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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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Job Interview : How to Avoid Negativity about Your Employer
Everyone knows this interview tip: “Don’t bad mouth about your employer”. But interesting enough this happens quite often. I got some clue when I was talking to my client Tom a few weeks back. Specifically, he wanted to learn how to avoid falling in the trap of talking negatively about his current employer. Apparently he made this mistake in a recent one. To get his perspective, I asked him about his genuine feeling about the current employer/job. What I heard was that he had been looking for growth in certain areas that were not available in his job. This company’s priority (to fix legacy code issues to quickly unblock the…
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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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Align with Passion – What, Why and How
“I don’t get it, how do people mix passion with their career? I do love to paint but I can’t even think of taking it as a career and doing it all the time. That would be too much for me” – Katherine snapped at me and dismissed my own motto – Align with Passion! This is not the first time I got such a comment, and Katherine is a good friend, so I could see where she was coming from. She was referring to a commonly known definition of passion – mapping it to some particular hobby or an established career/profession. Metaphorically it is like buying off the shelf solution for…
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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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Why Do You Do It? 3 Steps to Clarify Your Commitments
Common wisdom goes as we do paid work for money and volunteer work to fulfill other needs. Whatever we do, paid or volunteer work requires some commitment from our part. Sometimes we get so much fun that it doesn’t feel that way, but there are times we need to renew our vows – why am I doing it again? It is more productive and rewarding when we have some clarity for it. Here are three ways to get there. 1. What does it give me – Alignment with my longer-term goal How does this particular involvement align with your bigger purpose? For example, your three-year goal is to become an event organizer.…
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Procrastination – How to Manage this Common Vice
If you are reading this you might be like many of us who suffer from procrastination. But don’t stop there – this is just the tip of the iceberg, the symptom of something bigger underneath. Pay attention and address the root cause. In my case, I procrastinate for different reasons. For example, when the task: Needs deep attention (e.g. creative thinking) It is hard – something I am not naturally good at (e.g. accounting). Is boring (organizing, paperwork, chores) My strategy depends on the reason for the procrastination. For the high energy demanding creative work, I try to schedule them when my brain and body are in its best-performing state,…
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Ready or not the New Year is coming – Will your resolution be a small talk again?
In January, the common topic of the office kitchen conversation is the New Year’s resolution. Until recently I never actually did much of planning for the year, so when asked I made up something. My standard answer was “be more organized”, which hardly happened! I was not lying though, I really felt I needed to have better control over 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 brought from the kitchen. After becoming an entrepreneur the idea of resolution made more sense to me. Unless I have a vision for myself I don’t know what…
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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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Happiness theory and my Exercise routine
The other day at the end of my class, people got quite hyped up to make time to do something for themselves. Few of them made a commitment to start going to the gym. Sounded like a great idea! But experience tells me that, by the next class more than half will report that they didn’t have time or motivation. So what would help to be more successful? I found this answer for myself and surprisingly enough that aligns with happiness theory! Find an activity(exercise or something else) that You enjoy; the reward is instantaneous as well as comes with a long term positive impact. It is a small stretch for you…
