Reflection on Amal Totkay
By: Sameer Katija
Tags: Amal Fellowship, Amal Totkay, Amal Academy

What can be more important than understanding, what is living? Time after time, I asked myself, how can we say we are living. I am moving, speaking, thinking and eating doesn’t justify that I am living. In this quest, I found an amazing definition by Einstein, and that’s:

“Once you stop learning, You start dying”.

This had an amazing impact on me. It motivated me to learn more about myself, and finally I joined Amal. There I found some useful information called Amal Totky. Let me share those totky below.

Self Talk Get out of your comfort Zone Create new Habits Ask people for help Fake it till you Make it.

They seem simple and silly, but if we actually ponder these we will find them amazing. I thought about each of them and found out why they are so amazing. I found some things which I’ll share.

Self Talk:

criwthI believe we should understand that thoughts are incipient actions. Every action is a thought first and action later. So, how do we create these thoughts? Every time we learn, listen and feel. Our neurons release brain chemicals, which are known as neurotransmitters, those neurotransmitters generate electrical signals in neighboring neurons. The electrical signals propagate like a wave to thousands of neurons, which leads to thought formation.

Almost everyday we have to listen to some negativity and everything we listen generates a thought which makes us unmotivated and scares us. That’s why I believe Talking to yourself in a positive manner can reduce those negative thoughts and replace them with positive thoughts which’ll lead to positive action, hence a positive life.

Every day when we wake up, we usually take shower or at least we wash our face. So, what we have to do everyday, we have to say to ourselves. Yes I can do it, and I will do it. That’s it. We can start with this single statement and we can increase it later.

Get out of your comfort Zone:

I quoted the definition above, of Einstein about living. According to that definition, if we are not living we are dying. So, What is a comfort zone? Comfort zone is the death bed, with pretty roses on it. Everything comes with its price. If we want to enjoy those pretty roses, we have to give our life as a cost. As Brian Tracy quotes,

“The comfort zone is the greatest enemy of courage and confidence”.

We try to escape the situation, which demands our expertise because we have wired ourselves to not work. Problems are always the best teacher, they always teach us something. We have one life, but we don’t have to live it in a single way. Instead, we have to do something new, something valuable, something challenging.

Honestly speaking, I am too busy this month. I have limited myself to one meal and progressing along this amal fellowship is tough. But I will pay off. It will benefit me a lot. Making myself stay, where sometimes I get frustrated and I think that’s the end, I can’t bear more than this. That’s where I have to push myself and actually expand my growth zone. Because I know, temptation to quit will be greater, when I am about to succeed,

Create new habits:

According to Charles Duhigg’s book, the power of habit. We can’t break a habit, but we can replace it. Our mind is designed in a way that always try to find some easiness. Hence, we end up having habits. Most of the time, we live in an unconscious mode. A mode where our find is passive, and habit is playing its role actively.

So, the best way to get rid of bad habits is to create new habits which are positive and fulfilling. What I can do is add a ritual for myself, that daily I will say one thing positive to myself, whenever i am feeling down.

Ask people for help:

We are not perfect, we can’t be perfect. There is a lot in this world, which we can learn. There is always someone better than you out there. So, always ask for help when you don’t know. Maybe someone who is better than you can teach you and make you better than him.

Most of the time, we step back when it’s time to ask for help. But in order to learn, we must be willing to ask for help, as well as willing to help.

Writing this article would have been impossible, if i have never got the help i needed to improve my writing. I remember I had a friend who actually helped me as my editor. Every time I wrote, she checked all my mistakes and grammar. If in doubt, ask for help.

Fake it till you Make it.

Progress starts with our mind. What we believe, we can achieve. What we mostly do is we set limits in our minds. Which our brain manifests for us, in real life. As Muhammad Ali quotes,

“To be a great champion, you must believe you are the best. If you’re not, pretend you are.”

Everything gets better, when we believe in ourselves and this helps us start and take action.

Conclusion:

All of these tips are amazing. But I believe that to fake it till you make it is the best among all. If you start acting in a certain way, you become that. We can implement all these tips in our lives easily. Every day before taking shower, we have to just see our face in the mirror and we have to say a single statement. “I can do it and I will do it.” I have to fake it till I make it.