MindIT

This, is the age of information where data is the king. When it comes to consumption of data an average data consumed per day by a person is about 10 GB. That means there is a huge lot of information being consumed by us.Just imagine what this data does to a human mind unknowingly.

While in the non-technology era, people were and it was comparatively easy for them to find their calling and define their success. Now, with so much information all around, a normal human mind has become deeply influenced. This influence has made him aspirational at a very relative level. There is no harm in being aspirational, being aspirational at a relative level, creates a mismatch between an individual's success criteria and the related results which may be in the form of happiness or satisfaction. This mismatch also is evident in individual's personality and resolution towards his defined success.

How to deal with these influencers? A human mind is subject to multiple influencing layers which are laid upon him from the moment he/she is born. One of the initial layers being the layers of his own parents, religion, culture, relatives and subsequently the layers of his friends, education, society and now-a-days internet. These layers influence the thoughts and subsequent actions also. More dominant the layers in an individual, more are the chances for his thoughts and actions to be influenced at a relative level. This keeps him away from his real self and his related success criteria.

How many times you would have heard that, people choose their career being under the influence of their parents or their friends. These brilliant minds select the career under these influences and later leave them, to pursue something else. In other scenario, if they continue with their influenced career path, they remain in a perpetual state of unhappiness and dis-satisfaction. This affects their personal and professional life as well.

How do you identify your success criteria? The first step to write a new story on the blackboard, is to clean your board and to clean the boardit is pertinent to identify multiple layers on your mind, engage with them by knowing your thoughts and actions and then empower your own self to find your success criteria. Is it really as simple as described? Though, it is a continuous process which requires your commitment to be mindful and resolute an illustrative process for the same is mentioned below.

• Identify you influencing layers: You must identify what are the hardest layers on your mind which have been influencing you since you were a child. Make a list of all those influencing layers. These  can be from your parents, religion, culture, education, relatives, friends, society and Internet.
• Identify aspirations: Make a list of aspirations on a timescale of short-term (1-2 years), medium term (3-5 years) and long term (life goals). Plotting them in a matrix on Y-axis put a number from 1-5 in terms of the importance of the aspiration to you (where 1 is least important and 5 is very important)
• Create a matrix: Map your aspirations (on Y-axis) with the influencing layers (On X-axis) and find out if your aspirations are a result of some influencing layers on you. Just keep ticking in each cell where ever you feel an influencing layer is influencing your aspiration. Create a total's column on Y-Axis and put the total count of ticks relating to influencing layers on each aspiration in that column.
• Map with happiness quotient: Add another column (on Y-Axis) of happiness quotient and rate each aspiration by entering the happiness quotient on a scale of 1-5 (where 1- less happy and 5 is very happy)
• Prioritise your aspirations: Identify only three aspirations which are high on importance, low on influencer count (in total column) and high on happiness quotient. Set action plan and add your will power (willingness to pursue aspiration) on a scale of 1-5, where 1 is minimum willingness to do and 5 is maximum willingness to do. Start on your action plan, prioritize your aspirations on the basis of will power quotient and set timeline to each of the 3 aspirations.

The writer is Achal Sharma, Speaker, Life-Coach, Secretary, Corepeeler Foudation