Think Positive!

It is said that the human brain produces approximately 70,000 thoughts on an average day. And it is definitely going to be extremely depressing if all or most of these thoughts were negative thoughts.

So, what can we do about this? A very powerful answer lies in just two seemingly simple yet mighty powerful words – “Think positive”. Positive thinking is a mental attitude that admits into the mind thoughts, words and images that are conductive to growth, expansion and success. It is a mental attitude that expects good and favorable results. A positive mind anticipates happiness, joy, health and a successful outcome of every situation and action. As Norman Vincent Peale rightly said, “Yesterday ended last night, every day is a new beginning. Learn the skill of forgetting and move on.” We all have worries and anxieties, but little do we realize that a slight shift from our usual pessimistic thoughts makes a big difference in looking out and realizing how beautiful the world is. During this time of downturn, it is not just important that we have positive attitude towards things, but it is equally important to pass these thoughts to others as well…

I will do the dishes, you wash the clothes!

Teamwork starts right at home. You know I am the eldest daughter at home and I have two twin baby sisters. I consider myself to be one of these considerably good team players and I owe all that credit to my family. My mom is the best manager, for no one can beat her in the art of delegation – haha! I remember those childhood days, when we used to have a lot of loved ones coming over for lunch or dinner. After a fulfilling day, they would leave us with “oh-don’t-go’s” and many dishes to clean. I remember that my mom used to allocate spoons to one of us, cups to the other and plates to the other. With soap bubbles filling the room all three of used to help her finish her chores. However, when it comes to work, we don’t apply this mostly. We believe in hard work and smart work. However, with more focus going on to these two approaches of work, we sometimes forget the MOST important approach, which would definitely add to any organizations’ success – TEAMWORK!

As I have heard someone say, “When a gifted team dedicates itself to unselfish trust and combines instinct with individual do multi-fold as the team walks together towards the goal. Just as we observe kids, we do get to understand a great deal of teamwork. They are usually not selfish but helpful, not suspicious but trusting and over all this boundlessly innocent. This could be one reason why in the first ten years of our lives, we have learnt the most. The simple reason being, in those years we knew to work better in teams, we knew to cope with each other better, we knew to accept people as they came to us. With time, and more exposure to knowledge we did somewhere, start developing those ugly horns and became selfish, proud and the worst of all, we got an attitude of “I know it all” & hence, from that day, we failed to deliver at our best.

We also started taking longer time to learn things and accept people. After having studied at length about teamwork and unity, we still refuse to accept people with different viewpoints. We have walked several miles alone and never wanted to look back at the lonely pair of footprints. But let us now walk those future miles together and enjoy the variety that the footprints we left behind teach us. Bringing our thoughts back to our present day, let us now be increasingly aware and understand that the mantra to success is not just hard work and smart work, but also includes a great deal of teamwork.

Happy Working!

The power of FOCUSING!

As a famous Italian proverb goes, “Often he who does too much; does too little.” The primary reason for most of the successes that people have seen in their personal or professional lives has been that one magical five letter word – FOCUS.

The Chinese believe that if you chase two rabbits, both will escape – a simple thought which speaks a lot about focusing on what you want as opposed to focusing on what you really do not want. “I don’t want to be late”, “I don’t want more work coming my way” “I don’t want to meet my angry boss” “I don’t want to be stuck in traffic.” Thinking about what we don’t want takes away most of our time that we hardly get time to think about what we actually want. With clarity in focus, we get very close to achieving it already. Looking at people who fail, it is pretty evident that they have either focused too much on what they did not want or on too many things. Focusing on many things, however; is a more serious issue. Malcolm Gladwell says that if you want to shine, whether in sports or business or art or science, all that you have to do is put in 10,000 hours only in that field. The greatest athletes, entrepreneurs, musicians and scientists emerge only after spending at least three hours a day for a decade mastering their chosen field. When people say that one has to be lucky to be a star, they seldom realize that the success mantra is simply the “ability to focus.” With focus, you not only get dedicated and gain expertise; you also see your goal with better clarity.

Life is just like a camera, where unless the focus ring is adjusted towards the subject, the picture is blurred. Once you do focus on the subject, there is a depth of field created by blurring everything around it.

Great Job! Way to go!

Amidst our busy lives and our search for the unknown, we have forgotten few values we always used to have. These values were taught and reinforced by parents and teachers during our childhood and they have the power to help achieve anything and everything we have always wanted. The main one being – Appreciation. How long was it since you actually appreciated and thanked someone? How many times do we appreciate those small favors, which are done without any expectation? Those small favors that put a full stop to some big escalations, sometimes, need to be appreciated. The specialty of appreciating someone is that it is not expensive, a simple email would do; it doesn’t take much time to thank someone, but the impact lasts forever.

 Thanking others, especially, your own colleagues and peers, needs a lot of maturity. For every small deed, let us pledge to aapreciate anyone and everyone associated with it.

Say YES!!!

“Say YES and challenge the circumstances” – An astute manager (Puneet Kapur) from my previous organization once quoted this, during a team huddle. Very often, we do not look at what is in our plate and even before we gather courage to complete or challenge the task, we give up and get into this I-can’t-do-it shell. In this process, we do not only portray our incompetency to others, we also lose this perfect asset that brought us so far –“Self Confidence.”

While failures need to be gracefully accepted and worked upon, it is also extremely important that we do not give-in to failures and apply our take-it- easy attitude. Life always gives us only a couple of chances and then, it abandons. At that time, it is entirely “on us” to make it happen. And yes, it is difficult to achieve something overnight; but that everyday effort towards the goal will surely pay off over a period of time. Let us put our efforts together today, to sail that one mile of turbulence, and reach the colorful and evergreen shore in just a couple of days ahead.