Little Things That Matter

Learn From The Past, Live The Present and Have An Open Mind to Face Tomorrow

Archives for May 2014

Accept The Change, Love Thy Self

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I was in a conversation with a friend of mine over the weekend and she suddenly remarked, I have become slow in whatever I am and in whatever I do. To quote “I feel I have become lethargic about a lot of things in my life. I feel I have lost my edge”. That statement caught my attention especially given her tone and facial expressions with which she said it. As soon as I heard her say that, I asked her how so?

The conversation went on for long as she was narrating several incidents in her life and how she had behaved. From her statements and the questions I asked her, I observed that she had become more mindful and conscious in a lot of things that she does. She thus feels frustrated at times that she is no longer the energetic and enthusiastic self that she was known for.

It was interesting that she made a strange connection between being mindful and being lethargic and thus dissociating herself with her energetic and enthusiastic younger self.

Are you disappointed with a conscious change you have made in life?

Have you reflected what these changes are and why you made those changes?

Do you consider yourself as a failure and somebody who has given up in life on account of some changes in your perspectives?

You are not a FAILURE if:

1. You are more conscious and aware in what you do instead of acting on impulse.

2. You think twice and don’t react to your emotions be it in responding to others verbally or in writing.

3. You have consciously slowed down in terms of how you plan your day instead of feeling constantly being on the rat race.

4. You are aware about your emotions and this awareness helps you to recognize your emotions and yet frame your communication in a way that it lands properly on the recipient.

5. You realize that when things don’t go as per your plan, it is not about you or the other person but it is about finding out what were the gap or interferences were that led to the plan not being met.

6. You realize that in your gym or yoga or exercise regime, each day is different and your body is different. Change is part of your body and each day is different and thus you need to keep an open mind.

7. You like action and fast pace but there are things in life you realize you need to step back. Accepting the latter doesn’t mean you have given up.

8. The circumstances in every aspect of your life is different from 15, 10, 5 or 1 year back and you need to change your way of thinking and the way you behave.

9. You are goal oriented and an achiever but your experiences have taught you that anger doesn’t help when the goal is not achieved as per your plans.

10. You take mini breaks to gain insights and help your lateral thinking.

You are not old if you have adapted to circumstances and made yourself more flexible in your attitude. We all need to evolve in our thinking and our behavior. Only way to do this is to keep an open mind, reflect, unlearn, relearn and look at things with a fresh perspective.

Don’t let your inner critique get the better of you. Avoid negativity.  Click To Tweet

Be Ambitious and Persistent But Do Only What You Can Do.    Click To Tweet

How flexible are you in making changes and accepting the new you?

For Coaching, Speaking or Training let’s connect.

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Facilitate A Positive Change With These 5 Lessons From Life

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“No way, I cannot accept failure.” This was one of my clients who had this belief when I first met him.

“Failure is where my dreams are shattered and there is no coming back.”
“Failure sounds as if there is no turning back and everything is lost.”
“Failure has negativity attached to it and that there is no light at the end of the tunnel.”

This is what my client shared with me about what he thought was failure.

Failure is a word which I believe tends to over exemplify a mistake. If you don’t learn from your mistakes and continue to be on the path of arrogance, and remain egoistic, then it is not a mistake but a choice to follow your falsified ego. The final destination as a result is worse than ‘failure’.

I have learnt from mistakes and still learning. The conversation about failure with this client of mine came flooding back to my thoughts this week because I allowed myself to trust someone despite my instinct telling me otherwise.

There are some subtle things in life where you realize that despite life teaching you some things, you still fail to do it right every time …

What are these subtle things you can do to improve the outcome of a situation?

1. Trust your instinct –  life has taught me to trust my gut and intuition but there are times when I deviate since I give credence to my doubts on my instinct.

Learn to trust your instincts, if something feels amiss, go with that and follow your gut. Click To Tweet

2. Avoid naysayers – you meet different people in your life and there are some people who are narcissistic, wishy-washy, pull you down with their negative talk and discouragement. It is not worth wasting your time on such people. Some of these people are easy to spot but yet others aren’t. There is hurt before you realize that their acquaintance, and the so-called ‘friendship’ is not worth it. Let them go for your own peace of mind and sanity.

3. Some things are not meant to be – You don’t get what you want in many turns of your life, though you may have given your best. Trying to find an explanation or a reason only makes matters worse.

Stop overthinking and learn to accept that some things aren’t meant to be, no matter how much you want them. Click To Tweet

Be persistent but learn to let go of things which don’t seem to come your way.

4. Face to face communication – in this day and age of Social Media and mobile phones, people seem to “talk” more to their mobile phones than engage in face-to-face communication. Be part of the change but never forget there is always value in face to face communication. Misunderstandings and miscommunication can happen on written communication. Next time, pick up the phone and speak to the person or meet the person face to face.

5. Acting on Impulse – There can be as much value in the blink of an eye as in months of rational analysis – Malcolm Gladwell.

There is a time and place for acting on impulse as much as taking the time to make the right decisions. Judge the moment, pause and then decide how to act.

Life happens in a blink of an eye and yet there are many lessons to be learnt in each of these “blinks”. Click To Tweet

What are you learning from life?

For Coaching, Speaking or Training let’s connect.

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You Snooze You Lose

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Photo Credits : Lalita Raman

“Use it or lose it.” That is what happens when you don’t use your muscles. And when you use such muscles after a long time, they are sore and when you have your next workout or a stretch or yoga you notice how misaligned you feel. You realize that there is more pain or imbalance on one side v/s your other side. Of course, we all have our dominant side, but when you do yoga or core exercises you see the stark difference between your left and right side. You choose to ignore this and when it becomes unbearable you decide to correct the poor alignment. You resolve to go regularly to yoga or stretch or in some cases to the chiropractor or to the physiotherapist.

What happens if you choose to continue to ignore ?

How often have we seen in organizations where executives spend too much time drafting, redrafting vision, mission and values statements. Over time they become ignorant or indifferent to poor alignment. They spend nowhere near enough time trying to align their organizations with the values and visions already in place- Jim Collins

If the people in a business or company are not aligned with the values and vision of the organization, you often see the majority of people pulling in a direction different from the overall vision, or scattered aimlessly. The organization as a result starts to fall apart. Values are such an integral part of who we are and if our behavior and actions are different from our inherent values, conflicts arise and we begin to suffer from the negative consequences. Sometimes the actions are different from values because of fear especially in cases of abuse or violence or though being a believer in being environment friendly you might not always buy organic food and so on.

When it comes to organizations how can you tell that the values are not in alignment? Values exist at each individuals’ level and if the organization has a high engagement level, with a deep level of trust, commitment and where employees are appreciated and recognized, and growth and progress of individuals and the organization is taking place, there is a high likelihood that the values are in alignment.

An organization which has all or some of the following attributes is seriously misaligned:

1.Lack of trust and faith among the team members within departments and across multi functions. No faith in senior management
2.Customer complaints and dissatisfaction is high.
3.Culture is one of criticize, condemn and complain. There is no appreciation or constructive feedback given to the employees at any level.
4.Command and control style of management. Information is not shared.
5.There is resentment, cynicism, blame and subversion
6.Profits and revenues are lagging those of competitors and on a downward spiral.
7.Turnover is high and engagement levels are low to abysmally low
8.Constant fire-fighting instead of progress and development
9.Costs are high and yet no new innovations or product lines are being introduced
10.People within the organization feel like a cog in the wheel and most have checked out mentally.

These are the warning signals and an organization which sees an increase in any or all the above aspects needs to look into what is going wrong? Working in line with the values is a daily process and starts from the time the vision is laid out, people are recruited to the firm and continues on an ongoing basis by reflecting on what is going well and what needs to improve and asking questions and listening to what the employees of the company have to say.

How to Understand People’s Workplace Values

1.Have a recruitment process where you find talent that is best in line with the organization values.
2.Identify such talent by asking focused questions at the interview stage. Get to know the person, their action and behaviors in different aspects of their role in an organization and in their life.
3.Look at their past work history. What were their attitudes with regard to matters of conflict or where they were in disagreement?
4.Get to know people, develop a positive attitude.
5. Where essential, do psychometric tests.

As leaders, listen, observe, communicate, appreciate and give positive feedback. Click To Tweet

Let your behavior as a leader be inspiring and worth modeling and let it show your values. Click To Tweet.

Link participation in the adoption of values and the behaviors and actions needed. Reflect, celebrate wins of your team and praise every improvement and give people a fine reputation to live up to. Click To Tweet.

Understand what influences the values of your team and how if at all they are developing and changing over time. Is this change healthy or for the worse?

How do you lead with passion and in alignment with your values?

For Coaching, Speaking or Training let’s connect.