Sharpen Your Edge


Parsi Times is delighted to welcome on board our community’s leading business visionary – Dr. Adil Malia – who has shared his expertise championing diverse roles in Business Management, Law, Human Resources, Marketing and Employee Relations. A much sought-after business coach and mentor, having led companies at the Board level across eclectic industries, Dr. Adil Malia is a philosopher, writer, a voracious reader, an excellent orator, an innovative and powerful ideator. PT presents his column, ‘Sharpen Your Edge’, aimed at readers who wish to hone their careers and grow as successful professionals. For professional consultations, contact Dr. Malia at adiljmalia@gmail.com


Man Is The Product Of The Choices He Makes

 

Sharpen your edge, unleash your freedom to choose…men are naturally designed to choose, and their success is defined not by the conditions they face, but by the choices they make, given the conditions.

Every individual’s most powerful attribute is his ‘Freedom to Choose’. If you were to identify one single factor as the differentiator between successful people and the not-so-successful people in life, the answer would be hidden in the Choices they make.

“Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but taking a choice to play a poor hand well,” said Stevention. If you get frustrated seeing a set of poor cards being dealt to you, and as a result, do not use choices and options available in the game to you, blame yourself, not the cards!

By the time you lay your head on the embroidered pillow to sleep tonight, you would have made so many different choices that would impact you and the quality of your life ahead. Are you sure you have made the right choices?? Freedom of choice is at the core of everything, and that freedom is absolutely yours for making the right choices! Unfortunately, most people believe that this freedom to choose lies ‘outside’ of you – maybe by working in a better organisation, or under better Manager, or a richer spouse, a bountiful grand-father’s inheritance, a more influential Uncle, a better house (from BPP!!!), etc. And for this, you believe that others have the power that you believe could make you happy.

Living in a world of victimization, entitlements and excuses, we find it difficult to believe that we are actually free to make the choices whose results impact us. Think seriously. Who amongst us does not, every living moment, have to face conditions which are limiting and constraining? Most of us unfortunately, tend to locate the source of our restrictions as being ‘out there’ and not residing ‘within’ us. We thus end up abdicating, and by default, delegating our power to choose factors of our happiness, to other people. This is escaping responsibility. And that is where exactly, the hero separates from the laggards!

Man is an outcome of his choices and not his conditions. You indeed need to choose well. If you have earlier delegated or abdicated, go ahead and reclaim your ‘Remote Control’. Remember, freedom is a matter of choice and a state of mind. It is established from ‘inside out’ not ‘outside in’. Break-through your constraints. Push open the hinges that open your horizons to the success that lies waiting for you!

Here’s 5 tips to help you get started with Making Good Choices:

  1. Define clearly the purpose you have in mind. Only then, test the available choices that attract you to ensure that they fulfill that end purpose in mind.
  2. Never fail to choose yourself first. Listen to everybody. Understand their logic. But when you feel that your choice fulfills the end purpose better than others’, never fail to choose yourself.
  3. Simplify your choices. We live in an option-rich universe. Don’t get paralyzed by choices. Test the choices available through filters of the guiding principles set by you. But action it, for sure!
  4. Withdraw from the choice when needed. Choices made by you could inadvertently go wrong at a later date. Remember, it’s never too late to withdraw from choices if you realise that the pursuit of your old choice does not lead to fulfilling the purpose any longer. Do not invest good resources to protect bad investments!
  5. It is okay to fail. Think, make choices and move. It is better to fail than wait endlessly at the sea-shore and die waiting for the sailing boat to come and save you.

A call for action to the Parsi youth!! The door of your choices opens ‘inside out’.  Unleash thence, your most powerful resource – your Freedom To Choose. 

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