TITLE : GOAL SETTING AND ACTUALIZATION WITH CONTROLLED MIND.

AUTHOR : S. B. GOGATE.

ADDRESS : A-156, Sector 41, NOIDA-201 301.

PHONE : 4500411.

FAX : 91-120-4501685.

Mobile : 98681 10398.

E-mail : sbgogate@ndc.vsnl.net.in & info@innerconscious.com

Web site : www.innerconscious.com

Come July and the MBA aspirants are all set for the CATathon. All of you must have tied up the loose ends and seriously planning to sweat it out. Let me bring good news to you that this year the exams have been preponed by a fortnight. Some of you may feel a bit jittery about it but why not look at the brighter side of it? After all you will get one full fortnight in December to loosen yourself into the fantasies for the New Year. Moreover, you need not worry because from now onwards ‘Looking Inside’ is going to bring you techniques that may help you convert two days into one.

Preponement of the exam has necessitated a slight change of strategy at ‘Management Compass’ pertaining to the schedule of articles announced in this column in June 2002 issue. The articles slated for the months beginning October shall now appear from September onwards. The two articles slated for the months July and September have been clubbed into one this month. Therefore, in this article we will discuss about ‘Goal Setting’ and ‘Mind Control’ together.

Short Term and Long Term Goals:

Obviously as you are all ready for this CATathon, you definitely have a goal set for now, which is only an intermediate goal at present but the life in itself happens to be a continuous process of achieving worthwhile goals one after the other. This surely means that such intermediate goals at every step must lead you to the grand finale of achieving the ultimate goal set for your life. When you will succeed in this exam with flying colors you will set your goal for getting admitted to the IIM, then getting a good job or starting your own enterprise, earning tones of money, name, fame and power and then WHAT? There always is a fag end to the story of life. You must have heard a Ghazal written by Nida Fazli and sung by Jagjeet Singh – nqfu;k¡ ftls dgrs gSa tknw dk f[kykSuk gS] fey tk, rks feêh gS [kks tk, rks lksuk gSA – "This world is a magical toy. It remains precious as long as we don’t get it and it becomes worthless as soon as we get it". At the fag end of your life all your achievements in wealth, fame and power become meaningless because then you take them for granted and feel sorry for what you could not achieve. So, what is the fun in achieving goals that bring you misery at the end? There is no fault with failures or achievements, which once upon a time you thought could be your only goals and later on found worthless in comparison to your failures. Fault really lies in the process of selecting your goals.

Our ancient scriptures have classified strategists and planners in three major categories namely Deerghasootree ¼nh?kZlw=h½, Laghusootree ¼y?kqlw=h½ and Prattyutpannamati ¼izŸ;qRiUuefr½. Whereas the first one is a long-term planner, the second is a short-term planner and the third is the spontaneous planner at the eleventh hour. The short-term planner is myopic and fails to envision the entire canvas thereby limiting his achievement to mediocre levels whereas the spontaneous planner, though he may at times appear to be the brighter of the brightest, never achieves much in his life, as he has no goals except tackling a situation as and when it arrives. The long-term planner on the other hand, by the dint of his far sightedness and carefully selecting his priorities beforehand, not only achieves his coveted goals but also enjoys satisfaction and fulfillment at the fag end of his life. The reason is simple; he exactly knows where he wants to go and what to expect when he reaches there. Have you ever gone to the railway station and asked for a ticket to ‘somewhere’? You will never get one because you must know the exact destination if you want to reach there.

Set a Long Term Goal:

The crux of goal setting lies in selecting a goal from the wildest of your fantasies and imagination. For the mankind, setting foot on the moon must have been a pretty lofty and dreamy or to that matter a ridiculous goal at a conceptual stage, yet someone dared to dream it and only then success followed. dYius"kq nfjnzrk fde~ "Why should we be paupers in our imagination?" If you attempt setting a goal on the basis of the past experiences you limit your future by the past. Be as lofty as you can when you select your final goal. Do not feel shy to consider yourself an extraordinary person. All of us are a unique creation of God and possess every capability to achieve what we want. If you consider yourself ordinary it is really pitiful and this consideration lets you remain ever ordinary. If you want to prove yourself a superman think that you are a superman and then set before you a goal befitting the capabilities of a superman. All those super heroes appeared as ordinary as anyone who thinks himself to be ordinary till they proved they are different. Only then and not until then they were titled as super heroes. Every human being has an inbuilt mechanism, which guides him both consciously and unconsciously towards fulfillment of his core desires, no matter how tall or difficult they are. So, go ahead and find yourself a seemingly impossible dream that would bring you happiness and joy not only on fulfillment but would also keep you happy when you are pursuing it. Think of the first thing that you can put your soul into while doing it, and then think of the next best and the next, which will provide you enough insight in selecting your goal.

Stay Aware of your Basic Priorities:

While selecting your goals do not commit the same mistake committed by most others who by the time they have achieved them wish they had something else. This happens when you overlook your basic priorities at the time of setting a goal. Concepts of happiness and achievement keep changing through the entire journey of life but certain basic requirements don’t. Achievement of major goals of life does need time and if your concept of happiness changes with time, at the end of it you are unhappy. There is a saying "When I had strong teeth I could not afford to buy nuts but now when I can afford to buy nuts I have no teeth to crack them". There are six major areas of life that need to be given equal priority while setting goals for your life and they are health, wealth, happy family, social status, peace of mind and spirituality. While interacting with the younger generation during my lectures and workshops I have found that almost ninety percent of them have one single goal and that is amassing wealth. What would you do with your millions by the time you earn them if you have no happy family or if you can’t enjoy your wealth because of poor health, lacking mental peace or social acceptance? Whether you like it or not the die for the end of the journey is already cast and if you want to be happy not only at the destination but also through the entire journey, pay attention to these basic priorities while selecting your goals.

Start Climbing the Ladder of Success:

Once the ultimate long-term goal is set, prepare a practical stepwise action plan with the help of sequential short-term goals. Then break the immediate short-term goal into further fragments of action such that your ultimate goal becomes the end result of integration of all the short-term goals. Once the stepwise action plan is ready, the most important step is to put the ultimate goal at the far end of the ladder and focus total attention onto the first step of the action plan. Hereafter the ultimate goal must only remain as a distant end result, which must be achieved by climbing the ladder of the action plan, one step at a time. Tomorrow’s success is a long process of numerous cycles of cause and effect needing us to remain aware of every cause and its effect in this process, while we cherish our dreams of success only as an end result of whatever we do today. Each short-term goal realized becomes the cause for the next to manifest and each realization brings you closer to the ultimate goal. Remember, tomorrow’s success depends on what you do today.

Don’t underestimate yourself:

Your experience is your knowledge and this very knowledge brings you success and failure both depending upon how you utilize it. If you start self-evaluation on the basis of past knowledge you instantly limit your abilities by avoiding the avenues where you faced failure in the past. A failure silently blocks your mind by telling you that you can’t do it because you could not do it in the past. Consider every failure as an opportunity to improve upon yourself and yet another link on the ladder of success. "Never take pride in not falling but always be proud of rising every time you fall". Once you make that final rise to success nobody will remember how many times you failed. So, boldly imagine what you want to be and what you want to achieve, irrespective of how impossible it may appear to you today.

Visualize man, visualize:

Patanjali in his Yogasutras says – fo"k;orh ok izo`fŸk#RiUuk eul% fLFkfrfucfU/kuh – An imaginary mental picture of desired, pleasurable object or event holds your mind steadfast. It is true for all of us. If you selected for yourself a goal to become the president of this country, visualize yourself now as if you are really the president, visualize yourself in Rashtrapati Bhavan. Visualize yourself taking salute at the republic day parade; visualize yourself doing everything you would do in capacity of the president. Feel the emotion of pride, fulfillment and power. Spend five minutes every morning and every evening in visualizing the end result as actual attainment of your ultimate goal. Take care not to drown yourself in daydreaming, instead start working on the action plan of the immediate short-term goal. This will embolden your auto fulfillment faculty and keep you focused on your ultimate goal. I have practiced this technique myself and enjoyed astonishing results.

Do it NOW:

dky djS lks vkt dj vkt djS lks vc] iy esa ijy; gks x;ks cgqfj djksxs dcA We don’t know what may happen and when. So, do it today what you want to do tomorrow and do it now what you want to do today. Procrastination is the greatest obstacle in the path of achievement.

Hold your ground:

lwjk¡ lks igpkfu;s tks yMS nhu ds gsr] iqtkZ iqtkZ dV ejS dcgq¡ u Nk¡MS [ksrA A brave and courageous person is the one who holds his ground until death. Persistence always pays and you can see innumerous examples of persistence not only in history but all around you. Someone once asked me how to stop smoking and the answer was simple; stop smoking and never smoke again. Similarly to achieve your goal continue your efforts till you achieve it.

Mind your speech:

Every word you utter intentionally or otherwise is your own command to the collective intelligence and it manifests sooner or later in a form beyond your comprehension. How many times do you say I can’t do it or I am no good or express similar negative expressions about yourself? Unknowingly you imprint very firmly similar predicaments on your subconscious mind, which actually manifest in the form of unexpected obstacles and failure in your path and you keep wondering how it all happened. It is common experience, which you must be aware of that many a times you really want to go ahead and finish that important job but somehow you don’t do it. Sometimes you are doing something, which you can do with perfection, but suddenly you make a silly mistake and make a fool of yourself. It happens to all of us and we put the blame on something or the other. However, the fact remains that we have firmly imprinted such a command on our subconscious, which manifests in the form of a silly mistake that we would never otherwise commit. So, always be careful of what you speak. Make bold and loud statements like ‘I am efficient’, ‘I am committed to success and I shall achieve it", "I am healthy, happy and at ease".

Affirm your desires:

Writing down your goals, aspirations and positive statements directly influence your conscious and subconscious behavior. Here is a technique – Select a strong positive statement for yourself, take a sheet of paper and write the statement at the top in a very small font. Repeat the statement in consecutive lines each time increasing the font size to the bottom of the sheet. Repeat a few sheets in similar manner. Do this exercise whenever you get time. You may select any number of such positive affirmations in the areas of traits you want to improve. You will see the result yourself.

Control that roaming mind:

The greatest enemy of success is the roaming mind and you need to put instant control over it. If you are unhappy with the present, creating an optimistic dream for a happy future is the first priority and that is exactly what you did by fantasizing an ultimate goal for your life. However, once you set your goal only the real action will help you actualizing it. The dream of fantasy should work as a motivating factor towards its realization and it should not become an obstacle by wasting time in dreams of tomorrow. It is like planting seedlings in expectation of a bumper harvest but in order to reap the harvest you must act now and plant the seedling followed by watering and nurturing by physical action. If you sow seedlings only in the dream you would get a bumper harvest only in the dreams.

The motivation that prompts you to set a goal motivates you into its realization too. The same motivation that drives you into wandering aimlessly in the past or the future also motivates you to act fruitfully. It may sound funny but it is not. All of us living beings are in a perpetual search for happiness. When the going in the present is rough, it makes you unhappy and instantly your search for happiness becomes the motivating force to make you look for greener pastures. If you were lucky enough to have enjoyed a happy past your mind takes you on a joyride of the past. If you were not so lucky in the past, you start building castles of futuristic happiness. These escapades of roaming in the past or in the future act as a release valve in order to keep your mind in a perpetually happy state. Such dreamy assumptions responsible for this happy state of mind are nothing but a mirage, which keeps you running after it but you are never able to really touch it. However, the luck stands firm on your side as soon as you realize that such assumptions are the end results like the light at the end of a tunnel, which you can reach by negotiating the tunnel while enjoying every moment of your journey through it. This is when your motivation takes the right direction. In a nutshell you need to control that roaming mind of yours such that it stays focused onto that fantasized ultimate goal and also the stepwise action plan simultaneously. In order to control your mind you need to know how it functions.

Every one of us is aware of what mind is but no two descriptions of mind would ever tally. We have a superfine mind and body complex, which is inseparable as long as we live. Yogashastra classifies mind as a sensory organ of human beings. It is called Antahkaran ¼vUr%dj.k½- Antah means inner and karan means organ. This organ being the sensor of the physical body - being subtler than the body itself - is beyond the sensing capacity of the physical sensory organs and hence intangible.

In our personality, the mind-body complex as a whole, all the tangible, material and physical aspects of ourselves get identified as the body and all the intangible aspects as the mind. When we look deeply at the activities of our mind, we find that all the non-tangible aspects, which comprise our mind, fall into four categories. Our scriptures call it the Antahkaran Chatushtaya ¼vUr%dj.k prq"V;½, the four parts being the Mana, Chitta, Buddhi and Ahankar ¼eu] fpŸk] cqf) rFkk vgadkj½. Our mind perceives the world around us through the five senses, namely, sound, touch, sight, taste and smell, aided by the five respective sensory organs the ears, skin, eyes, tongue and nose. When our mind desires to know an external object, it activates the sensory organ or organs necessary for the purpose, engulfs the object through that organ and collects the necessary information of the object. The part of mind performing the above operation is called the Mana and the above act is called Manan ¼euu½. At this stage the experience can be that of pleasure, displeasure or indifference. In case of indifference the process of perception terminates then and there. However, if the experience is that of pleasure ¼lq[k½ or displeasure ¼nq%[k½ our mind needs to retain this knowledge for future reference in order to accept or reject the object of perception instantly. For such retention of knowledge, our mind keeps repeating the experience mentally, again and again till it is firmly registered within. The part of our mind performing this act of mental reconstruction is called the Chitta and the act is called Chintan ¼fpUru½. It is necessary to take note of the fact that in the process of Chintan the outer object is absent and the sensory organs are at rest as only Chitta is engaged in this act. Once a conclusive opinion or a decision regarding the object in question is formed, the same is recorded in the mind for future reference. The part of mind that holds such recorded conclusive knowledge is called the Buddhi. The constant realization and awareness of the above three actions, like `I, so and so, am knowing this particular object, I, so and so, am internalizing the knowledge so acquired, I, so and so, hold so much knowledge', is the fourth part of the mind, which is called Ahankar.

Before proceeding further it is necessary to clarify upon the common misinterpretation of the word Ahankar. This word carries with it three different interpretations, which are included in the expression of the word Ahankar. The first and foremost is Asmita ¼vfLerk½. In Sankrit Asmi means ‘I am’, which is the basic and pure awareness of self-existence and carries no other knowledge about self. To this basic awareness of being is attached further knowledge about the self like I am tall, I am educated, I am rich and so on. Such pure knowledge about self devoid of any malice is the real interpretation of the word Ahankar. When this knowledge of self creates overtones of malice in comparison with others like I am richer than him, he can’t equal me in knowledge etc. it is called Malin Ahankar ¼efyu vgadkj½, which is the third and commonly used interpretation and is looked down upon because of the malice it carries. You can’t exist and function as a living being without Asmita and Ahankar. If you don’t know that you are, who would know that he is hungry and who would eat? In the same manner if you don’t know that you are a graduate how would you enter this CATathon? With this clarity in your mind you will be able to understand the following explanations with ease.

Ahankar expressed as the ego in English prompts you to do everything that you do. This means that in order to control your mind you must control the Ahankar. I will explain it in a simpler way. Suppose you are served a mouth watering tasty snack but at that very moment you are engrossed in some other work. Even though your sensory organ is absorbing the smell, your belly is jumping for a mouthful of that snack; you will not eat it as long as you do not come out of that topic of your attention. When you the ego want to eat you eat, when you the ego want to listen you listen and when you the ego want to think YOU THINK. This means all the physical sensory organs including the three intangible Mana, Chitta and Buddhi functions of the Antahkaran work in order to appease you the Ego. Ahankar is the master controller of our mind and body complex and the rest are its subordinates who work only to fulfill its desires. They have no purpose of their own. Mana goes out into the world to know what the Ahankar wants to know. Chitta creates its imagery to internalize the knowledge acquired by Mana so that the ego can retrieve it when he wants and Buddhi keeps all such acquired knowledge in a perpetual recall mode only to the extent the Ahankar wants to recall. Every experience of your life is firmly written on your brain neurons but you remember only the information you are interested in. All the sensory organs including Mana, Chitta and Buddhi are mere horses that either run or drag as desired by the jockey that is you the ego.

Now let us see the entire picture. You want to own a multinational company and you know exactly what to do in order to achieve this goal, yet you allow your Chitta to wander aimlessly in the memory lanes or in the futuristic dreams, which are not here and now. Yesterday is a dead man and tomorrow an unborn child. You can’t transact with them in the present in any manner whatsoever. You know it and yet YOU allow YOUR Chitta to roam and then YOU complain that your Chitta is not stable and does not allow YOU to focus on YOUR goals. Oh boy! – Are YOU lost or am I?

The only answer to this predicament is to constantly embolden your motivation by controlled visualization of your ultimate goal so that your ego stays focused at the end result and remains totally motivated to achieve it through adequate action.

Meditation aided by Visualization and Pranayam (Controlled Breathing) are two important tools to cool down and relax your mind and they will appear in this column in the months of August and September respectively.