Understanding a person’s personality and lifestyle can tell us a lot about whether he/she is living life to the fullest or living a mechanical, strait-jacketed way of life. I recently came across this interesting article on dealing with routine by Deepak Chopra that talks about how routine influences our quality of life. Your lifestyle broadly fits into two categories – One is an unconscious lifestyle that creates an active feedback loop that takes new inputs everytime and leads to a better life experience, while the other creates a conscious one (called the “reactive rut”) that results in a dull and uninspiring life. The article talks about examining our routines so that we can rise above routine and live an alert and a wholesome life.
A routine driven life therefore can undermine the creative and lively sides of your personality. An important aspect of image makeover is to have your image portray your true personality and to understand if and why they are out of sync. The connection, as I mentioned above is your lifestyle When I look at someone’s lifestyle, I look at what they do and how they spend their time – professionally, with family, socially and for recreation. All this tells me how routine driven their life is and allows me to tweak their routines to help them realize their true potential and experience all their various personality traits. Sometimes this involves breaking an existing routine or distancing oneself from a negative influence, or even starting afresh and taking a new path. To illustrate the concept better, consider these real life examples –
- A is an social and caring person, but she lives a routine driven life as an IT professional. As a result, her life was in reactive, autopilot mode, with little spontaneity. In order for her to break the routine and experience the other sides of her personality, I helped her connect with a social work group and volunteer her time on a part time basis for a social cause. Today, she counsels students on a weekly basis and is involved in several other social gatherings.
- B is a well placed and influential beauracrat , who has an outgoing and lively personality, but lives a predictable life due to the nature of his work. He loves parties and dancing. Getting him enrolled in a dance class was all that was needed.
- C is a single mom who has been divorced for 15 years. Single handedly, she takes care of her old parents , sisters and a college going daughter. Taking care of her responsibilities and her job takes up all her energy and time, leaving little time to experience her true outgoing nature. I connected her to a networking group and a travel group that helps singles to travel together, giving them the much needed adventure and companionship, a sense of carefree abandon and most importantly – the joy of pampering themselves.
Break through and live life to your fullest 🙂
Love
Babita Jaishankar
Babita Jaishankar 