You must
not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean
are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.”
“The
difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to
solve most of the world’s problem.”
“If I had
no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide.”
Mahatma
Gandhi needs no long introduction. Everyone knows about the man who lead the
Indian people to independence from British rule in 1947.
So let’s
just move on to some of my favourite tips from Mahatma Gandhi.
1. Change
yourself.
“You must
be the change you want to see in the world.”
“As human
beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world – that
is the myth of the atomic age – as in being able to remake ourselves.”
If you
change yourself you will change your world. If you change how you think then
you will change how you feel and what actions you take. And so the world around
you will change. Not only because you are now viewing your environment through
new lenses of thoughts and emotions but also because the change within can
allow you to take action in ways you wouldn’t have – or maybe even have thought
about – while stuck in your old thought patterns.
And the
problem with changing your outer world without changing yourself is that you
will still be you when you reach that change you have strived for. You will
still have your flaws, anger, negativity, self-sabotaging tendencies etc.
intact.
And so in
this new situation you will still not find what you hoped for since your mind
is still seeping with that negative stuff. And if you get more without having some
insight into and distance from your ego it may grow more powerful. Since your
ego loves to divide things, to find enemies and to create separation it may
start to try to create even more problems and conflicts in your life and world.
2. You are
in control.
“Nobody can
hurt me without my permission.”
What you
feel and how you react to something is always up to you. There may be a
“normal” or a common way to react to different things. But that’s mostly just
all it is.
You can
choose your own thoughts, reactions and emotions to pretty much everything. You
don’t have to freak out, overreact of even react in a negative way. Perhaps not
every time or instantly. Sometimes a knee-jerk reaction just goes off. Or an
old thought habit kicks in.
And as you
realize that no-one outside of yourself can actually control how you feel you
can start to incorporate this thinking into your daily life and develop it as a
thought habit. A habit that you can grow stronger and stronger over time. Doing
this makes life a whole lot easier and more pleasurable.
3. Forgive
and let it go.
“The weak
can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”
“An eye for
eye only ends up making the whole world blind.”
Fighting
evil with evil won’t help anyone. And as said in the previous tip, you always
choose how to react to something. When you can incorporate such a thought habit
more and more into your life then you can react in a way that is more useful to
you and others.
You realize
that forgiving and letting go of the past will do you and the people in your
world a great service. And spending your time in some negative memory won’t
help you after you have learned the lessons you can learn from that experience.
You’ll probably just cause yourself more suffering and paralyze yourself from
taking action in this present moment.
If you
don’t forgive then you let the past and another person to control how you feel.
By forgiving you release yourself from those bonds. And then you can focus
totally on, for instance, the next point.
4. Without
action you aren’t going anywhere.
“An ounce
of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.”
Without
taking action very little will be done. However, taking action can be hard and
difficult. There can be much inner resistance.
And so you
may resort to preaching, as Gandhi says. Or reading and studying endlessly. And
feeling like you are moving forward. But getting little or no practical results
in real life.
So, to
really get where you want to go and to really understand yourself and your
world you need to practice. Books can mostly just bring you knowledge. You have
to take action and translate that knowledge into results and understanding.
You can
check out a few effective tips to overcome this problem in How to Take More
Action: 9 Powerful Tips. Or you can move on to the next point for more on the
best tip for taking more action that I have found so far.
5. Take
care of this moment.
“I do not
want to foresee the future. I am concerned with taking care of the present. God
has given me no control over the moment following.”
The best
way that I have found to overcome the inner resistance that often stops us from
taking action is to stay in the present as much as possible and to be
accepting.
Why? Well,
when you are in the present moment you don’t worry about the next moment that
you can’t control anyway. And the resistance to action that comes from you
imagining negative future consequences – or reflecting on past failures – of
your actions loses its power. And so it becomes easier to both take action and
to keep your focus on this moment and perform better.
Have a look
at 8 Ways to Return to the Present Moment for tips on how quickly step into the
now. And remember that reconnecting with and staying in the now is a mental
habit – a sort of muscle – that you grow. Over time it becomes more powerful
and makes it easier to slip into the present moment.
6. Everyone
is human.
“I claim to
be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own,
however, that I have humility enough to confess my errors and to retrace my
steps.”
“It is
unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that
the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.”
When you
start to make myths out of people – even though they may have produced
extraordinary results – you run the risk of becoming disconnected from them.
You can start to feel like you could never achieve similar things that they did
because they are so very different. So it’s important to keep in mind that
everyone is just a human being no matter who they are.
And I think
it’s important to remember that we are all human and prone to make mistakes.
Holding people to unreasonable standards will only create more unnecessary
conflicts in your world and negativity within you.
It’s also
important to remember this to avoid falling into the pretty useless habit of
beating yourself up over mistakes that you have made. And instead be able to
see with clarity where you went wrong and what you can learn from your mistake.
And then try again.
7. Persist.
“First they
ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
Be
persistent. In time the opposition around you will fade and fall away. And your
inner resistance and self-sabotaging tendencies that want to hold you back and
keep you like you have always been will grow weaker.
Find what
you really like to do. Then you’ll find the inner motivation to keep going,
going and going. You can also find a lot of useful tips on how keep your
motivation up in How to Get Out of a Motivational Slump and 25 Simple Ways to
Motivate Yourself.
One reason
Gandhi was so successful with his method of non-violence was because he and his
followers were so persistent. They just didn’t give up.
Success or
victory will seldom come as quickly as you would have liked it to. I think one
of the reasons people don’t get what they want is simply because they give up
too soon. The time they think an achievement will require isn’t the same amount
of time it usually takes to achieve that goal. This faulty belief partly comes
from the world we live in. A world full of magic pill solutions where
advertising continually promises us that we can lose a lot of weight or earn a
ton of money in just 30 days. You can read more about this in One Big Mistake a
Whole Lot of People Make.
Finally,
one useful tip to keep your persistence going is to listen to Gandhi’s third
quote in this article and keep a sense of humor. It can lighten things up at
the toughest of times.
8. See the
good in people and help them.
“I look
only to the good qualities of men. Not being faultless myself, I won’t presume
to probe into the faults of others.”
“Man
becomes great exactly in the degree in which he works for the welfare of his
fellow-men.”
“I suppose
leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with
people.”
There is
pretty much always something good in people. And things that may not be so
good. But you can choose what things to focus on. And if you want improvement
then focusing on the good in people is a useful choice. It also makes life
easier for you as your world and relationships become more pleasant and positive.
And when
you see the good in people it becomes easier to motivate yourself to be of
service to them. By being of service to other people, by giving them value you
not only make their lives better. Over time you tend to get what you give. And
the people you help may feel more inclined to help other people. And so you,
together, create an upward spiral of positive change that grows and becomes
stronger.
By
strengthening your social skills you can become a more influential person and
make this upward spiral even stronger. A few articles that may provide you with
useful advice in that department are Do You Make These 10 Mistakes in a
Conversation? and Dale Carnegie’s Top 10 Tips for Improving Your Social Skills.
Or you can just move on to the next tip.
9. Be
congruent, be authentic, be your true self.
“Happiness
is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”
“Always aim
at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your
thoughts and everything will be well.”
I think
that one of the best tips for improving your social skills is to behave in a
congruent manner and communicate in an authentic way. People seem to really
like authentic communication. And there is much inner enjoyment to be found
when your thoughts, words and actions are aligned. You feel powerful and good
about yourself.
When words
and thoughts are aligned then that shows through in your communication. Because
now you have your voice tonality and body language – some say they are over 90
percent of communication – in alignment with your words.
With these
channels in alignment people tend to really listen to what you’re saying. You
are communicating without incongruency, mixed messages or perhaps a sort of
phoniness.
Also, if
your actions aren’t in alignment with what you’re communicating then you start
to hurt your own belief in what you can do. And other people’s belief in you
too.
10.
Continue to grow and evolve.
”Constant
development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to maintain his
dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself into a false position.”
You can
pretty much always improve your skills, habits or re-evaluate your evaluations.
You can gain deeper understanding of yourself and the world.
Sure, you
may look inconsistent or like you don’t know what you are doing from time to
time. You may have trouble to act congruently or to communicate authentically.
But if you don’t then you will, as Gandhi says, drive yourself into a false
position. A place where you try to uphold or cling to your old views to appear
consistent while you realise within that something is wrong. It’s not a fun
place to be. To choose to grow and evolve is a happier and more useful path to
take.
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