Happiness

The ultimate aim of everyone is to be happy. An individual works hard to make money so that he/she can fulfill their needs. It will make them happy. Children buy toys to play with them and be happy. People travel far and wide experiencing lot of difficulties and spending lot of money to be happy. Students work very hard to get good marks and eventually get good jobs. With these good jobs they think they will be happy.

So pursuit of happiness is the main aim of life for everyone. We think happiness is a destination. Actually happiness must come through the journey. The human’s destination is only death. Therefore each moment that you enjoy must bring you happiness. These moments we spend doing something or the other. All our efforts must therefore be carried out in such a fashion that the bye product is happiness.

Lesson No 1. An adult must choose a profession of liking. If however it is not possible, then he/she must start enjoying the profession they are in. It may look impossible but it is not. Since most of your conscious time you spend on your work therefore it is necessary to enjoy your work. You can also enjoy your routine provided you decide so. Therefore, you should enjoy your bath, use best shampoo that you can afford and the other hygiene products. Be happy to look at your body; admire it. Be happy about it. If your find any deficiencies, don’t worry. Now you have a challenge to remove these. It will give you an opportunity to be successful in your endeavor. Let me tell you every success brings you happiness. When you travel (whichever is your mode) you come across different people, situations, interactions etc. there is something to learn each of these. Start learning. The moment your start learning, you will enjoy even your discomforts during your travel. The learning is an experience which gives immense happiness. You must be ready to recognize and enjoy it.

A couple of days ago, I decided to find out if there are any modern, practical happiness guides available in the market. While I’ll continue my search, I propose to share my experiences and those of lots of students. Incidentally, my students are mostly working professionals from various fields and not rarely they are elder to me.

As a first step I would like you to make a list of your enemies. I mean any enemies of your happiness. They could be people; could be tasks or your un-happening projects. In my next posting I shall tell you how to defeat your enemies of happiness.

Thanks for reading.

Wani Yoga & Third Eye Chakra

In my last posting, I had named the 7 Chakras which are important in Yoga Philosophy. The 5^th Chakra or the Throat Chakra concerns about communications which we had discussed. Wani Yoga is also closely connected with the 6^th or Third Eye Chakra.

The Third Eye Chakra is associated with the sight as seen both physically and mentally. When I say seeing mentally, I mean what kind of message is given to your mind by what you see. So it is related to your vision. Your perspective and conduct in day to day life normally is controlled by your vision. The Third Eye Chakra is located between the two, and slightly above, the eyes.

The primary issues involved with Wani Yoga are the control that your vision exercises on what you say and how you say it. Evidently, the content is extremely important. If there is any imbalance in third eye chakra the content is likely to be lopsided. The properly balanced third eye chakra will enable you to speak effectively using your wisdom, the connection to the higher self, your imagination and what you want to achieve during the communication.

The imbalance in the third eye chakra will affect your thinking. You will be confused. You will be indecisive and feel intellectually stagnated. You will hardly have any intuition and your confidence will be on the decline. On the other hand when the third eye chakra is properly balanced you will develop the following abilities:

1. Ability to concentrate and think clearly on an issue at hand.
2. You will able to detach yourself and not be emotionally involved so as to impair your judgment. When you witness a situation without involvement, you are able to exercise detachment which is so necessary to lead a happy life.
3. You will be able to trust yourself more than ever. The experience that you have in your life will provide you an inner wisdom which is extremely helpful in all that you do.
4. More than that you will develop a gut feeling. This will help you take to take fast decisions by identifying your priorities. Needless to say that any action has the possibility of going wrong however remote it may be. In fact when we analyze minutely before taking a decision this can happen even more frequently                                                                    

So the correction or balancing of the third eye chakra is extremely important. Simple exercises in Wani Yoga enable you to achieve the chakra balance and thus develop the above abilities. These are extremely valuable and help in all your projects.

Thanks for reading.

Wani Yoga & Throat Chakra

Study and practice of Yoga is incomplete without understanding the importance of the 7 Chakras. These Chakras are the real energy centers. Wani Yoga particularly impressive the practices involved in balancing Throat Chakra and the Third Eye Chakra. Today I will talk about the importance of Throat Chakra in Wani Yoga.

It may be necessary to give a brief introduction of these 7 Chakras in order to appreciate their importance in the life. The 7 Chakras are described as under.

1. Root Chakra is concerned about the safety of the human being.
2. Sacral Chakra refers to the relationships and creativity of the person concerned.
3. Navel Solar Plexus Chakra describes the personality and will power of the person concerned.
4. Heart Chakra Heart Chakra indicates the love and compassion that the person practices in his/her life.
5. Throat Chakra is responsible for expression and communication of the individual.
6. Third Eye Chakra shows the development of the individual to have good gut feeling or intuition
7. Crown Chakra is the ultimate destination of the individual. This chakra concerned his/her spiritual development.

Talking about the Throat Chakra if there is any imbalance the person will be effective with lack of expression. He/she will suffer from the inability to express himself/herself. A feeling of stagnation will be the next problem suffered by the individual. The person might become habituated to holding on to unexpressed angle in tern the attitude will turn negative.

The imbalance of Throat Chakra will also bring a feeling of despondency in the individual – helplessness to make them heard. Further the person made be afraid of speaking. Speaking to a group of person effectively is not at all possible for a person who’s Throat Chakra is not balanced. Besides, the person will suffer from failure to find the right words while speaking.

Wani Yoga ensures that regular simple speech exercises along with breathing techniques are helpful in bringing back the balance of the Throat Chakra. The exercise prescribed in this module are simple to understand and easy to practice. Speech is an extremely important aspect of the human personality. It is therefore necessary that whenever any individual suffers from the blemishes described above, the effects of same may be mitigated by practicing Wani Yoga.

In my next posting I’ll talk about the problems suffered due to imbalance of the Third Eye Chakra. I’ll also describe how the Wani Yoga can help in bringing back the balance.

Thanks for reading.

 

Importance of Time Management

The only asset that has been equally distributed to all human being is ‘Time’. Sadly its importance in life is not realized by everyone. But the people who utilize time fully are the ones who are leaders in their respective fields. In fact a good leader will have time for everything that is important to his enterprise.

The first step to utilize this fleeting asset is to understand time and how one uses it. The best way to do this is to have periodic time log. Time log will tell you specifically how you spend your time. It will also clearly show where you disburse time more than necessary and where you squeeze more activities due to paucity of leftover time.

Let’s take an example of the student giving an important exam. Often times we find the student who doesn’t score marks as per expectation is the one who is unable to make the best use of available time. He/she spends more time on some questions in the beginning. The later questions where adequate time is not available suffer and therefore bring lesser marks.

Likewise in life if we don’t prioritize and plan time; time does not give its full value. In fact a leader should divide his time for various groups of activities in the ratio as under.

Group A	Routine Activities	15 %
Group B	Activities concerning ongoing projects	25%
Group C	Personal development, planning new projects and such enhancement activities	60%

Normally it is seen that routine activities takes 60%, ongoing project 25% and new developments only 15%. This is a serious flaw which the leader should correct by whatever it takes.

Some time ago I had read a novel named ‘Time must have a stop’. The characters suffer because time does not stop.

The lesson is learned but through a very hard way.

Procrastination and indecision are the two main culprits largely responsible for misuse of time. A leader obviously cannot afford to do this. Therefore he/she must be very decisive. Procrastination, word itself should not be available in his book. Prioritizing should be a matter of habit in all aspects of life be it work, home, hobby or social interactions.

Furthermore, everyone needs to empower himself/herself regarding management of time through training periodically.

                                Modern time planners.

Thanks for reading.

Interpersonal Skills

The first thing that we must understand when we think of honing our interpersonal skills is that we must make useful assumptions. Assumptions determine the way we behave. In fact our assumptions play an important role in determining behavior. In turn behavior produces experiences. Surprising though it may appear, experiences reinforce the initial assumptions. Therefore whatever you assume to be true, you act as if it’s true and you look for proof. The challenges is to make a useful assumption rather than a limiting once. Useful assumption gives you an informed prospective on your own behavior and the behavior of others. This way you can lead to a worthwhile outcome. Otherwise you will inhibit your creativity and resourcefulness to trigger negative reactions in you.

The next important point is that you must assume positive intent. Normally your conduct on any project in which others are also involved is based on your intent about the project. If you are looking for fast completion then your focus will be on action. Here you’re likely to undermine the participation of other people around you. This may result in their thinking that you have a pushy behavior.

When accuracy is your priority, you will slow down things in order to look for finer details. Here you may tend to hinder action of others. This might lead to their feeling that you are being negative.

Sometimes you may look for approval by someone. In this case you may put his/her need above your personal interest. You may be perceived as unreliable.

Lastly if gaining recognition drives you, you are likely to become excessively assertive. You would want to be seen, heard and recognized by the concerned people. And if it doesn’t happen, you are likely to lose temper, in which case you will be perceived as distracting and destructive.

Assuming positive intent will mean that you keep in mind all what has been said about and take decisions in your best interest.

The third important lesson in interpersonal skills is that you must know exactly what you want. Knowing your desired outcome is a fundamental key to a purposeful and productive interpersonal behavior.

The next important point the regarding interpersonal relations is that you must become an excellent listener. People want to be heard. It’s possible that you may get to know what the person wants to say and start speaking. This should never be done. Never ever, deprive anyone of his right to express. If the person is important and you want to build relation then, you must listen to go deep. A leader or a manager who listens attentively attracts people. They hold him in high esteem.

Next, you mind your language. Language is extremely important for making or breaking relations. Choose your words wisely. One wrong word may upset a person for a lifetime. One participant (a university professor) during one of my workshops remarked that our tongue is very strong and heals itself very fast. But the wounds the tongue creates in the minds of others, sometimes don’t ever heal during a lifetime.

Further, one must remember that relationships are about perceptions. Not only you should have appropriate regards for others but it’s necessary that they must perceive the same. A CEO of a multinational company had said that you must be good to others, but it is equally important that they realize and appreciate that you are good.

Each person is an individual. There are likely to be differences but also some similarities. So whenever you want to build up relations you must start identifying similarities first. Then try to bridge the gap so far differences are concerned. And, all these actions should be taken in good humor. Keeping your wits about you is essential. It’s difficult for people to tolerate highly emotional and volatile persons.

Last but not the least, it must be said that whenever you find differences and you want to influence the person concerned, do that in stages. Don’t try to achieve everything in a jiffy. When you work in stages, both you and the other person get time to think, contemplate and see the advantage of working together.

Thanks for reading.

Responsibilities of the Manager

A manager must consider himself/herself as a facilitator for the people he/she manages. Manager must ensure that all the needs of people managed are properly met. Peter Drucker says “the manager must do things right, the leader must do right things.” While there is no doubt that a good leader may also be a good manager but it is important to know the difference between a manager and a leader. Today I’ll discuss the qualities and short comings of the two i.e. the manager and the leader. We must understand and appreciate their respective roles.

1. The manager provides to the team members all that may be needed for the performance of their respective roles. For any shortfalls in this context the manager must consider he/she responsible. Such shortfalls are bound to affect performance.                         
2. Developing a mechanism to monitor that there is very little tolerance in the efficacy of the duties performed by the team members, is manager’s duty. That means the work must go ahead with as much accuracy as is possible.                                               
3. Productivity depends upon aligning various efforts of the team members. It also depends upon ensuring that the differences emerging out off the various cultural backgrounds do not interfere with the productivity. It requires thorough understanding on the part of the manager habits of the different members of the team, of their characteristic traits due to the cultural backgrounds and also the working style.                                                      
4. All the members of the team need to be trained properly for the seamless progress of efforts for achieving team’s goals. Often times the members of the team may not indicate any development need due to whatever reason. Therefore It is the duty of the manager to identify these development needs and arrange for the appropriate training.
5. The next job that the manager has on hand is to create right environment conducive for better performance. It will depend upon the goals and various situational factors. Due to the constant changes in the market the manger needs to be alert and responsive to these changes.
6. Some of the members of the team may even require coaching for coming up to a certain satisfactory level. Here again it is the duty of the manger to identify the persons and their needs and organized coaching to meet the situational challenges.                               

Since the business environment is very competitive, it is but necessary that the manager needs to leave up to the challenges and face these squarely. This will be good for the manger, for the team as well as for the organization.

Thanks for reading.