PERSONAL / CHALLENGE SPECIAL .............. Challenge yourself all the time

Challenge yourself all  the time   The only way to fulfill your potential and discover your true strength is to break out of comfort zones and challenge yourself! Have you found your comfort zone? The space you feel most at home and  top-of-the-world in? Are you settled and satisfied? Great! Now get up and leave. Digging in your heels, hanging up your boots or letting yourself sink into comfort and luxury is satisfying precisely when it comes after a challenge ­ or just before the next one. Comfort or satisfaction cannot be a state of being; else, you no longer remain either comfortable or satisfied. Real life happens outside comfort zones. Stepping out, you connect with your real self ­ capable of much more than you ever imagined. The only way to move on is to keep challenging yourself and those around, to keep shifting the goal post to help you live a better life and become a better version of yourself. So, we challenge the limits of our mind by pushing it to take on fresher and bigger mental challenges ­ be it at work or learning; mental shenanigans, or puzzles that some love to solve. When we are not pushing the  limits of our mind, we start challenging the limits of our physical strength and capability with forced physical activity such as gym, yoga, outdoor games,  adventure sports or trekking. What role do these challenges play in our lives? They help us grow and connect with our true selves. So long as you keep growing and learning every day, with each experience, life is beautiful. I asked my son, who recently returned from a trek to Kheerganga with friends, why they undertake treks or adventure sports. His reply, “Trekking, especially  when through a difficult terrain, gives you a sense of accomplishment when you reach the destination. And the natural beauty exhilarates! Challenging yourself physically gives you a good break and is almost meditative.“ Similarly routines at the gym, yoga sessions or a regular run are ways to challenge a sedentary lifestyle and to walk out looking good and staying confident. Indeed it is meditative because a challenge helps us understand ourselves better. But a challenge need not just be out there in a tough terrain. You can view every relationship, every person, every incident, as a challenge to yourself. Focus; try and understand what learning are you meant to get  from the person or the incident. Is it to be more flexible or caring? Is it to be more loving, to trust your intuition or to be more thoughtful? Are you being warned against adopting certain characteristics? How can you challenge yourself in everyday life? Try and conquer your fears and doubts and go beyond who you think you are and what you think you are capable of. This will reveal the real you and the heights you are capable of achieving. At work and in life, as a leader or family member, it is crucial to keep challenging those who look up to you by outlining high expectations for yourself as well as others and then doing your best to meet or even exceed them. A constant desire to improve and keep learning new things is what distinguishes true achievers. Learning a new language or finally taking up a hobby you have always wanted to, travelling to a destination that intrigues you, packing in more into a day than you thought you could, or trying out the exotic dish you loved at some restaurant are all ways of challenging yourself to do better in life. Introduce even a 10-minute regimen of exercise or meditation into your day, and that is a new challenge too. Humans have always liked to engage with that which challenges them, be it mental or physical prowess, or even Destiny or Fate. A perfect balance  of both types of challenges, mental and physical, is healthy. Too much focus on exclusively challenging your mental prowess can be as unhealthy as pushing yourself abnormally on the physical front. Let us not though downplay the importance of comfort zones! It is equally  important to find and understand your comfort zones, because once you absorb and understand that space, you can internalise it and use the strength it imbues you with to challenge it, step out and deal with your lifechanging challenges. vinitadawra nangia TL29NOV15