10 life principles for a happy 2016!

As an Executive & Life Coach, Leadership Trainer, Inspirational Orator and Story-Teller, I address and work with around 2,50,000 people every year. Over the past two and half decades, I have worked with, spoken to and touched over 3.0 million people around the world, with my simple thoughts and ideas for action to live a happy, positive life. Through my engagements and interventions with several people from all walks of life and from different sectors and strata of society (I take this as a microcosm of the 7.0 billion people living in our world), I have assumed that 90% of the world has become existential and do not “feel alive”.

​Alive is a feeling of living a life with complete involvement of mind, body, heart and spirit. Unfortunately with most people, the “Spirit” or what I call the inner-fire has extinguished and thus people just live a day to day existence, where they are walking and talking but are already in the box (The box being the coffin which we finally go in). My simple humourous approach is that till we are not in the box, we need to live a full life and be out of the box for as long as we can.

My purpose in life is to help and encourage people to unleash ‘the hero within’ because I trust that there is a hero, a leader, a champion , a volunteer, a humane being and a moJOsh Inspirator in each and all us and that we can all help each other to kindle and rekindle our inner -fire and be alive. I sincerely believe that each of us as human beings are blessed with infinite potential and are immensely gifted. However, most of us do not open our gifts and unleash our potential while we are alive on planet Earth and settle for a life less ordinary. Thus was born the concept of moJOsh Inspiration which I am unleashing in a trilogy of personal discovery and development books which are being published soon.

The first in these series of books is Karishma – The Miracle. Most people feel that the miracle happens in some holy place, shrine or ashram without realizing that the miracle is within us and not in any holy temple. The temple is our mind, body heart and spirit and the simplistic concept of moJOsh is as given below with 10 fulfillment and practical principles of high energy, positive, content and happy people. Practicing these simple ideas for action may help each and all of you reading this piece to unleash your moJOsh and choose to live an extraordinary life. So here is what moJOsh Inspirator means:

moJOsh Inspirator moJO – inner fire, everlasting audacious spirit and proactive positive energy & potential JOsh – Happiness, zealous excitement & creative enthusiasm Inspirator- Inspiration, Joy of Giving, Gratitude and Junoon (Heroic Passion) enabler

Fulfillment 1 Seize the day! (Principle- Gratitude) Most people in our world wake up and start running because the race has begun with yet another day to exist routinely. I say NO. Take some time when you wake up. That should be the highest, happiest point of your life each day. Let us make the principles practical. Be grateful that you have woken up today, because many did not wake up today. Just this simple thought and idea for action will change the energy of your day. The very fact that I am alive today is a moment to rejoice and celebrate my life. Take life as it comes positively one day at a time, every day with one simple thought “How can I get better than what I was, yesterday?” Try It! This simple idea for action will enable you to unleash your potential every day!

Fulfillment 2 Unleash my potential everyday! (Principle – Rejuvenation and Continuous Improvement) I always tell people perfection is a myth because the day we are perfect is when we are in the box again. If I am not in the box, then I need to continuously improve for the better and strive for excellence. This is the miracle within us. We can constantly change our game by acting on change, rather than waiting for change to act on us. We need to believe in ourselves and become better today to be more, learn more, do more and contribute more in the lives of others and for the betterment of humanity and society.

Fulfillment 3 Live a life of purpose as a purpose of Life! (Principle – Imagination) Imagine if each of us over the years and centuries had thought and acted on one question “How can I leave the world better than when I came into it?” Then we all would have a world that was not broken and had a better world for future generations. We must do this not because it is altruistic or selfish but because our children and future generations will also live in the same world. Thus, if we are creating a legacy of a better world, it shall benefit our children too. Hence, making a positive contribution towards a better world is not selfless but selfish as it serves our own children too.

Fulfillment 4 Who am I? (Principle – Integrity) Whenever I ask people this question, most do not know the answer. This one question is a multi zillion dollar industry and that is the reason why the world has so many gurus and ashrams. And like I always joke if any of these gurus can tell you ‘who you are’ be very careful as they are misleading you. There is only 1 guru in the world who can tell you who you are and that guru is YOU! Take 10 minutes every day and 30 minutes every week to understand your most important roles and responsibilities. Besides being a child to someone, a parent, a sibling, a spouse, we also need to fulfill our roles and responsibilities as citizens and human beings and have the integrity to fulfill our goals and responsibilities in our most important roles.

Fulfillment 5 Create SMART Goals! (Principle – Resourcefulness) Whenever I ask people if they have a vision and purpose of their life, most say NO. Vision and purpose give us direction in life to know where we want to go in our lifetime. The problem with most of the world is that we are running very fast without knowing where we are going. The day we discover our purpose, we know what we need to do in our life and that sets us on the path of self actualization to realize our goals. Goals must be SMART- Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-Bound. If goals are not SMART, then they may be daydreams or hallucinations and that will lead to negativity. Set goals that are based on your responsibilities in each of your most important roles. Once you have set your goals and vision, you will be amazed at how your mind finds the resources to make your dreams and goals come true. If you can dream it, you can do it. If you cannot do, then why dream?

Fulfillment 6 Be Happy with what you have! (Principle – Contentment) All we want is everything. We want more in our lives without understanding our needs and thus end up running in the wrong direction and living other people’s lives. We must map our needs and create our own desires rather than desiring what is advertised or what the neighbor has. A lot of people had mistaken happiness for all their materialistic possessions. Happiness is never in the materialistic things, but is inside out. If we do not understand what makes our hearts and lives content and map our needs then we are always miserable desiring for more and wanting more and in the process we make ourselves miserable. This is dysfunctional because then we fail to enjoy the present and what we have.

Fulfillment 7 Learn from suffering and adversity! (Principle – Passion) There is not a single person in the world, who is bereft of suffering and adversity. Each person has his share of suffering and pain and hence in a way we all break at sometime and are broken people. When we break, most break-down, only some break- through. That is passion. Passion finds its origin in the Latin Word “Pati”, which means suffering. If we are not ready to suffer for someone or something, then we are not passionate about it. Hence, the saying “No Pain, No Gain”. If you are really passionate about your life, your work, your relationships, then you are ready to suffer and struggle to make them work and will go through the mill to find a way and make things happen. Suffering and pain are essential in life and we as humans are gifted that even in our most depressing moments of life, we can become positive by simply thinking about the highest points in our life. Let’s try this! Please close our eyes and think of a high point in your life and you will notice your spirit soaring.

Fulfillment 8 Trust and Respect the self and create a positive aura around you! (Principle- Dignity) A lot of people in the world lack trust and self – respect. One can only respect others when one respects the self. When we do not respect ourselves, we end up doing things which are wrong, dishonest and harmful towards the self and others. When one has robust self respect, one always does right and treats the self and others with dignity. Dignity, respect and trust for the self are priceless and no money or power in the world can get one that. One has to earn it and inspire it and can get it only by doing right. Once we trust and respect the self and have our own dignity, no external force can create any negativity for us because we become strong and robust inside- out.

Fulfillment 9 Learn to be light hearted! (Principle – Humour) The problem with a lot of people in our world is that they lack sense of humour. They take life too seriously and never see the lighter side of life. There is an old saying, “Do not take life too seriously, you will never get out of it alive anyway”. While it is important to have our purpose and vision of life, we must learn to take things in our day to day life with a grain of humour and a pinch of salt. We must learn to laugh at ourselves, we must learn to make light of day to day situations and we must understand that every human being has his own pain and suffering just like me so how can we learn to connect and have a few light hearted moments.

Fulfillment 10 Be kind to yourself and to others! (Principle- Compassion) One of the biggest concerns which most people have is the feeling of bitterness and resentment within. People have just not learnt how to let go, forgive and let be. Most take their bitterness and resentment to their graves without realising that all their bitterness never even affected the other person and only poisoned the self. We must learn to forgive and let go. We must learn to be kind to ourselves and compassionate with others for all their resentment and bitterness that they hold within. We must enable them also to let go and get free from the resentment that is poisoning them. This in turn would create a lot of positivity within us to battle the negativity from outside. We are surrounded by negative news, negative people, negative situations and a lot of negativity, but when we are kind to ourselves and also see others kindly we enable the positivity within to battle all the negativity that surrounds us.

These are my 10 fulfillment and I assure you that if you practice these, you would be taking the first step towards the journey to unleash your infinite potential and positive aura and thus also become a moJOsh Inspirator. I wish you all a very happy 2016 and a great life ahead.