When we pour rice or sugar into a container, just tapping it few times creates more space. This is one of my favourite observations. Can we do the same with our mind, our thoughts?
A recent discussion with an industry friend also kept me thinking about renovating or upgrading ourselves. Often, we tend to not realise how important it is to renovate and upgrade ourselves, just as we do in our homes.
How often do we ask ourselves this question: What is new about me? Or ‘What can be new about me?’
In our daily grind of work, chores, working towards aspirations, we tend to move unilaterally where subconsciously we get drawn into a routine. This may be okay unless we start to think on the lines of: ‘What did I do to add something to myself in the past few months?’
Why do we need to keep renovating? It brings in a new perspective, freshness, breaks monotony and helps with a sense of accomplishment. Here are few simple steps to self-renovation. These have helped me in life to bring in inner peace and deeper value to self, and hence my keenness to share.
1. Reorganise and Review
I keep doing this every quarter. Few days back I changed the position of my refrigerator at home. The space somehow felt more enlarged and refreshing. It did not occur to me until a few years back when I started to do this that how significant this small effort could be! At times, I just keep the things in my cupboard in a different way or just rearrange the sequence of the books I read in a different order. Changing the layout, sequence, position of an item.
Can we do the same with ourselves? When I started to actively do this exercise few years back, I realised it brings in more confidence, self-awareness, ability to do more and most importantly—a different and more effective way to do the same thing. Try it with reorganising your priorities for a month or a quarter or just try a different approach or perspective. Then do a self-review to see what worked and what didn’t.
2. Recycle and Reduce
This is what I think we all have instinctively but tend to forget. Like a lot of items at home we may throw away but still have a scope to be utilised, same is the case with our seemingly ‘unproductive thoughts’. I have started to maintain a journal of such ‘unproductive’ thoughts. What seems unproductive at the first go, may have another shade to it. I started with recycling my procrastination. This approach actually made it easy for me. Whenever procrastination hit me, I used to tell myself ‘let’s recycle this on priority’ and get on to rendering mode.
3. Read and Listen
This is about upgrading. I was not much of a reader when I started my career. Gradually, I realised that it is not only important but highly essential to update and upgrade. Effective listening and reading are the easy tools to keep updating and upgrading ourselves. Questions I ask myself while doing this: What could be the possible new areas of interest? What should I be reading next? Am I giving my hundred per cent to a conversation? Did I have some takeaways? Was I able to genuinely contribute? Also, this exercise keeps improving every time.
Every moment in our lives are made of micro-moments and what we experience is a result of addressing how we want our experiences to be and, in the process, we bring joy, inner peace to ourselves and others.
So, before re-inventing, reorganise and renovate. Just like tapping a bit brings in more space in a rice jar, our minds work the same way to help our energies flow in tandem with how we want our moments to shape up while driving deeper value to our existence.
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