Self Motivation

By Vinod Bidwaik

There is a long debate on motivation. Managers, leaders are expected to motivate their employees. Companies introduce Rewards and Recognization schemes to motivate their employees. People are definitely motivated and such schemes also shows good results for time being. But still most of the times people are not enough motivated, they further expect something different.

Motivation is an urge to do something. Self-Motivation is an urge to drive oneself, which pushes him up towards his needs, wants and desires. Nobody can’t motivate you, you yourself has to motivate you. There are lot of theories on motivation. Lot of research on motivation is available on google, but still people are not motivated. People are still not 100% happy. Organizations will ensure the motivation of people, but why people expect external motivation. I do agree that people should be motivated, but where their self motivation goes?

The main problem is they are not aware what they want in their life. So eveybody should ask the question, why I need to be motivated..

Why Self Motivation?

Self- Motivation is needed for following purpose in life.

 We need to be self-Motivated because

a)    We have our goals in life and our goals have to be achieved by ourselves only.

b)   We have our dreams in life and our dreams have to be fulfilled by ourselves only.

c)     We have to make things happen and we ourselves has to do something to make it happened.

d)     To do all in life, we should know how our life going? Nobody will keep a track of our life; we ourselves have to keep the right track of our goals dreams and efforts.

If we are responsible for our actions and our life, the question is how external factors will keep us motivated?

This Is Good

An old story is told of a king in Africa who had a close friend with whom he grew up. The friend had a habit of looking at every situation that ever occurred in his life (positive or negative) and remarking, “This is good!”

One day the king and his friend were out on a hunting expedition. The friend would load and prepare the guns for the king. The friend had apparently done something wrong in preparing one of the guns, for after taking the gun from his friend, the king fired it and his thumb was blown off. Examining the situation the friend remarked as usual, “This is good!” To which the king replied, “No, this is NOT good!” and proceeded to send his friend to jail.

About a year later, the king was hunting in an area that he should have known to stay clear of. Cannibals captured him and took him to their village. They tied his hands, stacked some wood, set up a stake and bound him to the stake. As they came near to set fire to the wood, they noticed that the king was missing a thumb. Being superstitious, they never ate anyone that was less than whole. So untying the king, they sent him on his way.

As he returned home, he was reminded of the event that had taken his thumb and felt remorse for his treatment of his friend. He went immediately to the jail to speak with his friend. “You were right,” he said, “it was good that my thumb was blown off.” And he proceeded to tell the friend all that had just happened. “And so I am very sorry for sending you to jail for so long. It was bad for me to do this.”

“No,” his friend replied, “This is good!” “What do you mean,’This is good’? How could it be good that I sent my friend to jail for a year?” “If I had NOT been in jail, I would have been with you.”

You’re Never Too Old to Dream

Ida Keeling: Record Breaker

In 2012, 97-year old Ida Keeling set a record for the 100 Meter Sprint at the USA Track and Field Eastern Regional Open Championships. She finished the race at 51.85 seconds, beating the previous record of 59.9 seconds for the 90 and over age category. Keeling took up running at age 67 after several personal tragedies in her life, including the death of her husband and two of her sons.

Transformation

By Vinod Bidwaik

There was an animated cartoon on TV.  One of the scenes showed a huge cactus suddenly transformed into a flowering phenomenon. I never forgot how, within seconds, all the buds emerged and turned into colorful, open flowers.

This scene must have photographed in slow motion and was shown in fast motion. At our home, we have beautiful plants of followers. One of the plants is “Bramha Kamal”. There are different opinions about this species. Though this is widely known as “Bramaha Kamal”, few people claim that actually it is a type of cactus. This plant is not beautiful, with stem leaves.  It blossoms only for a day, with beautiful and nice fragrance. When buds comes, we try to catch the moment when a flower opens and it petals start to bloom. We always miss that, and all off sudden we see a big and beautiful follower.           

However for me, it symbolizes how quickly something that represents rigidity and pain can be transformed into beauty.

The same thing happens with human transformation.

You can never find out the exact event when it occurs. You might remember what happened before or after it, but never the moment of transformation itself.

Sometimes, somebody directly appreciates you about your changed behavior and personality which you may not have noticed. We may have spent lot of time and efforts on our transformation, but it revels all of sudden.  As it happens in the NOW we can never track it down. Therefore it is magic.

Contrary to change, transformation is easy; as there is no effort involved; it just happens. Like the tree letting go of the dry leaf or the fruit ripening without struggle.

When you look different, you see what is already there, which you haven’t seen before. It is, therefore, effortless.

Transformation is a process, but it is effortless process. But you need actually to live the transformation like the flower blossoms from buds. Transformation can be small or big. Small learning also can be transformation. When child starts walking, this is also a transformation for him and for his parents. It has impact on their lives.

Our life journey is also a transformation. We become learned, Wise, mature over a period of time. We learn from mistakes and even from others’ mistakes.  Human life is with lot of transformations and transformations should be accepted and celebrated time to time.

But the question is do we allow ourselves to transform?