spatel2 wrote:
mikemcgarry thanks for your help, I gave meditation a try this morning and as it was my first attempt ever not sure i did it right. But will stick to it and hopefully it pays dividends
Dear
spatel2,
I'm happy to respond.
My friend, very good for you, because it's all in the effort. I'll mention a few things about meditation.
Posture is important: keep your spine aligned and relax. Breath is important: keep the breath slow and very deep, filling the whole belly with each breath. In fact, the more you can do this belly-breathing throughout the day, the calmer you will be. The classical meditation instruction is to breathe deep and focus on the breath: at first, that's almost impossible, which is fine. Your mind will wander--perfectly normal--and then you will notice that you have wandered in your attention, and very gently, with tremendous patience and self-forgiveness, come back to the breath. Meditation is gigantic exercise of self-love and self-acceptance: however you are is fine. Part of the point is to start to recognize that just about everything we think is purely a story, no more. Consider these three stories:
1) "
If I get a 750+ on the GMAT, my career will be wonderful."
2) "
If I get a 400 on the GMAT, I will have a horrible career."
3) "
If I make a lot of money, then I will be happy."
All of those are purely stories, no more. There's no guarantee that they are true. In fact, there certainly are people out there for whom #! and #2 are false, and significant social science research has verified repeatedly that #3 is simply not true: income and happiness are 100% uncorrelated. Meanwhile, mediation and mindfulness are highly correlated with overall life satisfaction.
I would recommend researching mindfulness practice: this is a useful complement to meditation, and together, they really can reduce stress. There are many good books on meditation and mindfulness.
You see, the paradox is that, to do well on the GMAT, you have stop caring about it. Very specifically, you have to disattach from all the stories you tell yourself about what a good score or a not-so-good score might mean. You are a talented young person, and like any talented young person, you have the potential to create a wonderfully rewarding and satisfying life for yourself, irrespective of what you may get on the GMAT. In the big picture of Life, GMAT score doesn't matter at all. If you can really hold on to that perspective, then you can relax and bring the best of yourself to the GMAT. You have to be focused on being relaxed and bring the best of yourself: if you are not attached to outcome, the paradox is that this will produce the best outcome!
Acting without attachment to outcome. There is an ancient wise book about this theme called the
Bhagavad Gita. Gandhi based his life on that book. This book helped Gandhi liberate India, the second largest nation on Earth! It certainly can help someone do better on the GMAT!
Let me know if you have any other questions.
Mike
, thanks for the insightful reply. The examples of Bhagavad Gita and Gandhi were great. I can relate to every word you said
" The few , the fearless "
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11 Sep 2017, 15:35
