Inspirational Writings # 1

Fight One More Round ~ James J. Corbett

Fight one more round. When your feet are so tired that you have to shuffle back to the center of the ring, fight one more round. When your arms are so tired that you can hardly lift your hands to come to guard, fight one more round. When your nose is bleeding and your eyes are black and you are so tired that you wish your opponent will crack you one in the jaw and put you to sleep, fight one more round- remembering that the man who always fight one more round is never whipped.

Writings of Great Men # 1

LIFE ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Man comes into this world without his consent and leaves against his will. On earth he is misjudged and misunderstood. In his infancy he is an angel, in boyhood he is a devil, in manhood he is a fool. If he has a wife and family he is a chum. If he is a bachelor, he is inhuman and mean. If he enters a public house he is a drunkard. If he does not, he is temperance and fanatic and a miser. If he is poor man, he has no brains. If he is rich, he has all the luck in the world and also a crook. If he has brains, he is considered too smart. If he gives to church, he is a hypocrite.If he doesn't, he is a sinful man. If he gives to charity or does a good thing, he does for advertisement. If he does not, he is stingy and mean. When he comes to this world everybody wants to kiss him but before he leaves everyone wants to kick him. If he dies too young, then there is a great future in front of him. If he lives too long to a ripe old age, everybody hopes he has made a will. It is therefore impossible to please everyone, so do your duty and be fearless. Use your own common sense and even if you do a mistake it is better than doing nothing. Keep smiling, nobody wants to hear about your troubles, they have wagon loads of their own. So this is life.

CONFIDENCE

We make way for the man who boldly pushes past us - Christian Bovee

Often the only thing between a life of mediocrity and greatness is the amount of confidence in a man. Of all qualities that is needed to achieve success, confidence in oneself is the most important quality to have. Look at all the champions we know, past and present, the one quality they all share is confidence in their ability.

Goethe wrote, “ Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid.”

A person without confidence will never attempt anything that is worthwhile. He will stand by and miss out on the fun, opportunities and growth that life has to offer.
The one factor that gnaws and chews on a person’s confidence is fear. When a person is exposed to too much negative experiences, his confidence takes a beating and if he does not pause and put things in proper perspective, fear sets in. This fear, left unchecked will grow the next time a person goes through a negative experience. The more fear a person has the less confidence he will have in himself and lesser confidence the greater the fear is. This vicious cycle, if not stopped, can drive to self destruction.

In order to have greater self confidence, fear must first be destroyed. The two steps strategy to eliminate fear as proposed Dr. David J. Schwartz in his book “The Magic of Thinking Big” are:

1. Isolate fear. Identify exactly what is the fear and write it down. Analyze it and look at it

objectively.

2. Take action. Do the necessary. Every fear has some kind remedy.

Tips on building self confidence.

1. Accept yourself. Know and love yourself.

2. Believe in yourself. Affirm yourself and flush out negative thoughts.

3. Acknowledge your accomplishment. Keep a success journal.

4. Reward yourself. Treat yourself to something nice each time pulling through a challenge.

5. Speak up

6. Visualize your goals

7. Do not compare yourself with others

8. Always make eye contact

9. Have proper perspective of people and things

10. Be prepared

11. Walk a little faster

12. Be a front seater

13. Be a expert in something

14. Depersonalise failure. Lo0k upon your failure as a step forward.

15. Smile big

SELF IMAGE

Self Image is the picture we hold in our mind about ourselves. This picture is drawn by our experience in life, our success and failures, the thoughts we have of ourselves and by how others react to us. Zig Ziglar in his book, See You at the Top, points out, “You cannot consistently perform in a manner that is inconsistent with the way you see yourself.”

The world is a reflection of ourselves. How others treat us is determined by how we treat ourselves. How we treat ourselves is in turn determined by how we see ourselves. When we have a healthy self image, we treat ourselves with love and respect. We believe that we deserve to be respected and trusted and others will respond accordingly.

There are a myriad of factors that contributes to a person having a poor self image. The most common factors are as below:

1. We live in a negative world

2. Being unjustly ridiculed by friends, teachers or others in authority

3. Exposed to exaggerated series of negative statements

4. Equating failure in behaviour with as failure of self

5. Unrealistic and unfair comparison with others

This world, at times, can be really tough and cruel. We fight many battles outwardly and inwardly everyday. We must keep our chins up and always see ourselves as winners.

It is of great importance to our self development and future success that we maintain a positive outlook about ourselves. The list below indicates that our self image needs some improvement.

1. Negative self talk

2. Failure to give compliments

3. Failure to receive compliments

4. Inability to give and enjoy affection

5. Constantly comparing ourselves with others

6. Feeling guilty most of the time

7. Not asking for what we want

We must continuously work on maintaining a healthy self image. Listed below are just several ways that can help us boost our self image:

1. Always talk good about yourself

2. Accept and give compliments

3. Praise yourself. Acknowledge your value

4. Treat your body well

5. Treat yourself and others well

6. Keep good people close by

7. Read inspiring books

8. Always maintain a positive outlook on yourself

9. Forgive and forget

10. Focus on what you can do and not what you can’t

PROACTIVE

The word proactive was first used by Dr. Viktor Frankl in his 1946 book Man's Search for Meaning.

Proactive as given by Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, Fourth Edition, 2005 :

proactive - adj ; making things happen or change rather than reacting to events

Proactive as given by Meriam-Webster Online Dictionary :

1[1pro-] : relating to, caused by, or being interference between previous learning and the recall or performance of later learning

2[2pro- + reactive] : acting in anticipation of future problems, needs, or changes
— pro·ac·tive·ly adverb

Stephen Covey in his excellent book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, names proactive as Habit # 1. Proactive is not merely taking the initiave. Proactive means:

1. We are responsible for our own lives

2. To act and not wait to be acted upon

3.To acknowledge mistakes, correct it and learn from it.

A proactive person puts himself in charge of his life. He realises that there is gap between stimulus and response. He is driven by values. When there is an obstacle of any kind in front of a proactive person, he does not wait for the government, his employer, his wife or his neighbour's mother- in -law to move it. He works on removing the obstacle himself or at least try circumventing it.

A proactive person puts his total effort on things that are under his direct control using the four human endowments which are:

1. Self Awareness

2. Conscience

3. Creative Imagination

4. Independent Will

A proactive person makes a promise and strives to keep it, sets a goal and works to achieve it. He does not get distracted or loses his motivation when things doesn't go his way due to circumstances beyond his control. Unlike a reactive person, a proactive person is the captain of his ship and he decides his own destination.

The spirit of proactive action for me is best captured by the quote below.

" Do your best in whatever you do,

with whatever you have,

wherever you are"

~ George Bernard Shaw