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Why New Year’s Resolutions Fail and How to Make it Work
Almost half of the Americans make New Year’s resolutions, but fewer than 10% successfully achieve them(source)! The most popular resolutions are staying fit, work-life balance, and personal enrichment. All these are great resolutions to improve one’s quality of life. Then why the success rate is so low, and what can we do to beat that? One of my coaching clients set his goal to reduce his weight by going to the gym every day. Knowing that the key to setting achievable goals is to align them with one’s true essence, I asked him these clarifying questions: What is the bigger purpose it is aligned to? What will you feel when you…
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How is Your Emotional Tire Pressure?
“I am just busy,” “I could use a nap,” “I am so tired.” Does any of these sound familiar to you? If yes, you belong to a very large group of working professionals who keep going every day despite all such feelings – it is like driving your car with low tire pressure. A 2017 article from Occupational Health and Safety said, 43% of Americans are too tired to function well at work. If it included the knowledge workers, it would have been much higher. And all these were before 2020. This year – the pandemic, the election, the social unrest, the forest fire, the blurred work-life boundary – we…
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Empower Your Teams With 4 Coaching Questions
Six-skills are in demand in the post-pandemic workplaces, said Gwen Moran in her fast company article. Five of those six, self-direction, adaptability, empathy, communication skills, and motivational skills can be cultivated through a coach approach. Leading organizations are staying ahead by investing in coaching skills for their leaders. It will be a strategic advantage when the leaders could use coach-like conversation empowering their people. ICF coaching’s core premise is that the client is whole, capable, creative, and resourceful. The coach’s job is to facilitate the client’s process so that the client can untangle their thoughts and get clarity to make progress towards a meaningful goal. Some common characteristics of coaching conversations are :…
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Cultivate Resilience For Challenging Times : 3C Model
Today (Nov 4, 2020), Americans are anxiously watching TV, browsing news sites and social media feeds, following the result of this historic election. A few days ago, The American Psychology Association (APA) said 68% of American adults are experiencing election anxiety. I am sure the number has increased much more since election night. 2020 has been a testing time for our individual and collective resilience. The pandemic, the Election, the blurred work-life boundary, and everything in between there is no shortage of it. I noticed that some people handled it a little better than others. The X-factor is their resilience. We may think that some people have it. But the…
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The Fuel of a Good Goal Is a Compelling Vision: 4 Ways to Craft
All of us are familiar with setting goals and achieving them. Goals are our vehicle to success. But often, we have a hard time making headways in our goals. The reason? Even in the best cases, they feel dry and do not invoke genuine enthusiasm. Here are four ways to set a meaningful goal connected to a compelling vision. Focus on the Emotional Connection How do you feel in your heart, gut, and body when you think about a goal? If it is neutral or negative, re-think. In a recent coaching session, my client Jordan was having difficulty making his goal a SMART goal. For starters, a SMART Goal is…
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A Happiness Model For the Graph Lovers
Have you ever wondered if there is a mathematical representation of Happiness? The answer is Yes! Tal Ben-Shahar, a renowned researcher in positive psychology and a popular lecturer at Harvard, represented Happiness in terms of the X-Y quadrant. Considering X being the present Happiness and Y the future Happiness, he said we need to have both of them +ve to be happy. Imagine you are going for a family trip to the Yellowstone National Park. You have got the time off from work, you got the money for the trip, made all the reservations, and now you and your family have started the journey. It is a 12- hours’ drive,…
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Stressed About a Situation? Either-Or Thinking Could Be The Cause
Case Study 1 Helen, a mid-level leader, was frustrated with her boss. He told her one thing, but his behavior during meetings was saying something else. She was confused, and the only conclusion she could come up with was he was not forthright. I noticed the anger was pretty high in Helen’s voice as she spoke. “You seem upset about this,” I said. “Yes I am, because…”- Helen tried to justify her anger. I offered her a quick breathing process, and it helped her feel calmer. I then paraphrased the situation. “Your boss told you X, and now in the meeting, he is acting as Y. You are curious about…
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Curb Your Anxieties Using This 3C Model – How to make good choices during the home quarantine time
We are living through an episode of world history. The way we know life has come to a halt. The leaders, scientists, the medical community, and all the essential service providers are working round the clock to keep us safer from the curse of this COVID-19 pandemic. The rest of us are asked to do one thing – stay in our homes to help reduce the spread of this highly contagious virus. Everyone is reacting, coping, adapting in their way – be it a child or an older person. What is different is the magnitude of struggle and sufferings – both internal and external. Neuroscience says uncertainty creates anxiety –…
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COVID-19 Amplified The Working Parents’ Struggles: What Can We Learn?
This pandemic has exposed the vulnerability in every system, both large and small. Working parents with young children are one example. Three key points came up from the parents’ and thought leaders’ messages lately. Parenting should be a societal priority, not only the parents’ problem. Risk of burnouts, mental health issues are more eminent than ever. Work culture needs a rehaul in both organizational and personal levels. Parenting should be a societal priority, not just the parents’ problem. Three things lockdowns have exposed about working and parenting: Parenting happens at all hours, Parents can’t do it alone, Raising children is not just a personal choice. The United States has always…
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Managing a Virtual Meeting – Learning from my “Big Fat” Family Zoom Call
This pandemic has done one magical thing; families, far and near are coming together via video calls. Like many others, my family is spread globally across six time zones spanning three continents. We have had a Messenger group, mostly for updates, memes, and occasional group calls that very few participated. During this late March, we wanted to have a planned video call and brought Zoom for the first time because of the technical limitation of Messenger. It went ok despite some glitches; most of the people came in and participated. Even though everyone thanked me for the initiative, I had a nagging feeling that I wanted to make it better. We…
