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Webinar this Week: Craft Sustainable Goals For The New Year
The beginning of the year motivates us to start things right. Ironically it often creates social pressure to declare a popular resolution rather than thoughtfully develop a meaningful and sustainable goal. Most people go with losing weight, eating healthier or changing diet, getting fitter, and doing more exercise. No matter how good these look, sustaining them through regular practice becomes a hurdle. I also had my fair share of going with the social norms and not following through. So it is no surprise that this new study has found that about two-thirds of people abandon their New Year’s resolutions within a month. In this article, I shared three techniques to alleviate…
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Feeling Anxious Setting Goals for The Year? Try These 3 Techniques
A typical “water cooler” conversation around this time of the year is the New Year’s resolution. Of course, my standard answer used to be “be more organized,” which hardly happened! I was not lying though, I felt I needed better control my life, but honestly, I didn’t know how to do it. So I forgot about it even before I finished that cup of coffee I had brought from the kitchen. I know many of you are in the same boat as I was. A Resolution sometimes gives us more anxiety and guilt than any meaningful outcome. Here are a few creative ways you may try this year: 1. Start With…
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Why Targeting A Job Title As A Goal Doesn’t Work – Sharmin’s Interview With Ascend Global Media
Q: Why is it important to set an authentic goal? When we are too focused on outside-in recognition like a job title, money, etc., we narrowly define our goal. It will be very hard to keep our attention to what is truly important, and we may get easily distracted by the hurdles. As a result, we may act and behave less than our best, which leads to unproductive drama, a win-lose kind of game. When setting a goal, think about the behavior and experiences that lead to a desirable outcome. Often people say, “I want to be a VP, Director, CEO, etc.”. I understand those titles show your level…
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Entrepreneurial Spirit : Build The Product YOU
“All humans are entrepreneurs not because they should start companies but because the will to create is encoded in human DNA.” – Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn. If you are itching to create something and share it with the world, you must be thinking about the product and possible funding. While those are crucial, we often ignore that we need to work on ourselves, the mindset, learn, and improve how we operate – the product, YOU. To start, ask yourself these three questions – WHY, WHAT, and HOW. The Why Why do you want to do this? Some of the answers I heard before are: “Everyone else I know is…
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You were given Feedback to Improve your Executive Presence – What do you do now?
The other day a senior leader contacted me to hire as his coach. His LinkedIn Profile was immaculate – multiple graduate degrees from top-notch schools, a strong track record of professional work in his relevant field. He was given feedback to improve his Executive Presence (EP). However, he didn’t know what that entitles. After further conversation, we found out that in meetings with senior leadership, his challenge was thinking on his feet and being clear and concise in his delivery. Here is an example from another client; let us call him Joe. Joe was doing a presentation on the next direction of their product. Towards the middle, his VP came…
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Optimize Yourself With a Mind-Body Connection
It was the summer of 2009 when I started my coach training class; the instructor started the session with a guided meditation. The purpose was to be ready and present for the session. However, as someone from the high-paced, left-brained, hardcore technology field, I could not appreciate it much. Noticing my breathing and the body parts seemed totally nonintellectual! Then, to make things even worse, she asked us to imagine forming a circle with our ancestors and dance with them – I totally checked out and waited impatiently till she came back to reality! Later, as a coach and a workshop facilitator, I have now learned to appreciate the value of…
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Want to Take Your Career to the Next Level? Manage Your Attention Wisely
“I don’t have the time to pause and think; my days are filled with back-to-back meetings. When someone asks me a question, I tell them what I know and go to my next meeting. I feel like I am fire-fighting”. Adrian, a senior director of a Fortune 100 company, told me this during our recent conversation. He is not alone. If you are even moderately successful, back-to-back meetings are a reality of your life. The more damaging part is that this constant demand for our attention reduces our ability to deep thinking. As a result, we end up exhausted, creating the same old results we did the last year. There…
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Applying Software Engineering Concepts in Professional Growth
Last week, I talked to a client who has a Ph.D. in Computer Science and works on a cutting-edge research project for one of the topmost tech companies. He has been feeling overwhelmed with his task list that keeps growing every day and has sophisticated interdependencies. I knew that one way to reduce his “overwhelm” state was to bring him to his strengths. I asked him to describe the tasks as a data structure (software developers store data in different data structures). It made him pause and think. I noticed his energy shifted eventually to a more focused state as he started talking about whether it should be a tree…
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A Zen Approach to Conflict Resolution
Conflict is a common issue my clients face in their workplace. I found this talk, A Zen Approach to Conflict Resolution by Diane Musho Hamilton, insightful to manage such situations. Here are my takeaways from it. Our primitive brain sees conflict as a threat. When the stake is high, we get stressed, the Amygdala hijacks the higher brain, our body gets ready for a fight, flight, or becomes frozen. Some of the usual body signals are elevated heartbeat, stiff neck, tight jaw, etc. In such a situation, pause the thinking brain (usually negative spiral of thoughts) and spend some time noticing the body sensation and be with it. Some mindful breathing,…
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Want To Be Productive? Start With Doing Nothing (Guest post)
“I am busy all day, trying to complete my to-do list before calling it a day. Yet, some things always remain undone, and, worse still, new things pop up. I go to bed tired, with the dissatisfaction that I couldn’t do what I set out to during the day.” These were Sami’s words as I listened to him in a quiet coffee shop. I am sure it rings a bell with many of you, especially those working at large corporates and juggling family and work. Charlie Chaplin’s 1936 movie “Modern Times” is all about Sami. And perhaps you, too. In this movie, the protagonist was working hard at an ever-accelerating…
