Dear Students,
Hello!
Let’s start today with something most of the students feel quite often. When confronted with challenges, you feel like giving up, feel hopeless, feel helpless, feel unworthy etc. The list is endless.
Do you know something? Almost all of us are quite capable of achieving anything that we aspire to. The only essential ingredients are strong willpower and rock solid determination. The words like “Yes, I can do it !” shall keep banging your ears and this gives you immense motivation to arise, awake and stop not; something that Swami Vivekananda said, “Arise, Awake and Stop not till the Goal is Reached”. However, only few of us practice these golden words.
Challenges are essential part of life, they are inevitable and the good news is that they can be conquered. OK let me link it to real life. There’s a question for you, God forbid, have you ever experienced death very closely? I have! I recently (almost) drowned at a beach situated in none other than deep Arabian Sea which is located at north western part of the Indian Ocean and was pushed up because of a life jacket. You know what? When you experience such life-threatening events, you learn a lot from them. During those crucial few seconds; near to a minute, maybe, when I was drowning, my mind was working very fast, travelling million miles in a fraction of second. I could have given up and left myself at the mercy of a life jacket and the life-guards to save me; or I could have bounced back and did whatever best I could to save others (to the best of my potential), making the life jacket my weapon and savior, both, at the same time, rather than only a savior! I chose the second option; i.e. bounce back! When you face challenges in life, it is important to face it, deal with it and do whatever best you can and NOT GIVE-UP! Trust me, it works! I don’t know swimming by the way!
Now let me link this event to real life corporate challenges you face. There are various challenges you may face, let me take only one at the moment; communication. In the vast ocean of corporate, lack of sound communication skills is the biggest hurdle the students face these days, maybebecause of lack of their fluency or hesitation or inferiority complex of using wrong English grammar, or pronunciation or inability to express themselves or falling short of words when most required and the list goes on and on…… Students undergo that drowning feeling or feel suffocated; at times choked. The question is what to do?
If a drowning person, who didn’t even know swimming, facing death in front of her eyes can bounce back, why can’t you who is full of energy, potential, dynamism and ideas and certainly NOT facing any life-threatening situations; BUT only a few conquerable challenges.
The answer is practice which is the only key. By now you already know the words, and you can easily read, write and understand, where you lack is fluency. This comes only by practice. Read best newspapers, magazines and articles to name a few of them, in both Hindi and English and write the meaning of words you don’t understand. Try practising it in your daily dialect. This will improve your vocabulary and quality of language too. And when others ask you the meaning of complicated words; by telling the meaning, you are actually helping your acquaintances and friends in enhancing their communication skills too! Wow! You are learning and doing social service too! Incredible! Don’t get bogged down when someone makes fun of you because you are trying hard to excel in your communication skills, because one day when you will achieve success, they’ll be actually following YOU!
All you need to do is to accumulate all your strength and energy and channelize it in the right direction, do not let it go scattered or dispersed but direct it in one direction which is the desired goal-directed direction. And you will achieve success eventually, if not immediately. If at first, you don’t succeed, don’t give up, but try finding out the reasons why it didn’t work rather than cursing yourself, unnecessarily. This is applicable to all situations in life.
I read a quote this morning in a classroom, “If you don’t have a competitive advantage, don’t compete” said legendary CEO, Jack Welch. With all humility and due respect to the legendary CEO, Jack Welch, I would like to give it a slight twist, “If you don’t have a competitive advantage, create it!” and I believe it is as applicable to organizations as to individuals. Because the positive aspect is that you know you don’t have that desired competitive advantage and hence have the opportunity to learn from the shortcomings and create it, rather than sailing in bliss in an unknown island.
I know if you think you can, you can, and I strongly believe in it!
Believe in yourself, face challenges, and bounce back!
