Having a hot cup of filter coffee early in the morning and trying to forget all the unhappiness around suddenly awakened me to the fact that having a cup of coffee in the early morning sitting silently is a boon. Boon because it made me refresh and think about the priorities for the day.
What is my priority today, the question itself made me feel elated and so contented, as I sit to reflect on how the year 2020 has been as we complete the first 7months in few days to come? The situation last year was different from the fact that I was extremely busy with the Performance Management System of my client companies.
The year 2020 started with a big bang with all of us making plans for the Q1 growth and come March 2020 we all got glued to our homes due to COVID 19. The situation pushed everyone to be edgy and thus the mental health professionals got their due recognition. No doubt they have been playing a very important role in the lives of affected people. To sum it up it has been a year of undertaking bold new decisions, doing radically different things beyond the comfort zone, pushing to the fullest potential, a year devoted to self -learning, new friends, lots of socializing and networking online, new friendships and a hell lot of introspection en -route to self -discovery.
While doing I remembered the word Discipline. Discipline plays a very important role in shaping up to one’s life. It makes you follow certain habits that shape your life to achieve the goals that you have dreamt of.
My Cat “Mau” who was all the while sitting listening to banter asked me what you mean by a goal here. I was surprised to see her curiosity and tried to explain in simple words: That goal is that activity which can make difference. To achieve the set goal one needs to be committed to follow it energetically and push one out of comfort zone.
Sometimes, your goal could confuse and you may find your thoughts running into circles internally forming an unseen web. This web makes your goal impossible to achieve and thus you get tired and leave it half-way. A winner or successful professional is one who can see the confusion and can steer through all the confusing thoughts. Efforts are put in the right direction to achieve the goal.
In pursuit of achieving the goal, I endeavor to put in effort in one area which can have a greater impact. This identification of this one area is pertinent for any professional.
Mau interrupted me to ask if I was hinting towards the 80:20 principle. I agreed and she continued to listen further with great interest. Continuing further, Professionals are good at strategizing however certain loopholes remain unattended while executing and this gap leads to wrong execution and the goal remains unachieved and I repeated the famous statement, ”There’s a slip between the cup and lip”.
The strategy seems to be good on the drawing board however tracking important milestones achievement makes it more organic and easy to implement with PDCA (Plan Do Check Act) principle.
It is a big challenge to focus on the goal and navigate all the actions towards the goal. An individual needs to concentrate on the goals of the organization, division’s goals, department goals, and then individual role goals as far as a professional. On a personal level, it is your interest that takes dominance and your interest and commitment to achieve it takes priority. Individuals normally put the personal goals on the back burner to achieve their professional goals leading to work-life imbalance.
This imbalance takes a toll on the overall personality in case of prolonged periods. Fatigue sets in and invites all possible illnesses which as an individual could have kept away by following proper life-style, discipline, and healthy habits.
Just a few months back one of my friends entered the famous fifties club. Looking back she often tells me how the years have just flown by, and I now in the forties seldom recollect my thirties perhaps because I was consumed and engulfed in all my worldly responsibilities, balancing home and career, don’t just know how I have grown and matured with years of struggle to balance all my roles, hardly having any time for myself, let alone any introspection.
Hence as an HR professional, I always advise professionals to take baby steps in achieving their goals both on the personal and professional front. Sometimes there are priorities and time needs to be given to one of them both. However, this should not be prolonged as a tilt towards one aspect would surely affect the other.
Mau reminded me of the resolution I had made do what I like doing and enjoy doing what I love doing, in short, have fun doing each activity. Having fun is all about drawing a light-hearted pleasure each day of your life. Living in a metro city, running around the hands of the clock, one is reduced to grains of the sand, so much is sapped out of our daily lives in providing for others in this rat race, draining us of energy, vitality, wellness, and happiness. A little bit of fun in our daily lives works like the oasis in the desert, providing us with renewed enthusiasm to face the next day.
Emotions are designed to be part of one’s personality however fun and humor are a virtue of life. Mau reminded that research provides enough evidence that people who engage in fun and doing enjoyable activities have a more balanced physical and psychological well-being and are better equipped to manage stress to achieve the goals set by them. These small moments of fun and humor act as a buffer to manage disruptions of life.
We all have a bucket-list of the things to be done and we all are in pursuit of happiness.
Goals are an important part of everyone’s life and it is essential to have them listed down to have a clear roadmap to achieve them. Given the situation around we may have to procrastinate doing certain things however it only means we get time to evaluate our actions, thoughts, alternate mechanisms to achieve those.