Should you ask for a promotion?

When I was not happy with my ratings at work and I told my parents at home. This is in my first job ( My manager had said I got a 4 but it was 3 on paper, or so I interpretted the situation, I was 21! ppl are stupid at 21! :D atleast I was! So we never know what went on over there ) 

After a few years in a conversation it came out that my dad was shocked by this, and he said he has never asked for promotions and hike at work and It was really strange to him that I am asking for better rating. Our work should speak for us was his moto! 

If you out there, never has to ask for a rise or a promotion, and were recognised for your work! Good for you. Well done! 

But What if, If you are that kind who didnot ask for a it and you dont get it?! 

So should work speak for you? Should you ask for that promotion, or that raise or that 5 rating? 

Does it mean your work didnot speak well enough for you, you are not good and you dont deserve it? Those people who got it are better than you? 

Nothing speaks for itself, I think the people whose work speaks for them have the organisation figured out. You whose work is not speaking needs a translator. :-)  

You may actually be - not good. Then u just get better!  You may be very good but doing tasks which are not important? You may be doing good and your work may be speaking but nobody is listening!?

Best would be to find out!  We could state our goal and ask for feedback about where we are now and 

how to close the gap.  I want that 5 star rating or that raise, What can I do to get it? 

Organisations are becoming more open and transparent and chance of this working is getting higher. 

That is the most growth mindset way to do it. We are all capable of improving.  Being open to objective and constructive feedback and acting on that feedback

State our goal our aim and then we can ask am I there yet? If not, how not? and  how to get there. 

( yes every blog of mine is about growht mindset :-) I find lot of our problems are because of our fixed mindset - comparions, self worth issues all are related to applying inherent and fixed value to ourselves and feeling ashamed of that value )  

So dad was wrong! Sometimes we get let our parents words or friends words infuence us so much and hold us back and affect our self esteem, Stop us from taking positive and proactive steps,  also make us harbour negative feeling about proactive people as playing politics or licking bosses ass.  

When they ask you to rate your self in the PDP, should you rate yourself a 3 and hope that your manager changes that to a 5!? No!? If you dont think you are good, who else will?!  Times have changed and so should the attitudes.  

Growth mindset

Comfortable trying for things people think I m not good enough for.  That people may be friends, manager, collegues, ... myself

Comfortable aiming big, aiming for things I may not achieve

Comfortable aiming for big things and failing

Comfortable being exactly where I am 

Trust my ability to learn and improve

Trust in my ability to deal with it, whatever the It is 

I m writing this to tell myself that is it ok! It is OK!  to ask - for promotion or that rise, for that last piece of cake! Its ok to ask for the moon and fail on a small chance that you may get it! 

mythology in day to day talk

How much mythology we use in day to day talk?
I use a lot! 
Anna heard only half of my sentence - Ashwathama Hato Kunjaraha
Shabari - always to justify unclean food habbits :D 
Shravan kumar - when some trying to over please his parents
Sati Savitri - always used derogatively 

Dharmaraya - sarcastically about someone being self rightious

Tandav when someone is acting up in anger
I use quite a lot of mythological stories as examples to think about day to day life actually. 

My niece asked my sister in law Was I born before your wedding or after! :-O ... She said after! Obviously! She says thank god! Otherwise you would have to give me away like Karna! :-O 

Dreams 2

Just last year I complained about my dreams http://mystic-babe.blogspot.com/2020/01/dreams.html

Happy to report this has changed, Thank you very much subconscious now a days it something like this- my friend gets run over - no no get crushed into pulp by a huge truck, my mother get alziemers and she stands naked(! :-O) on the street and tell everyone she is a man! And she is! Anatomically as well as for the beard like a Sadhu! My brother in law gets donated 5 Cr by a politician! Thats a good one - but my Mother in law asks him to give half of it to my husband ! LOL! and It got really awakward from there. Yes!  I got chased by Hippos, Crocodiles, Bats, Snakes in my Shirt!  I kept a lion as a pet and It got into a car in the forest and I just let it come home, but once it was home I was terrified that it will eat me! Lol! 

So looks like my brain has got netflix subscription these days! ;-) 

why do we say I am not good at this.

Admitting that I don't know something is a great quality, It indicates honesty and humility and gives me an opportunity to learn, which I would never get if I didn't admit it.
Granted!

Saying "I am not good at this! I m new to this" to people, before starting a presentation or when showing my  hobbies etc.  It indicates nervousness, shyness and apprehension. This statement is a safety blanket against failure, used by me to save myself from humiliation and judgement from other people.  Its like a stab at humility! We say it to prevent others from saying "you are not good at this". We are worried about what people will think , isn't that fixed mindset? 

Ok people are judgemental! but the trick is getting past that, for my peace of mind, for my growth.  people WILL laugh at a bad drawing or bad singing. 

You can do 3 things 

1) not sing in public until you are really good 

2) Not care at all what people do and keep singing 

3) Note that people are laughing but instead of taking offence use that as objective feedback.  

Only 3 is Growth mindset, not 2.

When we dont know  Ask others Ah! How do u do it? We can say Let me try! No need to say I m not good at this, People will know that u are not good at it anyway :-) 

Kisa Gautami and Savitri

Savithri's husband died very young. Savitri being a determined woman followed him alive to hell, She made Yama the god of death return her husband back to life. 
Where as Kisa Gautami was really traumatised my her sons death, she brought her son to Buddha and asked him to be brought back to life. Buddha asked her to get mustard from someone who has faced no death.  This made her realise death is part and parcel of life and helped her accept the death of her child and go beyond suffering. 
Yin and Yang! Should you accept or Should you make things happen? 
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. 
Wisdom to know the difference! 
Totally unrelated - mythology rocks, It is so part and parcel of my life,  I think of these examples of ideal people and ponder on their behaviour. Gods exist if not in real life, in my mind, They make my imagination and my universe so rich. It is not just lies and false stories, they teach us about life, I love it. 

Noticing better than judgement?!

I had written a blog about how we should replace judgement with understanding. In practice, this seems very hard - just not able to do.  continued with judging people :-)
so I have replaced understanding with noticing.

U dont have to decide what the people have done is good or bad just notice their behaviour
Instead of this thinking person is so selfish - always takes everything for themselves. Which makes you very frustrated and angry.  Instead we can just notice the behaviour like you would do to a Nat geo animal - This lion always kills deer when its hungry. you don't think this lion is a cruel bastard.

When we look at peoples behaviour like this, we may be able to find solutions or work around the behaviour without it bothering us. Instead of thinking this person should not do like this, we will think, they will behave like this so what will I do ? I think people who are good strategists think like this.

Understanding does not work because we are trying to make ourselves feel things which we dont feel. We are not feeling compassion for that asshole who is vandalising the shops. What ever their circumstances . But noticing without thinking "that asshole" is relatively easier :-)

Same applies to self as well, I usually undermine myself and make my behaviour worse by judging,

 I started noticing how very subtly I undermine myself, and how I dont have confidence in my own decisions so follow others decision even tho my own experience may be more and better and how I second guess my decisions. It is very subtle, its not hard words or intense emotions, its just small comments reminding of old mistakes or comparison with others negatively, or pointing out my faults.
so the solution is instead of judging myself, i.e instead of deciding this behaviour is good or bad, just notice my behaviour.  For example think my hands slipped and the glass fell, instead of thinking I am so clumsy, I can never carry anything, I dont pay attention etc.

Strive for

Strive for Success and you will get Stress

Strive for Excellence and you will get Success.

 ( Karma yoga in other words ) 

Thank you my dear reader !

Thank you my dear reader. Its been 12 years on this blog! I love writing and reading this for myself and I think one of the reasons for me continuing to be on it is you! 

Thanks you for asking me - Why no blogs!  Love you for that. Love you for taking time out of your busy busy busy life to read this and to care if I write or not! 

Lots of love! 

How should one bring up their child?

There are 1000s of ways, everyone is doing their own things and everyone is wishing for the best - who is right? Some are sending their kids to private schools, some are just saving that money in a bank and giving them when they are older. Some send their kids to lot of classes, some are just chilled, Some give their kids only organic food no candies, some give their kids lot of sugar. Some let their kids do only things they like and some ask their kids do things what parents want and is needed. Some will scold their kids some will just use soft words. Who is right? 

My conclusion was everyone was right.  Each type of bringing up will benefit the child in some circumstances and not in others.  Every situation and every decision seems to have both positives and negatives. And depending on how life turns out, different people will benefit out of it. 

For example 

Strategy 1 - These people believe - Give your child every oppurtunity possible. This type of kid will get such a big leg up in its career, it starts where other kids will take years to reach, so success is almost guarenteed.   On the other hand how will they learn to appriciate hardwork if parents made everything easy for them? Wont they buckle at the first failure?

Strategy 2 -Tough love. Parents decide that the child will learn more if they make it hard for the kid. This child will learn to be resilient and deal with lot of situations but may become hard and build resentment towards parents?  be tought with others who may see it negatvely. 

Another striking example was - today kids who are brought up by kind caring parents are doing very well for themselves, kids who are left to take care of themselves are getting into gangs and having a miserable life. No question about it that kind parents are doing better right? but What if - tomorrow war breaks out and situation turns out like in Syria or Congo or something? And their parents and relatives die? Who will do better in that chaos? Right? Every upbringing possibly has a silver lining - almost every one.  

I have always felt, kids with tricky parents learn to navigate around other people better, kids with nice parents have to learn to deal with bad people at an older age and it is harder. 

I gave this a lot of thought,  What can they teach their kids which will help how ever the circumstances turned out. So It has to be more of an attitude than skills, It has to be very fundamental .

For me it boiled down to only one thing which may give the kids best advantage in life no matter what.  

 Growth mindset and hence Resilience and the Belief that they can handle it.

If they teach kids to enjoy learning, to make them believe in improvement and learning instead of belive in god given/parent given gifts? get up after falling down, Enjoy failing, learning to look for new way to get out of a jam. What else is there? Life is a series of jams, the one who enjoys getting out of them - will be happy. They may become mechanic or become CEO of a multinational but they will not bow down, They will be happy.  No one can control what happens to them, we can control how we react, we can teach how to react. 

In any situation - they should think ok what can I do from here, Instead of thinking oh my god this has happened to me. 

Even in happy situations, Same, instead of gloating in their success. They will think that was awesome so what I do from here. What can I learn, How can I improve. 

When someone is better than them, they shud instinctive learn from the betters rather than compare and feel small . When some one is worse then them, still learn - why are they like that. and that will help improve ( helping people who are worse is not part of growth mindset, they may do it or not, but learning for self improvement is ) 

Isnt that the ultimate gift?

Same thing applies to me as well

It doesnot matter what decision I take in life, It will all have positive and negative consequences, there is no perfect solution but if I approach the situation with growth mindset, that is enough. 

Inspired by books:

Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

Book by Carol Dweck

Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway 

Book by Susan Jeffers