The world is fast moving and changing and thus changing are the work ways. Perceptions are changing as well. Perceptions of success, wealth, power, achievements, etc. are now completely different from what they were a few years back. I never remember asking my friends their school names and then guessing their social status / never was the weekend spent the measure of coolness / never was the brands of clothes the mark of one’s stature or vehicle or home the sign of wealth.
It all started with the Industrial Revolution. The world as we knew moved from contentment to greed, from satisfaction to extravagance, from all of us to me, from joint families to nuclear ones. Don’t get me wrong – I am not against progress, and I am also not touting the point of restraining self or companies.
The point I am making here is that somewhere in between all this progress we left charge of our own free will or life and ceded this control to the world. I am trying to pull your attention to the following facts:
A Study in 2016 showed that 43% of people with skewed BMI (Body Mass Index) are prone to the following:
- 30% with diabetic risk,
- 30% with hypertension risk and
- 46% high on stress.
This number is about 30% higher than a survey that it conducted in 2014 with a sample size of 30,000.
Imagine today’s numbers post COVID – 19.
I hope with the above-mentioned statistics – I have given enough of a loud shout out for some of you to ask, “What can we do now?”
I am no medical practitioner or healer or a spiritual Guru. But I am a firm believer that life is very simple, and we are the ones who complicate it. So, without much ado, let me give you my 5-point plan to take charge of your own life.
So, before we jump into this, the first and foremost is to have a frame of mind that is positive and patient. People say, “Expectations are always the root cause of misery”. I have an extra word to add to this – UNDUE. “Undue expectations are the root cause of all misery.”
If I always think negative and am expecting my life to always throw a positive surprise, the outcome is misery. If I walk for 10 mins / day and expect the weight machine to show wonders in one month, the outcome is misery. It is very important to have a patient and positive mindset. Results will only follow if the actions persist.
The 5 Points to take charge of your life are as follows:
HEALTH
In the world we live today – there are no free lunches. We are all traders. We trade one commodity for another. Commodities that we trade are Health, Money, Time, Power, Happiness, Independence, etc. Some trade their time for money, others trade their extra time for extra money. Some trade their health for money, then eventually trade money for health. The successful trader is the one who can earn more than he gives.
Is it worth being a billionaire and having no relatives or having amazing health but no money to survive? Both these are extreme examples, but life falls somewhere in between. To maintain your overall health (you will know why I said overall in the coming few sentences), work through the following queries.
The best thing is to have the following checklist:
- Do I get at least 1 hour / day for walking or Jog? – Physical Exercise.
- Do I get at least 4 hours / week for family – strictly no gadgets / No distractions? – Emotional Exercise.
- Do I get at least 30 minutes / day for reading or 3 hours / week? – Mental Exercise.
If the answer to the above queries is Yes – keep up with the same routine. If the answer is No, then make the necessary amends.
It is not only important to have physical strength, the life demands your best on all front Physical, Mental and Emotional.
To maintain or make changes, the second point is very astute and that is:
DISCIPLINE
This is key. Your mind, habits, other people, etc. will always try to pull you away from this course. The arguments will be many – Its just this one time / do it for me for this one time / you have been doing this for years, how can one change so fast? and another millions of excuses. All of these are just the mental inertia at play. You do not move if you get stuck with all of these. The only thing that you need to do is – “Do It.”
Just Get Up and Show Up and every time you do this, all the above voices in your mind start getting feeble and all of this becomes a small habit. Once you repeatedly fall into this habit, it becomes your lifestyle.
Discipline looks like a big demon with a long stick in its hands, but believe me, it’s your best friend. Once you tame this giant, you can be on roll to success in whatever you choose to do.
What doing does to your mental attitude is to make it positive. These small results make your mind look at the activity in a positive frame. This helps you to keep doing it. Eventually, your mind starts reinforcing the advantages of the activity and the inertia is converted into activity.
But does this happen in moments? No. you have to give it time, and that’s our next point.
TIME
Time, they say is the Best Healer. The context of this statement is different, but the result is proven. Any activity that you plan to master needs time. And time means not just hours but hours of undivided attention. Intelligence or skill are just tools, what really makes a huge difference to the results is time.
The number of times you practice an activity, makes you better in that. A Pilot is valued for the time he has flied a plane – Flying Hours they call it. Wine is valued by the time it has been shelved after it was brewed.
Time is an amazing leveler. Whether you are Prime Minister of India or President of the US or a clerk in a bank, everyone gets the same 24 hours every morning. We all get the gift of 24 hours every midnight. Now what we do in this time is completely at our own discretion.
Sure, some of the things need their own time: sleep – 8 hours / day, chores – 2 hours / day, food – 2 hours / day, work for money 8~10 hours / day. So, what’s left now is approximately 2 hours / day and approximately 12 ~24 hours at the weekend (depending on 5 or 6 days / week). So, it is 24 hours / week for the 6-day job and 36 hours / week for the 5 day / week job.
What makes the biggest difference in life is this – 24 ~ 36 hours / week. How do we spend it? I am sure the answers are relaxing, enjoying yourself with family, traveling, etc. but do we really do these all 52 weeks / year? No. Right? The majority of this time is wasted lazing on the couch surfing the TV / browsing the web without any focus / social media, umpteen other distractions.
If you intend to take charge of life, put a discipline into this 24 ~36 hours / week. Read 2 to 5 hours on any subject of your interest. If you do this every week, within a year you will be in the top 5% of experts on that subject. Learn life skill, Cooking, Stocks, Painting, Writing, anything that you love doing. If you keep practicing this skill, it can then be converted to a side income going ahead. This relieves you from the stress of working for money. Even if you do not want to convert this into money, it will change your perspective on life, and you will feel more satisfied and complete.
Spend some more hours with your kids. They teach us a lot about attitude, life, approach. It also helps build children’s mindset and instill values in them.
I agree that not every time is it going to be easy with this kind of a timetable, you will want to cheat or waver from the plan. That’s OK. The intention is not to have a mechanized life. The intention is to put content into the hollow hours to have a more fulfilling life.
Hope you are with me on the above 3 points. The above points are driven by our actions and activities, but are we the only one who’s in control of our lives? Maybe not and there are others as well.
Many other aspects have the handle to drive us crazy in our lives, my next point is to be grateful for the life itself.
GRATEFULNESS
What is gratefulness? Gratefulness is being thankful. Thankful for having a healthy life, healthy family, good job ( at certain times, even having a job itself.), a fair enough income.
Why gratefulness?
Can you be happy if one of your family members is not keeping well? Or you have financial issues? Or your kids are not doing well in their lives? Or everything else is good but you are born in a war-torn country? No. Right?
All these have the potential to drive you crazy even when all other puzzle pieces are in place. Correct?
What does gratefulness do?
The most important advantage is gratefulness keeps you leveled. It keeps you from being blinded that life will keep on being a cakewalk and there will be no hindrances. Every time you feel grateful about something, it also highlights the risks. How?
For example: you say, “I am grateful that today I have a healthy life.” This says tomorrow you may not have a healthy life. Unknowingly, you get your mind prepped for an unseen calamity. This keeps your stress in check.
Also, it keeps you kind to people around you, who may not be as blessed as you are. You remain empathetic towards society.
Finally, whatever you do, there are always chinks in the armor. No one, absolutely no one, has a picture-perfect life. This brings me to my last point in the quest of taking control and that is let – go.
LET – GO (ATTITUDE)
As ironic as it may sound with the title of this write-up, it is true. You need to practice the attitude of let – go.
I am not recommending surrendering; I only mean choosing your battles. Do not fight everything, fight where the cause is bigger, bigger than your ego, bigger than your biases, bigger than your judgement. No one is always right, but if people are fighting to prove they are right than the righteousness of their purpose, just let – go.
Let – go when the fight is taking the best of you & making you bad. Let – go when the burden of being right is greater than a sound sleep at night. Let – go when consuming will do more harm than avoiding. Sometimes, letting – go is being in control. So, take charge and let – go.
Hope my 5 Point – Take charge strategy is useful to you. I would like to hear from you if there are any other points I should include in this. Or any other aspect that I may have overlooked. Do write in comments and I will be happy to react.
beyondobvious.in 
Good one. Keep it up.
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