Most of the religions in the
world teach that when you get up in the morning, you say your morning prayers
thanking God for giving us the opportunity to start another day. This is the time when we seek blessings from
the Almighty also. It is said that at this time in the morning if you give a
strong suggestion to yourself that it is going to be a good day for you, it
will be a good day. And if you are unsure, apprehensive and suggest yourself
that it is going to be a bad day, then it actually becomes a miserable day for
you irrespective of whether you religiously say your prayers or not.
You got to be positive about the
day ahead of you. You got to be positive about the world around you. So start
the day on a positive note. They say that the world around you is just your
reflection. If you are good and polite, the world around you becomes polite and
decent. And if you demonstrate a behaviour that is manipulative, wicked and
dishonest, the world around you also seems the same way. So we got to
demonstrate the positive attitude, all the time and every time. Think positive
about the environment. Think positive about the people, about your friends and
about your family members. If at all you have to be judgemental about anyone,
let it be yourself and not others.
It is said that ‘It is your Attitude and not Aptitude that
decides your Altitude’. For a moment it may look a bit strange. After all,
we keep studying various subjects in schools and colleges like Physics,
Chemistry, Economics or Mathematics or Biology etc. And there is a maddening
competition to get higher grades. Yes,
it is true that the subject/domain knowledge is important to succeed wherever
you go and whatever you do. But think of a situation where three MBA qualified
girls with almost same grades and equally smart and good looking go for an
interview in a big company and they need to hire just one of them. The
interview board has just 15 to 20 minutes for each of the candidates. From
their resumes, all the three look equally good. Now within this short period,
who will get selected? The one, who is able to demonstrate her positive
attitude during that brief interaction, the one who is able to prove that she
is a ‘Go-getter’.
Attitude is the first step
towards achieving Excellence. And Excellence is nothing but doing ordinary
things in the most extra ordinary way so that everyone who sees the results
says ‘Wow!’, however, simple job it may be. There are a total of four steps to
achieve Excellence:
1. Attitude 2. Knowledge 3. Skills 4. Habit
If you have the attitude, you will be able to acquire the
knowledge to accomplish any job in an excellent manner. But knowledge alone is
not good enough. You got to acquire the necessary skills to do the job. Do you
know that most of the electronics engineers will not be able to repair a simple
telephone or a TV at home. The reason is they have been taught about all the
chips, ICs, circuitry etc . but they never acquired the skills to repair these
electronics gadgets. And once you keep doing a job again and again, after
sometime it becomes a habit and it becomes your second nature. Let us say that
your mother/wife makes very tasty, excellent stuffed ‘Gobhi Paratha’ (Cauliflower stuffed Bread). She has the Attitude to
make good ‘parathas’ for you and all
others in the family. She acquired the knowledge long time back about all the
ingredients and in what proportions to use them. Then she acquired the skills may
be from her mother and then by making them again and again over so many years
and now it has become a part of her habit to make good ‘parathas’. I am sure her ‘parathas’
are delicious, excellent every time and each time.
We all can achieve Excellence
always by following these four steps: Attitude, Knowledge, Skills and Habit. And this starts with Attitude, and that is the Power of
Attitude. I simplify this by saying that let AKSH be your Lakshya (Goal) if you
wish to achieve Excellence in Life.
