By: Dr. Sanjay Kumar Agarwal, Sr. Associate Editor-ICN Group
KOLKATA: In the last article of the series, we understood what is G.O.P.T.A.. From now onwards, we will see how you can use G.O.P.T.A. i.e. ‘Goals Oriented Postive Thinking & Actions’ in each walk of your life to enrich your life, especially in achieving your goals by effective utilisation of available time at your disposal by adding 3 productive hours daily to your life.
USE OF G.O.P.T.A. IN OVERCOMING OBSTACLES IN ACHIEVING GOALS
Often in my workshops, people ask me, why I am talking about the negativity, i.e. obstacles in achieving goals, even before discussing the goal setting process. My answer is that though various obstacles will come across you on the journey towards goals achievement, which you have to overcome; there are two such obstacles, which may even hamper your goal setting process. Therefore, before learning the goal setting process and goal achieving methods, it is ESSENTIAL to first understand about these two deadly obstacles, namely, (i) self-limiting beliefs, inculcated over a period of time since childhood; and (ii) negative time-utilisation habits, which at times consume a big chunk of your productive time.
SELF LIMITING BELIEFS
Your beliefs create your life, either for better or for worse. Self-limiting beliefs are the biggest obstacles in the correct goal setting and achieving. Main reason behind inculcating self-limiting beliefs is that we live in a society, which has predominantly negative mindset and we are brought up with the negative ideas. I can’t do this; I am inferior to others in physical or mental abilities; I have less money; I am not lucky enough; my personality is not that much good; I have less education; I have poor health; my bosses and my colleagues don’t like me; I am not a good communicator; etc. etc. These negative thoughts & beliefs have resulted in your failures so far. If you believe that you have certain limitations, these limitations will start appearing real in your life, as you will work thinking yourself as an incapable person. Beliefs determine your behaviour and actions, which produce results.
RELEASE THE BRAKES
If your beliefs are not in alignment with your goals, your sub-conscious mind will work like a braking system in a bicycle. All of us know that when we paddle a cycle, it moves forward. If we want to cover a big distance in short period, we paddle fast for speed. Just imagine what would happen, when we paddle faster and faster but having pressed the brakes all the time. The speed will not increase even after more & more efforts are put in. Having self-limiting beliefs is just like applying brakes to our own journey. Whatever efforts we make, the success will come slowly. Imagine, what would happen, if a student is reading more & more, but from inside, his core belief is that he can’t succeed. For better speed, we have to release brakes. We have to believe that whatever we will believe to be true in our sub-conscious mind, the same will become true for us.
A child is not born with these self-limiting beliefs. He develops these beliefs over a period of time by observing his parents, environment, teachers, neighbours, friends etc. Most of the beliefs are learnt beliefs. I suggest you to make a list of all the negative statements, you have heard since childhood. Once you will see them in writing, you will laugh at yourself. Here I must warn you that you should not think that your parents did not inculcate good beliefs in you. They gave you the best out of what they had. If something is not of use for you, now it is your turn to take the responsibility to correct your limiting beliefs.
We were not born with any types of limiting beliefs. We started creating beliefs with our learning process. Nobody taught us to work on our belief system. Our education system concentrates upon the academic subjects only and never concentrates upon the psychological aspects of human behaviour since childhood. That is the reason why there are various types of psychological problems in the people when they are students, which manifest at later stages of life. Over a period of time, our sub-conscious mind gets filled with the other people’s beliefs and programs. Actually, beliefs are not universal laws, we make them true for us.
For example, all of us have seen an elephant having only one leg tied with a rope. He does not try to get rid of this rope. He has a belief that till the rope is there, he is not able to move. Imagine how much powerful he is in comparison to the log to which he has been tied. He is so powerful that he can uproot the log from the earth. But he has a belief from his childhood that he cannot move till he is tied with the rope.
One more reason of inculcating self-limited beliefs is that if people fail in some activity, they start thinking that they are failure. You must understand that failing in one activity is not failing in life. Suppose your child appears in any competitive examination and fails or does not get higher rank, is he a failure? Not at all. He should learn his lessons from his failure; identify where the mistake happened and have another go.
(In the upcoming article of this series, we will know how you can inculcate ‘I can do it’ beliefs and how to use G.O.P.T.A. in overcoming major obstacles on the way to achieving our goals. So, stay tuned every Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday & Sunday. Happy G.O.P.T.A.)
Dr. Sanjay Kumar Agarwal, Creator & copyright holder of the concept G.O.P.T.A.© is an Author, Certified NLP Lifestyle Practitioner, Corporate Trainer & Motivational Speaker and recipient of Honorary Doctorate of Excellence (Management) by prestigious Young Scientist University, California, USA and is popularly known among his fans & followers across the globe as ‘Time and Goal Guru’.
My book ‘How to Add 50000 Productive Hours to Your Life’ is available at Amazon & Flipkart in English at http://bit.ly/HowToAdd50000ProductiveHoursToYourLife
