Have you ever stopped and wondered how many conflicting thoughts you deal with every day? You want to:
Finish an important report for your office OR Go for your exercise
OR Watch your favourite TV show OR Finish some house chore
Then you decide to settle for watching TV.
At times, you may want to finish some plumbing activity at home but suddenly talking to a friend or watching soccer becomes more important.
You will notice a pattern: Most often you chose a ‘less’ important work.
It is almost like you have two personalities. There is a part in you that wants to proceed as per your beliefs and then there is this other part which asks you to go against these beliefs. It is like if you have Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, both in you.
Two or more conflicting thoughts in your mind at the same time creates tension. This tension is directly proportional to the:
- Importance or attachment to the subject or event
- The degree of the opposition of your conflicting thought and belief
- Difficulty to resolve the conflict of thought
Let us look at some real-life situations to understand this a bit more.
Let us say, you are married, and you strongly believe in the institution of marriage. However, you get attracted towards another person in your office then this will create a lot of stress in you, as your belief in the institution of marriage is strong and getting attracted to another person is totally contradicting this belief (nearly a 180-degree turn). As you cannot avoid this person in the office, the chances to resolve this conflict is a challenge. This can result in the failure of your marriage.
Students who know that this is the right time to study but waste it in video games, chats etc. will be a victim of these conflicting thoughts.
You want to quit smoking or control eating fatty foods, but you do exactly the opposite because of your conflicting thoughts.
There will be many instances when you set out to achieve something but fail because of the wrong choices you made. In these cases, you have been a victim of conflicting thoughts.
So, conflict of thoughts is one of the biggest reasons for the failures you have faced since your childhood till now.
Now, how to control your conflicting thoughts?
Awareness development towards that aspect of your life is the only way to resolve the conflict. If you want something in your life, you need to:
- Be aware of ‘how passionately you desire’ it: Strong willingness to achieve something is the first step towards avoiding conflicting thoughts and takes you closer to success. This is also useful in overriding other conflicting thoughts.
- Be aware of ‘how much you are ready to change or transform’ for it: This is another aspect you need to be ready for before you start a new endeavour. Every new achievement in your life changes or transforms you. The more significant the achievement, higher is the change or transformation in you. So, you should be ready for changes in your life otherwise this will create conflict in your thoughts and result in failure.
- Be aware of the process: You need to be aware of the process to achieve what you want. This will help you in your success.
- Ready to Learn: New endeavours will bring you the possibility where you will need to learn new things and now that you are ready to change, you will need to be ready to learn. Learning brings growth and change.
- Accept the results: With the approach, you have taken, you need to be very much aware of the shape and form in which your results will appear. You must accept your results as they come, as the process and effort have been done by you. Sometimes your mind dreams of a result without considering the process you have followed, or the detours you have taken in the process. So, accepting the results paves the way for future success.
There was a Fakir (wandering saint) in a city and he was known to be a God-realized soul. There was a man named Nitin who always asked this fakir “When am I going to see God?” or “Show me God please”.
One day the fakir was going to take his bath when Nitin crossed his path and asked the same old question, “Please show me, God”.
The fakir smiled and said, “Come, I will show you, God, today.” Nitin was caught by surprise, but he became excited with the thought of seeing God. He followed the Fakir to the river when the faqir asked him to take a dip in its waters. As Nitin took a dip, the fakir held Nitin’s head and neck with both hands and forced him to stay underwater. Nitin’s first thought was that this might be the process, but when he realized that the fakir is not going to let him come out of the water, he started to struggle with the fakir, so he could come out for some air. After a lot of struggle, the fakir released Nitin and allowed him to take some deep breaths.
Once Nitin felt better, the fakir asked, “How do you feel?”
Nitin got very angry, “Is this a joke? I almost died.”
The fakir asked again, “Answer my question. How did you feel underwater?”
Nitin said, “What do you expect? I felt I would die of suffocation.”
The fakir smiled and said, “This is the kind of desperation you should feel till you see God. A desperate passion, a longing, a sole aim that consumes you day and night. Your mind should not have any conflicting thoughts about other priorities in life. Your focus should be clear. And for this, you need high levels of awareness.”
So, in a nutshell, to avoid failure due to conflicting thoughts you need to be aware of:
- What it takes to become successful
- The changes or transformation it brings
- Learnings it brings in your life
- Results it can bring to you
Once you commit to the above, you will never face conflicting thoughts on your path to success.
See you next week. Till then, Stay Aware, Stay Healthy and Stress-free!!