TIPS TO MOVE ON

  Is Destiny a matter of CHANCE or a matter of CHOICE? Day to day life, we see several unexpected events which happen all of a sudden, on the spur of the moment, without being planned. Yes, it is a reality. But do we need to wait for those events which are not in our control?  There comes 90-10 PRINCIPLE from Stephen R Covey, the author of “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”. We need to focus on the circle of Influence which is 90% in principle leading only 10% to concerns, which are not in our control.  CHOICE ·         IT IS AN OPTION OR DECISION ·         Be PROACTIVE ·    HABIT 1 of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R Covey ·         See Alternatives, not deadlocks ·         Focus on what you can influence ·         I am free to choose & responsible for my cho...

  Stress without passion is dangerous, if that continues for long period of time. Hence it is important to be aware of reasons for stress and the important measures one should adapt in their daily routines while passing through such situations in any ecosystem. Believe in Ourselves and do a positive affirmation daily that our own destiny is in our hands. Have an “Egoless” behavior with the focus remaining on the goal and be ready to adapt and accept changes with an innovative mindset to perceive unexpected opportunities. We need essential virtues like Maturity, Perseverance, Resilience and of course Courage, to lead a healthy and stress-free life, irrespective of uncertainties and stressful situations in our day to day life. Be strong, stable and positive under any negative situations should be our ultimate goal. REASONS 1.      FEAR– Fear of failure or any kinds of losses 2.      LACK OF RESOURCES – Skill, Time, Money 3.   ...

  Can you hit a target if you can’t see? There comes the need to have absolute clarity in our thoughts which eventually leads to actions, resulting success. Clarity always precedes Success. Before we climb up, ensure the ladder is leaning on the right wall. As per Peter Drucker, the management expert, “There is nothing so quite useless as doing with great efficiency What should not be done at all” I am trying to define CLARITY explaining the 7 letters present in the term, as below                C reativity : Innovate, instead of blind following                     L ight : Free from darkness in Paths leading to destination                     A ware :   Remove ignorance, get knowledge                     R esults: Begin with End in Mind, Dream your re...

I am addressing below a set of Tips grouped for success and happiness in our day to day life. As there are 7 days in a week, I believe 7 can be the perfect number to be picked to name these tips and as we know 7 is powerful as it symbolizes completeness and togetherness. As illustrated in picture, these 7 H represents Habits, Health, Hands, Heart, Home,  Honest and Help. 1.      Habits : Intersection of Knowledge, Skills & Desire; Can be Learned, Unlearned and Changed. Habits determine our actions, which influence our life. 2.      Health: Not only free from diseases, but it includes complete harmony and positivity. 3.      Home: Foundation to build anything 4.      Heart: Passion and loyalty 5.      Honest: True to self and others, much more than just not lying. 6.      Hands: Explicit service, volunteering in nature, time spent whole heartedly ...

Image by  cottonbro  from  Pexels Really how busy you are?  Yes, of course with a list of personal / official tasks always. But Is it impossible to find time for some unplanned task which comes instantaneously? Not at all. Then, were we busy?  Is it a matter of priority? How you manage your priorities make you attend any kind of tasks.  Stephen R Covey in his famous book “ The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People ” explains the 3 rd Habit as “Put First Things First”- a habit of Integrity and Execution. When we put 4 quadrants based on Urgency and Importance as shown in figure, the challenging quadrant 2 is the row and column for “Important, Not urgent” tasks. That includes all tasks for Prevention / Planning / Improvement. Those are prerequisites needed to avoid urgency later, hence they are important. Only way we can focus on quadrant 2 is to divert our attention from Quadrant 4 which are just time wasters obviously. Success lies in utilizing our availabl...

We often see several busy folks in various roles who don’t have time to  listen more or they don’t want to. Some may talk more and listen less or don’t listen too. We also heard people listen to ask questions more instead of understanding. So such contexts we have a challenge.     Image  by  Pressmaster  from  Pexels How to articulate a scenario or point to a serious audience who may not have time to listen at all? With some reasonable preparation, one can achieve this.  First, get the big picture and understand WHY we need to present first of all. Try to find out what is the benefit of the person receiving the message. If you can get that clarity upfront, it is easy to tune your 30 seconds or 1-minute pitch to that audience. That can be presented through a verbal update or a single executive summary or even in a single short mail.  Your subsequent conversations completely depend on how you succeed in delivering your short time...

Image by  Elias Sch.  from  Pixabay Confidence equips one to face any challenge or situation like how an umbrella helps us to move in rain. Self-assessment is essential when we do reflection and review.   Review refers to re-visiting something to double check for new findings whereas Reflection involves applying thoughts carefully on our attempts and results and trying to understand where we need to improve by getting into the why of every failures or improvement areas and what actions next. Instead of blaming others, focus on our areas of improvement in our reflections and target to improve self every hour will help us to perform better. Also develop the courage to face any criticism on the grounds of our self-assessment first. If we already identify our improvement areas, then any external comments on the same should not affect our action plans.

Image by  Gerd Altmann  from  Pixabay   Referring to the book “ Catalyst: The Ultimate Strategies on How to Win at Work and in Life” BY Mr. Chandramouli Venkatesan, I learned a great lesson regarding Quitting decision and Joining decision. It could so happen that finding a new option could be a reason for leaving the present one. This is applicable not only to career, but also to any other commodity or acts in life. It is important to keep them separate. One should have a clear reason for quitting something. Based on the factors that push you out from a place ( PUSH Factors), one can decide to quit or not. Once the decision to quit is made, the act of quitting can be at a later stage after analyzing PULL FACTORS for the new attempt against the PUSH factors of the leaving attempt. So, try to keep them separate and keep moving on.

Image by  Gerd Altmann  from  Pixabay   We have a tendency to compare always with others, but that is something if we can avoid, a lot of happiness can be achieved instantaneously. Instead let us compare against our self. Beat your own records every day. Success is a fight between you and yourself. This is true for students, professionals, business folks, families, workers, all. Keep our records as benchmarks for achievement and success will be an outcome. When we compare against ourselves, it is an inspiration for self to excel, but when we compare against our peers or neighbors or other competitors, it creates additional stress inside and that causes negative effects on our execution.

Image by  13smok  from  Pixabay We often listen advice – Don’t Worry. But is it possible? I agree NO. Recalling from the book “Million Dollar Habits” by Brian Stacy,  Do ACTIONS when you get worries, that helps you not necessarily from solving the issues, but will definitely help preventing your worries. If you can’t control them, avoid thinking of them. If you have any power or opportunity to contribute, do it immediately. With this strategy, we can overcome worries a lot. In case you see several issues approaching you, list them one by one and then look into each one and see what can be done for each. After this exercise, we can see we feel little relaxed rather than keeping all at one place. Some people feel to tell everything to someone else and after talking, they feel relaxed. But that is a temporary state. Your next state depends on the listener. In case the listener is not taking your updates the way you want, it can cause you more problems too...

Image by  Bryan Quille  from  Pixabay   This is an important observation I did looking back many of my own past experiences. We often tend to over promise and deliver excess information during initial stages of any initiatives. But in the long run how many of those practices continue? How many times we lost our credibility just because of some unwanted practices we started? This is an eye opening not only for career and business, but also for personal life. Summary is do anything which is consistent, and you can sustain.

Image by  Gerd Altmann  from  Pixabay   The biggest risk in one’s life is not to take any risks. Being in comfort zone always makes us weak day by day and gives an easy path to failure. That induces procrastination and additional delays in achieving many of our goals. We lose many opportunities because of our fear to come out of present comfort zone and face more risks. We need to keep in mind that Learning is a continuous process and we need more tough tests or tasks continuously for us to learn and thereby to grow. So, don’t lose any opportunity which comes on your way jus because of your fear or lack of interest to leave a comfort zone. Lastly, we can understand that nothing gives us comfort and every day is a new page in our life book. So the false notion of comfort what we feel is not true. Nothing stops us to try for a change ad Change is the only constant as per Heraclitus, the Greek philosopher.

Best way to deal with a complex problem is to break the bigger piece into small pieces. If we can isolate issues after categorizing them, it gives an easy path to approach the problem.  A few examples which one could separate the problems emerging in day to day life relate to people,  skills, health, logistics, infrastructure, cost, time, competition, innovation, emotions, nostalgia, etc. Often there is a tendency to combine them and then trying to solve the bigger problem.  Our brain hates to start humongous tasks. Hence breaking down a complex task into sub tasks enable a quick start and well begun is half done. That is the best way to approach any complex tasks in our day to day life.

Image by  John Hain  from  Pixabay   FEAR is fantasized experiences appear in real time OR Face everything and RISE. It is the feelings of danger which makes our mindset more horrible than really facing the danger itself. Here is a short tip to overcome FEAR : Think of 3 possibilities always : a) Worst case what will happen? b) Best Case what will happen? c) Most Probably what will happen? TRY TO HANDLE the Worst Case. Then you are fine. Yes, it is easy to say, but once implemented, FEAR is gone. Do practice to make you more confident and prepared in whatever way you can instead of worrying about the results. So Let us be FEARLESS !!!

Image  by  Sharad kachhi  from  Pexels There are instances where we get a mass attack of so many issues. At bad times, you may see several issues approaching us one behind the other. Avoid worrying about things which are beyond your control. Let them come! Start looking at each issue, preferably documenting them one by one. When we look at the list of pending problems, we are accepting them to tackle efficiently. Try a sequential approach to solve. One important TIP here is Avoid Handling multiple variables simultaneously. For example, job changes and relocation to a new city along with some important event in our life say marriage or having a child or starting a medical treatment or joining a new academic course, overseeing the treatment of some family member etc. When there is a change in eco-system, avoid doing more changes until you get accustomed to that ecosystem completely. Do such careful planning of events which you can have control. This will help you to ...