AuthorLeena

To have meaning our life requires both passion and purpose. A life without passion is a furnace without  fuel and without purpose like a ship with a rudder.

If you are not crazy enough for something, you are not passionate. Passion towards work, physical fitness, any sport, music, dance , any particular hobby.

When you start loving what you do that is passion. When you don’t love what you do , it creates stress. Success follows passion, be passionate to be sucessfull. People with the ‘chalta hey’ attitude will always be average.

What is common in people who excel in their fields is passion. They do not bound themselves with a fix 9 to 6 time for work , for them working is not an obligation but their works keeps them alive every moment.

All you need is the passion, faith and the willness to work hard and you will reach heights. No one is a born Einstein, Dhirubhai Ambani, Amitabh Bacchan or Arijit Singh , they shine like a sun today because they have burned in the fire of passion.

Life has become so busy these days that we cannot figure out our purpose in life. What we actually want to do in life? Figure out that one thing which make you forget the clock, keeps you happy. That is your passion make it your purpose for life. There is no greater thing you can do with your life and your work, than follow your passion in a way that serves the world and you.

Light yourself on the fire with passion and people will come for miles to watch you burn.

There can be days when you may face a set back or failure in career, family, social life, love life . Something that you really wanted but you could not achieve. You feel like everything is falling apart and all you do fails.

You might not feel like waking up , hitting the gym, going to work. You may have the urge to overeat, grabbing junk food and in turn spoiling your physique you once sweat for.

Remember life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you respond to it.

So how to tackle this hard time or difficulty you are facing?

A thought- positive mind and approach.  Nothing lasts forever. Take a deep breath, call up a friend and ask to accompany gym today. Remind yourself of the pain you underwent to get that physique during exercises , you left gorging over your favourite pizza and cake . This will save you from more regret later.

Only you can help yourself , when you are blaming god for where he is when you are going through difficult times , just remember the teacher is always silent during a test. Just one positive thought and you are the winner of the test.

Self talk can play an important role here. Talking to yourself as a third person, “Aishwarya, you have to get up , go to work , you have to fight through this bad day for the coming best days”.

Gratitude should be practiced, it may seem difficult to find something good around during such times. Be thankful for what you have since gratitude turns what we have into what is enough.  Thank your body parts for working well without any injury enabling you to function. It may sound foolish but where gratitude begins, troubles end.

Appreciate everything openly, whenever you feel jealous just appreciate. Appreciation can make a day and even change a life.

Set new short term goals for yourself .  Whenever you know there is a problem remember there has to be a solution work towards it. Remind yourself of the times you have been successful.

Just take control of your life never give up, never quit.

Here are ten things I did to help overcome my negative thoughts that you can also try:

1. Meditate or do yoga.

One of the first things I did was head to a yoga class. It took my focus away from my thoughts and brought my attention to my breath. Yoga is also very relaxing which helped ease my mind. Yoga helped me stay present to my experience so instead of jumping to what could happen, it brought me back to the now—the only moment, the most important moment.

2. Smile.

I didn’t do much of this during the weekend so I literally had to bring myself in front of a mirror and force myself to smile. It really does help change your mood and relieve stress. I also felt lighter because it takes fewer muscles to smile than to frown.

3. Surround yourself with positive people.

I called a friend who I knew could give me constructive, yet loving feedback. When you’re stuck in a negative spiral, talk to people who can put things into perspective and won’t feed your negative thinking.

4. Change the tone of your thoughts from negative to positive.

For example, instead of thinking, “We are going to have a hard time adjusting to our living situation,” think, “We will face some challenges in our living situation, but we will come up with solutions that we will both be happy with.”

5. Don’t play the victim. You create your life—take responsibility.

The way I was thinking and acting, you would think I was stuck. Even if our living situation becomes unbearable, there is always a way out. I will always have the choice to make change happen, if need be.

6. Help someone.

Take the focus away from you and do something nice for another person.I decided to make a tray of food and donate it to the Salvation Army. It took my mind off of things and I felt better for helping someone else.

7. Remember that no one is perfect and let yourself move forward.

It’s easy to dwell on your mistakes. I felt terrible that I acted this way and that I wasted our weekend. The only thing I can do now is learn from my mistakes and move forward. I definitely don’t want to have a weekend like that again.

8. Sing.

I don’t remember lyrics very well and it’s probably the reason that I don’t enjoy singing, but every time I do sing I always feel better . When we sing, we show our feelings and this provides an amazing stress relief.

9. List five things that you are grateful for right now.

Being grateful helps appreciate what you already have. Here’s my list: My cats, health, a six-week trip to Asia, a new yoga class that I’ll be teaching, and for my mom’s biopsy coming out clean.

10. Read positive quotes.

I like to place Post-It notes with positive quotes on my computer, fridge door, and mirror as reminders to stay positive.