Do you know what is life transformation really means? I heard this many times before. Frankly speaking I knew the word meaning, but did not understand until I myself went through this transformation. Are you also like me? Read on to see what I really meant by this.

In this fast paced life, most of us are disturbed or unhappy in life for various reasons. some says they are anxious by worrying about future (anxiety is nothing but fear of not meeting our expectation), some says they are stressed (We feel stressed when we are unable to complete a task within the expected time) , some says happy professionally but not in personal life and vice versa and the list goes on. Some think that when we become rich or have lots of money, will bring happiness. But rich or poor, we all go through all these emotions for various reasons. We cannot get away with these in life, but we must learn to manage it. When a person is able to manage these emotions well, he/she will be able to achieve their goals and thereby becoming happier in life.

How do we manage these emotions ? If you make the life a little disciplined first, then I can assure you that that you will find your own ways of finding happiness in life. The author Robin Sharma describes in the book – “The 5AM club” to follow 20-20-20 rule that I found to be very effective in making my own life disciplined. Any action when you continue minimum for 21 days, it becomes a habit. So I urge you to try these 20-20-20 principle just for 21 days and experience it yourself. Anyways it is just 21 days right? So take it as a challenge.

20-20-20 rule describes the activities you must do in first three consecutive 20 minutes of the day as and when you wake up. As I mentioned in my last blog, it is effective and easy to implement when you try to wake up at 5 AM in the morning. Most of the success people are up and awake when the rest of the world is sleeping. You might heard Brahma Muhurtha (The Creator’s Hour) in ancient Hindu Belief, is the period one and half hour before sunrise. It is called as ‘The Creators Hour because during this time the mind is very calm and serene. If you are a late riser, there are chances that you get busy with your usual other daily routines and lose this habit.

My 20-20-20 rule

As soon as I get up, first thing I do after freshen up is visualising my set goal. When the heart is filled with gratitude and do visualisation as though I have met these goal helps me to move forward even if there are challenges for achieving these goals. The goals can be towards your health, career, relationship or anything that you want to achieve. Only thing is that the goal should be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time bound). When I say SMART, we cannot set goal, for example, I need to take multiple certifications. why is it not SMART? Because we don’t have clarity on how many certifications and on what, at what time you will be completing etc. Once you set SMART goal, it gives you clarity and easy to track your progress too when you do daily plan. How do you visualise? Well, you can write on a book or on a paper with SMART attributes, also you can include pictures. When you walk through this early morning it goes well into the subconscious mind.

Let me now briefly tell you about my 20-20-20 activities.The first 20 mins of my day is dedicated to the health. This means we should try to sweat in first 20 mins after our morning ritual. This you can do 20-30 minutes, but must ensure to do for at least 20 minutes. What happens when we do some sort of exercise, as the blood flow increases we become active and also it improves our focus.

Next 20 mins is dedicated for meditation. Meditation allows being with self and thereby enabling ourselves understand better. The youngsters construe meditation as something that the elderly retired people do in their free time. When I say people that I do meditation everyday, they comment me back saying “oh! Are you on spiritual path?”. This is effective if you can do this before 6AM because most of the world will asleep during this time and also when you do it in Brahma Muhurtha, we will be more focused. Recently I happened to listened to a youtube lecture on meditation, I urge you to listen that. (Pasting it at the bottom of this blog)

And last 20 mins is for writing personal journal, day planning and reading book. This period attribute to your growth. Writing journal and day planning do not take much time, probably 5 – 10 mins. I start by scribbling down few lines about my yesterday in the diary and this is something I love writing. Next I review the previous day plan and tick mark for whatever I have accomplished and cross mark for not completed ones. And now with this, I am ready to make my todays plan by incorporating unaccomplished task of yesterday’s. The plan consist 3 – 4 lines of bullet points about activities that I am intended to do for the day. This gives you clarity on the task for the day and also it imbibes in having discipline in life. You may feel at first that why to do this planning as we are aware of our daily activities. But believe me, you will have more clarity on what is happening in your life. Once this is done, its time read a book for 15 mins or listening to any motivational speeches. This gives positivity for welcoming the day freshly.

You can do little bit of customisation as you wish on this 20-20-20 rule, but make sure to include activities for your health, growth and to your soul. Do try it for 21 days and I am sure you will feel you are more disciplined and you will also realise what is life transformation really means like I realise now. Give your valuable comments in comment section of the blog and if you want you can contact me at dhwani.blog@gmail.com.

I am just translating it over here for my non-Malayali friends.

This excerpt was from a lecture that Shri Girish Kumar (Founder Chairman of Shripuram Trust) has given to college students wherein he explains the importance of doing meditation and the cross legged spine erect posture benefit. The translation – “If you want to contribute something to the society and to your life, how can you become the contributor? if you don’t know your real aspiration, you cannot do that right? But how can you realise your aspiration. Meditation is the door towards realising your aspiration in life. what you should do in meditation. You sit in solitude for sometime. When you sit in solitude for sometime we will realise our subconscious thoughts and beliefs. Don’t ask how do you realise because if I ask how do you learn cycling or swimming , is there any correspondence course for these? one fine day we master swimming or cycling by practising those. isn’t it? This is how meditation too works. There is no question of ‘How’, just start doing is important. The way how someone enable us to swim or cycle, someone can only enable us but you are the doers. We should sit cross legged and spine erect in any comfortable place. Nowadays we are not that comfortable sitting on cross legged position as we are habituated to sit on chair. When sit in this posture for sometime we feel numbness in legs. what does that mean? blood flow has decreased towards lower body. Blood acts as the postman for carrying oxygen to different parts of our body. There are special type of brain cells called as Neurons. Neurons only get activated by Oxygen.When blood flow towards down decreases sum total of the blood flow towards brain. There is one speciality of these brain cells. only 5-10% of neuron only is activated. For intellectuals like Einstein, Erwin Shrodinger, Newton, Shakespeare, 35% of neurons are activated rest still inactivate. So when more oxygen flows towards brain, more number of neurons get activated. When this happens, our IQ, EQ and CQ gets improved. So it is important to sit crosslegged and in spine erect posture. When we keep spine erect we feel confident and active. Then you can imagine god, flower or flash of light or any color you like while doing meditation and try meditate for 5 to 24 minutes. Initially we may feel bored of sitting like this. But after some days the changes start reflecting automatically, and you will realise your aspiration too. Also you will possess the intense desire and clarity to achieve that dream. How do you confirm that it works? No other way other than practising the meditation.Try doing it for one year without break, afterall it is just 24 minutes that you lose everyday and if its benefit is immense why don’t you try ?

From the lecture: https://youtu.be/ViuUYsHguK8

Is there any great achievements in this world which has popped out blindly? No, all the great achievements were once someone’s dream or intense desire. what is the difference between desire and wish? Though both looks same,There is big difference between these two. When we wish for something, we are not sure whether we can achieve it. Bur when we have a desire in mind, we are sure that we are going receive this one day with this intense belief we set goal and act towards it. isn’t it?

Well, my last blog was about how important it is to control our thoughts. But what happens if you don’t act on our desires. Any action that we do is based on our thoughts isn’t it? Thoughts leads to action and if the thoughts are controlled and refined, it leads to more valuable actions. These many years, I was seriously thinking about doing something really meaningful in my life. Like many of you, I never took any action and always blamed or self convinced by saying no time left to put aside for that journey in my busy life. But reading those bunch of books that I mentioned in the earlier blog changed my outlook towards the life.

I was a night-owl and due to this, I was never able to wake up early. I know most of the people are like me on this. But now I change my habit a little and started waking up at 5:30AM. I have to change this to 5 AM soon, so that I can be in the 5AM club. The benefit of waking up before dawn has been mentioned by many wise and elderly people, but at that time I defy it gently thinking that there is no difference whether we wake up early or sleep late. But now I started feeling the difference. first few minutes of early hour is dedicated in planning the day. This helps in having clarity on your todo things on that day and revisiting that previous day plan on next day, helps us to incorporate incomplete things to include on the following day. At first we may feel like what is the need to write it down . But once you start doing , within a week I guarantee that you feel the difference. Thanks to Robin Sharma’s “Monk who sold his Ferrari” for these tips.

If you have a dream and if there is no action, then it just becomes a day dream. isn’t it? Let that action be very tiny, doesn’t matter at all. Because most important thing is to start with something. How do you make sure that you are on track with your dream or vision? This is where goal setting is important. When you set a goal with specific target date and have a plan on doing small or big action towards achieving that goal, the outcome is definite. Visualising everyday that you have achieved your dream already is a strong tool to convince your mind to achieve these goals

There are many people who says they don’t have any dream in their life. But my dear friends … each and every person is gifted with unique talents, its just that due to our external circumstances or your limited beliefs are holding you back. Better late than never, just go in silence for few minutes each day or in solitude, talk to your mind and unleash your potential.

Remember- Taj Mahal is also built brick by brick . So are you ready ?

As always give your valuable feedback in comments section and let me know if anybody wants help in setting goals and for keeping track of that goal. I can definitely try helping you through life coaching. You can leave a message to my email – dhwani.blog@gmail.com for conversation to begin.