New Year’s Resolution

Dear Blog,

As yet another year stands at the brink of sunset, I wanted to step back and make a toast to the wonderful and blessed year gone by. Not all days were equal. Some days were jubilant, some days were spent in despair, while yet others in hopeful longings. In the end, "all that's well, ends well." I dedicate my penned down thoughts to this year that passed us by and to the new promising beginnings.

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Exercising your influence on someone and motivating them to move them toward a particular action can be incredibly hard, especially if that person is stubborn about his/her ways of thinking. Good influencing skills do not involve using force or authority. It entails energizing the other person to take a desired action to meet a common goal.

Why is influencing someone be that hard? That is due to the fact that a person inherently resists change. It is almost instinctual. Like Newton’s Third Law of Motion, “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” The harder you act to influence a rigid person, the more push back you are likely to receive.

There are very few men and women other there who gladly embrace change. Change by its very meaning is paradoxical. How can something so variable in nature consistently bring about the same result i.e. mayhem and disorder? I guess, it depends on the outlook of the person. Change is not necessarily a bad thing. It signifies moving out of your comfort zone to do something new and innovative. Gail Sheehy says, “If we do not change, we do not grow. If we do not grow, we are not really living.” Change and progress are synonymous.

One important thing to note is that while you are influencing people to change, you MUST practice what you preach. You must change your attitude first. You must be broad minded, patient and flexible to change yourself. Only then will you sound sincere and credible.

So this year my new year’s resolution is simple: master the art of positively influencing people and be amenable to change.

Winds of change

The winds of change continue to blow
Trails untried they attempt to show,
They unfold the horizon with new sights
At the end of the tunnel, we see new lights

Some people may say, “old is gold”,
But deep inside they have a fear untold,
They dare not amble on the paths untried,
They dread to walk against the tide!

Change is not always bad,
Change needn’t make you sad,
The cheeks of growth are aglow,
As winds of change continue to blow ...