Exercise: Putting YourSelf First

Think of a few times when you put other people’s needs before your own or have not done what was in your best interest because you thought something or someone else mattered more than you. Now identify what would have been in your best interest and why. Last, assess whether your actions have truly hurt anyone. 

For instance: Your friend likes this guy and has dragged you to five events this month alone to see him. He has no interest in her, and you’re starting to get embarrassed, but you want to support your friend and you want her to like you. Now she wants you to go to another party. It’s coming up to finals time and you have exams in some of your most difficult subjects. You really should study because you really need to get top grades so you can keep your scholarship. Your usual self, the one that’s telling you that you don’t matter as much as she does, would go to the party. If you did, you would essentially be saying to yourself and others and that you felt your friend’s needs were more important more than yours. This is where the cycle of disrespecting yourself starts, and in doing so, you’re also giving others permission to disrespect you. In reality, your friend has other people to go with (and even if she doesn’t, that’s not your responsibility), and she’s actually just bullying you. It’s up to you to be responsible for how your life turns out, and that exam could be a huge part of that! 

So, make an inventory of when you put others’ needs first when you probably should have prioritised your own. With just a little insight into when you’re putting others’ worth relative to your own and with some idea about when you can better support yourself, you’ll be able to think and, hopefully, recognise that you matter. You are going to have to make a conscious effort at first. Some frustrations may surface as you realise when you’ve been giving your personal power away, but hold hard and don’t get upset, as it’s just not worth it.

Excerpt from "Give YourSelf Permission to Live Your Life", by Priya Rana Kapoor available on www.GYSPermission.com, Amazon and local retailers.

Don't Compare Your Insides with Everyone Else's Outsides

Excerpt from "Give YourSelf Permission to Live Your Life" by Priya Rana Kapoor
Chapter Ten : Give YourSelf Permission to Have Healthy Relationships.

Often, we look at the people around us and think that they have it better than we do or that they've been given more advantages in the form of privileges and luxuries than we have. We might have feelings of envy, which can be damaging, undermining, and insidious and can only function to make us feel bad about ourselves in the long run.

When my former husband and I first met, he gave me one of the best pieces of advice I have ever received; I have never forgotten it, and I am often grateful to him for his wise words.

"Priya, " he said, "don't compare your insides with everyone else's outsides. "

I think that we've all found ourselves comparing what we know about our lives to what we think is going on with the lives of others. Often we look at their outsides and assume everything is great without considering that there just might be a whole other layer of thoughts, insecurities, hopes, fears, shortcomings, health issues, pain, abuse, wishes, or desires that they don't share with everyone else. When we compare ourselves to all of their glitz, it's easy to see ourselves as coming up short. We look at celebrities or business tycoons, school friends or relatives and think that they've achieved so much more than we have.

"She has got it all, " we think. "She must be so happy!"

But what's really happening?

I suspect most people looking from the outside would have considered my family circumstances pretty much perfect, but, as I've already shared, the apparent fairy tale was quite inconsistent with the chaos we experienced behind closed doors. I rather begrudgingly felt that there were times when people thought, "Oh, the Kapoors have it all! Mum is young and glamorous; Dad is so sophisticated and handsome. Their children are lucky to be growing up in such a cosmopolitan, exciting environment!" In some respects we did have an adventurous life, but it was difficult.

Maybe your successful boss at work does sit in his fancy corner office all day long and go home at the end of a productive working day to his good-looking, happy wife and children, but perhaps he really wants to be doing something else entirely. Maybe he has high blood pressure from working long hours, constant fights with his wife, and exhausting kids who run riot all evening. Who really knows?

It's important that we see that we can only truly understand ourselves and that we need to focus on bettering our own lives rather than fixating on others'. With this understanding comes the recognition that, ultimately, we can only learn how to be really happy when we learn how to take personal responsibility for how we live and what we have control over.

The simple fact is that we just do not know what is going on in most other people's lives. The only person you will ever know completely, inside and out, is yourself.



For more information please visit www.GYSPermission.com

Leadership - Who should we really be leading?

In his book "Aspire" Kevin Hall equates the meaning of a “leader” to that of a “pathfinder”.  That really resonates with me. We are all finding our path in life and sometimes some of us inspire others to come along for the journey. I believe that we are all leaders in our own lives, first and foremost. We have a responsibility to lead our own personal journey before we seek to lead others.

Similarly, if we don't find our own path then we are not taking responsibility for ourselves. If we do what other people think we should do, or what we feel they think we should do, we are allowing them to be responsible for our lives; they become our pathfinders. This so often happens when people do what they think their parents or society want them to do and they end up on a journey they didn’t want to be on. They are then ambling down someone else's path.

Some “leaders” entice people to follow them by instilling fear – in my opinion they are called tyrants. Once in a while, however, we find people who are journeying down an amazing path they have found or created.  They inspire us to walk with them, and we do so, without any feelings of doubt, resistance or friction. In fact we learn much from them. We walk with them because we are excited to see what happens and where the path is going to lead.  Often these people are looked up to as THE leader but in actuality true leaders and pathfinders need other leaders to get through the jungle.

I often visualize the journey of life as an expedition through a thick, green, lush forest, with hanging trees and roots to trip over.  It’s an amazing place full of vibrancy and beauty but, at times, needs to be navigated with care and diligence. Some people have the vision or knowledge of what is on the other side and they know what's possible; others are really good with directions and they are the ones who read the maps, hold the compass and find the best path. Some have physical strength and experience of the terrain and know how to choose the right branch to chop aside so the path can be cleared, and be passable.

So you see we all have our jobs, within our skill sets, as leaders.  In an ideal world we choose the path we want to go on and know the duties within the leadership team. 

As I see it ­– we all have a responsibility to be the pathfinder in our own lives; if we happen to inspire others to walk the journey with us then that is a privilege and a responsibility not to be taken lightly.