Life beyond Boredom

Practicing Resourcefulness

• Create a Blog
• Learn video editing
• Create your first Vlog
• Watch some interesting TED talk videos
• Write a business plan
• Do some free courses online
• Try some of the D.I.Y. recipes you see on Facebook
• Pick up some culinary skills
• Review videos on YouTube and post them
• Share my articles & like my Facebook Page
• Give positive feedback to people who made a difference in your life
• Stay at home and meditate
• Read books on Investments and Entrepreneurship
• Play Indoor Games
• Doodle and post them on Instagram
• Clean your cupboards and tidy up your room
• Do Binge watching (YouTube & Netflix)
• Catch up on some conspiracy theories
• Yoga
• Listen to Music
• Explore Reddit

Startup Mindset is important to be Successful, 5 interesting points from an Educator

Is Startup just a Buzz word?

A Startup's mindset is not always about the profit motive

1. Being Action-oriented

Massive Action

2. Moving away from Perfectionism

3. Always being ready

4. The Compounding Effect

5. Uncovering the Reasons

Having a Strong Foundation

Conclusion

Further Reading

Learn how to Self brand by Using Simple Branding Techniques

Simple Plan to achieving your New Year's Resolution

How taking a short break helped me blog better?

Working on your dreams is important

Life, Leadership Coaches, and old Dreams

John Maxwell is one of my favorite leadership coaches. I was listening yesterday to one of his podcasts. It was on achieving your dreams.

It reminded me of one of the life-changing decisions I had to make to quit Theater and settle down. 

John Maxwell is one of my Favorite Leadership coaches

I do miss Theater and acting, but having a family is a thing of its own. Sometimes quitting is an art. 

But today's blog post as the blog title suggests is not on the art of quitting. It's on achieving your dreams.

Read this article

Our Childhood Dreams

Children are so hopeful and positive

Think about it, we all have had some fantasy or dream that we wanted to achieve. We wanted to see it become a reality. 

For some of us, it may hold true that our dream has come to the past. 

But for most of us why do we not see our dreams becoming true.

One Simple Solution

When I heard the solution, it made me realize why people or even myself may have decided to give up on some of our dreams. 

What were the reasons or situations? Was it the difficulties that made us give up. I am sure each of us can know it for ourselves. 

According to John Maxwell, the reason that people leave is pretty simple. People do not have enough reasons to continue. 

We run out of enough reasons to hold on and fighting for what we believe we deserve or want. 

The path to achieving our goals is always faced with challenges or difficulties of its own.

Read this article

Enough Reasons to Pursue your Dreams

Reasons keep us grounded. They fix us on the path to achieving our goals.  

So an important aspect of achieving goals is having enough reasons. 

These reasons must be powerful and must be something that pulls us through our challenges.

So do you have goals? Do you have reasons that ground you? 

Goals that are worth pursuing that have challenges and of course good reasons.

This insight has been quite powerful to me. 

It has helped me realize that besides hard work and good planning in life. 

It is also important to have good reasons.

Putting it to the Test

So what do we do with this new information? Of course, we must use it. 

You could start by taking some time out of our schedule and focusing on some of the goals that you are pursuing.

Try listing down reasons that you find these goals worth pursuing.

Next Step, Evaluate the reasons that you have written and chosen. 

Choose Five reasons from the list.

Remember these reasons when you need some motivation. 

What are your reasons to hold on to your dreams?

Conclusion

Please do join our FB community...Click Here!

John Maxwell Leadership Podcast

P.S. Note: Please note these are not Affiliate links. I am just sharing a resource I find very insightful and useful.

Context and Backstory matter in communication and Life

In an argument, Have you had the feeling that you have been misunderstood?

Do you feel like you have been misrepresented? The reason is all about context and perspective (in most cases).

I would like to speak about context. A good communicator is the one who gets his message across effectively.

The effectiveness of good communication can be different for different people. But primarily it is about getting the message across.

When we are communicating and people misunderstand us it could be for many reasons, but setting the context is an important part of Effective Communication.

Context is important in Communication

So whether you are listening to someone or responding to someone, to understand them better we must get the context right.

So Besides being loud and clear in your speech and words, set the context right to communicate better.

Personal Insights and Steps to fulfilling your New Year's resolution

Planning and Doing it

Planning can be fun, but the implementation of it really sucks. I have had my share of difficulties planning and carrying them out. 

I think a lot of times rather than the process of planning the difficulty would lie for me in implementing the plan.

So one question would be how to plan...Like where to begin and what focus we need to keep. 

Today I shall deal with some of the questions related to planning and look at relevant areas to help us complete our resolutions and make this year a more fruitful year.

Getting confused solutions

So, before I begin let me tell you a story. Years back I was detected for high cholesterol. I got really worried about it. 

So I decided to reduce my weight. I started speaking to people about weight loss. 

But it soon dawned upon me that I was getting a lot of advice and most of it would contradict each other. This made me think how much of  what I learnt from people was right or even accurate. It was really difficult to discern right from wrong. 

I had to admit it to myself that I just did not know much about nutrition or weight loss. So I approached a professional. 

He planned my diet after doing to various tests. I followed it religiously. 

Losing & Gaining Weight...

The trigger for me to pursuing my New Year's resolution was a health issue I was trying to deal with. 

I needed a concrete solution and so the acceptance of my ignorance in dietetics and nutrition pushed me to getting professional advice.

Sometimes one of the reasons why we get discouraged and do not pursue our goals is lack of proper counsel and support.

You will not believe I lost a lot of weight and cholesterol too. In a months time results were very much visible. Within a year I had my health under control.

All these experiences really encouraged me. 

Some Personal Insights

This experience taught me a whole lot of things.

1. Accepting there is an issue:

Our goals are triggers (quite often) from the things we want to change or improve. So understanding the real issue can be quite a motivator

Just wanting an outcome can motivate one to a certain extent, but also understanding the underlying problem can be of real good help.

It can motivate us to deal with the issue with the right pace and focus.

2. Jack of all trades and mastering none:

Just having the realization that cursory knowledge is not enough can be a humbling experience. 

It can help one to see the importance of getting a mentor or an expert to deal with the problem. Self-help does not mean you have to do it alone.

Joining a community or getting in touch with a professional can be really useful.

3. Sticking to the plan:

I have realised looking back at some of the difficulties I faced while trying to get healthy, There was a whole lot of them and religiously being focused and not given up matters.

When you achieve your set goal, It feels really great and it can be life changing.

It builds in you a new confidence and energy. 

Following the plan to fulfill your Goals is worthwhile, so prepare a good plan and stick with it.

Free Bonus Tip

Modifying your plans and Changing course:

Sometimes it becomes necessary to adapt and change. This could be due to new information or feedback. 

Modifying plans should not be seen as abandoning your resolution nor as taking a tangent. It can be seen as a course correction.

Just like how a Rocket course corrects to reach a particular destination, we can do the same.

I believe it should be expected and one should be prepared for the same.

So before I let you go, let me end with this thought.

Insightful Quote on Goals

Don't make your goals just a wish

So don't just make wishes and build hope, Plan and implement it. 

Don't just plan and implement it, learn new ideas and get constant feedback. 

Don't pursue it alone get a mentor or guide, and also if possible join a community. 

But whatever you do believe in yourself and confidently move ahead.

Steps To Building a Simple Plan

 I would summarise my experience into the following Steps for Planning

In Summary

A New Year is an opportunity to bring new hopes and aspirations to reality. Let us use to help ourselves and others too.

Please share this article and also your valuable feedback.

Please do join our Free FB community by clicking here

[full-width]

Goodbye 2019

2020 reminds me that it has been 20 yrs since people thought the Y2k bug would end things (Lol). It has been such a long journey since then. Before I start sharing some information and insights, Let me begin by thanking all my readers and supporters for taking the time to be on my website and read the posts and articles I share.

I always started New Year with reading the astrology section to check how my year was going to be ( although, I don't believe in Astrology ) and with keeping a list of things to do for the coming year.

But this year, I thought of doing it differently, I did not read the Astrology section (anywhere) and I did not keep a to-do list or as some may say resolutions. I just started the year being thankful and grateful.

Being Grateful

Power of Gratefulness: Practice Gratefulness in 2019

I prayed and thanked God for all joys and pains that taught a lot of life lessons.

I was joyful and grateful for the time I spent with loved ones who did not make it to this year.

I was thankful for just having the joy to experience life and the joy of just being able to experience things.

.... And a lot more

I am sure that keeping a resolution will work great for a lot of people, and it may not work for many, but just looking back, being thankful feels fulfilling and blessed.

I am sure there have been a lot of great ideas and lessons each one of us carries forward to the next year.

Here are some of the lessons I take to 2020:

# Life Lesson No. 1:  Every Moment is an Opportunity

Every Moment has the potential to change the future

I think this in my experience is something that each of us know very clearly and take it for granted. 

The idea that every moment in the present is an opportunity. 

Seizing the moment, learning from the past and keeping the future in mind can really help us chart ahead with our focus onto our visions. 

Healthy reflection and practicing daily gratefulness can help us mentally and spiritually but it can also help us see how relevant our daily tasks are in fulfilling our goals and visions.

# Life Lesson No. 2:  Life is a Journey

Life is like a journey of life experiences

It always got me thinking about what does one do after achieving a vision. The answer is very simple to set a new vision.

 A vision is not something that is static. It is a response to the needs we and others share. It should work towards making the world a better place. 

Now we can think this so abstract. I believe it is not abstract. I think the problem is when we try to fix everything.

 I think one should be focused on a single-core problem and begin to diversify.

So if you are helping someone by creating a product or offering a service start by focusing on developing one product at a time. 

If it works then diversify to other products or services.

# Life Lesson No. 3:  Feedback and Course Correction

Course Corrections is a vital part of achieving goals

Lastly, This is a very important lesson I take to the Next year.

That is how to perceive a victory or a loss.

When we are victorious I think it wise to take it as feedback that your strategies are working (unless it could also be some sort of unexpected streak of good luck) 

and when does not win, it should be an opportunity for course correction.

Concluding Thoughts

One of the gifts you can give yourself is to ponder on some of the lessons life has taught you in 2019 and use it to make 2020 a better one. 

Once again wish you a wonderful New Year and please like and subscribe to our Facebook page. 

Please do share your thoughts and some of the Life lessons you would be taking to the coming year.

Further Reading

138 New Year's Resolutions for 2020

Benefits of Taking Short Breaks 

Cost of Being too Nice

Concretising abstract realities

• Step 1: Understanding yourself

This is the first step towards branding, it is getting a better understanding of oneself. This would mean taking a self-audit and trying to dig deeper within to get a clear understanding of our nature or personality. You could do this, keeping in mind how you view yourself and how others see you. This is the first step towards your goal of Personal Branding.

• Step 2: Evaluate the brand that you are

Unconsciously we all are creating a reputation or an image of ourselves in the mind of people. So eventually we are branding ourselves. So whether people understand you or misunderstand you. It is important to understand how they perceive you.

A simple step to begin the process would be doing a bit of research. You could start by asking your closing friends about your strengths and weaknesses. You could then evaluate them with your own responses to similar questions. This could be a good beginning to understanding how people perceive you as a brand.

• Step 3: Develop a Brand mantra
  

Every successful company or personality has a short phrase or mantra that encapsulates the essence of its brand. 

You could start by trying to understand how you differ from other people in the industry (that you are employed in) or if you are a student, you could compare the points that differentiate you from other students.

You could also look at points of similarity between you and the rest. This will help you build a list of points of differentiation and similarity with others. Now put it all together and build a short phrase or around it. This is your Brand Mantra. Some might even call it the essence of the brand.

• Step 4: Offline Branding
  

Now that you have a branding mantra, Let us move to the next step. 

In our daily lives, we interact with a lot of people. We communicate and speak to a lot of topics every day, maybe with words, the things we do, our gestures or maybe just the way we appear. All this builds an image of us in the minds of people. 

So with offline branding, we shall use these same points to our advantage. Keeping in mind our Branding mantra we shall coordinate ourselves accordingly. So this could be the design of our visiting cards, our appearance or even the way we greet people every day. We shall do these activities intentionally and thoughtfully. These will help you build a strong and effective reputation with the people you know and meet every day.

• Step 5: Branding yourself online

Even if we do not realize it, our activities online and our digital life can play an important role in the process of personal branding. These could be the messages we forward on Social media or the comments we pass online. It all matters in the process of Personal Branding.

Our Digital Lives Play an important role 

So a Social media audit can be done online of all the social media platforms we use. After evaluating your interactions online, you could create a concrete strategy to help yourself in the process of brand building. Your image online and offline should synergize for it to be effective.

• Step 6: Communicate the message of your brand

Now after you have created an online and offline branding strategy you need to implement it. I am not saying your execution will be perfect, but if you don't start it there will be no benefit. Another important thing is that Personal Branding is not about faking an image that is not you. The easiest and smartest way is to be yourself.

• Step 7: Recieve Feedback
  

I believe feedback is highly essential to improve and perform better. So try getting regular feedback from people. This could be done by evaluating how things have improved for you after personal branding or even by asking people who are close to you. This feedback can then be used by you to improve your offline and online branding strategies.

Putting it all together

Branding has been used successfully by Celebrities, Politicians and influencers alike to build a brand out of themselves. Time for you to leverage your best and build a personal brand. 

This, of course, takes some effort but it is worth it and it has a lot of benefits. People begin to have a better impression of you, they could begin to trust you more or even perceive you thorough as a professional. 

Personal Branding is all about enhancing your strengths and communicating them effectively. It is not about creating a fake image or reputation of yourself.

Kind words on Personal Branding

Gary Vaynerchuck has some important ideas for helping you create a personal brand. He stresses the important understanding that whether one is a small or big brand, it is a brand. Another important aspect is to understand that a lot of times besides looking at your brochure or reading your resume, People just check you out online.

 Lastly, I think Gary stresses the difference between understanding the concept and applying it.

Check out the video below:

Some important Ideas by Gary Vaynerchuck

• People read Google before reading your Resume.
• Hello! Everybody is selling
• It's the only thing you have
• Even a small brand is important
• It's okay to be yourself
• Don't be stupid about the whole process
• Application of the concept has its nuances

Summary

So here it is some ideas and techniques to actually use to create a Personal Brand. One might ask, Why do I want to create one. There are many reasons. Please share your reason in the comments section. We shall look into the benefits of Personal Branding in some other article in much more detail.

Ciao! Take care...

Photo by Rebrand Cities from Pexels

My love for Theater and Drama

Theater and drama have always been my passion. Years back when Orkut was a thing I joined a Theatre group. I met this guy online and he was very passionate about drama and cinema. So I got in touch with him. He informed me, he was starting a drama club. I met this group of theater enthusiasts. 

We all shared the same passion and more importantly we all valued cinema and drama. We would read scripts together and also do drama. We did a couple of plays at various corporate events and also organized our own Theater play. It was simply amazing. 

So Why am I tell you all this? Its to share an important decision I had to make. The decision of leaving this wonderful drama club. They were going to be different by taking a new route and at that juncture in my journey towards learning more about drama, I felt that I wanted something different for myself. 

So I left and informed that the reason why I could not continue and be a part of their group. My values and vision had changed.

Keeping the important things important

So I joined another theater group, I would practice and watch plays every weekend. The fun continued. What I realized from the entire experience is the importance of aligning work and values. I valued learning and did not want to compromise it.

 My values were like pillars supporting my ultimate goal. I wanted to be a better communicator and educator. It really helped me develop myself and my skillset. A lot of times we don't enjoy our work and this could be for various reasons. I believe one strong reason could be a lack of alignment between goals, values and the work you are doing.

 So aligning them can bring a lot of changes and it can also help you leave a mark not only on your work but also on others.

Enthusiasm and Being an awesome Influencer

During my stint as an Executive with various companies, I loved the experience of working in teams. I shared the same joy in Academics. 

It was amazing to see students succeed in their events, project and other endeavors. I believe it was that shared enthusiasm and values that helped them succeed. Some of the students would become really popular without even trying. 

They were able to lead and influence a lot of team members and colleagues. The way they worked and presented themselves as one of the reasons they had a successful image. 

Importance of Personal Branding to your job

In the day and age of Social Network, Personal image can play a vital role. Presentation of self and our opinions do matter. To think that it doesn't, wouldn't be wise. So I believe it all starts with ourselves. The way we present ourselves depends a lot on our values and how passionate we are about the things that we work and live for.

If we do not enjoy our work, it shows. You may be paid the same, but you could be affecting other things like Personal Brand value. Two questions come to mind when we hear about Personal Branding. 

What is it?
Is it important?

Personal Branding is the practice of using branding and marketing for a person and not for a product or service or business. So let me first explain branding and how it is different from marketing before getting into using it for a person or self. 

Brand refers to the symbol, name, term or design that identifies one product from all other products. So Branding would be the process of creating a brand. 

On the other hand, Marketing involves satisfying customers' wants profitably. So these techniques when applied to ourselves properly can help us grow in our careers. It can help us explore ourselves effectively.

How big Brands influence and how to model them?

One important thing about brands is that they promise something and they deliver them quickly and effectively. They do so through careful planning and execution. So the question is how can we do the same? How can we brand ourselves? 

As employees, we make promises at our workplace. It is important to keep those promises. This can be the first step. We must stand for something, some we must deliver on words quickly. This should not only reflect in our words, but also in our work.

Big brands take measured steps and tie metrics to judge their effectiveness. We should set standards for ourselves as professionals. 

There is a whole lot of steps involved but what guides and keeps the flame of passion for good work going. It is our values and yes, our vision. Focus cannot come without a goal or a vision. One cannot achieve their vision or goals without having the values and passion to carry one through the tough times and difficult situations.

One simple mantra for enjoying your work and leaving a mark is to stick to your values and deliver on your words. Let values build and help to burn the flames of passionate work. Leave a mark by keeping your promises.

Falling for anything

This reminds of a cliche that goes like this, "If You Don’t Stand for Something, You’ll Fall for Anything." When you stand for anything you won't be easily remembered. 

Most of the icons we look up to, may it be technology, religion, politics or culture, they all stood for something. They lived their message and mostly delivered them. Its time to do the same and standout.

Some simple ways to Building a Personal Brand at your workplace

• Promise and deliver
• Plan and measure the execution of your plan
• Let your goals and visions drive your promises
• Use your values effectively

I hope this article got you thinking, does help you and get you thinking. Do leave a comment and share this article.

Further Reading

Personal Branding Tips
Personal branding in the workplace
Wiki on Personal Branding

Even taking small breaks can be a small step towards your goals

It's been little above a year for this blog. I would like to thank you for your constant support. I started this blog to explore my blogging side. It seems to be growing and I have been appreciating the joy of writing and more importantly expressing ideas freely. I have got a good amount of feedback and I try to constantly learn and improve my posts.

Read about my previous post, the cost of being too nice

So What have I been up to?

I blog only when I have something I think it's important to share. I know it may not be the best or the most lucrative strategy for a successful blog. But I choose to share ideas and information to help people. Topics related to Life skills and management have really fascinated me. The people who know me personally know that I share a huge passion for theology, comparative religions and debunking conspiracy theories ( Though sometimes I slip into believing some of them...Lol). But I want to keep that for another website and another series of blog posts.

In the background, when there are no articles I read about different topics and I also try to learn a few things about other blogging platforms. There is a lot to learn and its fun. I would encourage you to start a blog of your own. You could even share a guest article on this blog. Of course, I would review it before posting it. 

Taking a break

I have been using these past two months to narrow the focus on the topics I have been sharing and would love to share in the future. As an Educator and Soft Skills Trainer, I naturally would love to share topics that I am training or researching on. After much pondering, I realized that it made more sense to write about these topics and share some personal opinions and reflections. So I would be constantly exploring strategies related to life, marketing and adding value to the marketplace aka Entrepreneurship. I will be writing some posts or even creating useful content on the same.

Check this article on How to motivate people with good presentations?

Sharpening the axe and learning more

Been learning a lot about the mistakes I make on this blog. Articles from Neil Patel and Shoutmeloud by Harsh Agrawal have really helped me. These websites are a great resource for any new blogger. Recently a friend had asked me about me my blog and how to begin one of his own. I would say, there a lot of great blogging platforms online. Blogging platforms like Medium and Blogger are also great and pretty simple to start. Please do comment and share your feedback, It will really help me grow and blog better.

Some benefits of taking breaks

Taking this mini-vacation from blogging has helped me realize the importance of a whole range of things. I would like to share one related to blogging, I realized that focus is very important not just as a strategy but also help make things more structured and easy. So when blogging, It would be important to soul search a bit and understand the 'Why' behind the decision to blog or to start any project.

The other thing I realized is that it is important to not focus on the wrong things. Sometimes it is easy to confuse goals with outcomes. For example, Writing a great series of blog posts on Life skills can be a goal. But thinking that I will make $ X from it is an outcome and not a goal. Now making this outcome the sole focus is wrong and poor judgement. May be people may disagree with me. But I am okay with that. I think its more important to focus on goals and have a good metric to evaluate its success. Outcomes are important, but they are not the primary focus.

So Wrapping it all up

Take your well-deserved break. Focus on the goal of your choice and don't confuse outcomes with the goals you set. Achieving your goals needs strategy and structure too. I wish you a Happy Learning Day!

Further Reading

The importance of Taking Daily Steps towards your goals

Some beautiful and inspirational quotes on Gratitude

Short Reflection on Preparedness and how it brings closer to success

Do Comment, Share & Like this Post!