Just thinking what should I write next series?..For a change I just want to pick up different topics on this “Why..” series. These whys could be from any area.For e.g Why we pick up some new habit (eating too much food)  once we quit (smoking) old habit or Why we follow some Babas or Gurus blindly?. Now in this introduction, I want to distill all 100s of complex life theories on “purpose of live” to “self realization” to “Success”, etc into a

Introduction In our education system we would have studied every thing starting from learning numbers to history to computers. But not the most most important subject – Human Psychology. We some how get a feeling that this area may be for some one having psychological issues or disorders and not for us !!. And since we don’t know what is happening inside we reach out to Gurus, Astrologers, Psychologists, Experts and depend on Spouse/Friends/Parents, etc. Because this subject is

Time to conclude this series !! Psychology is a huge subject. This subject can be very interesting if you are hooked on to self improvement and if you can see this as the main magic behind every thing we go through. But it can be boring if you don’t have much appreciation for this. I have written this series mainly to create little bit of awareness and appreciation !!. Just a small attempt from my experiences !!. As I wrote about different building blocks/parts, one thing that

We all heard about the strong “Mind-Body” connection and how each impacts other. To feel happy and be successful, etc we need fundamentally strong Psychology. You can think of Psychology as software. But you need strong and supportive hardware also. You hardware is your body/ Physiology. Your Physiology directly effects your Psychology. It directly impacts how you think, how you feel and how you behave. Let’s try this. You drop your shoulders, make your face serious and

If you trace the entire chain of psychology and find out the root of all evils you will stop at Love. Since this emotion has many contexts and connotations we may write it off this as some fluffy stuff. But Love the most powerful emotion and this is the driving force. If you deeply notice most people crave for this emotion in different forms – appreciation, praise, connection, recognition, friendships, relationships, etc. This is basic human nature and need. Lack of this emotion

If you are not happy here is the magic reason…Personal Rules !! Between beliefs/values and the emotion you feel there are some rules. These are the rules you have setup consciously or unconsciously. Some examples of rules. IF I get promoted to XYZ then IF I am given ABC  = Feel Happy WHEN I lose weight and build lean muscle and run a marathon = Feel Happy WHEN people respect me = Feel Happy IF I make 10 times  more money = Feel Happy Like computer language you have an inbuilt

I had an interesting observation recently . There are two people we are offering similar services. One person charges for the service and the other offers for free. With some variation both offer good service. Very interestingly people are so keen going with person who charges fee. While the reasons can be any thing, subconsciously we under value anything that is “Free”. We humans place much higher value on the things that are scarce and lower value on the abundant

We all know many things in terms of what is good, what needs to be done, etc. But why we don’t do? Here is the secret… There is a powerful concept i believe in called ” Pain-Pleasure“. Basic principle is your mind/brain try to avoid pain and seek pleasure. Human beings try to avoid pain even though they know they can get more pleasure after going through the pain. This is the reason why we avoid risks and challenging things in life. We avoid criticism, failure, hard

Self Respect is different from Self Esteem.  Self Esteem is about evaluating and feeling positive about Self. Self Respect is about the actions you take in line with your values. Self Esteem is more on evaluation and Self Respect comes from what you do. Self Esteem is very basic requirement. But Self Respect is much more important. Main anchor for a person’s life is values. Values are nothing but your core beliefs. Let’s say you have one of the value as Freedom. If you continue

Out of different negative emotions, the emotion of Envy/Jealousy is most dangerous one. Just this one emotion can make you never happy. It can negate every positive thing in your life. Let me start with a simple distinction between Envy and Jealousy. Envy is a reaction to lacking some thing that others are having it. Envy is comparison between two people. Where as Jealously is fear of losing some thing (esp in relationships). So this is between three people. But both are basically in the

There are hundreds of theories on “Purpose of Life”. In my view, all boils down to a very simple thing – We want to FEEL GOOD. How do we feel good?  We experience through positive emotions. But what blocks your positive emotions are your negative emotions. Some of the negative emotions are – Anger, Regret, Fear, Guilt, Sadness,Jealously, etc. Like any thing else in life, negative emotions also have a role and purpose. All the negative emotions mostly indicate you

I am sure you heard and read about “Positive Thinking”. We would think this is very basic stuff. True.  It is very basic thing. But very hard to implement if you have a default mode of negative thinking. For many people the default mode of thinking (esp in difficult situations) is negative mode. I have written bit more detailed about building optimism in “Romance with Fear” series. Read more on this here => How to Build Optimism . In yesterday blog, I have written

Even if you have formed some dis-empowering beliefs, have low self-esteem, etc, the good news is you still can change !!. Your whole personality is combination of brain, genetics, beliefs and other factors. While some of the real core factors like genetics, body nature, etc are difficult to change, you still can change your beliefs and your base brain. Until recently, neuroscientist believed that your brain wiring can not be changed. But now the real good news is that you can change your

Healthy level of self esteem is very much required and it is essential to lead a happy life. When a person is having low self esteem there are two possible routes. One is to recognize low self esteem and try to focus on improving Second option is to feel very high and think very grand about oneself just to cover the same low self esteem – This is called Narcissism. Narcissism might look like very very high self esteem. But it is not. In fact, narcissism is more dangerous than

In the previous parts, I wrote about Self Esteem and Emotional Dependency . Main root cause of low Self Esteem and Emotional Dependency is lack of Self Love. What is this Self Love stuff?. If you pay more attention to this and go little deep then you will discover very interesting things. Do you know any one who is generally optimistic and happy irrespective of any achievements, growth, status, wealth, etc? And at the same time do you know people who live in hurry, anxious, always

One of the main problems of low Self Esteem is emotional dependency. Most often emotional dependency might feel like real love, affection, etc. There is a big difference between actual love/affection vs emotional dependency. Below are some of the symptoms of emotional dependency. Need lot of attention from some people to feel happy Seeking approvals from others Not trusting own feelings Afraid to be alone Feeling empty inside Often anxious and jealous Emotional dependency impacts most in

Interesting thing in psychology is that you will realize that each and every aspect is very important building block. Self Esteem is really one of THE fundamental driver for one’s success and happiness. What is Self Esteem?. Self Esteem is simply loving & respecting yourself. And, believing in your own worth. This looks so simple right? Just respecting & loving yourself. But, unfortunately loving self seem to be so difficult. It is difficult mainly due to childhood

There are multiple theories on emotions. Theories on how many emotions are there, how emotions are formed and why emotional intelligence is more important , etc. In my understanding, basic emotions comes with base brain. Feelings of happiness are linked to prefrontal cortex. Anger, fear, sadness, etc kind of negative emotions are linked to amygdala. I think, based on various factors like genetics and others your base brain and emotions gets formed. This is like you are born with out-of-box

Values are nothing but your core beliefs. For e.g if you believe honesty is very important in life then you will give value to honesty. So honesty will become part of your value system. Unless your belief on honesty changes, you continue to give value to honesty for rest of your life. Why knowing your values are important?. This is very important as living your values are directly proportional to your happiness. And values determine who you are. Formula is very simple. If you are living