Change the World by Keeping Your Inner Fire Ignited

A decade back, when I was working on a huge enterprise program (with multiple projects) along with a big team (of close to 300 people), we were a group of managers who were evaluated and pushed by the senior management to “proactively” deal with issues and to work on finding new solutions.

I used to think of how - we can become “proactive”, when we were already focusing our efforts on fighting our daily “fires” or urgencies of our project work. When I delved deeper into our daily work habits, it struck me that till the time we are not excited about “getting things done”, the willingness to explore more out of our comfort zone just doesn’t happen.

The innate human behaviour is to follow a routine and establish a comfort zone over a period.

The 1st factor – “an external stimulus” can upset us and force us to think or act out of our comfort zone.
The 2nd factor that can make us “move” out of our comfort zones is about having an excitement of a future or coming up with a vision that can change the world.

The 1^st one above typically helps us deal with emergencies and once these are over, we get back to our comfort zones.

But the 2^nd one above excites us and makes us move in a very different direction altogether.

When you have an “inner fire” or the excitement within to “change the world”, the whole world somehow strives to keep your fire going for a very long time.

When I started getting ‘visions’ for solving problems and doing new things in my assigned area and to grow it manifold, I was super-excited every day. This automatically made me proactive within my circle of influence and many leaders started appreciating my enthusiasm and the ‘can do’ attitude that I had developed over time.

What I gained overall was that my attitude towards my work changed. I was looking forward to solving problems with happiness and rejoicing in taking up more complex tasks. I was also much more open to learn new things and very importantly, take bigger risks with my new endeavours.

To put this succinctly,

Being a visionary can change your outlook towards a meaningful life.
Being excited about a compelling future can ignite a major fire within you.
The more your inner fire, the more proactive and risk-taking you can become.
Proactive behaviour can bring you greater rewards in the long run than staying in your comfort zones.
Taking calculated risks makes life super-exciting and meaningful.

I have written these thoughts here to let you all know this, that…

We all have a fire within, and it is our responsibility to keep it going and make it bigger. The hunger for excellence and to create new possibilities for this world can change the course of humanity in the long run. Let us all delve within and ignite our imagination to build meaningful and helpful solutions that can change the course of human history.

- Written by Anand Nanavati (SupraDigit Solutions)

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