Tracking Habits and Goals - Instant Gratification

Some of your goals are milestones some of them are ongoing. 

Examples of milestones

1. X amount of Money as Assets

2. Becoming VP 

3. Building a dream house

4. Starting a company 

Ongoing goals

1. I am an Athlete

2. I have pleasing personality 

Please note that ongoing goals when you get started you may not be there so you may have some milestones to achieve and then maintain once achieved 

But since most goals are long term and milestones in nature if you have a habit trackers (daily, weekly) and may be a Goal tracker monthly, Quarterly, Yearly.

When you track and put a tick on a habit or a goal you get instant gratification even though the goal is not reached you have the happiness in measuring the goal and Habit and see that the progress is happening. 

So delayed gratification is good but our evolution has put in the instinctive "instant gratification" in our genes . 

Why can't we gamify the delayed gratification goals to a series of instant gratification?

Note: Need to acknowledge that most of these ideas were crystalized as part of mindvalley and life book  

Habits that helps winning in many areas of life

 I am a life long leaner and dont have a second thought related to investing money for getting paid courses. 

Some of these investments are hit and few are misses but its ok. 

I am having a goal of a fixed amount of money for donation and may be for courses for which I don't find value I will simply feel it as donation. Its better to pay someone for more than the value they provide then just giving donation isn't it. 

I loved mindvalley all access (I have taken a break from it now should be back when they have new courses since I already consumed whatever I needed to consume)

I also completed  life book + mastery  and I should say my life is changed permanently. 

What I found in that course was there are many aspects of your life (they say 12) of which 5 is all about you

1. Health 

2. Intelligence

3. Emotion

4. Character

5. Spiritual

There are some habits which you do will check more than one aspect of life. As Jon says "A win anywhere is a win everywhere"

What if you can have daily habits which can touch many aspects. 

Couple of examples:

If I do exercise (as a person who never did exercise previously) it checks my 

1. Health

2. Emotion - as body moves you get happy 

3. Character - it takes discipline

Similarly if I do Meditation it improves my

1. Emotion 

2. Spiritual 

If I upgrade my skill technical or non-technical it improves my intelligence and career

What is important is to bring consciousness to everything. 

If you can have a vision and you build a goal and break some of them to Habit and then if you can track it and reflect (or report it to an accountability group) then nothing can stop you from making measurable progress to the ideal vision of your life. 

This is how companies are run and some companies go bust but few great companies survive for a long time constantly reinventing themselves and check the entropy. 

Why can't we do this in our own life and have a good progress in our life vision 

Take the example of this blog. This affects the following areas of my life

1. Intelligence - my creativity and communication increases

2. Spiritual - I am giving. I am creating

3. Emotion - this makes me happy

4. Social - I am connecting with some people 

5. Finance - Either directly or indirectly I improve my skills and give value and so I should get something in return financially also 

6. Career - this may make me communicate effectively and can help me in my current career or may help me in my part-time career or my  next career 

I urge you to explore your areas of life and find a habit or a ritual which could be the highest leverage across all the areas. The best return of investment. 

Back to Blogging

 I am back 

After a long Hibernation. 

I am back to writing. 

I have an aim to publish something once a week in this blog (I also have other writing aims like being a published writer and will also work on it)

Overcoming Behavioral Mistakes

SN: What tricks do you use to save yourself from behavioural biases? What are the most common behavioural mistakes you make?

HH: Most mistakes in investment stem from lack of knowledge. When one is walking in the dark, other senses become heightened. Similarly, when one is operating in the field of investments and one does not know what one is doing, the basic human survival instincts (being with the crowd – herd mentality, avoiding danger – loss aversion, etc.) kick in. These instincts sometimes may mislead one in stock markets which is a massive melting pot of human emotions.

Many advocate changing behavioural responses. I think if you try to do that you are up against thousands of years of evolutionary survival strategies. Instead, focusing energies on accumulating knowledge is a more reasonable task.

http://www.safalniveshak.com/value-investor-interview-huzaifa-husain/

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Ten Kings couple of doubts

I have read Ashok Banker’s Ten kings today. The story is interesting it shows one day battle between King Suda and Ten Kings.

Just couple of things needs clarification

1.  There was a scene between Vashista and Vishwamithra, wherein Vishwamithra advices Vashishta to stop a project, which Vashishta does not accept. But as they were speaking the ten kings were already trying to execute a coup. So it seems that whatever dialogue had happened between Vashishta and Vishwamithra had no significance since coup was to happen anyway. So why was the scene created?

2. How was the queen asked to play her role in the coup and why did she did what she did

Venkataramana Bhagvathar

Saint Thyagaraja intuitively knew that his end was nearing. He called for his devoted disciple Venkataramana Bhagvathar and entrusted to him the idol of Sri Ram, bundles of palm leaves containing his kritis and tambura.

Venkataramana Bhagvathar knew the importance of the articles given to him and he preserved it with great care. All the articles given to Venkataramana Bhagvathar by Saint Thyagaraja are preserved till date! The palm leaves collection preserved by Venkataramana Bhagvathar, later came to be known as ‘Walajapet Collections’, it attracted the attention of scholars, musicians for study.

Venkataramana Bhagvathar was associated with Saint Thyagaraja for over a quarter of century and he had documented the biography of Thyagaraja. Venkataramana Bhagvathar had himself written hundreds of kritis, one of them ‘Sri Thyagarajashtakam’ which is being rendered at the end of all concerts during Thyagaraja Music Festivals.  He also translated Thyagaraja’s opera ‘Nowka Charitam’ from Telugu to Sanskrit.

Venkataramana Bhagvathar had a chain of disciples which was later popularly known as ‘Walajapet Chain Disciples’. Venkataramana Bhagvathar’s school of sishya parampara was very instrumental in the propagation of Saint Thyagaraja’s kritis.

Bhai Jeewan Singh

Bhai Jeewan Singh rode the horse in full speed, he had to cover 300 Km from Delhi to reach Anandpur Sahib. As the teenager travelled in lightning speed his thought went back in time when a group of Kashmir Pandits had an audience with Guru Teg Bahadur.

Aurangazeb decided to convert his kingdom to be a full Islamic kingdom. Some of the Kashmiri Pandits came to Guru Teg Bahadur and informed them about their predicaments.

Guru Teg Bahadur instructed the Pandits to tell the Mughals that the Pandits would be ready to convert if Teg Bahadur gets converted to Islam. Bhai Jeewan Singh, who was the witness of this incident, did not know at that time that Guru Teg Bahadur was getting ready to sacrifice his life for the Hindus!

The Mughals arrested Guru Teg Bahadur and also their disciples including Bhai Jeewan Singh.  Guru Teg Bahadur wrote 57 Slokas and asked Bhai Jeewan Singh to take it to Guru Teg Bahadur’s son Gobind Rai. Aurangazeb’s daughter  Bibi Jabunisha helped  Bhai Jeewan Singh escape the jail.

Bhai Jeewan Singh gave Gobind Rai the slokas and informed him of the tortures that Guru Teg Bahadur had to undergo.

When it became clear that Teg Bahadur would sacrifice his life, Gobind Rai called congregation of devotes and commanded as to who would bring back the body of Guru Teg Bahadur from Delhi after his martyrdom. There was pin drop silence in the congregation and nobody could muster courage to undertake such a challenge. Bhai Jeewan Singh came forward and said he would accomplish the task.

Bhai Jeewan Singh reached Anandpur Sahib with the beheaded corpse  of Guru Teg Bahadur and Gobind Rai performed the final rites on 16^th November 1675.

After the ritual was over Gobind Rai asked Bhai Jeewan Singh,  “Please tell me how you brought my father’s corpse. I heard that Aurangazeb gave an order that whoever tries to take the corpse would be put to death. How did you accomplish this task?”

Bhai Jeevan Singh said, “You know how similar your father and my father, Bhai Sada Nand were”

Gobind Rai’s heart skipped a beat!

Bhai Jeevan Singh said, “My father gave an order..”

Gobind Rai exclaimed, “What your father sacrificed his life and you beheaded your own father!!”

Bhai Jeevan Singh replied, “Yes! I replaced the corpse of gurudev with that of my father. So the Mughals will not know that we are taking the Gurudev’s corpse”

This incident made an indelible impression on Gobind Rai who went on to become Guru Gobind Singh, the 10^th Guru of Sikhs. Guru Gobind Singh formed the Khalsa Order in 1699.

Bhai Jeevan Singh participated in at least 14 wars alongside with Guru Gobind Singh. In the year 1704, when Aurangazeb violated the ceasefire and attacked Chamkaur Sahib, Bhai Jeevan Singh and fellow disciples pleaded Guru Gobind Singh to escape. Bhai Jeevan Singh attained martydom while fighting the invaliding Mughal in Chamkaur.