” Thought”

A colleague shared a beautiful quote, which said ” Watch your thoughts, they become your words, watch your words they become your action, watch your action they become your habit, watch your habit they become your character and watch your character they become your destiny. “. She further requested me to write on “Thought”

After thinking a bit, I realised that it may be true. After all thought is like a seed. If we sow it, nurture it and water it well, it could be a sapling. Then we care for it a bit more and it becomes a tree. Similarly, a thought which flashes our mind, if we let it settle down and nurture it, it could lead to thinking. We then speak about it with family and friends, share it, express it in words with others and they may lead to action. If we repeat the action since we start enjoying it, it becomes a habit and we have realised that habits mould our character. It is our character, which leaves a legacy and may be shapes our destiny.

Now, let me think of a thought and see if all this hypothesis is true. I thought of writing a blog about three months ago. I always enjoyed writing but had not really pursued it as a hobby for many years. After this thought struck me in February, I did express in words with some of my family members and friends. They encouraged me to write and even gave me tips of how to write a blog and where to start. Then I started brooding over it and started writing my first blog on 11th March 2016. After I made the first attempt, I resolved to myself that I will write every week. Now I publish it every Friday and have not missed a week so far and hence has become a habit. My thoughts published in the form of my blogs may reflected my thoughts, my values and in a way may reflect my character. Now this may become my destiny. This means that this hypothesis may be mostly true.

Let me take an example from the work place. I first thought of having a get together of all my HR team in my company through a large scale interactive process so that we can listen to all our key stakeholders and evolve our vision, strategies and priorities for the team. This thought I shared with my leadership team, which help me crystallise it. Then together we converted that into action and formed a design and logistics team to execute it. This execution was done for the first time in 2011 and from then on happens every year and has become a habit for the HR team. This habit determines the character of the HR team in our organisation and this evolves our destiny.

Another important factor worth remembering is that our thoughts determine our state of mind and that shapes our destiny. If we choose to be happy, we are happy under any circumstance and if we choose otherwise, nothing in this world can bring us happiness. So everything in this world including our happiness starts and ends with a thought. So, why not choose to be happy every day by thinking that we can choose to be happy always.

Hence, it is true that we need to nurture our thoughts and then invest it to convert it onto action. Perseverance makes the action a habit. Habits determine our character and the character defines our destiny.

I do believe every action begins with a thought. Do you ?

S Ramesh Shankar