How green is your future
March 2011
This quiz can help you predict the shape of your days to come
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If you take this quiz with utmost honesty, it could not only help you predict your future but also help you draw a customised step-by-step action plan to bring about desired changes in your personal, professional and social relationships.
A. This is what you have to do:
1. Read the following seven triplets (A, B and C) of statements one by one.
2. Imagine someone is looking impartially at the major decisions and actions you have taken in your life so far (especially in the last 10 years). If you have your spouse with you or a close friend or relative who has lived with you for long and can fit this role, you may seek his/her help to make your responses more accurate.
3. Record in the third column, the way he or she is likely to associate your decisions and actions in the last 10 years or so with the beliefs written in the second column so that in each case A+B+C=10.
| No. | Beliefs that appear to be influencing your decisions and actions | A+B+C=10 | ||
| 1 | A | B | C | |
| A | “Avoiding battles ensures loss of war. It is better to confront a little inconvenience today than a major one later.” |
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| B | “Study of the past patterns can predict future precisely.” | |||
| C | “A bird in hand is better than two in the bush.” | |||
| 2 | A | B | C | |
| A | “Playing safe is the most dangerous thing one can do. It ensures that we remain life-long strangers to our immense potential.” |
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| B | “Once graduated in engineering you are destined to remain an engineer throughout your professional life.” | |||
| C | “I place safety much above change, adventure and growth.” | |||
| 3 | A | B | C | |
| A | “Life is all about being proactive and making the right changes at the right time.” |
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| B | “I do not fear change; I only doubt whether it can at all come.” | |||
| C | “Unless there is an external circumstantial compulsion, I continue to resist any kind of change because change is neither easy nor comfortable. It should be resisted at all costs.” | |||
| 4 | A | B | C | |
| A | “Irrespective of my designation, salary and perks I always work with the sense of ownership and responsibility of the owner/CEO of the company.” |
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| B | “I always attempt to do what I am asked to do or what I am supposed to do.” | |||
| C | “I do whatever minimum will save me from punishment or help me protect my job (and my reasonable pace of growth up the hierarchical ladder within it).” | |||
| 5 | A | B | C | |
| A | “I have a habit of seeing and closing the gaps in how something presently is and how it should be (or could be). I continue to feel a kind of creative tension till I eventually improve whatever needs to be improved.” |
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| B | “Unless I am asked to do otherwise, I accept and get used to situations and things as they are. I fear owning the unnecessary additional responsibility of having to change anything on my own. It will unnecessary get me noticed. I am safe doing the routine things I am asked to do.” | |||
| C | “Honestly, I cannot imagine things in any other way than they presently are in. I fail to see the gaps.” | |||
| 6 | A | B | C | |
| A | “My secret: I keep a diary wherein I record my small achievements and the compliments received during the day and read them almost daily. This helps me preserve and raise my self-esteem and confidence.” |
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| B | “My memories of my past are mixed. Some are of pleasant successes and others of failures.” | |||
| C | “Whenever I look at my past I tend to focus more on my failures than on my successes. I feel my successes were flukes and my failures were real.” | |||
| 7 | A | B | C | |
| A | “The only way to change circumstances is to ensure that I persistently contribute my best, despite the circumstances being unfavourable.” |
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| B | “Within the prevailing circumstances I cannot contribute any better.” | |||
| C | “I need to play safe in order to protect my job and promotion.” | |||
| Total |
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Your A score =
Your B score =
Your C score =
B. For interpreting your scores, see below.
Your ‘A’ score tells the extent to which you are green: Progressive in your approach and willing to take risks and to give every thing it takes to create a future of your dreams.
• 1 to 14 is poor
• 15 to 28 is below average
• 29 to 42 is average
• 43 to 56 is above average
• 57 to 70 is excellent
Your ‘B’ score tells the extent to which your yellow is stealing your green: To what extent your lack of imagination, inertia and memories of past experiences are holding you back.
Your ‘C’ score tells the extent to which your red is stealing your green: To what extent your decisions are influenced by your fear that attempts to improve your life may result in losing whatever you have already acquired. It shows your unwillingness to take risks and to move into an uncertain future (even if a better one).
C. For drawing an action plan
Identify areas where you have scored B and C and make a conscious attempt to shift to A. One way could be to read the A statements aloud while looking into your eyes in front of a mirror and believe them intensely as your very own beliefs.
Anil Bhatnagar, an IITian Corporate Trainer on behavioral skills to over 50 leading companies of the nation, is a motivational speaker, a personal growth coach, a Reiki teacher, a painter, a columnist with Times of India, and an ISTD award-winning author of five internationally acclaimed books. He features among the 19 international gurus picked up by Brenda Barnaby for her international bestseller, ‘Beyond the Secret’. He also writes prolifically for some of the top Indian and International journals. www.anilbhatnagar.com
This quiz is meant strictly for the personal use of readers only. No part of this quiz, or the ones published before or after this by the same author in this magazine are permitted to be reproduced in any form or to be used by anyone, in part or full, for any commercial purposes without the written permission of the author