deepcontemplator

thinking deeply about things that matter

Category: Habits

  • Narcissism, self promotion, personal branding.. vices or reality?

    This is not a psychology post on narcissism or anything (and I am not qualified for that! 🙂 )

    For a long time I believed that narcissism, self promotion and personal branding are negatives and must be avoided or at least not actively engaged with.

    Though these are disparate concepts, they do have some common thread. They kind of revolve around self importance and self marketing aspects.

    What I want to discuss here is the mixed signals one receives regarding these topics and how to make sense of it.

    Narcissism

    In recent times there is lot of awareness about narcissism and how it is a toxic trait which damages relationships.

    And that is true.

    But equally important is the other aspect of it, as described in the book The Attributes by Rich Diviney. He argues that a healthy amount of narcissism is actually required to succeed in the world.

    You need to consider yourself important and worthy enough.

    That you matter.

    These are the foundations of self esteem. But a healthy amount of narcissism maybe needed at times. When you push yourselves ahead of everyone and nominate yourself for a challenging task.

    Of course anything taken to the extreme can be damaging to you and potentially those around you. But instead of shunning it completely, we need to engage with it with awareness.

    Self promotion

    Self promotion does not mean being a phony or advertising falsehoods. But you don’t need not shy away from being vocal about your achievements and journey.

    Without self promotion many people who might actually benefit from knowing or working with you will not even know that you exist.

    It is another way of putting yourself out there in the world. Being an advocate for yourself and guiding people to have a better understanding about the real you.

    Personal branding

    Again branding gets a bad rap as trying too hard or outright manipulative. Whether we like it or not, all of us already have a personal brand.

    The way people perceive us, our presence and talk about us.

    So a healthier approach is to acknowledge its presence, and take conscious steps to build a brand which more authentically reflects you and your values.

    Conclusion

    Overall, instead of completely dismissing these topics, we need to engage with them more responsibly. We need to audit where we stand on each of these aspects, and make conscious and responsible changes.

  • On consuming content

    There is so much content available these days, and pressure associated to keep up with it. You need to be abreast of popular culture, that TV show everyone is talking about, or the social media trend which seems to have become a craze.

    Sometimes lending an ear to the popular culture can be entertaining and be an escape from the monotony or boredom of daily life.

    However it can also turn us into a passive consumer of content. It might make it more difficult for us to listen to our own viewpoints and get in touch with what we believe.

    Or how we think the world works based on our experience.

    There is no harm in consuming content, which can be entertaining and relaxing after a long day at work.

    However it is more important perhaps to make time in the week to exercising your thinking and creativity as well.

    It is important to assimilate and integrate our life experiences and learnings as we go through life.

    To develop your original thought and point of view so that you can look at the world from your unique lens.

  • About walking

    My most frequent fitness activity the past few months have been walking. I have always been a walker and have found immense peace and contentment just walking. My walking got some new meaning after I read in the book Sapiens how our forager ancestors used to spend much of their roaming in the forest gathering food. Hence, our brains have evolved to store much information about topology, paths and maps.

    Being in a city like Bengaluru which has great weather all year round, makes it even more pleasant to walk. I like exploring known paths, parks or sometimes wandering into totally new localities taking in all the hustle and bustle of the surroundings.

    The health benefits of walking are well known but here I want to discuss walking for its own sake.

    The perspective you get while walking is much different than driving through the same streets. You have to slow down to the limits of your body. You are forced to look at and navigate the space with other humans around. You get a closer view of the shops and houses that dot the streets.

    Walking slows you down to human pace. Hence opening you up for conversation and human interaction. I have had multiple people ask me directions, or help cross a high step on the footpath or generally grumble about speeding vehicles!

    At some level, walking is what makes us human. Obviously its not the most efficient way to get from point A to B. But once you remove the utilitarian view and stop ‘optimizing’ everything, you realize how walking for its own sake can be both enervating and exhausting.

  • How easily can you adapt?

    A random fact about how humans can survive in the harshest climates of the Tundra to the Sahara deserts made me thinking. Though that’s an extreme example, humans are really quite adaptable.

    Unless we stop being so.

    Adaptability, resilience, openness to change are all interrelated.

    You can’t be adaptable unless you are open and willing to change. Resilience depends on how easily you can bounce back from setbacks and mold yourself to changed realities.

    Being adaptable is not a trait which comes easily to few. Once you get used to a particular lifestyle or even story, it can be really hard to change. Even when not changing is in fact being harmful or not working for you.

    I used to get flustered by even small changes. If my boxing instructor asked us to combine punches instead of following the set routine, I used to get frustrated. “Why can’t we just continue to do what we have been doing all this time?” 🙂

    However, understanding your own friction to change can hopefully open the doors for change as well. Just by realizing the difficulty and real work it takes to adapt to changes sometimes softens the problem.

    This podcast Why You Don’t Change (But How You Still Can) beautifully captures the difficulties involved in change and gently gives some suggestions. For me, the biggest takeaway was the realization was how change always entails giving up something, even if it was bad.

    Starting an exercise regimen, means you have to give up your old habits of eating junk food or not moving your body enough. By being aware of what the change entails, you can make a more practical decision if you want to pursue with the change. You realize that you are in control of your life, you can at any point decide to swap out these habits with healthier ones.

    Change is always hard. But by exercising change and being quite adaptable to changing circumstances, hopefully we get better at it with time.

  • The importance of being able to articulate well

    The importance of being able to articulate well

    Being a frequent listener of podcasts, I am both amazed and in awe of how effortlessly articulate few people are. It is a greatly useful skill to be able to clearly and concisely convey your thoughts and ideas and effectively land them.

    You need to have good ideas, but the aspect of having a great delivery associated with it matters. It decides whether your idea will be heard and come to reality or not.

    I do want to build on my articulation skills and am working on it. It does take effort and practice. This post is not about how we can build the skill, but about why it matters, as seen from the outside.

    Firstly, being able to convey your ideas effectively saves a lot of energy. Incomplete and haphazard communication can result in back and forth. If your message is not clear, it can lead to unwanted deciphering and misconstruing of the message intended. Prevention is better than cure applies even in communication!

    Effective articulation, be it spoken or written word is an art in itself. Of course the greats novelists of the world of literature have honed this to the maximum. They can build entire layered inner and outer worlds of a character beautifully and masterfully. A lot of aspects are deliberately left out to make room for interpretation.

    Good communication or storytelling helps in building trust and cooperation. Of course the content matters, but just having good intentions and useful information is not enough. A lot rests on how well we are able to effectively articulate why the idea matters and how its relevant.

    Hence it is a worthwhile endeavor to constantly improve your articulation skills.

    And get your ideas heard, loud and clear! 🙂

  • The secret to reading more books

    The secret to reading more books

    Inspired by the book Show your Work!, I have started to post images of the books I am reading. Another advantage of having physical books is that they lend well to photographs too! 🙂

    On one such post, a friend asked me how do I manage to read.

    One aspect is about finding time in your life to read. But in this post I want to highlight another aspect which keeps me coming back to reading.

    Reading can at times become difficult, especially if you are stuck with a not so interesting book! Life happens and you can lose touch of reading, and it can be difficult to get back.

    One trick which helps in such scenarios is to be surrounded by books!

    That doesn’t necessarily mean having a library overflowing with books, but always have a To read book pile.

    I usually read one book at a time, but have 3-4 books in the queue. And always looking around for new ones. The never ending pile acts as a forcing function to get back to reading. After all you have spent money on buying those books, or have to return the books to the library unread. Making loss aversion work for you. 🙂

    And if you get bored with the current book you are reading, you can always look around the next set to get a peek of what’s coming! It helps make reading exciting and hopefully long lasting.

    So maybe use this tactic next time. Having a pile of unread books lying around. Not to signal shame of something incomplete, but the opportunity to venture into unexplored worlds hidden in those books!

  • The limits of to do lists and planners

    The limits of to do lists and planners

    There is the oft quoted
    Failing to plan is planning to fail

    So we end up planning our days by the minute with things to do. There are many apps and planners which help you do this (to the extreme sometimes). You are asked at the start of the year/month/week to meticulously plan ahead, tack your daily habits like water intake, reading, watching shows and all. In return, at least implicitly, the promise is that by becoming an ultimate task slayer, you become a happier person.

    I have had my trysts and multiple false starts with such planning apps and planners. You firstly spend a lot of time trying to find the perfect app or planner which is customized to you. Sad news is – there are none which will perfectly fit you. There are many apps though which can work for you. 

    The important aspect however is how much pay off can you expect from tracking your days as a series of To Dos.

    As with many things in life, we go through seasons and cycles. There might be times when you are in the productivity mode and the whole month is filled with ticking off items on your to do list. Then there are extended periods of slump, where maybe you get 2-3 things done in the entire week. And that is okay.

    We do not have to be chained to never ending to do lists. 

    Our worth is not determined by how long the to do list is or how many items we are able to tick off.

    My experience with planners have been lackluster to say the least. I realized I am better off without them, and a simple to do list for the week, quarter, year suffices and mostly gets the job done.

    However, like any other tool in your life, be open to trying something new. Something which probably can make your life simpler. If it works for you, adopt it, even in a big way maybe!

    But the tool should not become an end in itself. Its a mean to achieve something greater. Definitely there are many worthwhile and important things in life, which you go ahead and do anyway, and may not figure in your to do list!

  • How dance has helped me

    How dance has helped me

    A flyer pasted on my dance class notice board had in bold colorful lettering

    ‘Why do you dance? What do you feel when you dance?’ and the like.

    It was amusing when I saw it first, but I keep coming back to those questions every now and then. I used to learn dance over the weekends for close to three years and it has been more than a couple of years now since I returned. So it took some remembering when someone recently asked how dance has impacted me.

    Everyone’s journey in dance is different and so are its benefits. However for me the benefits have been clear as before –

    You learn how to hold yourself

    It can sound pretty basic. But any activity which increases body awareness, like dance, or yoga, makes you more conscious of your body structure and posture. By learning complex movements, you realize how effortful or effortless something can be. All this increased awareness just lets you have a better poise and presence.

    You get comfortable with falling (even literally)

    We used to try inversions like handstands, cart wheels every now and then. And for a beginner that just means lot of falling rather than doing an actual cartwheel.

    And then days, or weeks later you finally get hold of it and learn to do it with less thought. So you need to be ready to keep falling and failing repeatedly and trying regardless.

    It becomes easier to put yourself out there

    Any performance art entails showing up fully as yourself and willing to be seen. Doing more of it makes you slightly more comfortable to be in the spotlight.

    Seeing others on stage and the vulnerability which accompanies that can be greatly comforting. It can compel you to show up in your full glory as well.

    You get out of your head

    Dance can become an intense physical activity which you can’t intellectually force. Many a times a movement which seems simple can be so difficult to execute. You then understand that you need to stop overthinking it, and just enjoy and stay with the process. Eventually the movement will distill to your body.

    There are obvious physical, and mental fitness benefits from having a steady dance practice. But the advantages can be much more.

    Every time I go to a dance class, there is something new I learn about myself.
  • Word of the month – nourishing

    Word of the month – nourishing

    The last month was all about wondering lovingly, and gently how different aspects of one’s existence are nourishing or otherwise. I got thinking of this word while reading the book Ayurveda: Ancient wisdom for modern wellbeing by Geeta Vara (which btw I greatly recommend if you are curious about Ayurveda and want some simple to apply principles)

    nourish

    to cherish, foster, keep alive, etc.

    nourishing food

    Food is an important aspect for anyone’s existence. Having well balanced nutritious food is self care. You signal to your body that it matters, and you mindfully choose to nourish it both in terms of quality and quantity. 

    It is only recently have I realized nourishment doesn't have to be punishment in terms of fad diets or intense exercise.

    Like everything in life, everything is good in moderation. So every time you pick up something to eat, just be pleasantly grateful that you are getting to experience it and how it is nourishing you.

    nourishing impressions

    We are constantly bombarded with external stimuli which can both overwhelm and fatigue us. In such an environment, it is refreshing to every now and then take a step back and consciously choose what you let into your mind.

    It could be spending an afternoon rereading passages from your favorite book, replaying your childhood video game, walking through tree filled avenues. Exposing yourself to varied nourishing experiences can be deeply grounding and uplifting.

    nourishing company

    As social beings, we can derive great energy from the right company. Even introverts need an understanding friend who listens from time to time.

    Reach out to those close pals, rekindle forgotten acquaintances if you feel like, or even go out to a café and just be in the company of others with good food.

    I hope you continue to find nourishment in your life and flourish. 🙂

  • Time is a container

    Time is a container

    Time feels so real and yet fleeting at the same time. Usually it feels as though we have an unlimited supply of it. However, all of us need to work with this rigid container of twenty four hours in a day.

    There is a lot of pressure to maximize the output from this container. The loud productivity brigade calls us to extract the most from limited time. Thankfully for us, we have books like Four Thousand Weeks which have established how getting on to a productivity treadmill is a futile endeavor.

    Like many other things in life, your relationship with time gets better once you let go of your desire to control it tightly.

    Recently I came across this insightful podcast episode featuring Laura Vanderkam, the author of the book Tranquility by Tuesday. It is filled with great, easy to apply steps which can help you get a better hold of our never-failing-to-overwhelm-life.

    The author gives us a simple tip on how to work with this container – time.

    Have a set bedtime!

    It can be easy to believe that we can extend our supply of time by forgoing our rest or leisure time seeping into our sleep. Revenge bedtime procrastination is becoming more common now – a long tiring day would drag well past midnight with scrolling through Instagram or watching Youtube.

    Of course this means that you don’t feel your best the next day, as you still need to wake up on time to get on with your day.

    I have started to apply this principle, and honestly am quite surprised how a simple change can improve your overall wellbeing. Having a set bedtime ensures I put myself to sleep around that time. Even if I stretch by twenty or thirty minutes, I am somewhat clearly aware of how this will impact my energy the next day.

    Earlier it felt like it was my right to continue entertaining myself well into the night, because I have had a tiring/boring/exciting/<insert any emotion> day. But now you understand how delaying bedtime can impact you.

    Eventually you feel indebted to your future self and go to bed early! At a time you had chosen for yourself.