The myth of silly mistakes: Inculcating and Nurturing Habits

Many times we focus on building good habits and to shred away the poor habits that we have already developed in due course of time. Parents, in many families, pay extra attention to ensure that the kids imbibe good habits from the early childhoods. It is generally believed that it’s difficult to give up an old habit. Good habits usually add colours to one’s personality. Regular reading of newspapers, devoting time to exercise, being punctual, keeping stuffs clean are some of the habits all of us value. These habits are very basic tenets of life and carries lots of importance.

Given a chance all us may like to improve upon out habits. Many times we fail to identify the demerits of our own habits. The feedback of friends and family helps us to act upon our not so good habits. Sometimes we manage to change some of these habits and sometimes we don’t. As I had understood two things are crucial for acting upon old bad habits. First you need to realize which habit you need to act upon and second improving an old habit requires conviction. My friend Anuj made me believe that many times just realizing that you have a bad habit is enough. Conviction is not that important. I had to agree with him after hearing his experience.

Anuj was in a B School. He was an electrical engineer and had around 4 years of work experience prior to joining the B school. He had reasonably good understanding of subjects and was doing well in tests. Finance was his Achilles' heel. The difficulty was not in his understanding, but because of his “silly mistakes”. He used to commit small mistakes in addition/deletion and used to land up in wrong answer that brought him poor marks. Later Anuj managed to overcome his tendency of committing silly mistakes. How? Anuj says he just realized that he had developed a bad habit. That’s it. He further explains how this realization came.

In a fine evening he was discussing different issued with his professor. During the conversation the issue of silly mistake propped up.

Professor: What about your studies?

Anuj: It’s going fine.

Professor: How are you doing in finance papers?

Anuj: ummmmm……fine….ummmm

Professor: Come on! You don’t need to think to answer this question.

Anuj: In fact, going by grades my performance in finance paper has been the worst.

Professor: Why so? Do you find it difficult?

Anuj: No, rather it’s easy and logical. There is no issue with understanding. I goof it up because of silly mistakes.

Professor: Ohhhhh! I see. The problem then is in your understanding. Right?

Anuj: Errrrr…..Ummmmmm……No I have got a clear understanding. It is silly mistake.

Professor: That’s what I am saying. You have termed certain mistakes as silly mistakes. That’s the problem. How do you decide that these mistakes are silly mistakes? These mistakes in real life applications might have large scale implications. The moment you use the term silly mistake, I got sure the problem is in your understanding. The term silly makes you feel that these mistakes are small errors and you have become habituated to accept these. Once you start accepting the mistakes you stop acting upon it. Once you stop acting upon it, it starts increasing in scale and magnitude.

Anuj: I am getting your point. I have made it a habit to commit these mistakes. And the feeling that these are silly mistakes has prevented me to rectify them.

The discussion with the professor made Anuj realize that it’s his habit that he needs to change. Once he felt that the mistakes are not silly ones rather serious mistakes, he stopped accepting such mistakes. Automatically he started focusing on not committing such mistakes. To his pleasure he saw substantial improvement in his accuracy level and attention to small details.

Connectedness to a Larger World Existence

Subroto Bagchi, Gardener, MindTree has got the ability to influence and motivate you with his writings. Years back I had read one of the articles of this great motivator. The article was about decoding the complex helix of the DNA of success. The writing could be refered at http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Welcome_Address_by_Subroto_Bagchi_at_IIMB
The title of this writing is inspired by his article where he says success is also about connectedness to a larger world existence along with many other things. For me being connected to a larger world existence essentially means to look beyond one’s own immediate surroundings, to accept the value of others and to generate the empathy and sympathy for others.
First, one must realize that there is a larger world. We have our own views, opinions and ideas. So have others. The viewpoints may differ depending on the context, situation and experience of the viewer. Accepting the existence of the larger world helps to accept the diversities inherent in this world.
Once there is a realization of larger world existence, it comes to getting connected to the larger world. Connectedness is more than acknowledging the presence of the larger world. Connectedness is about the feeling of empathy. It is about putting ourselves in other’s shoe to see the situation, to feel happy with the happiness of the larger world and to feel sad with the sadness of the larger world.
Many of us despite the knowledge of the existence of the larger world lack the connectedness. Many of us might have noticed some terribly surprising experience with the outcomes of this lack of connectedness. Students pursuing professional education like MBA, Engineering shouting in late night in public vehicles like train, making obscene gestures in public, using unprofessional words etc are result of the this lack of connectedness. When the so called future makes too much of noise in a public vehicle, it denies the fact that the noise hampers the sleep of multiple of people. When it uses unprofessional words, it denies the fact that it is disgusting for the people around. People say this intellectual group is role model for many. Forget about being role models, it is about the hollowness in the basic human values. It is about lack of sensitivity.
Life is more than educational qualifications and compensation packages. It is about being educated, about opening up the brain, heart and spirit. Being connected to larger world ensures that one truly contributes to the larger world. True contribution is more than donations to CSR activities and similar passive engagement. It is about inculcating the habit of respect for others. It is about making such habits spontaneous.

What do you want to do in life?

What do you want to do in life? This is a common question that all of us have faced many times in my life. We face this question right in our early childhood. Answering this question has been easy for some of us and very tough for some others. As I recall, most of my friends in their childhood used to say that they aspire to be doctors, engineers, administrative officers, pilots, professors etc.
I have always faced issues with such kind of questions. To be frank even the simpler ones- whether Hindi or Sanskrit as third language, whether Arts, Commerce or Science, whether Engineering or Medical and a huge list of such questions used to perplex me. While I was struggling to figure out an answer to these questions, it was not even a question for many of my friends. They already had an answer.
The general perception is people who can easily answer these questions have focus and direction in life. Others are confused. Latter I realized that saying that the question is perplexing or difficult to answer is not the right way to represent oneself. The better and smarter ways to answer these questions are: “I have kept all options open”, “I want to experiment a bit before I decide something concrete”.
Even when I had clear answer to questions I saw many friends struggling to get an answer. There are certain questions to which we all have a readymade answer and there are certain questions which are tough to answer.
The problem has its root in behavioral science. Each of these questions comes with options, available alternatives and compels us to select one option out of a few. We focus to choose the best available alternative. For example if it is about choosing between Arts, Science or Commerce for graduation and one finds science is the best option the answer is ready. But this is not the root of the problem. The roots of some of these questions are much deep. To answer these questions we need to know why the question is being asked. What is the ulterior motive of the question that is being asked? In our example of choosing stream for graduation, the question is not simply about selecting the best alternative out of the three options of Arts, Science and Commerce. Unfortunately, most of us think that it is simply about selecting one option that is best for career growth and opportunities. We forget the basic assumptions and context under which the question is being asked. As a result most of us assume that what is good for the world is good for us. We forget that we are unique and our way of interpreting the world, our taste and our interests are unique. Sometimes without even working on the basics we may land up in place we find lovable. But then it becomes a matter of chance.
An ideal way to answer such questions will be to attack the root of the question. Why the question is being asked? What is the source from which options are being generated? How is the alignment of one’s personal interest, agendas with the question being asked? What additional information required for selecting the best option based on one’s personal interest and preferences? Which options can straight be rejected for the misalignment with the personal interest? Choosing the right option many times depends on the question one asks to oneself. If one asks the right type of question one will get the right answer. So choosing an option is not about finding the right answer but finding the right question that can be asked to oneself.
Saying that, it is also important that as we get exposure to newer facets of life our interest changes. The world today is too difficult to predict. It is becoming increasing difficult to see even for a horizon of five years. Not knowing one’s position five year down the line is just fine. It’s natural. But a broader framework and the basic idea on own interests and priorities help to answer many questions simply by identifying the “why” factor embedded in the question.