Plan Well!

"Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now" ~ Alan Lakein

At a recent session I was conducting with a team, we were discussing the necessity of planning outcomes before we set out to take action.

One of the problems that we focused on was the definition and documentation of what is it that we wish to achieve. While this may sound fairly simple, it dawned on me that may be it wasn't as simple as it seems.

Take for instance the SMART way of defining outcomes. Specific, Measurable, Action Oriented, Realistic and Time Bound; pretty simple and direct. But most people miss out on one or many of these aspects.

F ...

Its You All the way down!!!!

I recently picked up a book that my teenager was reading. It was an attempt to understand what type of content he likes (more as post facto after I gifted him the book). The book was called “Turtles All the Way Down”. Now people who follow books would remember that its been on the best sellers’ chart for some time now.

I found the book initially depressing; even silly. But then I reminded myself about the target audience. Eventually I came to appreciate the complex world of a young teenager. The difficulty of deciding good vs. not so good. (I realized there is rarely a bad in their world); and how their priorities can change. The realization at the end of the book is ...

Lose the Snooze!

And a hand raises out of the blanket and hits the snooze button. And there goes another day appeasing the snooze genes within us.

Despite how much we tend to be aware and averse to procrastination, almost all of us have been victims or rather culprits of the crime.

Be it that tough task we save for the last or cleaning up that messy wardrobe put off for another weekend, or the deep cleaning of the kitchen deferred to infinity. What is it that makes us move from one deadline to the other?

After much analysis and thought spent, I realize that it is our amazing skill to convince ourselves of relative priorities of the tasks at hand. When we hate doing a ...

Get Comfortable with Discomfort!

Let us first begin by defining comfort zone. As per Wikipedia “A comfort zone is a psychological state in which things feel familiar to a person and they are at ease and (perceive they are) in control of their environment, experiencing low levels of anxiety and stress.” Bardwick defines the term as "a behavioral state where a person operates in an anxiety-neutral position." Note it’s a psychological state. Which basically means that (1) It can be changed (2) it’s not permanent and (3) it can be expanded or reset.

Research has proven that we all need a healthy level of anxiety to learn and peak our performance. This threshold called “Optimal Anxiety” is where we are c ...