Life beyond Boredom

I don't mind living like a hermit for a long time. Just stuck at home. But for a lot of us it can be a challenge 😂. So how do we deal with this predicament as it can be boring and challenging for some of us.

Besides praying for the safety of our loved ones and ourselves included, this can be a great time to reflect on the things that can enhance our lives

I thought of some ideas to kill boredom and do something interesting.

Here are some ideas you could use:

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

To sum it up live the moment and Enjoy the Now. 

Update: Please be safe and practice social distancing. 

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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.

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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

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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!

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What are the limitations of Positive thinking? Learn the Pros and Cons

Just be a bit more positive and things will change for you. You will achieve the stars and the moon in the sky. That's what it can be made to be by some people. Well, for some it is a better approach to approaching issues. I am talking about Positivity and Positive thinking. But one thing I learned from years of studying and learning, a lot of ideas have its limitations. In this article, I shall be exploring these negatives of Positivity,i.e. Positive Thinking. One of the best books I was asked to read was The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale. (I think for a lot of us thinking negative was like normal.) I must confess it has helped me. I was recommended by a friend's mother. The book has a lot of good ideas on how to be more positive.

But here are some ideas I believe could be limitations to Positive thinking.

List of Negatives of Positive Thinking

Ignoring the obvious

Magical Thinking

Self Deception

A wrong view of Reality

Some side effects you must consider...

Bad Thinking Habits:

It's my personal opinion that bad habit leads to bad consequences. Right thinking is an essential component of better living. So also over positivity, It should be tempered with critical thinking and some amount of realistic thinking too. All this is quite a mental exercise, but that's a good way to a better life.

Pointers to help on Practice Effective positivity:

Conclusion

Positive thinking is a great approach to enhancing ourselves and our lives. Like many good ideas, it can be misused and should not be. Healthy rationalism and critical thinking can help us make better decisions.

I hope you liked this article. Please comment and share it, thank you.

Further Reading:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/creativity-and-personal-mastery/201004/why-positive-thinking-is-bad-you

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/O-zone/the-negatives-of-positive-thinking/

https://greatist.com/happiness/positive-thinking-negative-benefits

https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/positive-thinking/art-20043950

https://greatist.com/happiness/positive-thinking-negative-benefits

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Master Guide to Resourcefulness: Learn Four Mantras to be Resourceful

What does it mean to be resourceful?

The Dictionary defines resourcefulness as the ability to find quick and clever ways to overcome difficulties. I am sure we all have experienced situations that make us feel the same, All our dreams, plans and work on whether on a pet project or something major, things turn out differently. We all have been there. I think this is the most common thing to our human experience, things turning out different than we expected. This is where being resourceful becomes the only resort and sometimes can be a gamechanger.

Issues or Problem...doing it the donkey's way

Issue or problems can come to us in different forms and can smack us, bring us down. I read this interesting story in an article in the Des Moines Register by Harvey Mackay. It's on the story of a donkey who is narrating to his grandson an incident when he was stuck in a ditch. The donkey mentions a moment when he had fallen into a ditch. After a long wait, a farmer notices the donkey. He later waits until the next morning to tell other villagers. Instead of saving the donkey, they decide to bury the donkey. They start throwing mud at the donkey. The donkey had a choice to panic and die or use what he had. So the donkey decided to use the mud thrown at him. He would climb up the pile of mud and at last, the donkey saved itself. Sometimes life can be like this, it can take such twists that land us in difficult situations. (Read the entire story at the link mentioned above) Imagine if that donkey had not been resourceful, he would have been dead. Sometimes making a difference requires us to use whatever we have, but also to persevere and see the opportunity in difficult circumstances.

Fighting a painful situation

This next story will tell you how. This is the experience of a close friend. He had been through a painful breakup, he had two choices whine about it or just move on. So he moved on, it was quite difficult for him. He concentrated his energy on his studies. It made a huge difference and got him into a good college with a scholarship. He had used his painful situation to help him change his life and help him achieve his goals. He had been resilient and resourceful too.

Resourcefulness can work wonders. But the question is how does one be resourceful. Is there any way or method to help us. I believe there are ideas that help us be resourceful. These ideas I can say have been tested and tried from my experience, I can say it works.

Here are some of them, Check it out:

Stick to your goals

I think the most important thing to be resourceful is not to forget your goals. But sticking to goals would mean also sticking to them when there doesn't seem any way forward. I think this would be really productive in finding healthy solutions. Although going off tangents can sometimes be good, it could lead to good ideas and also great discoveries. But sticking to your goals gives you a focus and helps you to deal with the 'why' behind what we want to achieve.

Think alternatives

Yes, thinking alternatives is important to be resourceful. This could mean start with understanding the position of our current situation and what are some solutions. One could start with brainstorming ideas and then jotting them down. The feasibility of each idea should be considered.

Lose the war, Win the battle

It's okay to fail at the beginning, cause ultimately lack of resources and bad ideas should not stop us from trying and pursuing our quest to achieve our goals ( but the feasibility should help you decide that. Small failures are fine and they give feedback ( It's like healthy to course correct). Ultimately, It's about the vision and goals that one has in minded.

Attitude Matters

 Being open-minded and confident I think is important to be resourceful. I think these two qualities are important. Being open-minded can help you be creative and Confidence can bring in the faith and hardworking required to achieve success. Lack of confidence brings in scrupulousness (that is good), but also self-doubt that can make people not give their best and ultimately force people to give up.

Bonus One

What to do when there are no alternatives

1) Delay
2) Don't choose when you are in difficult situations
3) Confidence doesn't mean being stupid: Learn when to quit

The first one can seem counter-intuitive (I know), but sometimes it's important to not make bad choices thinking they are good and then repenting about it. It is important to have some space to make choices. (That's my take, do let me know in the comment section if you disagree). Being confident is important and learning when to quit is even more important. But this is for another article.:)

Additional Ideas

I think an important key to being resourceful is to build a person's emotional and spiritual quotient. This helps a person to succeed and effective.

Some Interesting Ideas

https://www.edutopia.org/blog/8-pathways-why-resourcefulness-matters-marilyn-price-mitchell

https://in.pinterest.com/erin_wing/teaching-resourcefulness/

For Teams

https://www.resourcefulmanager.com/team-building/

NLP Exercise to be Resourceful

http://www.oakdust.com/Resourceful_states.htm

Summary

Further Read

Prepare yourself with these 7 Strategies to a Highly Effective Presentation

Speeches and Presentations

In India, we have just had a General Election and we have chosen the leader to guide us into the future. One very striking quality of Narendra Modiji, our Prime Minister-elect is that he is a very good orator and politician. He has a well-seasoned personality and captivating side to him, his presentation and thoughts are put forth quite clearly and succinctly.

I believe that a good presentation depends on various factors. They all combine to bring the message to the audience. Of course like anything else, practice and proper feedback will help you master it. That's the thing about skills regular practice and good feedback helps you succeed.

My Personal Experience and Boring Speeches

As an educator, I have been more into teaching young adults and presenting to people from the industry. It was quite an opportunity to deliver training at a School to students of Grade 4. I just used less lingo and adapted the topic to their needs. My delivery was quite similar to what I have been used to. I got good feedback and experience. Let me be clear, I am a good speaker but not the best. I strive every day to be better. Here are 7 highly effective strategies that I have noticed good Speakers use. One thing amazing about good Speeches they not only inform you but also have the ability to move you to action.

So Let me start with some of these powerful but simple ideas.

Use Pointers not paragraphs:

Choosing better over Best

Here is a quote from Nelson Mandela on Choices to guide us on the same...

Hopes vs Fears

Wish you all the best and May you make good choices with your hopes as a guide.

5 Reasons to Blog and why I started blogging

Communication is exciting and fun, although it can be challenging for a lot of people. I used to be quite shy as a person, but after a long effort, it helped me deal with this challenge in a more structured way. I faced a similar challenge while trying to start with a blog.

Why Chris Educator?

Purpose & Prose

Learning Curves

Starting your Blog...

Why Blogger

Wordpress is awesome and the Benefits of Blogger

Blog Identity: The difference it makes

The Basics

Naming your Blog

Why People Blog? Hobby, Money and much more

Perks of  Blogging

Categories & Types of Blogs

The Price to pay: Is it Expensive or Cheap

Pain areas of Blogging

Resources for your blog and related costs

Enhancing your Blog: How to spice it up

Marketing your Blog: Getting Heard

Purposeful Blogging: Intent, Intentions...

There is always something to learn in Life

There always some insight we can get from life, people and Circumstances.

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How to Be on Target...Bob Proctor tells us how

Bob Proctor is a Canadian Motivational Speaker. He is a motivational speaker and best selling author. He is one of America's Premier prosperity Authors.

You might have seen him in the movie The Secret. Here is a link to know more about him. Click Here  It has a detailed story about him.

I like this particular quote which I want us to reflect on.


It is apt and logical, the smartest way to succeeding is to stick with our goals and vision.  Don't let Lack of resources, knowledge or motivation let you down or come in the way of Pursuing your Happiness.

*Image:https://www.maxpixel.net/Focus-S-Dartboard-Aiming-Aim-Target-Arrow-Goal-1551522

The Essence of Being Positive...What is Positive Thinking and What it's not.

Life is never like a straight line graph, everything going fine all the time. There are ups and downs, rises and falls, twists and turns. In a way, this adds fun and pain to the journey we call life. So it's a given that we are going to be negative or at least have phases when things don't go as expected.

Understanding Pessimism

So how does one become more positive? It's just not about seeing the glass half full. Become more positive is like an addition sum where add something to what we already know. It's not an escape. So, I am not saying that negativity is wrong. Here is a quote on Pessimism which shed some light on the matter,

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." by Oscar Wilde

In a way, we are all in a metaphorical gutter, muddled in our situations. It is that hopefulness that is the essence of being positive. So if we take pessimism as a kind of Reality seeing exercise, Being positive is just adding a tadka to it. Just a dash of hopefulness to spice it up. This adds flavor to this guttery dish called life- now suddenly things are different and better.

Benefits of Positive Thinking

Of course, There are Benefits of positive thinking and advantages of it as well. Let's list some of them. According to an article by Mayo Clinic, The health benefits of Positivity are tremendous.*1 These benefits touch various areas of one’s life, right from the common cold to improved cardiovascular health. It seems it can also increase one's life span. Personally, I initially thought of it as something that was obvious, but I was wrong. But it’s quite a long story- it has helped me tremendously in my workspace. As an Entrepreneur and Educator, Sowing times when we are waiting for projects and dreams to materialize, it can be quite stressful. A small amount of Faith and loads of positivity have helped move ahead quite successfully.

Attitudes can affect others

So then, Be positive and understand the effect. It’s just not going to affect you, but like negative thinking affect others. Ideas and thoughts are quite contagious. Imagine a negative salesperson, quite the disaster. It would be quite demotivating when business is bad. When there are no sales and fresh ideas or strategies are required, the negativity can block ideas. So the sales person would need to be hopeful, this would help him generate or at least consider ideas to solve his problem of poor sales. This too would have an effect, but now a much positive one.

Positive Thinking is not being delusional

Lastly, Positivity is not being delusional. Positivity can become delusional if we don't keep our expectations and hopes within a boundary of common expectations. According to Lyndelle Palmer Clarke, Dealing with change requires a balance both Negative and Positive ways of thinking.*2 This balance between negative thinking and positivity can be like that of changing hats.

So here is my take on Positive Thinking, I hope you find it useful. Please Share and comment if you like this article. For any feedback, please do email me. Here are some articles, I found useful.

For Further Reading,

Fours Keys to overcoming negative thinking for Good by Melli Obrien.

The Power of Positive Thinking by Remez Sasson

References:

*1, Mayo Clinic Staff. 2017. Positive thinking: Stop negative self-talk to reduce stress. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/positive-thinking/art-20043950.

*2, Lyndelle Palmer Clarke. 2018. When Positive Thinking Becomes Delusion. [ONLINE] Available at: https://dailygreatness.co/blogs/be-your-own-guru/49767237-when-positive-thinking-becomes-delusion.