Category: Personal Development

If you ask most people around you “what is the purpose of their lives”. I can bet they won’t be able to answer this question. Most people don’t even know there was supposed to be a purpose of our creation in the first place.

It is often said that we all have a purpose; we all have been given a task by nature to do; that is why we all have different talents and passions. It is obvious that nature or God (whoever you believe in) created you for a purpose to utilize your talents and skills and serve others with those unique set of skills and talent given to you. Unfortunately, majority of us are living a purposeless life and we think it’s living. We have to identify the unique talent that each one of us has and improve that talent and serve others with that talent.

But the question is, does everyone really have a talent? And do we have to identify the talent to serve and help other? I will answer this question later in this blog.

HOW TO FIND YOUR PURPOSE:

How do we find the purpose is one of the most difficult questions human beings have always tried to answer. Different people have different answers to these questions. All the religions have tried to answer these questions in their own way. Many people ask this question to me “How do I find my purpose?” I always say that “you must refer back to your religious scriptures, you will find the answer. If you don’t believe in religion then refer back to nature and seek the answer. Ask the nature what the purpose is, and you will start to get the answers.”

If you read the scriptures of any religion, you will see that the one point all the religions agree upon is that God has not created anything without purpose and the purpose of each one of us is to serve His creatures; help people;help living beings; give something to the world. The scriptures per se don’t emphasize on talent mainly. Most scriptures don’t ask you to identify your talent to serve people, I think there is a wisdom behind it, and it is that you don’t have an excuse of not finding the talent to serve, because in reality you don’t need talent to serve anyone.

Many people have this excuse that, “How can I find my talent, I don’t think I have a talent?I can’t serve anyone because I don’t have talent”. Okay, I understand that, now tell me, do you need any talent to feed a hungry person? Do you need talent to offer a glass of water to a thirsty person. Do you need talent to just say something nice and inspiring to someone? Do you need talent to offer some money to someone who doesn’t have money? Do you need talent to visit a patient who is suffering from an illness? Do you need talent to be nice to your neighbors? Do you need talent to help a disabled person cross the road? No you don’t need talent for any of these tasks, you just need a good heart and good soul. Just start helping and serving others, make a promise to yourself, that you will help one needy person today.

Nothing can be a greater purpose of life than the service to others. The world we live in has been created with a purpose. Even a smallest creature living thousands of feet under the sea has a purpose. Even a small microscopic bacterium has a purpose, many of these bacteria are useful for living beings, we simply will die without them. The same is true for each one of us. Each human being is precious and we all are created to serve each other. We all are here to benefit each other. Just think about it, when even a smallest creature like bacteria has a purpose, then how is it possible that we as human beings who are the most advanced creature on Earth have no purpose?

After reading this blog, make a promise today, that you will go out and feed a hungry person today. Or offer some monetary help or any sort of help to someone today. Don’t waste time, just start doing it. Don’t let a day pass without doing a good deed. You never know if its your last day.

CONCLUSION:

If we all just do one good deed everyday. If we all just feed one hungry person every day, we can eradicate a huge percentage of hunger from this world. You don’t need talent to help or serve others. Of course talent can help, in clarity. But don’t make an excuse that I couldn’t find my talent thats why I couldn’t serve anyone. Because you really don’t need talent to help others, you just need to have a good heart.

Dr. Hassaan Tohid

We are the product of our inner world. In order to be successful in our lives we need to conquer our inner world. Once we conquer our inner world, we attain the mental peace and tranquility needed to attain the remarkable success we all dream about. Most people don’t make it to the top because of not having the inner peace. The peace and tranquility can be achieved by certain rules. I want you to follow the following steps to achieve the inner peace.

ALTRUISM:

Altruism means doing good to others, or helping others. Doing good to others can be in many forms, just talking to someone nicely is an act of altruism. Helping others financially, helping others by guidance and support, or taking an old neighbor to the doctors’ appointment, all of these can be the act of kindness or altruism. Promise yourself that you will at least do one act of kindness every single day. Don’t spend a single day without doing an act of kindness with others that day. Altruism doesn’t mean going to your church, mosque, or temple, altruism means serving and helping people. Many people confuse it with prayers and going to church, temple, and mosques. Going to your place of worship is also a nice act, but it alone is not enough to give you the mental peace and tranquility you are looking for.

This should be your resolution now, that “I will not go to bed without doing an act of random kindness for at least one person.” I am not asking you to become Mother Tresa, Princess Diana, or Abdul Sattar Eidhi, I am asking you to do to tiny acts of kindness like giving a glass of water to a thirsty person, buying food for someone who cannot afford to buy food, just a smile can be an act of random kindness. Feeding an animal can also be an act of random kindness. All the living beings can be benefitted by our act of kindness. You should start this act of kindness from your home, and then also expand it to strangers as well. You will notice you will start to feel better and better. You will soon notice the peace of mind coming into your life. You will also notice that if the act of kindness is with someone who cannot do anything in return for you, you will feel more happiness and tranquility.

Don’t expect anything in return for this kindness. The moment you expect anything from people, you will lose the peace of mind. Your expectations are from your God or the nature (if you believe in nature), but don’t expect anything from human beings- the greatest destruction of the peace of mind is the expectations from people. Take these expectations out of your life. Don’t even expect a thank you from someone whom you just helped. The moment you expect it, your good deeds are gone and your mental peace will run away from you.

PRAY

Another action that will give you the peace of mind is praying. Now yes go to your place of worship that you go to. People who pray remain happy and peaceful. Spirituality does provide the peace of mind and happiness and reduces stress and grief from life. If you don’t believe in religion then go to a place of natural beauty. Going to the naturally beautiful places like ocean, forest, and mountains will tremendously help you in attaining the mental peace you are looking for. Being religious and being spiritual are two different things, I know so many people who are spiritual but not religious. If you are among those people, then meditate, otherwise pray. Read the religious scriptures of the religion you belong to, the Bible, the Torah, the Quran, the Bhagvat Geeta, the Vedas etc. Go deep into the religious books. If you don’t believe in religion then read books on spirituality and meditation.
You will soon start to feel mental peace and attain the inner peace we all desperately need.

FORGIVENESS:

The last action I would like to mention that you need to follow is the forgiveness. We all have heard forgive others, forgive everyone, but I am telling you to forgive yourself first, you need to start with yourself. We all have done wrong things in our lives, and we live with a guilt and grief that why did we do it? Be kind to yourself and forgive yourself, and make a decision to never repeat it again. The moment you decide you will never repeat it again and forgive yourself, you become a new person, you attain inner peace.

Remember you are not that person anymore, it was your past, if you hurt anyone in the past, now you must forgive yourself and seek forgiveness of those whom you have hurt. If they forgive you or they do not, that’s their problem. What matters is, have you forgiven yourself?

Start today, forgive yourself, and seek forgiveness of those whom you have hurt or damaged. Write them an apology letter or text message and don’t expect that they will forgive you (It is none of your business). Now, its time to forgive all those who hurt you and damaged you. We all have people in our lives who hurt us at some point in our lives, should we live with that grudge and negative feeling of revenge? No we just simply forgive them. We become a bigger person when we forgive those who hurt us or damaged us.

Last of all, I would say, don’t expect an apology from those who hurt you. Don’t think someone owes you an apology. Now just think about it, if someone owes you a million dollars, who is in power? That person is in power because now he has control over you until he returns the money. Similarly, if you think someone owes you an apology, then that person is in power and you are weaker. Take that power away from others, nobody should owe you anything, you are way bigger than that. If you follow these suggestions mentioned in this blog, you will attain the inner peace that everyone desires.

ESSENCE:

Do one act of random kindness everyday. Help others and don’t even expect a thank you from them. They don’t have your reward, your reward comes from the heavens, it is in the skies.

Go to the place of worship or spirituality, and pray or meditate. Read religious scriptures, and be the most pious person you know.

Last of all, forgive yourself, seek forgiveness from others whom you ever hurt in the past, but don’t worry if they refuse to forgive, that is their problem. And forgive others, don’t even expect an apology. The moment you expect even an apology or even a thank you, you give your power away.

Have you ever thought why some people are super confident while some lack confidence and are extremely shy. People who are confident, they know certain secrets that others don’t. Trust me increasing self confidence is possible. Anyone can build self-confidence regardless of age, gender, religion, race, and nationality. However, first we need to know what is the meaning of self-confidence. The word self-confidence means trusting yourself. It is different from self-esteem, which means how we feel about ourselves. Of course these two go hand in hand, if you are a person of low self-esteem, you will have low confidence as well. If you read my blog on self-esteem building, that will surely help you with your confidence as well. In this article however, I will fully focus on the three secrets of building self-confidence that helped me build tremendous amount of confidence and made me the person I am today.

THE THREE SECRETS OF BUILDING SELF-CONFIDENCE

THE FIRST SECRET:

By far the most important secret of building self-confidence is the self-talk. I cannot emphasize this enough that the most important thing is self-talk. Talk to yourself in a nice way, treat yourself with respect and love. Love yourself…..How you talk to yourself determines your confidence level. It is natural to feel down sometimes and to feel the lack of confidence as well. It is normal, but a person who has high confidence he produces the belief in himself by the way he talks to himself everyday. Whenever you feel down or your confidence seems to be lost, I want you to recite this and feel it , “I can do it, I am the best”, “I can do it, I am the best”, “I can do it I am the best”. You have to talk to yourself everyday and you have to say these lines loudly every single day, so your ears can hear it.

How many times you have to say this? There is no limit, I would suggest a minimum 100 times and maximum as much as you can. This may sound funny and some people will laugh at you, but let me tell you that so many people have done this exercise and have built their self-confidence by following this exercise. This is a mental exercise, and life coaches and NLP practitioners routinely suggest this to their clients and hundreds of thousands of clients with low confidence have raised their self-confidence tremendously because of this exercise. I myself do this exercise every day. Trust me, it will benefit you.

SECOND SECRET:

If you are lazy and waste a lot of time, your subconscious mind sends a message to your brain that you are a lazy person and cannot do anything in your life. Hence, you start to believe that you are a lazy person and cannot do anything in your life. Because your subconscious mind looked at you wasting time, it will never let you believe in yourself and it will never let you increase your confidence. Therefore, the best solution to tackle this situation is to “NOT WASTE TIME”. Keep yourself busy in purposeful activities, goal oriented activities. Keep learning and keep growing. Don’t sit idol, when you sit idol you damage your self-confidence. You cannot stop your subconscious mind from believing that you are a worthless person and cannot achieve anything in life. Take courses, join classes, read books, exercise, join a non-profit organization and go out and volunteer in some good cause. But never waste time or sit idol.

THIRD SECRET:

Make it a mission of your life that under all circumstances, no matter what happens, you will always do the right thing. Whatever your conscience tells you, usually it is a right thing to do. Unless you are a person without conscience (sociopaths).

You don’t need to be a genius to decide what is right and what is wrong. All of us know that lying and cheating and defrauding others is wrong. The right thing to do is to remain 100 percent honest, humble, a person with integrity. Always think good for others, forgive everyone and don’t take revenge. Holding grudges and taking revenge is a wrong thing, the right thing is to forgive. Do the right thing always.

If you cannot differentiate between right and wrong (lets say you are born in a disturbed family of criminals or drug addicts or abusive parents, then it is obviously very difficult to differentiate between the right and wrong). Then you can self learn to differentiate between good and bad, and right and wrong by making it a mission of your life that I will become the best person I know. Ask this question to yourself everyday that am I the best person I know? If the answer is no… then ask why am I not the best person I know yet, and what can I do to become the best person I know. Soon the answers will start to come to you.

Spend time with people who do the right thing and learn from them. Keep doing the right thing and your confidence level as well as your self-esteem will grow remarkably. You will never worry about what people say or think about you, because when you are doing everything right, a person criticizing you and saying bad about you is a person who is not doing the right things all the time, so you are way better and superior than him/her… so don’t worry.

He/she highly likely is the person who does not do the right thing all the time. So why worry? They are bad people, they are mocking you or backbiting you because they are bad people. And you are the good person because you do the right thing all the time. Start doing the right thing no matter what even if it goes against your own self. When you do the right thing all the time, you will automatically know that everything you are doing is right, then you will never need approval from anyone. You will not be bothered by what others are saying about you, because they mostly are not the right people. If a person doing the right thing criticizes you, then shake hands with him because probably he/she has pointed out something you were doing wrong. And your heart and conscience will tell you if that person is right or wrong. If he is wrong then definitely you don’t need to worry about his comments. A righteous person cannot say the right thing as wrong.

Trust me when you do anything wrong, you tremendously damage your self-esteem and confidence.

CONCLUSION:

Working on increasing your self-confidence is a difficult journey, but everyone can boost his/her confidence. It is doable, faster than you think.

Dr. Hassaan Tohid

The recent Joaquin Phoenix movie that triggered a huge fan following around the globe became an instant success despite portraying negative characteristics of Joker the character. The question that intrigued many is, “Why did the movie make it to the top?” It made it to the top not just because of the unbelievable performance by Phoenix, but also because of the story that forced people to think about so many aspects of their lives. The story teaches us following lessons that I will discuss in this blog one by one.

NEVER GIVE UP ON YOUR DREAMS

The character of Arthur wanted to be known as a joker throughout the movie and he miserably failed due to several reasons, but he kept trying and trying until he finally was invited on TV as a joker. He messed it up that’s a different story, but what I am saying is that his persistence lead him to the success he always dreamt about. Never ever give up on your dreams, keep trying and one day you will achieve success. You may not get exactly what you want, but you will get something probably way better than you were aiming for.

YOU CAN SUCCEED DESPITE YOUR MENTAL ILLNESS

Arthur (Joker) had severe childhood trauma, and a family history of mental illness. The severe brain injury lead to the neurological illness of pseudo-bulbar Affect (pathological laughter), which made his life miserable. Because of that misery he couldn’t get the job of his dreams. He struggled continuously, finally until he succeeded, despite his illness.

Many of us have excuses that my anxiety, or bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia is not letting me succeed in my life. Yet there are so many examples of people suffering from different mental or neurological illnesses and they succeeded and achieved beyond normal success. The scientist Stephen Hawking with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and John Nash with schizophrenia are an example of successes with neurological and psychiatric illness respectively.

LEARN TO FORGIVE AND IGNORE AND DON’T BE LIKE THE JOKER

Arthur never learned to forgive and held grudges. He ultimately killed some people to take his personal revenge that eventually destroyed all the success he had achieved. The lesson here is, to forgive others and don’t take revenge. Had he forgave and ignored what others said about him, he would have had enjoyed this success that eventually was to come because of his persistence. He just simply could not forgive and ignore what others said about him and eventually ruined everything by his own hands. Many people in their lives just cannot forgive and cannot ignore what others have to say about them. Remember, someone laughing at you and disrespecting you doesn’t make you disrespectful, it actually exposes the person who tries to disrespect you. Like some people occasionally comment negative on my videos and lectures, and try to insult me, eventually who loses respect? Do I lose respect or I keep gaining more respect. You tend to earn more respect by not responding and the person who is abusive loses respect in the eyes of the world. We tend to forget that and we hold grudges. Holding grudges and taking revenge can take everything away from you just like the Joker lost everything he had in his life.

CONCLUSION:

Learn to set higher goals and don’t give up on your dreams. Sooner or later you will achieve what you want. No hindrance or problem can stop you from your success. However, you can lose all the success in an instant by hatred, negativity, grudge, and revenge. Learn to forgive anyone who hurt you. All those who hurt you will one day see your success and will themselves feel embarrassed. At that time forgive them and help them grow with yourself and make this world a better place.

Dr. Hassaan Tohid