The "Why" of Life

I was conducting a session on Stress Management for an organization. 

 During the break, I saw a participant of the workshop standing near me as if hesitating to talk to me.  He was in his mid thirties and had a peaky and disturbed look on his face.  As if I had not noticed, I kept on going nearer to him , talking to other people. And as I had guessed, one he found me alone, he came up to me and said " Mam, just wanted to tell you that your session is going on very well, but somehow , I don't know why, I can't relate with the things being said  ..I have recently lost my wife ... I don't see any point in going on further with my life ... I have nothing to expect from life anymore ... "

I found it very very disturbing. 

And in the next session of the workshop, I talked about the book by Victor  E Frankl , "Man's Search for Meaning "

Victor Emil Frankl (1905 – 1997) was a Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, devoted his life to studying, understanding and promoting “meaning.” His famous book, Man’s Search for Meaning, tells the story of how he survived the Holocaust by finding personal meaning in the experience, which gave him the will to live through it. He went on to later establish a new school of existential therapy called logotherapy, based in the premise that man’s underlying motivator in life is a “will to meaning,” even in the most difficult of circumstances. 

The key lesson's are these :

1. “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”

Frankl and his fellow prisoners had to endure atrocities that many of us cannot even imagine. Prisoners had to survive on one small piece of bread a day and maybe some thin soup. They had to work 20 hours each day, digging and laying railroads and so on. If you looked weak, you were beaten. If you stopped working, you were beaten. And you didn’t get much of a second chance after that. You could be killed for any reason. Frankl talks about one inmate that had a dream that the war would be over on March 30th. He told this to Frankl at the beginning of the month and had hopes that his dream was a premonition that would come true. However, on the 29th, when no sense of an ending was coming, this inmate became ill. On March 31st, Frankl writes that “his prophecy came true and he died”. The war was over for him.

To all outward appearances, he had died of typhus. It wasn’t typhus that had killed him. It was his loss of hope.  On the other hand, there was an inmate who had a small kid waiting for him. He had a purpose to live and he lived. 

2. "Love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which a man can aspire"

Frankl himself endured the camps by thinking constantly of his wife who had been separated from him long ago and sent to a female camp. Even in the harshest parts of the day, exhausted, sleep-deprived, overworked, underfed, Frankl found salvation in the love that he had for his wife: "But my mind clung to my wife’s image, imaging it with an uncanny acuteness. I heard her answering me, saw her smile, her frank and encouraging look. Real or not, her look was then more luminous than the sun which was beginning to rise"

Frankl learned that love really does conquer all. The sadistic guards could do anything they liked to him. It didn’t matter. He had his loving wife’s image in his mind for company. Love was an antidote to pain.

3. "Suffering too has a meaning"

Frankl argued that we always have the freedom to find meaning through meaningful attitudes even 

in apparently meaningless situations. For example, an elderly, depressed patient who could not 

overcome the loss of his wife was helped by the following conversation with Frankl:

Frankl asked "What would have happened if you had died first, and your wife would have had to  survive you ?"

"Oh," replied the patient, "for her this would have been terrible; how she would have suffered!"

Frankl continued, "You see such a suffering has been spared her; and it is you who have spared her  this suffering; but now, you have to pay for it by surviving her and mourning her." 

The man said no word, but shook Frankl's hand and calmly left his office. 

There are three ‘whys’ that stand out from Frankl’s writing:

·         Love 

·         Work 

·         Dignity in suffering

We have likely heard many people utter these words from a concentration camp prisoner:

 “I have nothing to expect from life anymore”. 

In fact, we have probably uttered these words ourselves.

Many of our own darkest moments look positively radiant when compared to that which POWs like Frankl had to endure .....

So if ever you lose hope, think about Frankl and find the "Why" of your life  and say "Yaay " to life !

How to outperform in stressful situations - Autopilot !

Last week I conducted a test on Principles of Management for Calcutta University. After the exam, before calling it a day, I went to the wash room to freshen myself. There I found one of the brightest students of the class , sobbing and after seeing me , tried to camouflage her grief by splashing water on her face. I pretended ignorance and did not ask her anything. After a few minutes, suddenly she blurted out "Mam, why does this always happen to me ? I study so hard , so so well in class participation but when I am appearing for a test, my mind goes blank. I try so hard to concentrate , do well , but usually I buckle under the pressure. Why mam, why ? " And she cried inconsolably.  I just held her tight . 

This blog is dedicated to all of us who at some time or the other have choked under pressure - just like the bright young student of mine. 

So why does it happen? Why do we sometimes fail to perform up to what we're capable of when the pressure is on? It may not be so surprising to hear that in stressful situations, we worry. We worry about the situation, the consequences, what others will think of us. But what is surprising is that we often get in our own way precisely because our worries prompt us to concentrate too much ! 

 

That's right -- we pay too much attention to what we're doing. When we're concerned about performing our best, we often try and control aspects of what we're doing that are best left  outside our conscious awareness, and the consequence is that we mess up.

I remember my meeting with Anand Kumar - the celebrated educationist who is best known for his Super 30 program. The program claims to select 30 meritorious and talented candidates each year from economically backward sections of society and trains them for the IIT Joint entrance exams - one of the toughest exam in the country.  Super 30 has a hit rate of 99.99 % success. As an answer to my question that what was the secret of the stupendous success of Super 30 , the gentleman had smiled and softly said "Leave yourself  on autopilot at the time of the final performance !"

"What ? Autopilot ?" , I was confused. 

He smiled again . 

"Yes ! The key is to practice and build yourself up so that you are at your peak performance at the moment when it is needed the most. At that time, your mind should work automatically, unconsciously, without having to concentrate or worry about the result. That is autopilot mode !".

The stress of wanting to do really well makes you self-conscious, Your mind is  driven by worry, fear, and anxiety. Your over focus becomes a force of destruction that interferes with your natural and practiced flow as you start paying too much attention to what you're doing. And then starts the downhill journey of your performance.

Our working memory, just like a computer's Random Access Memory (RAM), is a limited resource. When we start letting anxious, worried thoughts intrude in our brain, we deplete major mental resources that could be better used anywhere else than over-thinking  every move.

So,  what should we do ? Here are some tips which I have gathered from my own personal experiences.  I share them below : 

1. Practice Under Stress : Good and sincere people work hard for tests, practice before performances . But it is important to keep in mind whether they are performing under stress or not. For example, if we are appearing for an exam,  we have to practice writing mock tests and try to emulate the same environment of the actual tests - like time limitations, writing conditions and evaluate ourselves on that. Before any performance on stage or presentation to customers or senior management  , we should practice in front of somebody who can critique us. If no one is available, record your performance and scrutinize yourself.  And of course it goes without saying that you have to Practice, Practice and Practice , till you feel that you are ready for the autopilot mode !

2. Do not dwell on the past and neither in the future :  Take failures as hurdles which have helped you to learn how to go about problems . Do not let them stop you from trying again. Dream big but do not  dwell on what might happen in future. I know it is easier said than done but living in the present moment is what we all should strive for.  Once you have the answer paper infront of you or the moment you are standing in front of an audience, live the moment. You have already practiced a lot . So come in the autopilot mode - live the moment. Remember Shah Rukh Khan's talk to his tennis team just before the final match? Forget the past and the future. Live the minute. Enjoy the moment !

3. Distract Yourself :  I know a person who always wears the same tie when he is going for an important client presentation.  There are people who have superstitions like humming a tune before the exam starts or keeping a flower or  a leaf with themselves before any important event. All these may be superstitions, hang on, I am not a proponent of superstitions , but as an example of busying our mind somewhere else, I say that they also serve the purpose of distracting our minds and prevents us from focusing too much on the consequences and the upcoming stressful situation.  This is one of the reasons that you might have heard your elders say that do not study on the day before the examination. Read a book, listen to a song etc. so that your mind is distracted. This slight distraction helps us cope up with the stressful situation and come to our super efficient autopilot mode !

What happens in our heads really matters, and knowing this, we can learn how to prepare ourselves and others for success, not just in the classroom and stage  but in the  boardroom as well.