Practicing lessons learned

Kishore (January 2002)

I give lot of importance to not only learning from books, others' experience, but also to putting this learning to practice. If I come across a new way of simplifying my tasks or a tip that I can use in the tools I use, I try to implement the same at the earliest opportunity. It also gives me an opportunity to keep 'continuous improvement' going on in things I do and things around me. This also helps me shape up my personality and character. 

There are two distinct incidents which took lot of courage on my part to put theory into practice. During my college years, I used to read 'Competition Success Review' magazine. This magazine used to contain one article in section 'Improve your personality'. I used to read these articles without failure which were mainly focused on leadership skills and also overcoming personal weaknesses. One such article I read was about overcoming fear. The suggestion given there was: To overcome fear is to do exactly do the thing you fear most. 

Experience 1: Participating in "debate"

During schooling days I never participated in debates and I did better in Essay Writing competitions only. Only once during school days I participated in debates. Not being quite 'talkative' I did not do well in the debating competitions. This remained my weakness.

During college days when I read the article I mentioned above: I thought I should overcome my weakness of stage fear and participate in a debate. During 3rd year B.Tech program there was a debate competition. I remember the topic was something related "Petroleum conservation". Not being an enthusiast first I thought of not participating. But I wanted to take the opportunity to overcome my fear. I spent couple of hours preparing material for the topic and noted the points in my mind. When I went to the competition there were more than 20 participants. I was very nervous and I was glad that I was the first participant. I did not do quite well in the debate and I had difficulty in speaking coherently. At one point my mind went blank and I paused almost 5-10 ten seconds before I could resume. I cursed myself under breath when my mind went blank. And I was glad when I finished my part. Though I didn't win any prize I have my personal prize to cherish. I went through my own emotions to overcome a weakness. To some extent it helped me to overcome my stage fear and improve my confidence that I can certainly take up difficult challenges.

Experience 2: Join my friends in journey to Bombay from Kanpur

The second experience I can remember is when I was studying in Kanpur for my master's degree. As we approached our final semester we have to attend campus interviews and also interviews in other places. All of our classmates had to go to Bombay to attend interview in L&T company. I was already upset about some missed opportunities. The journey from Kanpur to Bombay is a long one and we don't know where we can stay in Bombay once we go there. My other classmates were adventurous enough to take the journey where as I felt I will skip going to the interview because I didn't feel like traveling because of the uncertainty in the travel plans and our lodging etc. Long journeys always make me weak after first day and I had such experience earlier. I had a stomach upset and became very weak when I took up similar journey.

At the same time one of my classmates was sick and joined in hospital. I tried to take the as an excuse: "I will take care of him, instead of coming with all of you" was a convenient excuse than admitting that I am afraid of taking up the journey because of my silly fears. I went to hospital and sat by side of my friend. At this time I took another booklet with me "How to overcome fear". When I read this booklet in the hospital, again I read the same suggestion I mentioned above. Immediately I felt ashamed and came back from hospital and asked my friends to book ticket for me also along with them. When I took this particular decision I went through lot of emotions and I remember this very clearly even now. I was later glad that I could join my friends for the trip. I had been to Bombay couple of times before and I was able to guide my friends through my knowledge. We went to Telugu Mahasabha and tried for accommodation there. We could not get there (in Dadar) and from there I was able to guide my friends to go to IIT Bombay which was near to L&T. We managed to stay with a few friends in IIT Campus and attend the interview. Though I didn't do well in the interview, again this personal experience was something that taught me an important lesson. In our imagination we tend to exaggerate things that can go wrong and hence our fear overpowers our reasoning. Only way to overcome fear is to take up the challenge.

Summary

In my opinion fear is one of the worst enemies that can play havoc with our mind. We all need to develop our strategy to overcome this. It is not enough if we conquer this weakness once, it surfaces again and again with different face. Recall incidents in your own life where you overcame this weakness and write them down. By doing something similar, it acts as a reminder to me that in past I was able to overcome weakness by own effort and I can do this in future too.

Read a similar experience I went through recently: Overcoming Fear and Resistance to change through spirituality