Stop Being a Punching Bag!

by Saalik Siddikki

Does everybody feel tempted to use you as a punching bag, any time and anywhere without expecting a counter-blow?  If so, you are trapped in a terrific situation.  What should you do – drop down to disintegrate or build resistance to be felt rock-hard and cause an agonizing reaction to the punchers? The choice is exclusively your own. 

There would have been a number of reasons for your state of being a punching bag and these reasons must have roots deep into your early childhood.  Now recall your memories when you were perhaps six or eight year old. 

·        Did everybody at home make a mockery of you?

·        Were you the only one, for everyone at home and in the neighbourhood, to be taken as a natural scapegoat for everything wrong done by others?

·        Did you always or mostly feel nervous in the company of boys of your age group or a bit elder and preferred to avoid their presence around?

·        Was it usually your mom whose lap was always the best solace for you?

·        Were you ignored by your parents, brothers and sisters for no apparent reasons?

·        Were you underweight and skinny and felt misfit in the atmosphere?

·        Did you have any other weakness in your personality that prevented you from expressing your true self before others?

·        Did your teachers treat you as the twelfth man of their team?

·        Did you take shelter in escaping from challenging situations that required leadership initiatives?

Well, nobody in the world could help you determine the reasons that transformed you, slowly, silently and irritatingly, into a punching bag.  You could never have been satisfied with yourself in accepting such a humiliating existence.  There would be moments when you might have had an irresistible urge to rebel against your helplessness, to explode like a volcano.  The question is why didn’t you?  What stopped you from breaking the shackles of torture and agonizing pain? 

Think about it seriously.  It was always you who chose to nestle in the comfort zone of complacence and retreat instead of stubbornly reacting to every blow that you received.  Perhaps no one ever extended a helping hand towards you to get you out of this quagmire that continued to swallow you like an insatiable vampire.

How old are you now? 14, 18, 25, 30 or above, and are you still the same punching bag that people love to pound?  Come on man, stop punching your ego and burst out of the shell of self pity.  Yes, self pity is the most lethal poison that is taking its toll.

How long will you be deceiving yourself?  Make up your mind now, right at this moment and get rid of the cloak of helplessness – burn it down to ashes.  It is just like burning your boats to not leave a chance to back away from the battleground of realities.

The realities are hard to face but you have to.  Do a little self talk, take a bold decision and stick to it.  Remember, God does not like you to remain like this for a single moment.  You have enough courage to defy God’s will.  Why can’t you defy people’s will?  You certainly can and you should.

You have two options now.  One, move out of the reach of people’s punching range and it is not that easy.  You cannot create your own special world minus bullies – they are in abundance everywhere.  Two, turn yourself into a bag of rock-hard cement so that when, from now on, anybody punches you, he would break his own knuckles and forget about repeating it.

You may face a little embarrassment occasionally but, ultimately you would succeed in keeping the bullies at an arm’s length. 

Do it now or you would never be in a position to do so.  If possible, look around to find a mentoring friend to help you in taking a courageous decision. 

It is only you who is to take action now.  It is only you who is to transform into a new being.  It is only you who is not to act like a punching bag any more.

Power of Greed vs Ambition

by Saalik Siddikki


Synonyms of Ambition carry an air of positivity :

Goal

Aim

Aspiration

Objective

Dream

Hope

Desire

Purpose

Synonyms of Greed are shrouded in negativity : 

Gluttony

Voracity

Ravenousness

Greediness

Hunger

Insatiability

Self indulgence

Now the question is what passion a positive thinker should fuel to achieve success - ambition or greed?

We normally see ambition tagged with a desire to attain positive goals while greed labelled as a negative emotion to gain advantages or benefits by hook or by crook.

My point is what if we replace ambition with greed to achieve positive goals?  Whether it makes sense or not is not an issue here.  It has just occurred to me that the massive force of negative energy should be used to attain targets.  The intensity of negative energy is beyond question.

Think about a nuclear bomb and watch your reactive thoughts.  Do you visualize nuclear energy providing electricity and fuel to run the industry or act as a steering power to move huge ships in the seas?  Not at all.  Your mind, in a fraction of a second, goes back to world war II when America used nuclear bombs to cause devastating damage in two Japanese cities.

But now the nuclear energy is used in other fields for the benefit of scientific and medical research and producing energy for positive usage.

Similarly, we can use the power of greed to achieve our set targets merely because of its intensity.

Keep your thoughts focused on your targets but think like a greedy villain with an insatiable lust for success and achievement who does not give a damn about anything in the world while pursuing his objectives fiercely and ferociously.  

It does not mean, in any sense, that you should take steps to cause damage or loss to others.  

Thinking like a villain and using the fuel of greed simply means to build a fortress against lethargy, procrastination, complacence, lassitude and indolence which are internal hurdles in your way to march towards your destiny.

Eliminating each of the above hurdles is imperative to achieve success and you cannot take risk of ignoring these nuisance.

So, try to change your thinking pattern and take full advantage of the fierceness of negative emotions.  I am sanguine it would lessen your chances of failure and enhance the prospects of success positively. 

How to deal with bullies?

Four Practical tips to deal with difficult colleagues.

Do you have to deal with the special species of colleagues around you who are bent upon spoiling working ambiance even without any provocation? 

They are everywhere like parasites, particularly in small organizations and every organization cannot afford to get rid of them for one reason or the other.  It could be their quality of work, relationship with any of the high-ups or the benefits the employers enjoy through them.

The price of their nasty bullying is always paid by their colleagues.  Are you stuck up in such an undesired cul-de-sac of situation with no immediate way out?  Here are four practical tips to save your neck from any mishap that could cost you the job or land you in hot waters:

1. Make your worth felt 

You may already be doing your level best to achieve the set goals and doing utmost justice to your job.  Yet, the top most action that you can take to save your face, your job and your self-esteem is to do more than your current performance. 

Demonstrate to your colleagues, your seniors and your employers that you are no less in worth, to the organization, than anybody else. 

2. Never lose your self-esteem 

Whatever reaction you get from the bullies, always hold your head high with self-esteem that is the strongest power you possess in dealing with negative forces under any circumstances.

Everybody is valued in the scale of his/her self-esteem.  Even those who are jealous of you, for any reason, hold you in high regards for your self-esteem whether they let you realize it or not.

3. Be cooperative, not subservient 

The best strategy to survive and to achieve set goals is to do your best in creating a congenial ambiance in your working place.  Thus, your proffer of cooperation should be apparent so that your colleagues could feel up to asking for it without any obligation.

Make the difficult colleagues realize that you are willing to cooperate and help them in achieving their targets sorting out whatsoever problems they have, but simply as a colleague, not as a subservient and weak person.

4. Respect them as human beings 

Since every human being deserves to be respected, you had better express your feelings, even to these difficult colleagues, through your communication, body gestures and actions.

Initially, they may take it as their victory to fuel their arrogance but, with the passage of time, they would certainly understand your character and positive attitude.

Confrontation, in these situations or any other similar like these, is never a solution.  Rather you had better understand their inner compulsions, psychological factors and human nature.

I personally had to deal with such bullies during my job/stay in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia from 1984-1987.  Thank Lord, I succeeded, through the above tactics, in transforming those difficult colleagues into friends who were crying like children when I left the Kingdom.  Why can you not do it?

Performance vs. Achievement

by Saalik Siddikki

      

            Whatever you do is your performance to achieve some target and whatever you achieve is the result of your performance.  If so, then what is more important in value and worth – performance or achievement?

            To me, the various stages of performance are true source of lasting gratification and delight comparing with joy of achievement that is usually short-timed.

            Each performance comprises actions if done with an intention and reason to reach a certain milestone, to achieve certain goals and to gain some benefits.  But, every action is not a performance like habitual activities.  They are done without a purpose in mind.

            Performance is the result of a plan to accomplish some task.  It is a process of taking steps for doing things in a certain sequence to reach a specific point of satisfaction.  

We can say that performance is a combination of:

• A plan
• Actions in a sequence
• Satisfactory accomplishment
  
  

  

  Image credit: Yogendra Singh - pexels dot com

            So, what if, regardless of all the passionate actions and concentrated efforts, you fail to pull it off?  The definite outcome is disappointment, regret, displeasure and frustration or, in exceptional cases, could be worse.

            Can you, in such a disheartening situation, do something to avoid the blitz of negative thoughts and emotions?  Most people fail to do so and fall victim to tension, depression, self-rejection and remorse.  It is merely because they are not prepared to accept a setback. And thus, they do not equip themselves with the appropriate tools to deal with a failure.

            It is simply a matter of mindset.  If you are a positive thinker, you enjoy every action of yours towards achieving your goals and in case of failure; you do not lose your heart.  You take your failure as a setback like all successful people do.  They know that setbacks are temporary phases to learn from and forget.  They do not let their feet stuck up in the muddy grounds for the rest of their life.  They move ahead to find other ways to reach their next milestone.

            Since the ultimate destiny of performance is the satisfactory accomplishment of the intended job, it is of colossal importance that you keep your thoughts totally focused on enjoying every action, for you definitely get at least two benefits from each step that you take:

• You do not remain stagnant and move ahead depending on the size of your step
• You learn something that you did not know before

            I always suggest and this is the basic theme of Think SUCCEEDED that your ultimate accomplished goal should never skip your mind.  Nonetheless, concentrating on the current moments will certainly enhance not only the quality of your performance but also your chances of success.

            The phase of satisfaction, pleasure and joy of achievement does not last long while you recall the high moments of your struggle and endeavour for a long time.  You love to mention repeatedly, to your family and friends, how you overcame the hurdles and took the challenges.  You feel euphoric in describing your struggle to overcome difficulties and obstacles.

            Do your best to make your performance excellent and exemplary for others to follow and reap the bliss of being appreciated and acclaimed.