How to open the doors to professional success

Dealing With Personal Issues

Hi and welcome back to the third section of this course. Now as I mentioned earlier, this section will talk about how your personal issues can become an obstacle for your success. If you remember, In the previous section, I gave you a small exercise of noting down a few things. Now I want you to take the first aspect which is negative thoughts. 

Dealing with your negative thoughts

There a comes a point in everybody’s lives where we start thinking on negative grounds. Now just because we start getting negative thoughts, it does not mean that we are negative people. Sometimes, when things go way out of hand, it is a natural human tendency to think negative. 

We often tend to blame ourselves for certain things especially if something is not under our control. Sometimes, negative thoughts can also come when we feel helpless when we cannot do our bit to ease things. 

I understand that it is not easy to prevent negative thoughts. However, how we fight them is totally in our hands. During the start, it will take a lot of practise not to give in to such thoughts. However, once you start getting the hang of it, things become easy. Over time you will learn how to control and ignore such thoughts. So how do you control and deal with negative thoughts. Here is a small step-by-step method

• For starters, give in to those thoughts, do not fight them. The more you fight, the more you will be drawn to such thoughts. Instead, acknowledge these thoughts as a part of you. This itself will help you drastically. 
• Once the thought hits your mind, ask yourself, why are you thinking this way. Is it because you wish you could do something? Or, because you know what to do but your hands are tied.
• Start talking to yourself, this may sound strange, but it actually helps. Getting into a role play by speaking from both sides just like two different people communicating will ease a lot of pressure from your mind.
• Slowly start pushing yourself to understand and acknowledge that you have done your bit to ease the situation. Remind yourself of all the efforts that you have put in to make things work / right. 
• Gradually start working towards ignoring unnecessary thoughts especially when you know you have done whatever is in your power to make things right. 

Now let me remind you that this is a long process, but it is an effective one. During this time, you have to make up yur mind that you will not quit on working towards making yourself a better person. 

If you get extremely violent thoughts like hurting yourself or hurting somebody, ask yourself why. Try to understand the root cause of such thoughts so that you can work on yourself. Sometimes, these thoughts can also be triggered due to an event that happened in the past. So, what do we do in such situations? This is the next point that I will cover. 

How does living in the past affect your professionally

We all have a past, and there is nothing to be ashamed of it. As humans, we are bound to make mistakes or take wrong decisions. Sometimes life itself takes an unexpected turn and we end up in a situation that shakes us up. These sorts of events tend to have a major impact on our lives. Moreover, some of these events also changes our lives drastically. 

It can be very difficult to come out of such events. The memories and the trauma that we go through goes seeps deep into our minds. Sometimes, such events also become the root cause of certain behaviours, emotions and negative thoughts. 

Coming out of such traumatic events and situations can be very difficult. Sometimes, they even stick to us for life. What you do not realise is, as much as these events may have had an impact, there comes a point in time when you have to learn how to let go. 

At the end of the day, we all have just one life. Why should we waste the possibility of a good life on the basis of such events? Living in the past does not help us in any way. In fact, it is a burden that only pulls out down. So, how can you come out of the past and learn to move ahead? Well, here are a few tips

• Learn to forgive yourself for getting into such situations. Everybody makes mistakes or goes through bad things/phases in life. By blaming yourself, you will not accomplish anything.
• Make peace with that situation or event. This is necessary especially when you want to move ahead in life. 
• Learn to use that particular event or situation as a teaching more than a punishment. As strange as it may sound, in some cases you should also be thankful for such a situation as it has helped you to realize how you should not be.
• Thank the person who put you in that situation. Unknowingly he/she has thought you a very important lesson in your life. Rewind back and understand where you went wrong. For example – You trusted too easy and trusted the wrong person. The lesson learnt – let people earn their trust instead of you just giving it. Or say your relative spoke badly about you or put you down. The lesson learnt – Prove to yourself that you are not what the front person thinks you are. 
• Understand the importance of the past and the lessons you learnt, this will help you to make peace with it. 

Now these are just a few tips and examples of how to stop living in the past, but what happens if you have gone through a childhood trauma that is not willing to let go? To answer this question, I will move on to the last topic of this section. 

Can childhood trauma be a reason for an unsuccessful professional life?

Many a times, the events that take place during our childhood can live within us for as long as we are alive. Studies show that almost 8 out of 10 people live with their childhood trauma. Out of these 8, 2-3 people take on wrong paths or get into unwanted trouble, while the rest just live with the anger throughout their lives. It is only 1 or 2 people who learn to get over the trauma and channelize their energy in the right way. 

As astounding as this may sound, this is a reality that we live with. My question here is what is it that these one or two people do that helps them to move ahead in their life? The answer is simple – they do not want to remember something that can pull them down. 

Childhood trauma can become an obstacle if you are not willing to let go of things. The worse part is, in the bargain of living the same day over and over again, you are actually missing out on the good things of life. 

Moreover, you tend to start comparing your present situation with the events that happened in the past. Let me tell you a small story of a brother and sister.

These siblings came from a very poor and backward family. As kids, they were subjected to a lot of mental and physical abuse. The father and mother were both unsupportive and often cursed and hit the children. 

They blamed the two kids for everything that went wrong in their life. So much so, they did not let the kids go to school and forced them to work. Instead of having a childhood, these kids had to become the bread winners of the house. 

The girl was even subjected to sexual abuse as the father used her to earn money. The brother couldn’t take it anymore and decided to take his sister and run away from home. They then came to the city with very little money in their pockets. For the start, they used to sleep on the streets. 

The boy and the girl started to look out for work. The girl managed to get a job as a house help while the boy worked as a cleaner for an office. Slowly the two collected money and took a small place on rent. 

The brother and sister slowly started saving money and they gradually started settling their house. The girl worked very hard and wanted to make a good life for herself. However, the boy started making new friends and eventually went into the wrong path. 

When his sister got to know, she became very sad. She decided to work harder and get her brother out of the present situation. After a few years, she saved enough of money to move to a slightly better area. By that time, her brother was already deep into the wrong path. She decided that she wanted to get him out of it at any cost.

She wanted to start something of her own and wanted to get her bother involved as well. This was the only way she could get him out of the situation. So she started to save a little more money to buy a small cart. 

Eventually, she managed to buy a small cart and started a food business. She then asked her brother to join in and help her handle things. Initially, everything went as per plan, however, slowly she started to notice that she was losing money. 

She was determined to find out what was happening and one day she caught her brother red handed. When she asked him why he did it, he turned around and started blaming their father and mother. Moreover, he kept on stressing that he had seen a bad childhood and it was his right to enjoy life. 

On hearing this, the sister turned around and asked him if he forgot what she went through as a kid. She then asked him, if she also thought the same thing, would they have been able to start something new?

So, what did we learn from this story?

Both the brother and the sister went through their share of problems. The brother was still living in the past and went on to take the wrong path. However, the sister was determined to change her life.

This story is a classic example of how your childhood trauma can either make or break your life.

By living in the past, you close the doors of opportunities to make you live. However, when you learn to let things go, you start working towards making your future. You do not waste time and energy focusing on the past. Instead, you learn how to move ahead and make your own life. 

Your childhood, the events that happened and the trauma you have been through, cannot define your life. You should learn how to raise above the situation and make your own life. So to answer the question – Can childhood trauma be a reason for an unsuccessful professional life? It is a big NO. Your childhood trauma will only become a reason if you make it one.