), but how you react to it depends  a lot on your perception of reality. An AFC (Average Frustrated Chump in pickup community) usually has a messed up perception of reality which results in his low self esteem. Consequently, he percieves almost anything and everything as a threat to his chances with the girl (hell, the girl and the guy could be cousins!). But a PUA (Pick Up Artist) usually has the right set of perceptions, and consequently he doesn’t let the fear grow. Remember I mention that he doesn’t let the fear grow, not that he doesn’t have fear. (I’m not a PUA, but I’ve heard this from a lot of them). 

As you see, it’s our perceptions of reality which determine whether we let fear grow or not. Perceptions stem from our beliefs. So a false belief will lead to wrong perceptions. In the case of the AFC, his false belief (which most probably was inculcated in him since childhood) is that he’s not good enough, and nobody will notice him. This false belief leads to most of the mess he’s in.

But not all beliefs are false. If the baby is crying, then something is most probably wrong. This belief is true.

So to deal with fear I’ve started using the following algorithm:

1. Is the fear originating from a fact? (For example, scenario 2) If yes, take the appropriate action to deal with it.
2. Else Is the fear originating from a true belief? In this case the fear is hinting at something, and you need to deal with the event causing the fear. (the baby crying incident)
3. Else the fear is originating from a false belief. In this case, try to determined how much truth is present in the belief, and then change it so that it’s based on only truth.

Try it out. It has been working for me.

Is fear good or bad?

(This is a rough draft. This is Part 1 of 2 part series.)

Let me create a scenario here (which happens very often): You’re sitting in your new class when a really cute girk walks in. Your heart skips a beat, and you feel butterflies in the pit of the stomach. And then you see the hottie walking up behind her and smile at her. And that’s it – you start feeling nervous, feeling threatened, anger rises in your system, and you want to either run the fuck out of the class, or lunge at him. 

Let me create another scernario: You’re driving your car along an empty road, listening to really nice country music, and enjoying a scenic drive. Suddenly this sports car cuts in front of you. What happens next: Your pupils dilate, your heart rate shoots up, and you instictively slam the brakes. As soon as you stop, you notice you’re shivering, and anger is rising in your sytem.

2 very different scenarios but with a common thread – fear.  In the first case it was your fear which caused all the mental distress and in the second case, it saved your ass. So the question which had been bothering me is: Is fear good or bad?

So I decided to do some research and find out more about it. From all that I’ve read, observed and understood  about fear (and this is information I’ve collated over many years, so I don’t have links), it seems like fear is the a primary emotion which surfaces when one’s survival is threatened resulting in a fight-or-flight syndrome. 

Let’s take scenario 2: the reason you slammed the brakes is because experience has created this fear that if you don’t do it, you’ll die. 

But does the same happen in scenario 1? Very much so is what I think. The moment you saw the cute girl (or guy, whichever works for you), you felt a primal attraction towards her. Don’t beat yourself about this, it’s hard coded into our genetic structure. And you want to be with her, spend time with her, procreate etc. (Again hard wired into our genetic structure). But the arrival of the other guy threatens this dream, and consequently threatens your survivability. In this case, the development of fear most probably happens at a much slower rate. But the underlying process is similar.

So coming back to the question? Is fear good or bad? I think it’s good. Else we’d move around like a bunch of 1 year olds who find the idea of sticking their fingers into electrical sockets very exciting. But then why does so much of the world’s problems stem from fear? It has to do with the way we understand and deal with fear, rather than fear itself. I think if fear was such a bad thing, nature would’ve have eliminated (or atleast mitigated) it in so many millions of years of evolution.

Hello world!

I haven’t blogged in a long time. I still have access to my other blog but all that’s in there is from an another era altogether. There’re 2 reasons as to why I don’t want to blog there:

1. It’s not an anonymous blog, and I want this to be anonymous. Why? I really don’t know yet.
2. But the second reason is the more compelling one – that blog is the rambling of an angry young kid, angry at the world, and angry at himself. I have been working hard for the past couple of years to get away from it and I don’t want to go back there anymore. 

So who am I? I don’t want to talk about my profession, the city I come from, the degrees I’ve collected, my interests etc. Instead I’d like to give a romantic answer . From my current understanding of myself, I think I am a:

• Warrior.
• Student of Life.
• Master of my own destiny. 

I’ve an understanding of the first and third but not yet second. And maybe I’ll talk about them in successive posts. Or maybe my posts will explain them better.

Why am I writing this blog? I think I’ve figured out my destiny. And this blog is one of the means of realizing my destiny. What I say here is something I share with quite a few people in my life. But I also understand that for me to learn and grow, I’ll need to share it with a much wider audience. I strongly believe I’ve something to contribute to this world. And limiting to only people I actually meet is doing injustice to my gift.

So what am I going to talk about? Humour (I can’t live without this), self growth, and sexuality (one of the most fascinating and confusing topics ever; I’m starting to realize that if people understood their sexuality, the world would be a better place) to begin with.