Is your capability matching your ambition ?

"Frustration without the capability to change the things is like a radioactive material burning inside you. Your frustration is the difference between your ambition and capability. Either improve your capability or lower your ambition. Do not just sit there with the radioactivity turned inward." - Subroto Bagchi, Go Kiss The World. 

Benchmarking

Benchmarking is comparing one thing with other.

In office, employees benchmark themselves with others and complain about their salaries.

Parents generally benchmark their children’s marksheet with that of the other kids and will say, “Next time perform better than them.”

Sportsmen will benchmark their present performance with their previous performance. It is benchmarking with oneself.

We cannot escape from this benchmarking.

Now the point is not whether to benchmark or not, it is inevitable, the focus is on the effect of your benchmarking on you.

We are surrounded by many people who spend their lives complaining about what they wanted to do but couldn’t or adjusting without working towards their goals.

We often hear the wise words, “Be happy with what you have. Compare with those who don’t. Feel lucky to have what you are having right now.”

This may soothe your ego but will it help you to grow ?

The benchmarking we do must help us in fuelling our passion. It should help us in going the extra mile. It should touch the deep desire which we have from a very long time. It should make you focus on what you want, leaving less important things.

It should give us a path, a goal, an enthusiasm.

I am not saying not be satisfied with your work, without satisfaction you cannot enjoy what you get, but that shouldn’t make you complacent not to move forward.

When you think someone is better at something than you and you want to reach that level, when you want to reach a height, there is no point in being satisfied with where you are now and what you are doing now. Because this is not what you want. Know what it takes to reach there. Know the skills you have to develop to make it. Learn them. Reach there.

You may benchmark with those above your level or below. But is your benchmarking sapping your energy level, is it weakening your desire, is it leading you to think, “This is enough. I cannot be better.” Is it stopping you from taking your next step towards your goal ? 

If yes, then think again and consciously change the effect.

Jump into the bowl you always wanted to. 

Just do it.

In anything we do, the motivation to do it and the desire to complete it are IMPORTANT for making it successful. We all know this. Right ??

If we are working on an innovative product or for a non-profit organizations or started teaching for the needy then you might have the kick on the butt always to make us feel that our work is WORTH spending your life on. And this motivates us to even go that extra mile.

Very few of us are involved in such activities, most of us are spending our lives in 9-5 jobs doing coding , trying to sell not-so-different products to the customers, preparing the sales reports to our managers, etc. These jobs may not give us a wow-I-am-making-a-difference kind of feeling. But if we don’t have that, how can continue to be consistent in giving our best ??

What will motivate us to go to our jobs daily(I don’t believe money is a true motivator) ?? How can we feel the work we do is important ?? How can you tune yourself ? How can we come out of this I-am-doing-stupid-stuff feeling.  

If you are expecting an answer these now then I am sorry. Even I am a victim of I-am-doing-stupid-stuff feeling.

Months back I decided to be consistent on my blog. From that time I regularly used to open word pad, write something, but they all ended up into my drafts as I felt they may not impress the readers. So my idea to be consistent on my blog ended into being consistently dumping things in my drafts folder.

Forget about what the reader will think after reading what I wrote. If I did not find my work worthy how can I even click the publish button ?? After all it is just a blog post. Even if I don’t get any good reviews it is not going to effect me in anyway. Right ?? But still I attached a more-than-needed attention on what the feedback can be.

If you are writing book and you find that your work is not worth writing..how can you even finish it?

If you have started a company and if you don’t believe in your product, how can you even think of making it successful.

In my company, we had a meeting few days back with our manager. He is a star in my company - as the youngest manager. So with the hype around him we are naturally interested to know more about him.

When we asked what motivated him to keep that extra effort in his work at the beginning of the journey. His reply was, “The fact we have to understand is that, there is no work that is perfect. Only some part of our work might be interesting and it is that on which we have to focus. The work which I did initially, years back, may not be an inspiring one but I did it with the same enthusiasm and alertness as how a CEO decides each of his decisions. I tuned myself to feel that what I did was IMPORTANT. That made my work interesting to me, because of which I excelled in it and that lead me now to this position. So finding your work interesting and motivating is the most important part of your career. If you do not find it interesting, you cannot excel at it. Use your own ways and make it interesting.”

This reminded me of what Robin Sharma always says about - “To Lead Without A Title.”

Do the work you wanted to do, from the place you are, with whatever available to you. 

Most of us do work hard just to get a better increment in the next appraisal or for a promotion. But not because we like what we are doing.

On one side I am trying hard to write on my blog at least once in a month but my friend Karthik Puvvada started a new blog and he is consistent on it ! 

Click on bethepurplecow to view his site and get inspired.

Influenced by Seth Godin’s works, he is contributing his 2 cents to inspire people to work better, be happier and achieve maximum in the short life span we have.

There is a clear Godin’s effect on his thoughts but he is presenting them in his own style.

When we say to write a new story or to give something new to the customer, it is not always about a whole new content, it is mostly about using the already existing resources in a new way. 

Do you have the skill to offer an old service in a new way ?? Do you have it in you to present an old story in an entirely new way giving a different impact to the reader ?? Can you offer an already existing product to an entirely new market ?? 

If yes. Start now. It is all about using the old resources in a new way.

When I asked Karthik on what is pushing him to write continuously, he said, “I believe that my thoughts will inspire the readers. Though I, sometimes, share things which many might be knowing already, I do it in my style with the motivation that I am the only person sharing it that at that particular point of time and that it will reach at least one who is not aware of it before reading my post..”

What a simple but great motivation !!

Sometimes it is not about how much difference you made but whether you made any.

Don’t wait to do the things which you want to do. There is not perfect time. There is nothing to loose. You are going to die in few years anyway. Don't attach a lot of value to others opinions.

If you want to share something share it. If you can add value to something, however small it might be, add it. Forget about what people will say. Do it for your satisfaction. 

Believe that your work will make a difference to someone, somewhere at sometime in some way. Nothing is a better motivator than this.

Good luck. 

Thank you for reading. 

"The Sense Of an Ending" by Julian Barnes

Author: Julian Barnes.

  

Publisher: Vintage Books.

  

Price: Rs.499 (Hard Cover) and Rs.299 (Paperback)

  

Pages: 150

My Rating: 5/5

Masterpiece – is the right word to describe this Booker Prize Winner “The Sense Of An Ending” by Julian Barnes.

Blurb:

Tony Webster and his clique first met Adrian Finn at school. Sex-hungry and book-hungry, they would navigate the girl-less sixth form together, trading in affectations, in-jokes, rumour and wit. Maybe Adrian was a little more serious than the others, certainly more intelligent, but they all swore to stay friends for life.

Now Tony is in middle age. He’s had a career and a single marriage, a calm divorce. He’s certainly never tried to hurt anybody. Memory, though, is imperfect. It can always throw up surprises, as a lawyer’s letter is about to prove.

My opinion:

Tony, sixty years old, divorced in middle age, living alone maintaining a friendly relation with his ex-wife, is the protagonist of this novel (or you may call novella). The book starts with Tony’s memories in school and then in college with his friends Colin, Alex and Adrian. He recollects how his relation with Veronica, his girl friend in college, and with Adrian ended after introducing Veronica to his friends one day.

While Tony was leading a peaceful life in his old age, he receives a letter, from a lawyer, which again pokes his forgotten memories. The letter says that Veronica’s mother left a small amount of money for him after her death. This issue leads Tony to the facts that happened in the past, which he never even dreamt of.

Read the book to know...What is the thing that Tony came to know?? Is that letter just about money left to him or does it have anything else with it?? Why did Veronica’s mother leave money to Tony?? What happened to Adrian’s life?? 

Some of the lines I liked are…

• When we are young we invent different futures for ourselves; when we are old we invent different pasts for others. 
• If you want to make people pay attention to your voice you don’t raise your voice but lower it: that is what really commands.
• Most of us make an instinctive decision, then build up an infrastructure of reasoning to justify it.
• Marriage is a long dull meal with the pudding served first.
• Reward of merit is not life’s business.
• The less time there remains in your life, the less time you want to waste it.
• History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation.

I picked this one seeing the beautiful cover page and the “Man Booker Prize Winner" tag. Though the story is waferthin the author beautifully portrayed the minute emotions of an old person.This will leave you wanting for more. 

The Author will take the reader on a journey deep into Tony's memories and his reflections on them. Each and every sentence in the book has prose, purpose and adds value to the story. The book starts as a collection of memories of an old person but picks up pace and ends in thriller style.

Conclusion:

Insightful. Unputdownable. Go for this. Worth reading again and again. Enjoy. 

You can get the paperback on Flipkart for just Rs.224 here and hard cover for Rs.349 here.