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Does Home Quarantine Feel Like Someone Gave You a Lemon? Make some Lemonade Using these 3C-s
We all are going through an enormous challenge. Almost every country in the world is now affected by this COVID-19 pandemic. 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. The rest of us are asked to do one thing – stay in our homes to help reduce the spread of this highly contagious virus. In the corporate and businesses, we talk about change regularly – compared to the change we are going through, those seem like a child’s play. Everyone is reacting, coping, adapting in their way…
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Why You have a Hard Time Saying “No” – Look into these Root Causes
A client of mine said she is always too busy with other peoples’ requests and she struggles to complete her own work. Her manager advised her to say “no” more often. But she doesn’t know how because helping others and being useful is a high value to her. As she and I looked into it, few scenarios came up. a. Assuming “No” will Hurt Relationships “I know I am already busy, but if I say “No” I will hurt this person. For damage control, maybe I will make time by being more efficient, by canceling the coffee with my friend or skipping my exercise.” What is the underlying assumption when you say…
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The Myth Of A “Perfect Day”
There are not many days like this. Yesterday it seemed like an out of the ordinary perfect day for me. Client #1 made significant progress in an area he was stuck for more than a decade, Client #2 got that final word on the well-deserved promotion, Client #3, while finishing up her project said she wanted to work with me for another project. By the end of the day when I arrived at the dentist’s office for regular cleaning. I jokingly said, “I am having such a good day, hope it continues”. She didn’t disappoint. After the exams, she said, “all looks good, keep doing what you have been doing…
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The Pen is Luxurious Than the Keyboard
This year I have made a commitment – I will be more accountable to myself. I found a paper notebook is helping me in this regard. Every day/week I am jotting down what I want to focus on, what my intention is and how I am doing. A paper and pen is definitely not the state of the art personal productivity tool but surprisingly enough it is helping me to be more mindful about my time. I now have more clarity about where I am with respect to my bigger goals (also written/drawn on a paper). I wonder, what is the point on going back to a non-tech solution when I…
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Too Many Emails? Some Real Causes and Solutions
In the corporate world, people often complain about too many emails. It is a modern-day challenge for sure, however, over the years I have noticed a few underlying causes and possible solutions for this common symptom. Introverts feel more pain Emails and meetings (add social media to the list) are other forms of people interaction (like big gatherings) that exhausts the introverts more. As an introvert you have developed strategies to survive in other social situations, why not get creative for this one! It’s a self-management challenge There are quite a few ways emails can be organized, filtered, searched and marked for follow-ups. How open are you to try those? If…
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Fulfilling Achievements are Good, Experiences are Even Better
I often ask this question to my clients and class participants: Describe some occasions from the recent past when you felt excited and fulfilled. The common responses I get are, “when I graduated college”, “got my dream job”, “had my last promotion”, “had my baby”…. Interesting to note, the “recent past” part gets ignored easily. Another observation, all those listed are mostly focused on achievements and not on the activity or the experience of doing something. You can ask me why this is a problem. The problem is when we are only focusing on achievements, we need to wait (sometimes long) for those to happen again for us to be…
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Don’t Focus on the Problem – Focus on your Ultimate Vision
Last year, an engineer, let me call him Tom, came to me. He looked very tired and unhappy. “Sharmin, I am working long days, late nights, still my manager wants me to do more, have more impact, show more leadership…where is the time…why can’t he see my contribution already! With changes going around all the time it is so hard to get anything done on time. I even wanted to change this job, but in this economy, it is so hard to get an interview even!” – Tom gave me quite a vivid picture of his life. I felt compassion for him. Not too long ago I experienced this first…
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How are you setting your goals, Inside-out or Outside-in?
Last week I was describing the concept of “Living from inside-out” to my class participants in a high tech company. The example I gave – If you target to become a VP of a company that is an “outside-in” way of seeing your goal. The “inside-out” approach could be – I want to innovate, drive a product (what kind?) that I care (fill in here with why you care…) and I am willing to take risks, sacrifice my comfort to make it a success (define it using your values). Basically you are defining your intention qualitatively; you are not attached to a certain form of it. There is a good…
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Feeling overwhelmed? You might be overloading your PFC
Do you often feel overwhelmed? Do you wonder why it happens? Understanding how our brain works might give you some ideas. The part of the brain behind our forehead is called the prefrontal cortex(PFC). PFC is a tiny part compared to the rest of the brain (where permanent memory resides, in the form of patterns). PFC mainly performs executive functions (processing, analysis, decision making, etc.). PFC needs lots of energy to function, not only that, at a time it can handle only a few pieces of information, e.g., three numbers at a time. For example, think about a ten-digit phone number, when you have it like 4258234417 VS 425-821-4417, notice, which format is easier for you…
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Too many to-dos… Not enough time…Cause or Symptom?
My friend Amy calls herself lazy as she is always running behind her infinitely long to-do list. Even when she is sitting down she feels guilty that she was supposed to do something useful. She says sorry a zillion times as she frequently cancels our coffee/phone chats at the last moment. Seeing her hyperactivity makes me feel underperformed:). I have been wondering why we are always behind despite all the hard work? Why she feels compelled to say “Yes” to every request? Recently found some answer from this article. Saying “Yes” 1. Avoids conflicts 2. Takes less time than pausing to decide whether or not the request is truly important 3. Feels…
