PATHS TO FRUSTRATION
[Musings]
By
VIKRAM KARVE
Frustration can be a major cause of stress in your daily life and it may be worthwhile to ponder on the various reasons for your frustration.
Well, here is one.
People often become frustrated when they must choose between their personal desires and pleasing other people.
There are five basic ways people react in such situations of conflict between personal goals versus interpersonal relationships and each type of response can be a source of frustration.
EGOIST: First of all, a person may pursue his personal desires and forget about interpersonal relationships. The individual so described would be the EGOIST who cares little about stepping on others as long as he or she gets to the top of the ladder or achieves his or her personal goals. An Egoist’s frustration emanates from the displeasure of others. The others may outwardly smile at him because of his power but they secretly would like to “stab him in the back” and the egoist knows this and it inwardly pricks his conscience deep inside.
ALTRUIST: Second, a person may try to please everyone by setting aside his own aspirations. This individual is afflicted by “The Disease to Please” and is a person who can never say “NO”. His frustration results from lack of personal achievement and the realization that complete altruism is not always self-satisfying.
WHEELER-DEALER: Third, a person may try to achieve all his ambitions and simultaneously please everyone. This person is the typical “Wheeler-Dealer”. He is maximally frustrated, since it is virtually an impossible task to be all things to all people and please everyone, including his own self, all the time in all situations.
HERMIT: Fourth, a person may decide to be an ostrich and bury his head in the sand. This describes the HERMIT. He also becomes very frustrated because he achieves nothing and pleases no one, not even himself.
COMPROMISER: Fifth and finally, one may choose to go halfway. Such a person is the compromiser or the person who can’t seem to make up his mind. But even he is frustrated because he may sacrifice worthwhile personal goals or fail really to please some important people, since he has decided on a middle course.
WORK OUT YOUR OWN SOLUTION:
Dear Reader, sit in silent solitude, close your eyes, reflect, introspect, think of your recent situations of conflict between your personal desires and pleasing others.
Are you an egoist, altruist, wheeler-dealer, hermit or a compromiser?
Or are you somewhere in between?
Do you change with different personal desires and different people, or is your behaviour consistent with everyone?
You have to work out own solution; understanding yourself is the first step.
VIKRAM KARVE
Copyright © Vikram Karve 2009
Vikram Karve has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
http://vikramkarve.sulekha.com/
http://www.linkedin.com/in/karve
vikramkarve@hotmail.com
vikramkarve@sify.com
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Monday, February 23, 2009
HOW TO SELECT YOUR CAREER - A Value Based Approach
Check out this SlideShare Presentation:
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
BACK TO SQUARE ONE
ENLIGHTENMENT
[an apocryphal tale]
by
VIKRAM KARVE
A wise man seeking enlightenment, renounced worldly life, took a strict vow of celibacy which was a sine qua non for attaining enlightenment, and headed for the hills to live an ascetic existence of a hermit.
He found a secluded cave and began his simple contemplative meditative life surviving on natural wild vegetation in the forest and began his journey towards his quest for enlightenment.
One day he noticed holes in his robe and discovered that there were lots of rats in the cave who were chewing off his robes. The rats soon were nibbling at his toes disturbing his meditation.
Perplexed, he went down to town and consulted his Guru who said, “No problem. It’s simple. Just get a cat who will take care of the rats.” So our wise man bought a cat and took it up to his cave. The cat took care of the rats and the wise man was undisturbed in his quest for enlightenment.
A few days later the cat had eaten up all the rats, and famished, the cat started moaning with hunger. The constant moaning and crying of the cat again disturbed the wise man’s meditation and he again rushed to consult his Guru who advised him to acquire a cow whose milk would feed the cat and satiate its hunger.
Now the wise man would spend some time milking the cow, feeding the cat and then settle down for his meditation.
A few days later the cow stopped giving milk and mooed loudly. The cat too had started moaning again and disturbed by the moaning of the hungry cat and mooing of the starving cow the wise man ran to his Guru once again to seek his advice. The Guru gave him some seeds. The wise man planted the seeds which yielded food both for the cow and himself. But he now had to spend so much time tending to his garden, feeding and milking his cow, and giving milk to his cat, that he hardly got any time for meditation.
He rushed to his Guru who once again had a ready solution, “There is a young widow – poor thing she is destitute. She will look after everything and you can meditate in peace and attain enlightenment.”
It was a wonderful arrangement – the young widow looked after everything, the garden, cow and cat flourished, and the wise man was undisturbed in his quest for enlightenment.
One day it began to snow, the temperature fell to sub-zero, and the young widow started to shiver owing to the biting cold. Soon she could not bear the bitter cold any longer, so she snuggled into the wise man’s bed and tightly embraced him as that was the only way for her to keep warm.
Who can resist the tight embrace of an attractive woman in the prime of her life?
The vow of celibacy lay shattered and there ended the wise man’s quest for enlightenment.
And with all his new possessions [the cat, the cow, and the woman], he returned back to the material world from where he had began his journey towards enlightenment – the "wise" man was back to square one, much "wiser"!
Dear Reader, Read the story again, close your eyes and reflect on it. Carry the story around in your mind all day and allow its fragrance, its melody to haunt you. Create a silence within you and let the story reveal to you its inner depth and meaning. Let it speak to your heart, not to your brain, and suddenly you will feel a sense of mystical epiphany when you realize the wisdom of the story.
Now you are ready to apply the wisdom to your own life and experience the inner meaning of the story till it transforms you and puts you on the path to enlightenment.
VIKRAM KARVE
vikramkarve@sify.com
vikramkarve@hotmail.com
http://vikramkarve.sulekha.com/
[an apocryphal tale]
by
VIKRAM KARVE
A wise man seeking enlightenment, renounced worldly life, took a strict vow of celibacy which was a sine qua non for attaining enlightenment, and headed for the hills to live an ascetic existence of a hermit.
He found a secluded cave and began his simple contemplative meditative life surviving on natural wild vegetation in the forest and began his journey towards his quest for enlightenment.
One day he noticed holes in his robe and discovered that there were lots of rats in the cave who were chewing off his robes. The rats soon were nibbling at his toes disturbing his meditation.
Perplexed, he went down to town and consulted his Guru who said, “No problem. It’s simple. Just get a cat who will take care of the rats.” So our wise man bought a cat and took it up to his cave. The cat took care of the rats and the wise man was undisturbed in his quest for enlightenment.
A few days later the cat had eaten up all the rats, and famished, the cat started moaning with hunger. The constant moaning and crying of the cat again disturbed the wise man’s meditation and he again rushed to consult his Guru who advised him to acquire a cow whose milk would feed the cat and satiate its hunger.
Now the wise man would spend some time milking the cow, feeding the cat and then settle down for his meditation.
A few days later the cow stopped giving milk and mooed loudly. The cat too had started moaning again and disturbed by the moaning of the hungry cat and mooing of the starving cow the wise man ran to his Guru once again to seek his advice. The Guru gave him some seeds. The wise man planted the seeds which yielded food both for the cow and himself. But he now had to spend so much time tending to his garden, feeding and milking his cow, and giving milk to his cat, that he hardly got any time for meditation.
He rushed to his Guru who once again had a ready solution, “There is a young widow – poor thing she is destitute. She will look after everything and you can meditate in peace and attain enlightenment.”
It was a wonderful arrangement – the young widow looked after everything, the garden, cow and cat flourished, and the wise man was undisturbed in his quest for enlightenment.
One day it began to snow, the temperature fell to sub-zero, and the young widow started to shiver owing to the biting cold. Soon she could not bear the bitter cold any longer, so she snuggled into the wise man’s bed and tightly embraced him as that was the only way for her to keep warm.
Who can resist the tight embrace of an attractive woman in the prime of her life?
The vow of celibacy lay shattered and there ended the wise man’s quest for enlightenment.
And with all his new possessions [the cat, the cow, and the woman], he returned back to the material world from where he had began his journey towards enlightenment – the "wise" man was back to square one, much "wiser"!
Dear Reader, Read the story again, close your eyes and reflect on it. Carry the story around in your mind all day and allow its fragrance, its melody to haunt you. Create a silence within you and let the story reveal to you its inner depth and meaning. Let it speak to your heart, not to your brain, and suddenly you will feel a sense of mystical epiphany when you realize the wisdom of the story.
Now you are ready to apply the wisdom to your own life and experience the inner meaning of the story till it transforms you and puts you on the path to enlightenment.
VIKRAM KARVE
vikramkarve@sify.com
vikramkarve@hotmail.com
http://vikramkarve.sulekha.com/
Sunday, February 1, 2009
HOW TO QUIT SMOKING - The NLP Way
HOW I QUIT SMOKING
By
VIKRAM KARVE
Whenever I undergo any training or course, I try and apply the concepts and skills I learn during the program upon myself in order to ascertain efficacy of the training for I firmly believe in the time-tested adage that “The Proof of the Pudding is in the Eating”.
Thus, the first thing I decided after completing NLP Practitioner Training was to try and apply the concepts I had learnt and imbibed on myself.
NLP stands for neuro-linguistic programming. Sounds complicated and high falutin, isn’t it? Actually NLP is quite simple – let’s see how I applied it in my daily life.
At that point in time, I was a smoker. I had tried to quit smoking many times with little success. Now I’d try a simple concept from NLP to give up smoking.
I succeeded beyond my expectations and gave up smoking in a day.
I conquered the craving, the urge, for smoking and never suffered any “withdrawal symptoms”.
I quit smoking forever in one go.
Let me describe to you, Dear Reader, that red letter day of my life.
I woke up early in the morning, as usual, made a cup of tea, and the moment I took a sip of the piping hot delicious tea, I felt the familiar crave for my first cigarette of the day.
I had identified my first “Smoking - Anchor” – Tea.
I kept down the tempting cup of tea, made a note of the craving [anchor] in my diary, quickly heated a glass of water in the microwave oven, completed my ablutions, stepped out of my house, and embarked upon my customary morning constitutional brisk walk-cum-jog deeply rinsing and cleansing my lungs with pure refreshing morning air, which made me feel on top of the world.
I felt invigorated and happy. I had overcome my craving and not smoked my first cigarette of the day.
Returning refreshed from my brisk bracing morning walk, I stopped to pick up the newspaper, and spotted my friends ‘N’ and ‘S’ across the road beckoning me for our customary post-walk tête-à-tête with tea and cigarettes at our favorite the tea-stall.
Here lurked my second “Smoking - Anchor” – my smoker friends.
I felt tempted, but I steeled my resolve.
I waved out to my smoker friends, turned away and briskly headed home.
They must have thought I’d gone crazy, but it didn’t matter – I had avoided my second cigarette of the day.
That’s what I was going to do the entire day. Be aware, look inwards, fully cognizant and mindful in order to ensure that I identify all the stimuli that triggered in me the urge to smoke – my “smoking anchors” which could be anything, conscious and unconscious, internal and external, tangible or intangible – people, situations, events, feelings, smells, emotions, tendencies, moods, foods, social or organizational trends, practices, norms, peer-pressure.
Then I would conquer and triumph over these stimuli, demolish these negative “smoking-anchors” and establish and reinforce new positive “healthy” non-smoking anchors using a Technique called Force Field Analysis.
I’ll tell you more about Force Field Analysis later. You can read about this technique in my blog too:
http://vikramkarve.sulekha.com/blog/post/2008/11/force-field-analysis-an-effective-management-tool.htm
Dear Reader, read on and see how my first non-smoking day progressed.
After breakfast, I didn’t drink my usual cup of coffee – a strong “smoking anchor” which triggered in me a strong irresistible craving and desperate desire to smoke.
I drank a glass of cold bland milk instead, and thereby averted my third cigarette of the day.
It was nine as I reached my workplace and I had not smoked a single cigarette. Rather I had not smoked my customary three cigarettes!
It was a long day ahead and I had to be cognizant, observe myself inwardly and devise strategies to tackle situations that elicited craving for smoking – recognize and conquer my “smoking anchors”.
Anchoring is a naturally occurring phenomenon, a natural process that usually occurs without our awareness.
An anchor is any representation in the human nervous system that triggers any other representation.
Anchors can operate in any representational system (sight, sound, feeling, sensation, smell, taste).
You create an anchor when you unconsciously set up a stimulus-response pattern.
Response [smoking] becomes associated with [anchored to] some stimulus; in such a way that perception of the stimulus [the anchor] leads by reflex to the anchored response [smoking] occurring.
Repeated Stimulus–Response [SR] action reinforces anchors and this is a vicious circle, especially in the context of “smoking anchors”.
The trick is to identify your “smoking anchors”, become conscious of these anchors and ensure you do not activate them.
And then transcend from the SR Paradigm to the SHOR Paradigm to set and fire new positive anchors.
What’s SHOR?
SHOR stands for Stimulus-Hypothesis-Options-Response – do read the article on SHOR Paradigm in my blog:
http://vikramkarve.sulekha.com/blog/post/2008/09/the-shor-paradigm.htm
The moment I reached office I saw my colleague ‘B’ eagerly waiting for me, as he did every day.
Actually the freeloader was eagerly waiting to bum a cigarette off me for his first smoke of the day. “I only smoke other’s cigarettes” was his motto!
I politely told him I had quit smoking and told him to look for a cigarette elsewhere.
He looked at me in disbelief; taunted, jeered and badgered me a bit, but when I stood firm, he disappeared.
I had not smoked my fourth cigarette of the day!
I removed from my office my ashtray, my lighter, all vestiges of smoking, declared the entire place a no-smoking zone and put up signs to that effect.
The working day began. It was a tough and stressful working day. I was tired and suddenly my boss called me across to his office and offered me a cigarette.
I looked at the cigarette pack yearningly, tempted, overcome by a strong craving, desperate to have just that “one” cigarette.
Nothing like a “refreshing” smoke to drive my blues away and revitalize me – the “panacea” to my “stressed-out” state!
It was now or never!
I politely excused myself on the pretext of going to the toilet, but rushed out onto the terrace and took a brisk walk rinsing my lungs with fresh air, and by the time I returned I had lost the craving to smoke and realized that physical exercise is probably the best antidote – a positive “non-smoking” anchor – and, of course,
I had not smoked my fifth cigarette of the day!
It was the famous Stoic philosopher Epictetus who said:
“Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle: Some things are within our control, and some things are not. It is only after you have faced up to this fundamental rule and learned to distinguish between what you can and cannot control that inner tranquility and outer effectiveness become possible.”
We often let our feelings set our anchors, govern our lives. We let feelings drive our thoughts, not realizing that thoughts drive actions, actions produce results, and results in turn produce more feelings, reinforce anchors, causing a vicious circle which may ultimately lead to loss of self-control.
Such “feeling-anchors” not totally controllable, as many times feelings are produced by external circumstances beyond your control, and if negative feelings are allowed to drive our thoughts and actions, then undesirable results emanate.
The best solution is to establish “thought-anchors” as drivers of your actions.
It is well within your control to think positive, good and interesting thoughts.
In fact, the happiest person is the one who thinks the most interesting and good thoughts, isn’t it?
That’s the essence of NLP.
Reprogram your anchors, recondition your mind, control your own life, change for the better, enhance your health and happiness, and elevate your plane of living.
This technique works for me, and I’m sure it’ll work for you too.
Maybe it is so effective because it is so breathtaking in its simplicity.
VIKRAM KARVE
Copyright © Vikram Karve 2009
Vikram Karve has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
http://vikramkarve.sulekha.com/
http://www.linkedin.com/in/karve
vikramkarve@sify.com
vikramkarve@hotmail.com
By
VIKRAM KARVE
Whenever I undergo any training or course, I try and apply the concepts and skills I learn during the program upon myself in order to ascertain efficacy of the training for I firmly believe in the time-tested adage that “The Proof of the Pudding is in the Eating”.
Thus, the first thing I decided after completing NLP Practitioner Training was to try and apply the concepts I had learnt and imbibed on myself.
NLP stands for neuro-linguistic programming. Sounds complicated and high falutin, isn’t it? Actually NLP is quite simple – let’s see how I applied it in my daily life.
At that point in time, I was a smoker. I had tried to quit smoking many times with little success. Now I’d try a simple concept from NLP to give up smoking.
I succeeded beyond my expectations and gave up smoking in a day.
I conquered the craving, the urge, for smoking and never suffered any “withdrawal symptoms”.
I quit smoking forever in one go.
Let me describe to you, Dear Reader, that red letter day of my life.
I woke up early in the morning, as usual, made a cup of tea, and the moment I took a sip of the piping hot delicious tea, I felt the familiar crave for my first cigarette of the day.
I had identified my first “Smoking - Anchor” – Tea.
I kept down the tempting cup of tea, made a note of the craving [anchor] in my diary, quickly heated a glass of water in the microwave oven, completed my ablutions, stepped out of my house, and embarked upon my customary morning constitutional brisk walk-cum-jog deeply rinsing and cleansing my lungs with pure refreshing morning air, which made me feel on top of the world.
I felt invigorated and happy. I had overcome my craving and not smoked my first cigarette of the day.
Returning refreshed from my brisk bracing morning walk, I stopped to pick up the newspaper, and spotted my friends ‘N’ and ‘S’ across the road beckoning me for our customary post-walk tête-à-tête with tea and cigarettes at our favorite the tea-stall.
Here lurked my second “Smoking - Anchor” – my smoker friends.
I felt tempted, but I steeled my resolve.
I waved out to my smoker friends, turned away and briskly headed home.
They must have thought I’d gone crazy, but it didn’t matter – I had avoided my second cigarette of the day.
That’s what I was going to do the entire day. Be aware, look inwards, fully cognizant and mindful in order to ensure that I identify all the stimuli that triggered in me the urge to smoke – my “smoking anchors” which could be anything, conscious and unconscious, internal and external, tangible or intangible – people, situations, events, feelings, smells, emotions, tendencies, moods, foods, social or organizational trends, practices, norms, peer-pressure.
Then I would conquer and triumph over these stimuli, demolish these negative “smoking-anchors” and establish and reinforce new positive “healthy” non-smoking anchors using a Technique called Force Field Analysis.
I’ll tell you more about Force Field Analysis later. You can read about this technique in my blog too:
http://vikramkarve.sulekha.com/blog/post/2008/11/force-field-analysis-an-effective-management-tool.htm
Dear Reader, read on and see how my first non-smoking day progressed.
After breakfast, I didn’t drink my usual cup of coffee – a strong “smoking anchor” which triggered in me a strong irresistible craving and desperate desire to smoke.
I drank a glass of cold bland milk instead, and thereby averted my third cigarette of the day.
It was nine as I reached my workplace and I had not smoked a single cigarette. Rather I had not smoked my customary three cigarettes!
It was a long day ahead and I had to be cognizant, observe myself inwardly and devise strategies to tackle situations that elicited craving for smoking – recognize and conquer my “smoking anchors”.
Anchoring is a naturally occurring phenomenon, a natural process that usually occurs without our awareness.
An anchor is any representation in the human nervous system that triggers any other representation.
Anchors can operate in any representational system (sight, sound, feeling, sensation, smell, taste).
You create an anchor when you unconsciously set up a stimulus-response pattern.
Response [smoking] becomes associated with [anchored to] some stimulus; in such a way that perception of the stimulus [the anchor] leads by reflex to the anchored response [smoking] occurring.
Repeated Stimulus–Response [SR] action reinforces anchors and this is a vicious circle, especially in the context of “smoking anchors”.
The trick is to identify your “smoking anchors”, become conscious of these anchors and ensure you do not activate them.
And then transcend from the SR Paradigm to the SHOR Paradigm to set and fire new positive anchors.
What’s SHOR?
SHOR stands for Stimulus-Hypothesis-Options-Response – do read the article on SHOR Paradigm in my blog:
http://vikramkarve.sulekha.com/blog/post/2008/09/the-shor-paradigm.htm
The moment I reached office I saw my colleague ‘B’ eagerly waiting for me, as he did every day.
Actually the freeloader was eagerly waiting to bum a cigarette off me for his first smoke of the day. “I only smoke other’s cigarettes” was his motto!
I politely told him I had quit smoking and told him to look for a cigarette elsewhere.
He looked at me in disbelief; taunted, jeered and badgered me a bit, but when I stood firm, he disappeared.
I had not smoked my fourth cigarette of the day!
I removed from my office my ashtray, my lighter, all vestiges of smoking, declared the entire place a no-smoking zone and put up signs to that effect.
The working day began. It was a tough and stressful working day. I was tired and suddenly my boss called me across to his office and offered me a cigarette.
I looked at the cigarette pack yearningly, tempted, overcome by a strong craving, desperate to have just that “one” cigarette.
Nothing like a “refreshing” smoke to drive my blues away and revitalize me – the “panacea” to my “stressed-out” state!
It was now or never!
I politely excused myself on the pretext of going to the toilet, but rushed out onto the terrace and took a brisk walk rinsing my lungs with fresh air, and by the time I returned I had lost the craving to smoke and realized that physical exercise is probably the best antidote – a positive “non-smoking” anchor – and, of course,
I had not smoked my fifth cigarette of the day!
It was the famous Stoic philosopher Epictetus who said:
“Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle: Some things are within our control, and some things are not. It is only after you have faced up to this fundamental rule and learned to distinguish between what you can and cannot control that inner tranquility and outer effectiveness become possible.”
We often let our feelings set our anchors, govern our lives. We let feelings drive our thoughts, not realizing that thoughts drive actions, actions produce results, and results in turn produce more feelings, reinforce anchors, causing a vicious circle which may ultimately lead to loss of self-control.
Such “feeling-anchors” not totally controllable, as many times feelings are produced by external circumstances beyond your control, and if negative feelings are allowed to drive our thoughts and actions, then undesirable results emanate.
The best solution is to establish “thought-anchors” as drivers of your actions.
It is well within your control to think positive, good and interesting thoughts.
In fact, the happiest person is the one who thinks the most interesting and good thoughts, isn’t it?
That’s the essence of NLP.
Reprogram your anchors, recondition your mind, control your own life, change for the better, enhance your health and happiness, and elevate your plane of living.
This technique works for me, and I’m sure it’ll work for you too.
Maybe it is so effective because it is so breathtaking in its simplicity.
VIKRAM KARVE
Copyright © Vikram Karve 2009
Vikram Karve has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
http://vikramkarve.sulekha.com/
http://www.linkedin.com/in/karve
vikramkarve@sify.com
vikramkarve@hotmail.com
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