Positive Thinking: The Art Of Seeing The Invisible - Dr. Hutoxi Randeria

For a minute let’s go back to our anecdote of the archery test held by Dronacharya to test the archery skills of his disciples. As archer after archer lost their mark, they began to grumble. Some said the target was too far off while others complained that it was too high up. After Arjuna successfully completed the test, Dronacharya called all his disciples and told them, “My boys, failure to hit the bulls-eye is never the fault of the target. When an archer misses the mark, he turns and looks for the fault elsewhere. The secret is to look within. To improve your aim, improve yourself.”

In this statement lies the most important lesson of positive thinking. The only reason why we are not what we should be is because we don’t dare to be. Walt Disney once said, “If you can dream it, you can do it.” Once you have set your goal of becoming a middle level manager in the next five years, you need to do two things. First you constantly need to visualise yourself as one. The technique of visualisation is indeed a very powerful way of looking at life and its difficulties. But it has its pitfalls for visualisation is not to be taken as daydreaming.

Sheikh Chilli once found a pot of wheat flour on his way home. He went home and strung it in front of his bed. After a ‘hard’ day of doing nothing, he reclined on the bed; the dangling pot of wheat set him thinking. He thought, “This is indeed very good; I will take this to the market and sell it at a profit. Then from the profits I will buy some hens, the hens will lay eggs and I will sell those in the market and make a huge profit. Out of that money I will buy cows and sell the milk in the market and set up a sweet shop. By the end of the year I will become a prosperous merchant.”

Sheikh Chilli closed his eyes and began to visualise a mansion where he would rest; all the prettiest maidens of the city would vie to marry him. He would settle down with the richest and the prettiest of the lot. Soon he would have little sons of his own, toddlers running about the house. But, he thought he would have to be very firm with them. He visualised them as naughty brats and decided to whack them to teach them a good lesson. He threw about his hands and legs up in the air and down came the pot crashing into pieces. The Sheikh literally saw his pipe dreams shatter!

There is a fine line between positive thinking and pointless daydreaming. You have to be on your guard never to trespass it. Unless positive thinking is translated into disciplined action, success will forever remain a pipe dream.

So if you dream of becoming a manager in five years time, you need to take care of your short term goals of clearing the entrance exam in order to get yourself admitted into a good B-school, then clear the course with flying colours and finally impress your employers with your abilities, skills and confidence.

At each step visualise your success. On your way there will be hurdles and often life will seem like one long obstacle course, but if you have confidence in yourself success will not be far off.

October 1982 was a watershed year for a twenty five year old woman. She finally finished the gruelling New York marathon. Well, that’s no big deal, for many women athletes have done the same long before 1982 and continue to do the same till this date. But this 25-year-old woman was no ordinary woman. She was Linda Down, the first patient of cerebral palsy to complete the 42.2 km race on crutches. Linda stumbled and fell half a dozen times during the course of this race, and millions of television viewers witnessed these “failures.” But she kept going and finally completed the race, 11 hours after she had first started. Her handicap limited her speed but not her determination. She attributed her success to positive visualisation of her success. Every time she fell, she visualised her jubilation at crossing the finishing line and that gave her the courage and motivation to go on.

It must be however remembered that positive thinking is the catalyst for success; it is not success in itself. You need to show the world the results of your positive thinking, not the mere blue print. As someone very rightly put it, the world expects results, don’t talk to them about your labour pains, instead show them the baby.