Sunday, March 15, 2009

Designing Life: Strategy for Life

If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are that you will fall into someone else’s life plan. And guess what they have planned for you? NOT MUCH!
Jim Rohn

I have experienced and seen this throughout my life and have recently started to seriously wonder how people cannot have a plan for life. It is astonishing to say the least but, living a life without a plan or even without the slightest of ideas as to what you want to make of it, is literally like a blind person walking in the middle of a busy highway. Sooner or later, you are bound to get hit and suffer the consequences.

It is of paramount importance that one identifies the most significant and important aspects that encompass one’s life. There are several things we need to keep in mind. These may include your education, career, health, family, social life and personal development to mention a few. We will talk about these as well as other aspects of life in more detail in another article but first we need to identify the importance of designing and planning your life. Remember, it is your life and only you know how you want to live up to this great gift given to us by GOD. So make the most of it and do not let it go to waste. We are only going to end up with regrets later. It is always better to live a life of purpose and with your own aspirations rather then to let it go about blindly and later cry over spilt milk.

So, let us see and try to work out what the real benefits and drawbacks of having a life plan are and what the consequences might be if you do not have one at all.

Benefits of having a strategy for Life

Focus on Goals & Life: You will have goals for your life and a central point to focus on. This will result in you not falling for the petty worries and unimportant issues in life that so many of us have fallen into without reaping any rewards or any sort of satisfaction from them. You will live a balanced life and with focus on goals and life, you will see yourself where you want to be and seeing it is half the job done.

Direction: A life plan reassures you and keeps you conscious to the fact that you take care that you are on the right track at all times and even if you are not at some stage, you know what you need to do to set things right. You know exactly what needs to be done to achieve what you want to achieve.

Discipline: A designed life plan will ensure that you are disciplined and are living by solid and concrete principles. Hence, you become an unforgettable example for the world.

Accomplishment of Dreams: When you have a focus, you move forward and you move in the right direction. Moving in the right direction means achieving the real purpose and accomplishing your dreams.

No Regrets: You would have lived a life which was chosen by you and was not out of mere coincidence or directed by someone else. Your life would be yours and would have been lived according to your will and desire. This will lead to contentment in your efforts and would be a life without regrets. At least you chose it and you lived it the way you wanted to.

Happiness & Contentment: When you have finally accomplished and achieved your goals, it is going to result in the ultimate peak of satisfaction with life and that is all what we are living our life for, Happiness & Contentment! This happiness would be in the present life as well as in the life hereafter.

Drawbacks

Thinking of the drawbacks, I really can’t think of too many drawbacks except one major one, and that is the fact that things might not go according to plan. What fun would life be if everything went according to plan? Having said that, you would at least have a direction in life if nothing else.

See, we plan a trip, a wedding and even an uneventful day in our lives but we are never sure if it is going to be the way we plan it to be. This doesn’t mean that we do not plan. We do the best we can and have no choice other than to leave the rest to destiny. This drawback is too insignificant compared to the benefits. I say it is worth taking the risk and giving yourself at least a chance to live the life that was lived on purpose and was lived consciously.

As the common saying, ‘MAN proposes GOD disposes!’

So what happens when you live a precise, designed and planned life? When you plan, you plan good and you plan big and you live it consciously. When you do that, you will most probably then not, achieve it and even if you don’t, you would be remembered for the way you lived. With discipline, dignity and principles! Therefore, leaving an example for others to live by and we would have lived according to our wishes, we would be satisfied, our family would be proud of us and most importantly our GOD would be proud of us. We all would be the ultimate winners! Hence, we prosper in the world and also in the world that awaits us after death.

But remember, the plans need to be realistic. Having wild plans that are not practical and not realistic is almost always going to lead you to disaster.

Hotelier of the Future

Welcome to my Professional Career!

I’ll briefly introduce myself to you so that you can get to know me a bit better। I am a 23 years old guy, born on October 18th, 1985 in Lahore, Pakistan. I have graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) degree in Hospitality & Tourism Management from the ‘Swiss Hotel Management School (SHMS)’, Leysin, Switzerland, one of the Top 10 Hotel Schools of the World. I completed my dissertation in Destination Marketing.

I have lived most of my life in the Middle East and attended high school (H.S.S.C) from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. I received my BTEC EDXCEL Higher National Diploma in Hospitality & Tourism Management from the 'Gulf College of Hospitality & Tourism Management' (GCHT), Kingdom of Bahrain and was the topper student for 2 consecutive years. I have completed a couple of internships from Bahrain as well.

Among my other achievements and accomplishments till date, I hold a European hospitality qualification; holder of the ‘Swiss Hotelier Certificate’ & ‘The Swiss Connoisseur Series’ and have also had a paper published in the Atlas HotelPlan Conference 2008, in Belgrade, Serbia. I am an associate of the ‘Institute of Hospitality’, United Kingdom, the most prestigious hospitality organization in the world, a member of ‘Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International’ (HSMAI), USA and ‘Swiss Hotel Management School (SHMS) Alumni’, Switzerland as well.
I have worked for International Hotel chains like ‘Starwood’ & ‘Rezidor Hospitality’ and was also among the Top 10 hotel graduates shortlisted from the Middle East for the ‘Starwood Vita Futura 2008’ program. I have lived in Europe, Middle East & South Asia and visited 5 countries including Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, U.A.E (Abu-Dhabi & Dubai) & Switzerland. I love to travel and hope to see the world some day. I speak 6 languages including Urdu, English, Punjabi, Hindi and basic knowledge of Arabic and French.

'Following the Noble Path is like entering a dark room with a light in the hand; the darkness will all be cleared away, and the room will be filled with light।" May the path you follow light up your life and the lives of everyone you meet'.

Purpose of the Website: Discovering Life

“Dedicate your life to a set of principles.”

Welcome to my Den!

My name is Talha and as the title suggests, this is my den for life discovery, self discovery and personal development. It is an absolute pleasure to see you here and I am most grateful to you for taking out the time to visit my website. I have big plans for you as well as for myself which I am hopeful of achieving through the use of this highly effective avenue.

I hope to reach out to those people who are thoughtful, conscious of their surroundings and the world they live in and those who want to find the real purpose of life and want to do well in the real sense. We all are curious at some point in our lives as to why we exist? What we are here for? How to make the best use of it? How to succeed in life? How to succeed in the life hereafter? In short, how to be happy and content with life? Like you, I also am in a constant quest to learn what this life is about and ways to make the best use of it so that I can die with content or at least without any regrets.

Why I am I doing this? I have recently developed this urge and deep desire to be the best human being and citizen that I could possibly be. If I succeed in fulfilling this desire, I would be able to please my GOD, my parents, my family, myself resulting in success in life. I have always had the desire to be a considerate and decent human being and I have done that to a certain extent but this recent desire is much stronger and needs to be met with renewed spirit and energy in order to reach the required level of satisfaction, contentment, happiness and success I hope to obtain.

I have always placed great emphasis on balance, on moral values, on principles and on good character and therefore, I have often found myself questioning others and thinking about the meaning of life, religion, philosophy, what constitutes a good human being, a good citizen and a good life.

Therefore, the aim of this website is to basically try and discover the different aspects of life and to successfully go through each phase of life as it progresses gradually and unfolds in front of us. Each day brings a new challenge that needs to be faced, that needs to be dealt with and that needs to be resolved. Through this blog, I wish to observe, think, ponder and constantly improve my understanding of how life works, working on my personal growth and development in every aspect of life and ultimately try to enhance self knowledge and identity.

This blog would cover a variety of themes, subjects or topics as you may call them including quality of life, life plan, life design, purpose of life, goal setting, principles, motivation, achievements and accomplishments, aspirations, positivity, education, career, finances, developing potential, relationships, habits and routines, moral values, ethics, character, transcending negative qualities, emotional intelligence (managing emotions) and spiritual development to mention just a few.

All in all it is an attempt at personal development, dealing with daily life that includes self development as well as methods, tools and techniques used to reach the highest human potential possible. Through this, I also wish to obtain purely personal benefit through the expression of my thoughts, saying things that I never said, things that people were not ready to listen to and except and the way I have always wanted to live my life.

Success in the above would result in the cleansing of the mind, body, heart, soul and the spirit!

As the famous quote,

“The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.”