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Travel: Go on ‘Airplane’ mode this summer

Created by - AvtarLabs Team

Travel: Go on ‘Airplane’ mode this summer

You are so engulfed with your daily chores, there is not even any time to plan for a break, forget about taking a break. Career ambitions, project deadlines, kids’ education and extracurricular activities, social media, sensational news and insensitive entertainment media – all work in unison to take every minute your life away from your ‘Self’. The many schools for yoga, meditation and self-realization operate for profit and do little to make a lasting impact.Your basic needs in life is not very different from that of your parents, but you seem to be busier and more restless. While the whole world has become fast paced, you cannot live the same way as your parents. Thinking about it may sound like that you have entered a never-ending dark tunnel. However, there are ways to escape this madness and recharge yourself – Travel.For many travel, which is synonyms to vacation, is an annual project, that involves lot of research and crowdsourcing of ideas – and begins with shortlisting location, booking for hotels/tours, saving or borrowing cash, applying for leave in office/school, arranging back-ups and managing post travel issues such as catching up things missed (kids’ homework, project status). Sometimes you feel that you added more stress to life by taking a vacation.It is true that a long and expensive vacation require a lot of planning and arrangement, but real value of such a break can be derived, if you keep in mind the real purpose of the vacation.Vacation is not about rushing to exotic or popular place, taking photo and sharing it on social media. It is about engaging in new experiences- experiences that introduces to a new world, experiences that brings new perspectives, and experiences that opens new dimensions of life. Here are few simple tips.Make vacations an important part of your life. Frequent, short and less expensive travel have proved to be more satisfying that longer and expensive travel.Push yourself out of your comfort zone. When travelling do not try to be in your comfort zone always. Explore new boundaries, be adventurous, but be mindful of personal safety and security.Remain in the moment. It is only when we travel you can be in the moment. Do not plan too much for the next day, just a skeletal plan of activities and logistics is good enough. Enjoy every moment and go with the flow.Strengthen bonds with family and friends. Vacation is a great time for personal bondage. Set aside enough time to relax as a group – talk about the great things that happened, the wonderful things you did together, share how important you feel about each other.Unwind and introspect. Travelling gives you the much-needed time to recalibrate yourself. Keep sometime to remain in solitude, and let your inner self question every part of your life – what are doing to your life, what are your ultimate goals, are you going in the right direction. Do not stress. Let the thoughts flow as it comes. You may feel more energetic with reassurance about your progress, discover more about yourself, and get ideas to realign your future action to your priorities.Shed your weight. Do not carry anything from your daily baggage to your vacation. Disconnect from anything that will remind you of your life once you reach home.Enable the ‘Airplane’ mode, not only on your mobile devices, but on yourself as well. Travel, experience, explore, discover and bond. Rejuvenate to become a better person.Bon voyage.

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Published - Thu, 16 Jun 2022

Trying to solve the ‘No problem’

Created by - AvtarLabs Team

Trying to solve the ‘No problem’

Are you constantly thinking – how to progress in career, what will happen next, how can you handle a situation, planning for retirement and kids’ education. Then, you must stop now.In the recent days, you can realize by yourselves and hear from friends that you are thinking a lot more than it is warranted. You are not alone. This syndrome is becoming more common, given the many uncertainties in the world today. However, with a careful and an objective evaluation of the situation that you are worried about, you would conclude that it was not a “problem”’ at all to being with.Yes, you were busy worrying about a ‘No Problem’.A situation can be concluded as a ‘No problem’ from three dimensionsthe situation you considered to produce a negative impact, in fact does not have any impact on you,you have untangled the situation – found solutions to eliminate or lower the impact to acceptable levels,the situation is so profound or overwhelming that you do not have any option to manage itMany a times even perceived impact is not based on actual assessment, but result of mere confusion of facts, fables heard, or just illusions based on biased information. You get so much consumed with the impact of the situation and lose sight of the problem itself.In earlier days, you are expected to write all the steps you had gone through to solve a mathematical problem. Some marks were granted if you have followed the right steps, even though the final result was incorrect. You will be caught off guard, if you have not followed the steps but arrived at the right result. These days with multiple choice questions and computer-based exams, we lost our ability to think systematically and always wanted to quickly arrive at the solution.You can lower a lot of stress in life and experience calmness in mind, if you systematically follow the problem-solving techniques, generally discussed in corporate environment. For some reason we believe the problem-solving techniques we apply in office environment will not work in personal life situations. Remember the DMAIC technique and the fish-bone diagrams. They and many other similar tools work the same ways in personal situation as it would in professional environment.The moment a concern flashes in your head, get to the basics with a pen and paper – address the situation focusing all your attention on it. You will end up with one of the three dimensions discussed above, and in the process, you will end up worrying far less and be better prepared to face the situation.

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Published - Thu, 16 Jun 2022

Being in a society: Compassion

Created by - AvtarLabs Team

Being in a society: Compassion

The human kind as a society is travelling farther exploring unknown territories, but at the same time individuals are more and more disengaging themselves from their immediate society. Many may argue that people are more connected these days with social media and technology. However, on a careful observation one may realize that this bond is very superficial. We are more self-reliant and the same time more isolated than ever before.Rush to gain riches has made us more centered towards the ‘Self’. The self-centered attitude has insulated us from the society. We have built a glass wall around us. This wall deters us from reacting to the suffering of people around us. This wall allows us to remain focused on our own development, without paying much attention to things happening around us. Having said that, in today’s context is it practical to say that – one should relinquish everything he has, to be a socially conscious life? The wise of the world do not recommend such action.The simplest thing we can do now, is to be nice to people when you get an opportunity. You can do nice things, even to some unknown, in many ways without much effort. For example, you are driving on a busy road and notice that a person is struggling to cross the road. You can be part of the mad crowd rushing past, or just kiss the break for a few seconds to let the person cross the road.We can do many such small things in our everyday life and impact the life of others positively. We should just be aware and practice this consciously. Over time it will become our nature. Suddenly you may also realize that people will start to respect us for this quality.Do to others what you would have them do to you. Be Compassionate.

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Published - Thu, 16 Jun 2022

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Declutter: reclaim the treasures
Declutter: reclaim the treasures
Even before you realize that you are in year 2019, a month has gone past. And what about your new year resolutions – some did not make any, some forgot about it and others wait for better time to start implementing.Never mind if you forgot about new year resolutions. You need not for wait the next new year to make new resolutions or restart the forgotten ones. You can start today, to make a positive change to your life and become a better person. Time and tide wait for none!!If you are scrambling on where to start, here is our recommendation for your first step – Declutter.Decluttering, in the personal development context, is a conscious effort by an individual to identify things in every environment, that has no immediate or perceived usage in long-term, and discard them or repurpose for better value. To understand the process better let’s break this in the following lines.In your normal routines, you interact with the environment in various dimensions –physical such as living room, office room, work desk, wardrobe;personal belongings such as backpack, wallet, document holders;electronic such as mobile phone, laptops, email, cloud storage, social media.The definition of environment can be extended to nonphysical aspects such as mind, thoughts, and our human network as well.Over time, you may not realize how much you have cluttered these spaces, with things that are not required anymore, never to be used in future, may be rarely used, or just placed in the wrong place. These items have been lying there because it does not harm you directly. For instance, you will throw way a rotten apple drawing your attention with bad odor, but do not care about an unused CD when you no longer have a CD drive.Why should you declutter these spaces, and ultimately your life? The answer is plain and simple – eliminate the weeds. These things are like the weeds in the agriculture world – they do not serve any purpose, snatch away your limited resources and spoil the valuable produce as well.Some of benefits you may expect to derive from decluttering your environment are –more space in your living room, bedroom, office desk, wardrobe and so on;more time as you will now navigate through or handle less items;important documents and files do not get buried in the rubble of unwanted mails and brochures;critically examine everything around you and make conscious decision to engage or disengage;refocus your energy and time towards your passion or things that you feel important to you;live a healthier and peaceful life – now that you are surrounded by only what is important to you.If you are excited about decluttering your life, follow our Facebook or LinkedIn page, and share your email id here. We will share our well researched decluttering checklist and instructions manual.Note: This is our first article in the personal development series. Click here to read the introduction to this series.Make your life blissful and wholesome!!!
What got you here, won’t get you there
What got you here, won’t get you there
In the book Blitzscaling, the author has cited Marshall Goldsmith’s – “What got you here, won’t get you there”. It would be injustice to apply this quote only for managing business growth, the main subject of the book. The wisdom conveyed can be applied to every aspect of personal life – education, sports, fitness, family and career. Today, a considerable share of the workforce is in the age group 30 to 45 years,  referred to as ‘mid-career’. Many in this group face ‘uninspiring’ growth prospects in the existing institution and lack of alternate career opportunities. “What got your here” – You might have reached the current level, with specific set of skills. These skills might have helped you to progress in a fast-track. It is quite possible that your are still a leader in those areas. “Won’t get you there” – However, you may notice that often, your supervisor do not have the same set of skills or the same level of expertise in those skills as you. This clearly suggests that your supervisor is performing successfully at a higher level in the institution, but with a different set of skills. If you are aspiring to grow, you will have to demonstrate that you either possess those skills or had earned the confidence of the management that you can develop these skills quickly. In other words, the professional skills and personal virtues that helped you to grow until now, may not have the ammunition to propel you further. Once you realize and accept this fact, the next step is to set a clear goal, make a fair assessment of the void in skills, and make efforts to fill them.Kickstart your journey now, to get what will get you there.
Stuck in a frame (Don’t)
Stuck in a frame (Don’t)
Your current and future action is determined by your thoughts. Your thoughts go through a constant evolution process influenced by your experiences, beliefs and values. Hence, you may act differently when faced with an identical challenge at two different points in time. For example, you had to gather a lot of courage to take your first roller coaster ride. Your next and every subsequent experience is shaped by the cumulative experiences of earlier rides and beliefs.Your thoughts set the boundaries or the frame, inside of which you believe that you are operating freely. Quite often and many individuals in general try to remain within the boundaries set by their thoughts. The “status quo” gives a sense of security and comfort, until an external factor disturbs the equilibrium and proves it to be otherwise.This false sense of security puts your mind in a dormant mode. It finds every possible rationale to tell you not to ‘Rock the boat’. You may get easily enslaved by this attitude, which not only restricts your growth but also blindsight you from the wonderful opportunities that pass just outside your immediate comfort zone.To ensure continued growth and to seize great opportunities, be curious to explore and experience what is outside your comfort, and nudge the boundaries of what you can do. Either by yourself or with the help of a trusted partner or mentor, do a honest introspection of your thoughts and actions, question your status quo, assess your potential and re-program yourself to scale higher. It may sound a lot. Do it. Else, you may get stuck inside the frame.