What does working on yourself mean in a world that constantly tells you the many ways in which you can be better still?
Nishtha Grover, Publicist
I think I have been aware of being self-aware for almost my whole life. In Class 2, I was speaking of self-love," laughs Nishtha Grover in an interview over the phone from Delhi. The 31-year-old publicist laughs at the dichotomy that aiming for a high moral compass in life creates. "In your attempt to be a better person, you could become toxic for others, because you judge them against your own standards."
Her own journey to better herself began over a decade ago and recently a personal crisis led her to a therapist. "When you look at the nuances and patterns in your life and wonder why certain results keep showing up, you try to understand who you are. Am I crazy, or spontaneous? Am I a confident person, as I sometimes behave, or under confident as I come across at other times?" The internal travel that she undertook has been the one journey that's still not found its destination. Layovers have happened on stops of activities like rifle shooting — and she admits that it does sound odd when placed against the canvas of peace she's trying to paint— meditation and a range of self-help books. Theatre, her latest discovery, is currently going a month-strong.
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"When my relationships have ended, I have asked my partners where I went wrong, because you never enter a romance thinking it's a fling. You want to make it last. You want to make it work." Sometimes the feedback, she says, has been "you're a nice person" and sometimes it's been "you're not looking at your own convenience, you're more giving than necessary."
Welcome to the era of self-improvement. It speaks of a time when everyone knows Jay Shetty, a former monk who now puts up motivational videos on social media and undertakes personal coaching online for a variety of life lessons. With most of us hooked on to messages of compassion, management, fitness on social media, bettering oneself is now an extreme sport.
Chirag Maru, a hospitality realty entrepreneur, would once routinely return home at 5 am. Today, he is up by 4 am and watches motivational videos for an hour. The next two hours are spent on exercise and the day typically ends at 10 am. Pic /Sameer Markande
Extreme. It's a character trait that Chirag Maru admits he has. The founder of T Realty—T stands for thought, trust and triumph—Maru deals largely in the hospitality realty market, with a stronghold in Mumbai. He speaks bluntly over two cups of green tea, while pointing out that the black coffee on the other side of the table could cause harm.
"I used to be a certified drunkard," says the now teetotaler. The 35-year-old, who started earning his own pocket money at 17 by selling garments to friends and later boutiques after his father refused an allowance, says joining Knight Frank Consultants in 2008 proved to be the starting point of his career. Making a mark for himself in the world of restaurants, he says, brought him more money than he had been used to. That and the hospitality hours he'd have to keep, ensured that he'd go out drinking thrice a week. A typical day would include six glasses of Coke. Three – four bottles of alcohol would be consumed a week. Married in 2011, within a year, arguments began to crop up with his family over his lifestyle—he'd come home typically at 5 am every day. He admits that dealing with him wasn't easy for the family.
Maru, today, is at the other end of the spectrum. The only time in the week he goes out is on Saturdays, with his wife. He wakes up at 4 am every day and spends an hour watching motivational videos. Half an hour is dedicated to talks by the likes of Sadhguru (of the Isha Foundation) whose YouTube channel has 3.1 million subscribers. Then, there is Sandeep Maheshwari, a former model and now motivational speaker who discusses everything from focusing on your goals to speaking with confidence. The second half is spent on watching Vivek Bindra, a motivational speaker who focuses on entrepreneurial lessons. Maru admits that even when he meets clients or other professionals—"I am lucky I am in a profession when I can regularly meet successful people"— he returns with lessons, all meticulously noted on a doc on his phone. An hour and a half is dedicated daily to stretching and exercise. For better or worse, those who join his office, too have to make it to Carter Road every morning for two weeks to endeavour to keep their body fit. He is in bed by 10 pm.
His biggest lesson—and he is in the hallowed company of Warren Buffet here—is learning to say no. Saying no to outside food even if it means refusing food tastings at the restaurants he haunts or and staying up late for networking or meeting friends, has allowed him to focus on what he says he treasures most, his family. Sometimes, it ends up in less revenue, "but there's no point to money if I am not taking care of myself and my family."
A WhatsApp group that was once dedicated to "non-veg jokes" was overnight turned into a space only for positive messages. On Instagram, he regularly puts up posts meant to inspire "Discipline is just choosing between what you want now and what you want most". A follower who commended him on his 4 AM-er status, gets a response "if I can change, anyone can".
Maru now consumes self-improvement in all forms available. Social media and books and humans. While Stephen R Covey's The 7 Habits of Effective People has left possibly a permanent mark on him—his favourite is 'be proactive' it seems, considering the number of times he uses the word in one hour—the latest one to move him is the international bestseller, Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life by Héctor García, Francesc Miralles. It's pushing him to book his vacation to Japan.
How much can you chisel a diamond that's already shining?
Devansh Jhaveri, founder and CEO of Mafia Chef, meditates daily. It started with guided meditation. However, on days he is tired he allows himself to skip the sessions. Pic/Bipin Kokate
Devansh Jhaveri, founder and CEO of Mafia Chef, humbly says "thank you for saying so, but I don't think I am there."
Jhaveri, who says 'I may have had ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder), has now achieved the pinnacle of meditation—being able to go thoughtless—for 30 minutes. Off social media, except for LinkedIn, he tracks the Internet for videos and teachings of the likes of Gaur Gopal Das and Meher Baba (a Pune-born Zoroastrian spiritual leader who died in 1969), considered the avatar of god. Introduced to these leaders by a friend, Jhaveri has attended a seminar by Gopal Das, surprised that the speaker was able to hold his attention for as long as two hours.
The Malabar Hill resident who is a consulting chef, often finds himself in commercial kitchens, where with the high pressure, swearing is a rather common affliction. In the kitchen he heads, he has tried to mandate a no-swearing rule. It may not reflect in others, but it's something he has worked on internally at least, effecting some calm in his life.
He uses the idea of calmness to deal with the pressures of daily life. For instance, not reacting when being critiqued by his father. "I realised that I could react to it in a better way. Understand why he is doing so and be more respectful to him. In turn, it calms him down."
Such a change can only come with introspection. But how much is too much? We are now living in an age when people seek therapists not only for mental health issues, but also to improve their own interaction with the world.
Khar-based psychologist Sonali Gupta says she regularly gets clients who seek therapy to build resilience or compassion. "But what we do need to also work on is self-love, learning to accept ourselves for who we are. We need to learn to work towards self compassion and also effective coping techniques that allow us to manage distress and situations which may not be fully in our control.
So it's not a generational issue, now we have a vocabulary when it comes to mental health and an openness which didn't exist before."
Yet, trying to be better than you were yesterday—and isn't that sold as such a simplistic measure?—brings with it its own fatigue.
Grover admits that when you're assigning the responsibility of all the events in your life to just yourself, it can be frustrating and anxiety-causing. If you are looking at each conflict standing in someone else's shoes, you forgive them for the wrongs they did to you.
But what about your own feelings?
"At some point I realised that I was trying to make myself strong, but strong for what? I wasn't joining the Army. It was counter-productive."
It's okay to be normal.
Jhaveri agrees. Earlier when he'd miss a meditating session, he'd meet guilt. "But it's important to get out of that negative cycle. Today, I no longer put pressure on myself if I return home after a tiring day and don't feel like meditating. It's better to skip a session than to feel
burdened by it."
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