Thank all those who have pushed you to the limits!

In life, normally we remember those who have been good with us, those who have made us comfortable or have helped us at some point in time or the other. This is very natural since such people make us happy and who doesn’t want to be happy?

Have you ever thought of those people who push us to the limits? Mostly we carry some kind of a grudge against those people. The level of our grudge varies depending on either how much they have pushed us or how much has been our sustainability level to adjust to that push. This also sometimes depends on the circumstances prevailing at the time this push-pull game is going on.

While reflecting on the above today, I just went back thinking about those episodes in my life where I was really pushed to the limits. Generally, I’ve also carried my small grudge against those who have pushed me hard, very hard, however today a new thought emerged. I started thinking about how these episodes have made me do something big, take some strong & significant decisions and more importantly changed me as a person for the better. Let me take you all through those episodes which have influenced me.

In the early stages of my life, my parents pursued with me to study well, especially when it came to Math and English as subjects. While my father pushed me hard to study grammar through Wren & Martin, my mother inculcated in me a habit to learn spellings. Another regular thing was to learn tables up to 20 and do addition & subtraction without a calculator. I must say many times doing the above used to feel like an ordeal.

As I entered professional life after completing my engineering, I got a boss who by his nature would make the life hell for many, including me. It went to a stage where I couldn’t take it anymore and I resigned from the organization, only to take my resignation back because of the intervention of some senior management officials.

While I progressed, I got a new one who made me realize for a moment that I was not good enough for my job and I needed to improve on certain critical things. My professional life took me to many countries, different cities, I moved positions and functions, so all in all it was quite a wholesome life. At a certain stage in life while I had migrated to a much different role and responsibility, I got another boss, who came from a different organization, and started almost forcing me to handle something again which I have had handled enough in the past and didn’t want to go back to again. It eventually became one of my reasons to leave an organization with whom I had worked for more than two decades, in fact until then it was the only organization I had worked for.

I flourished in the new organization from abroad, made its presence felt in India and gradually brought it closer to a very well established and strongly present Indian organization, leading to a partnership and creation of a new organization. Although I got a very senior position in the newly created organization, a senior individual’s undue expectations led me into a serious thinking mode and finally became one of the reasons for me to give-up employment and decide to become an independent business consultant.

While I may carry some kind of small grudge against each of the people I have described above, my new thought has provided me a different perspective about them. My parents’ pursuance laid in me a strong foundation, which has carried me well in my life so far. It has helped me achieve a professional qualification which has supported me throughout my professional life. My boss who became one of my reasons to resign from the job actually led me to realize the importance of having as good a job as I had. The critical comments from another one made me work harder and learn better, thereby leading to a habit which has come handy through-out. The person who became one of the reasons for me to jump organization actually did me a huge favour. Without him, perhaps, I would have done what my mentors did, join an organization and retire from there. Finally, the one who demanded unduly and made me move from being an employee until now to becoming an independent consultant actually did me the biggest favour of my professional life!

I’m happy that this new thought has helped me to look at the glass of life as ‘half-full’ in contrast to viewing it as ‘half-empty’. It has also made me overcome those small grudges I’ve been keeping. I’m actually thanking all those who have pushed me to the limits!