As you start engaging in such small activities more and more, and as you start gaining happiness through these activities, the pressure for being happy and feeling satisfied may be lifted to a great extent. Whatever big you wish to achieve, whatever big you want to experience, the final purpose of all such things and targets is to feel happy. Since you are not able to achieve big things and you are also staying away from small amounts of happiness coming through small activities, you are not getting much happiness in your life.
That is what is making you complain too much, making you feel frustrated and putting more pressure on you to achieve those big things at any cost and by any means. Everyone wants to be happy and more you lack happiness, more desperate you may become, to do anything to get the most needed happiness.
Hence when you keep yourself away from all those small acts of happiness and you are not able to achieve big targets either, for a long period of time, lack of happiness starts building inside you. It makes you more desperate with time and once this desperation reaches a certain level, it makes you complain too much, feel dissatisfied with most things and people; and engage in criminal or immoral activities so that you may get the most needed happiness.
On the other hand, when you start getting small amounts of happiness from many conscious and specifically targeted activities on daily basis, all this happiness keeps adding up and it starts taking care of your need for being happy. Hence the need for taking desperate measures goes down.
Though you may not know why, but as you start getting more and more happiness through these small activities, you may feel that the urge for doing anything good or bad to achieve what you want is getting weaker. This is because the ultimate reason behind achieving all those big things is to be happy. Hence happiness is the final goal whether you know it or not. As you keep getting more and more happiness, you may start meeting your goal. This is when you may get a feeling that you don’t need to take desperate measures in order to feel happy.
Each time you feel happy through these small but conscious activities, you send signals of happiness to your subconscious mind. Hence your subconscious mind starts understanding a number of activities through which you can feel happy, as and when you want to do so. With more and more repeated signals of happiness gained through these specific conscious activities, a script is written on your subconscious mind and it then starts working according to that script. This is when you start changing from within.
As a result, the next time you feel the need to be happy and you try to reach out for big achievements but you can’t, your subconscious mind may suggest you many small activities through which you can gain small amounts of happiness. For example, whenever you start feeling low thinking about how far away you are from your big goals, your subconscious mind may encourage you to watch a good movie, eat foods you like and many other activities.
As you engage in these activities, they may give you happiness and satisfaction. Accordingly, the pressure on your mind to work desperately in order to achieve your goals is reduced. The beauty of the subconscious mind is that while you feel like going to your favorite eating joints, watching a good movie or doing other things like them, you may consciously not feel that your subconscious mind is doing all this. You may feel like you’re in the mood for doing one of these things.
Mood is triggered by the subconscious mind. You are in need of happiness and you have registered many activities which can give you happiness, with your subconscious mind. Accordingly, it inspires you to engage in some of those activities so that you may feel happy. You see, the subconscious can bless you with good moods also. All you have to do in order to get all this is to train your subconscious to help you out, as and when you need such help.
Along with the first two types of activities, you need to simultaneously engage in a variety of third type of activities also as they may reduce the habit of being overambitious from a different angle. In order to engage in these activities, start visiting/meeting such people who have one type of physical disability or another and start spending some time with them even if it is five minutes a day.
When you start doing that, you may realize that there are many people in the world, who don’t even have one tenth of good things that you have and many of these people are happy even then. A feeling of gratitude towards God and destiny may come to your mind. You may begin to think that you are blessed to have a healthy body and you are able to enjoy much more than many other people.
Every time you engage in one such activity and every time such thoughts come to your mind, they send signals to your subconscious mind that your life is not all that bad and you are already much better than many people. As these messages of gratitude and being better than many people are conveyed to your subconscious mind again and again, it registers them and starts acting according to the new script.
The next time you tend to have those overambitious thoughts and you start getting restless by thinking that you have not achieved anything till now, your subconscious mind may send inner voices to you. Such voices may say that you are already much better and happier than many people and even your current achievements are much bigger than those of many people. As these voices inspire you, you may start feeling relaxed.
One big reason for being overambitious is that you keep comparing yourself to people much higher and much more successful than you. This makes you sad and desperate because you are the one with least number of achievements, in such comparisons. Hence you wish to compete with them and reach the level of success they have achieved, though such level may be too high and irrational to be achieved by you through fair practices, in a short period of time. As a result, you start feeling like a loser and you start preparing yourself for taking desperate measures so that you are not the one to finish last in this race between you and such very well established people, you are comparing yourself to.
Hence all you need to do is to start running in a different race every now and then. This race is the one where you may finish first and other people running with you may be left behind or far behind. When that happens, you may get a feeling which is the exact opposite of the feeling you get when you compare yourself to people much higher than you. The first type of feeling is a feeling of being a loser and that of being the one who has been blessed the least in a particular group of people. On the other hand, the second type of feeling is the feeling of being a winner and that of being a person who has been blessed the most in a particular group of people.
You see, the solution is simple. If you can’t finish first in a specific group of people and you don’t think you can either do so in a short/significant period of time, it is the time to change the group and start playing in the group where you can finish first and where you are a big achiever. Your achievements have not changed at all, but merely by changing who you compare yourself with, you have become a winner instead of being a loser. You have become the most blessed one in a group, instead of being the least blessed one in a group. Doing so may not kill your ambitions and it may only keep them in check, by making sure that they are rational and you can afford all the time it takes to fulfill them.
Hence if you are getting inspired by the lives of right type of people, you are getting small amounts of happiness through various activities and you are comparing yourself to the people much below you than the ones who are much higher than you, your habit of being overambitious may start losing strength. This is due to the reason that the combined effect of all these activities may heal you on different levels.
The first type of activities stop you from being inspired by wrong type of people and they help you take your inspiration from right type of people. The second type of activities start supplying you with more happiness and satisfaction so that you don’t lack these essentials and you don’t feel like taking desperate measures. Finally, the third type of activities tell you that you are not a loser or the least blessed one and you are much more blessed than many people. As a result, you may start having the right type of motivation, you may start getting happiness and you may start being more grateful for being blessed much more than many people.
Accordingly, you may start having more patience to achieve your big targets and you may even start adjusting such targets so that they are relevant and you may achieve them in a decent amount of time. Hence you may redefine your goals so that they are rational and they are worthy of being achieved through fair practices. At the same time, you may develop patience to wait for as long as it takes to achieve them through fair means. The habit of being overambitious is going now and the habit of being rationally and patiently ambitious is replacing it.
Right type and right amount of ambition is a good and a must have quality as it helps you define your goals and it then motivates you to work and achieve them. Since your goals are defined and rational now, they may be achievable through fair means. You are willing to put in the effort required, you are willing to wait patiently through the time required and you are getting due amount of happiness and satisfaction on regular basis. Hence you’re focused, relaxed, happy and patient.
Even if you have the ambition to rise sky high, there is nothing wrong with it and it is fine. Ambition in itself is not bad no matter how big it may be. It becomes bad when you are not willing to put in the amount of effort required and more than that, you are not willing to wait patiently in order to achieve your goal. Hence you need to avoid irrational and immoral goals, you need to keep working to achieve your goals and you need to wait patiently to achieve your goals. This is because even if you wish to rise sky high, you will rise only step by step in most cases and you are not going to fly to the skies suddenly. Hence don’t be desperate and wait patiently for your dreams to be realized and whenever you reach one step closer to them, enjoy it, celebrate it and feel happy.
Another point worthy of being mentioned here is that desperation and impatience come when you keep sacrificing too much for a goal, for a long period of time and you still don’t achieve it. When that happens, you start getting impatient and desperate because you have sacrificed most other things for a goal and even that goal is out of your reach. This is what puts a lot of pressure on you and you start thinking about taking desperate measures.
In order to avoid falling in one such situation, reduce the number of sacrifices you are making for a goal, find and fix ways to get happiness and satisfaction every now and then; and you will start having more patience and being more relaxed. As you are not sacrificing too much for your goals and you are getting your due share of entertainment and happiness, life is no longer work and punishment only; and life now offers enjoyment and happiness also. This fact makes you grateful, relaxed and patient and when that happens, you are in a much better position to achieve your goals.
Coming back to the activities of the third type, apart from meeting people with disabilities, start meeting people who are materially less blessed than you, as that may also create the same effect on your subconscious mind. Meet and interact with poor, deficient and other loss suffering people. You may start being more and more grateful for what you already have instead of cursing yourself or your fate for what you don’t have. For example, meeting someone poor or very poor may make you feel grateful for how resourceful you are, comparatively. Similarly, meeting a person with troubled marriage or broken marriage may make you feel grateful for what a good marriage you have.
The world is full of a variety of different people. Whereas there may always be people who are happier or much happier than you in some spheres, there may also be a great number of people who are blessed less or much less in certain specific spheres, compared to you. Hence the correct approach doesn’t lie in always looking at better people and feel sad as well as dissatisfied with what you have. It lies in looking at people below you and feel satisfied for how blessed you already are, and then looking at the people above you and try to upgrade yourself to one of the upper levels.
Balance is everything in life and a balanced approach always works the best. Looking only at people much higher than you can make you become overambitious and dissatisfied with your life. On the other hand, looking only at the people below you can make you quit all ambition and effort to rise higher since you may start thinking that you are already blessed a lot and you don’t need more. Hence you should look at both types of people. You should have a feeling of gratitude by looking at people less blessed than you whereas you should take inspiration by looking at people blessed more than you.
You should stay away from bad company as indulging in bad company may not only reduce the speed of your recovery, but it may also land you into trouble. This is due to the reason that by virtue of being overambitious, a part of you is already provoking you to engage in unfair practices to fulfill your ambitions. Hence the last thing you want is other people telling you to do the same. Therefore, you should stay away from bad company as such people may encourage you to engage in bad karmas. You have high chances of falling for their bad advice, since your position is already vulnerable by virtue of being overambitious and desperate.
Hence stay away from bad company, engage in all the required activities and you should get out of this habit. Keeping company with positive and wise people may help you a lot and it may speed up the process of recovery.
Himanshu Shangari