Zen Success

Before you know it, your year has come to an end. You look back at the highs and lows, cherish the highlights and move on to the next year, set a bunch of resolutions that you may or not follow and get ready for the new year.

However, do you really take a minute to really sit back and assess the changes, along with what went well and what didn’t? Conducting a life audit is how you can ensure that your growth, be it personal, emotional, or professional is going on the right track and you are able to deal with changes in your environment.

The word audit might sound complicated, but it’s really not. All it takes is taking a few minutes at the end of the day and mentally assessing your wins and losses. No matter how small it be, learning from each activity you are doing or interaction you have with someone else, can really bring about a change in yourself.

You might be wondering if you even need a life audit and the answer to that question is always yes. The main purpose of conducting a life audit is to ensure that you are conscious of how you are growing, as a person. To constantly keep learning and extracting value from your interactions, is how can better yourself in the journey of life and improve your wellness. After all, learning doesn’t end at just the classroom.

Yes, this might seem to be a bit of a task at first, so, you can take the help of a journal. Draw a few columns for the different parts of your life: family and friends, work, mental health, physical fitness. Now write down notes about how you feel about these separate sections. Ask yourself questions like- have I been able to dedicate enough time to nurture this, how do I feel about this right now, how can I better spend my time and energy towards this?

You may have to remind yourself to do this at first, and might even dread it at times, because checking in with yourself means confronting some uncomfortable thoughts that you may be trying to avoid. However, after a few weeks of checking in with yourself, you will find this process to be therapeutic and might even look forward to it!

Here are some tips below to help you with becoming a pro at auditing your life:

Finding a peaceful space to conduct your life audit:

To be able to listen to your inner thoughts, you need to be able to be in a place where you can think in peace. Choose a quiet corner of your house, or if that is not possible, find a way to tune out external noise or distractions. You can do this by plugging in your earphones and listening to some calming tunes or just try to switch off your mobile phone for fifteen minutes at the end of the day so you can have a mini-digital detox and begin your self-assessment. https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryanrobinson/2020/08/04/listen-to-your-body-talk-and-quiet-your-mind-with-5-minute-mindfulness-microchillers/?sh=32c804f52dab

Choose a journal that you are comfortable with using:

To make conducting a regular life audit a habit, writing down your thoughts will always help. If not always, at least in the beginning. If you feel like you aren’t able to get a hold on your thoughts and emotions because you simply don’t have the time to, journaling is the best way to gain back that lost control. The benefits of writing down your thoughts are simply endless: https://theadroitjournal.org/2020/04/03/the-benefits-of-writing-down-your-thoughts-and-feelings/

Ask the right questions:

Not every part of your life can be dealt with by asking the same generic questions. When conducting a self-inquiry, it’s better if you go all in and tackle the issue at hand by confronting your uncomfortable thoughts head on. Ask yourself what exactly went wrong, how can you make it better, how can you regain control of the situation; how can you nurture this by managing your time and efforts efficiently. At the same time, it’s important to assess your wins too, just because you had a win, that’s no reason to not learn from it. Inquiring things like, how it made you feel and how you can change to make it happen again is something you can strive to do. For some help in this regard, here are some questions you can check out: https://www.inc.com/wanda-thibodeaux/34-essential-life-audit-questions-you-cant-afford-.html

If you need some more tips on how, feel free to check out this link below: https://www.coaching-online.org/life-audit/ Now, you are completely equipped to conduct a life audit of your own. Remember, don’t be too hard on yourself, just try at first!

There are thousands if not millions of different daily encounters in our lives and not all these things are pleasing enough to even recall, you would agree. It could be that primary teacher who did nothing but scold you every single day, because your school uniform doesn’t look as tidy as the rest of your classmates without her knowing the reason behind it – no one was present for you during those time to take care of the things you need for school because your parents needed to leave the house too early for work – and through the years, this has impacted your life in a negative way, giving you less confidence in terms of presenting yourself with other people.

It’s unfortunate, I know. But it’s never too late to get yourself backed up and gain back that confidence you deserve in this world. 

First, you must define the things and the people that matter to you. Once you managed to do that, make sure that only this circle will have access to your inner emotions and self-growth. If one of them breaks the rule of your sanity, don’t be afraid to remove them from the list instantly.

What I’m saying here is that, if the person or circumstance is not in your circle that matters, do not let it affect you. Instead, walk away and ignore the negative things that they are causing you to save yourself from further trouble.

Learn from the things that trouble you and master your mind to get over them fast.

Prioritise yourself because no one else will and know that you are always enough.

Tips?

1. Choose your circle – Your circle of friends defines you, so it would be best for you to select and keep the quality ones closer to you.
2. Meditate regularly – One way to reflect and regulate the toxicity of life is through meditation, so make it a practice to have a quiet time for yourself that can train your mind to be calmer and ready for the challenges of the day.
3. Learn from your mistakes – Always charge everything to experience, no matter how bad it was, there will always be learnings from it that can build a better you.
4. Share what you have – Finding a purpose in life could be challenging if you don’t know about the basic good things you can do in life – to share what you have and bless others. This doesn’t mean a material thing, it can also be in the form of coaching, teaching and simply being there for your friend that can help them out.
5. Be grateful – You can maybe all things bad but being grateful is key to lead you to your destination. As no woman is an island, one way or another people around you will help you in every aspect (big or small) of your life. Never forget them and acknowledge what has been given to you that led you for the better.

You can get more of these thought-inspiring pieces as you visit my page and grow more in peace.

In the professional world, we witness the pressures women leaders have to go through to prove their leadership skills. An individual’s leadership abilities depend on her personal strengths and personality. As we are looking at ‘personal goals’ this month, our core focus will remain on how to nurture and cultivate leadership traits that are beneficial in both your personal and professional lives.

While a lot of what we do in our professional lives affects our personal lives and vice-versa, building a growth mindset will allow us to maintain a healthy balance as we juggle through life and leadership. 

Self-Belief

Believing in one’s self is extremely important for one to take on big responsibilities. Confidence is a belief to create a successful outcome through our actions. When we believe we are good we believe in the value we have to offer. For eg: When we are confident about participating with our kids in a dance competition at school or an important meeting at work, we are more likely to achieve great results. 

Resilience

Resilience is defined as the capacity to recover quickly and fully from an unforeseen circumstance. Women are believed to be more resilient than men. It is also true that we deal with several conflicting personal, professional and systemic challenges than our male counterparts. Owing to unique challenges and individual needs we master the art of building resilience making us susceptible to defy any encounters coming our way. 

Empathy

Women are more empathetic than men. Our empathetic nature allows us more room to build and nurture relationships from the point of view of our kids or peers. This gives us the freedom to evaluate every situation we have at home and the workplace and derive at suitable decisions. Every person is different and reacts differently to a particular situation. 

Adaptability

The need for adaptability hasn’t been more important than now. With the work and home dynamics changing rapidly, women are more bound to adapt to the situations to stay relevant and avoid stagnation. 

One of the ways to adapt naturally to any situation is to have an open mindset and the will to change. Emotional tolerance and spiritual guidance go a long way in changing the dynamics of the situation. For eg: if you have accustomed your mind to adapt to change it will take you lesser time to change from Plan A to Plan B in case of a failure in Plan A. 

Persuasiveness 

To make great strides in the way you achieve your personal goals, you have to remain persuasive. Giving up lightly is not an option. Circumstances may change and can work in your favour therefore, remaining persuasive and persistent always pays off. Have a follow-up and action plan ready and the key is to remain politely persuasive. 

As women, we are constantly developing an action plan that prepares us for unexpected times. Your leadership traits are defined as your ability to detect and respond to change(s) around you, no matter how unexpected or inconvenient. If you are looking for a coach to develop or polish a few leadership traits in yourself, book a coaching session with me!

As women, we are often making a checklist for every work around us. Most efficiently we are ticking each item on the list we have made for our personal and professional use. Be it planning the week for our kids or working around an event at work, a checklist often serves as a key driver to get things done in the right manner. Have you ever thought of applying the same to your life? When I say ‘your’, it is independent of any other role you play in your daily life. Be it of a mother, daughter, manager or partner. It is solely what works on a personal level – for growth, for direction and to show yourself the highest level of dedication. 

Personal goals are similar to the new year’s resolutions we make, however, they must last longer and should not be limited to time. You don’t need to wait for January 1 every year to restart or replan what and how much time you need to dedicate to yourself. The right time to start is ‘NOW’. If you don’t have a checklist then it is time to prepare one. The list will entail the personal goals you want to set to achieve. Goals should be sustainable to improve your way of life. Goals that are sure to accelerate your mental and physical health and wellness. You can explore more on a checklist for yourself. Read further to understand how you can bring about a change in your daily life by giving preference to yourself.

Affirm to love yourself

Self-love is the highest form of love. ‘Love yourself’ – a phrase that is easy to say but very difficult to action. Loving yourself should be one of your top priorities. Not all days are the same. But amidst all of this, one must be able to get to a healthy place of self-love. I am sure you have heard of affirmations before. Affirmations are phrases you say each day (sometimes several times a day) until they are so ingrained in you that you fully and wholeheartedly believe them. Every day when you wake up or are going about the day, just say to yourself ‘I LOVE MYSELF’. If that seems a long shot, start by breaking down the phrase to ‘i like my hair’, ‘my eyes are beautiful’, ‘my body can work magic’ etc. Say it multiple times to get yourself to believe in it. 

Conquer a fear

There are so many things we want to do in life but don’t do it out of fear. You might be scared of heights and are missing out on the most adventurous outings. The only way to come out of it is to gradually expose yourself to what makes you fearful. Start small. Take gradual steps and increase the levels. Soon you will realize you have been able to do something you never thought you could. Rationalize your fears and the reassurance can help you work towards overcoming them. Challenging yourself to new things is an excellent way of facing fears head-on. Start small and aim high. 

Make health and wellness a priority

The chaos you go through in your daily life can only be crushed by a healthy and calm mind and body. Take conscious decisions to make health a priority. Work out more, change your diet, sleep better, refrain from alcohol and take your multi-vitamins daily. Engage in a self-care routine and stick to your fitness goals. You just get one body and you should treat it right. These routines that you create for yourself will prove to be a game-changer for your life, the benefits of which you will witness in the long run. 

Switch off and Switch on!

Technology is consuming a huge part of our daily lives. It is recommended to disconnect from gadgets for a set time in the day especially before you end and start the day. Replace that time with reading a book or pursuing a hobby. Whatever brings calm to your mind is recommended. Reading a book helps some while painting or knitting could work for some. It is only fair that we dedicate time to do things we love. 

Find a career you love

Most of us are excelling in both our professional and personal lives, however, it is time to reflect and understand if what we do for a living brings us happiness, ignites our adrenaline or are we simply adjusting to letdowns and frustrations of work. Ask yourself -“Am I living the way I want to live?”  Financial responsibilities should not come in the way of personal fulfilment. Once you have identified what you want to do, find ways to pursue it.

Personal growth is one of the goals every woman should have especially if they want to feel empowered and become more successful. Self-discipline plays an important role in achieving your personal goals. Visit my blog for more insights on how you can grow in your journey.

The alarm goes on at 5 am, Sonia wakes up and gets to the kitchen and starts preparing meals for the family for the day. She gets her children dressed and is out of her house at 6:45 am, braving past the traffic and drops her kids to school. She’s in the office by 7:45 am and goes on with the day attending internal and client meetings. Sonia started her own IT company 10 years ago, in order to ensure she spends more time with her family, as the idea was to have freedom while she raises her two kids and looks after her family.

Fast-forward 10 years, Sonia finds herself working 18 hours a day. She’s exhausted and stressed most days. On the weekends, she transforms into a home-maker and ensures everything is in place for the coming week. There are no real holidays as she works for herself and hence, she truly believes that the day she is not invested in the business, it will all come to a stand-still.

She walks out of her home with guilt everyday of not spending enough time with her family and she walks out of her office with guilt as she truly believes she can do better. Although, Sonia loves what she does both at home and at work, she’s never completely satisfied with herself, guilt and regrets have engulfed her life.

This is the truth that most working woman live everyday as they juggle their careers and nurture and raise a family.

As a mother, a wife, a daughter and today a grand mom, my advice to the younger women out there is “Look after yourself as you look after everyone else around”.

Moreover, a flexible mindspace is essential because it allows you to have greater control over your life and achieve a more substantial work-life balance. Here are my five quick tips to ensure you are making the most of your days:

1. Calendarize:

Time management is key. One of the most important time-management tools, yet extremely underutilized by most women. Be it a sports day at your daughters’ school or a pitch meeting at a client’s office, it needs to be in your calendar. The idea of scheduling ensures you are free from all the additional commitments one tends to make during the day. The good part is you are able to accomplish more and feel a sense of accomplishment once you tick off all your tasks for a day.

Tip – Color code your personal and professional tasks, the mind starts making sub-conscious notes eventually.

2. Define your Priorities:

There may be days where you need to take decisions that involve either /or on a certain task. Always make a mental note – family over work. Once you are clear on your priorities, decision-making becomes easy, and overtime tends to become guilt-free as well.

3. Be fully present in the moment:

At work or at home, if you commit to spend an hour with someone on a certain task, ensure you give them your 100% attention and time. This is not the time to be distracted with another task. A good everyday scenario is – when you drop your kids to school, the radio is on and your favorite song is playing, and your son is talking about his football match in school. Here is a decision to be made, and if your priority is family-first, then the turn off the radio and pay attention to your son, and ensure that school drop-off time is dedicated to your children always, with no exceptions!

4. Exhaustion equates frustration:

Me-time every day, this maybe a workout, a coffee with a friend, a Netflix series, reading or swimming. Once you decide what your activity of choice is, ensure you allocate one hour per day to invest that time with yourself. This ensures you’re not missing out on your own time as you fulfil all your commitments. Always remember, if you’re happy, everyone around you is happy!

5. Live life without guilt or regrets:

Go easy on yourself. Try to avoid criticizing yourself, as you are doing your best in all areas of life. It is challenging to balance work and a family, however, we all do our best in our own capacity. Do pat yourself on the back and appreciate all that you do, you are special and deserve only the best.

If you struggle with any of the above, book in a free exploratory call with me. I would love to partake you on your journey to help you reach your full potential. In the interim I might also have some life tips here that will help you as you progress on your journey to deal with the game of change.

Let me start by asking you a question. What does work-life balance mean to you? People often misunderstand the concept and over the years have given different meaning and perceptions to the term. To clarify – work-life balance is more than taking vacations or attending a weekly Yoga Class. Infact, it is about following a well-rounded and balanced approach as a means to lead, what one can call ‘a good life’. Most women have experienced burnout and are leaving the workforce. This calls for a time to reflect and develop an approach where you are able to give importance to all essential elements – health, wealth, love, and happiness. If the first three elements are in order, the last one i.e., happiness comes easy. Maintaining a balance between the first three can be hard but the blog will help you achieve it in more simpler ways.   

I often come across women in my coaching journey who have been able to ace their professional life but are struggling to maintain an average personal life and vice versa. While they are at the top of their game in one of their roles, they feel they are losing control over the other. This leads to added stress and anxiety. This usually happens when one devotes additional hours and efforts to pursue the satisfaction that comes with accomplishing tasks and ticking off the checklist. I once recall speaking to Sonia (for the sake of anonymity) and she mentioned to me that due to inactivity and lack of proactivity from her team members despite of numerous trainings and suggestions, she needed to spend additional time at work to be able to meet the projected business goals at her workplace. Can this be a sign of a true leader? The answer is no. If you ask me, a true leader enrolls their team members and takes responsibility. Sonia sounded like she was complaining and teaching vs enrolling. It is very important to understand where to divide time and efforts equally and be flexible in giving more at a particular task if that is required. Self-discipline plays an important role in leadership development. Some points to consider on how to deal with bringing about a change are as below:

Establish a Healthy Boundary

Your personal and professional life are always going to intertwine; however, it is very important that you don’t let one take precedence over the other. Don’t let your time at home feel like an extension of the office. Following a detailed schedule is liberating, it may sound intensive but it actually helps you focus on tasks at hand and avoid lags, procrastination resulting in prolonged stress. This helps you ensure work at hand is completed in an efficient and creative manner to meet deadlines at work and not let it come in way of your personal life. 

 Work Hard Play Hard 

Flexibility plays an important role as you identify how to maintain a good balance. Identifying when to give in a little extra time at work and when to break free from an unhealthy work schedule is essential. Regularly responding to work emails, or attending calls post office hours have the potential to snowball into a huge imbalance and cause mental stress. 

Communicate In an Effective Manner

Effective communication is the key skill that all great leaders possess. Listen more than you speak. When people around you feel heard, they appreciate your presence greatly rather than feeling anxious when you are around. Having too much on your plate, and juggling with personal life issues can cause endless exhaustion. Communicating when you are unable to accept additional tasks or avoiding a family event that feels mentally taxing will save you from emotional tensions. 

Emotional intelligence Matters    

Emotional intelligence is directly proportional to a high job performance. We have all come home dazed after a long day at work and we have all come hazy to work after an exhausting evening. Physically being somewhere is different from being in the moment. It is difficult to hear someone else’s concern’s when you are not mentally present. Striking balance is all about stabilizing your energy, hence, It’s crucial to not bring your work stress home, and avoid dragging your personal issues to work as that can hinder your performance.

Balancing your professional and personal life can be challenging, but it’s essential. You can go through this link for some tips and inspirations. It is not recommended to push aside personal wellbeing for your desire to succeed professionally. Having a balance in both lives helps ace both professional and personal lives at par.

The future of work was always predicted to bring about dramatic shifts in working patterns such as automation or the adoption of ‘gigs’ but the advent of the new normal has accelerated these trends. As a working professional, you are likely to have significant concerns about how to improve and grow in your career while dealing with these changes.

This leads us to know more about the different types of mindsets and innovation.

Fixed Mindset vs. Growth Mindset

In her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, Carol Dweck has posed an intriguing question – What are the consequences of thinking that your intelligence or personality is something you can develop, as opposed to something that is a fixed, deep-seated trait?

Drawing from her research conducted over two decades, she has proposed that personality, intelligence and character can be transformed over time by changing your mindset. She has lucidly explained the difference between fixed and growth mindsets.

Those with fixed mindsets believe that our talents and abilities are static. They cannot get better over time with persistence and effort. Such individuals would be prepared to give up easily and would attribute their failures to their inherent abilities. They would be convinced that they cannot improve.

But those with growth mindsets believe that our talents and abilities can be developed over time. This mindset can not only enable you to develop your intelligence and creativity but also enhance your relational skills such as love and friendship. Such individuals would be keen to learn, learn from failures, overcome obstacles through persistence, learn from criticism and get inspired by the success stories of others.

Adopting Innovation

Although innovation is often used, it is important to understand how we can make it part of our lives. As an innovative individual, you must be open to different perspectives. You may not agree with these perspectives but you should treat them as independent outlooks rather than being judgemental. You may even want to try some of these perspectives and implement them in your actions.

You can leverage changes in mindset and adopt innovation to significantly alter your career trajectory and emerge victorious.

Here are ways in which innovation and mindset change can help you ace your professional life:

Mastering new skills

It is widely believed that skills and not degrees will shape the future of work. The new normal has driven organisations to reshape their hiring practices. The World Economic Forum has predicted that almost one billion jobs worldwide would be transformed by technology by 2030. This means one billion individuals would have to master new skills to stay relevant. For example, no-code platforms are emerging which can be used to create websites or software products. Thus, software developers or coders who aren’t upskilling might lose out. Hence, a software developer may wish to add product management skills to her repertoire so that she can stay relevant in the future. You could explore a plethora of options such as – learning a new technology or learning a new language or learning designing skills etc.

For instance, you would have taken a sabbatical after giving birth to your child. Earlier you may have been a software developer but during this sabbatical, you would have picked up German. During the new normal as firms across the world are looking to hire employees who can work remotely, you may come across an application put up by a German company that requires a software developer (who should have all the experience and skills that you do) along with knowledge of basic German. Thus the new skill that you picked up could offer a fillip to your career.

Pro tip: Aim to pick up at least a couple of professional skills which are within the area of you interest and keep honing them.

Thriving under stress

https://getlighthouse.com/blog/how-to-change-your-mindset/

As a working professional or a business owner, you would have come across several stressful scenarios. For instance, your boss would want a new project to be delivered within a deadline.

If you are stressed about the project or the impending deadline, you are likely to do a shoddy job which could affect your credibility.

Multiple studies conducted across different geographies have revealed that workplace stress has been on the rise. According to a survey conducted by a leading executive search firm, overall stress levels have increased by 20% over the previous three decades..

However, by changing your mindset, you can thrive under stress. According to The Upside of Stress written by Dr Kelly McGonical, your body would literally release different chemicals depending on how you think about dealing with stress. This can ultimately impact your decisions and actions. You must have noticed how certain sportspersons thrive under pressure. This is because they have developed their mindsets to a positive relationship with stress.

Pro tip: It is easy to procrastinate if you are under stress. Get started as early as you can.

Being a life long learner

There is a huge misconception that learning ends when you are done with college. To grow in your professional career, it is vital to keep learning. By adopting a growth mindset, you can aspire to be continuously curious and hence keep learning. Incidentally, the genius of Leonardo Da Vinci (the renaissance man) can be attributed to his defining trait – being curious. Da Vinci would satiate his curiosity by conducting in-depth studies about anatomy, engineering, painting, physics, weaponry, architecture and more. There need not be any upper age limit on learning.

For example, you might be in your early 40s and be an accomplished sales person. Hence, you might assume that there is nothing more to learn in your area of work. However, if you attend suitable sales training sessions, you would realise that there is much to learn and improve upon in order to hone your skills. By upskilling yourself regularly, you could become an efficient sales person who consistently over achieves her targets.

Pro tip: Learn at your own pace. You can practice the Feynman Learning Technique everytime you learn something new.

Embracing change

After spending six months to a year in a job, you are likely to know what needs to be done and are equipped to manage your relationships with colleagues. You would be comfortable with your existing situation and may find yourself resisting any change.

Some examples include:

• Being offered a new role within the team
• Reviewing existing business workflows or processes
• Unwilling to move out of the city

By getting comfortable, you are likely to be stagnant in your career or reach a ceiling beyond which you aren’t able to progress. For instance, your salary would increase substantially if you keep moving from one company to another after spending adequate time in each company as compared to remaining in the same organisation. Hence, rather than resisting changes, you may wish to embrace them.

Pro tip: While embracing change, be cognizant about whether it could have any impact on your loved ones.

Seeking out challenges

To progress in your career it is essential to take up projects or assignments which are perceived as challenging and are avoided by others. This can not only get you visibility as someone who likes to take initiative but also offer you the chance to learn new skills. And if you find success in overcoming excruciatingly difficult projects, it would certainly enable you to progress rapidly in your career path.

By developing a growth mindset, you would be able to spot opportunities in challenging situations. You would be able to build your credentials as someone who is confident of taking on challenging projects which may lead to bigger career opportunities

Pro tip: Before accepting challenges, be prepared and do your homework.

Learn rather than fail

Due to conventional upbringing and education systems, we are conditioned to fear and abhor failure. Although failure can be a great motivator, it is easy to feel despondent after failing. And once we fail, most of us end up taking important professional decisions which would help us avoid failure.

A mindset change can enable you to look at failures as learning opportunities. As long as you have done your best and failed, it shouldn’t matter. But it would be important to review your efforts and understand what could have been done differently. Such learnings would be invaluable.

For example – Imagine that you are the product manager in a company and are planning to introduce a new feature in your product. You might have great conviction in it but your colleagues might disagree. However, you veto their opinion and decide to launch that feature. Unfortunately, this feature is disliked by clients and you end up getting brickbats for this move. Later on, when you review your decisions you realise that you could have enabled the feature for a small sample of your customers and taken their feedback. This would have enabled you to decide whether you should have launched the feature for all customers or not.

Pro tip: List down your failure and avoid repeating the same failure

Enables you to ask feedback

Feedback is essential for personal and professional growth. It enables you to understand how your actions and you are being perceived by others. Unfortunately, many of us often let our ego cloud our minds and are unwilling to listen to constructive feedback.  A mindset change could make you proactively seek feedback from the right stakeholders and bring in drastic improvements.

Pro tip: Collect feedback from those who can offer it without any bias. Keep working on your performance and check with them again after a few months to measure your improvements.

Adopting innovation and mindset change is a journey with several lows and highs. However, it is important to not get frustrated and instead carry on diligently. Once you start observing results, you would be inspired to make this a way of life while attaining work life balance.

Every individual can innovate. Innovation simply means having an imaginative mindset that is curious to come up with new ideas. The term innovation is not limited to businesses alone. An innovative mind is continually looking at ways to test and implement ideas, giving rise to certain cognitive and behavioral stimulation.  Most times individuals refrain from exploring new ideas because of the sheer belief that they believe the idea won’t change the world. That is not the right way to look at things. Our ideas don’t necessarily need to have a major impact on our surroundings. What it needs to do is – to be able to satisfy our unmet needs.

Developing an innovative mind needs a shift in your mindset and creating that helps to override anything that is holding you back from stimulating your senses.  This exercise corelates to many phrases you hear in your daily life – ‘think out of the box’, ‘get creative’, ‘explore the unimaginable’. Don’t let these phrases intimidate you or over power your urge to add new skills or try out new activities. If you keep doing the same things, you will have to expect the same results. Change in the outcome, requires a sustainable change in the inputs as well.

Once you have successfully developed your mindset, it then becomes easy to follow your mind in achieving milestones or goals that you set for yourself.  Ticking off goals from your checklist is another way to keep motivating yourself to do more and achieve more. Just like you have KPIs at your workplace or a checklist to run home errands, the time to create your personal list is NOW! You can read more on the three best practices to foster a long-term ‘innovation mindset’ in a remote-first future.

Learn a new language

Start by taking smaller steps. Say for example you have always wanted to learn a new language and completing the entire course seems daunting. Here you can divide the course and set smaller milestones and celebrate achieving them along the way. Slowly, the motivation will keep you at it and give you the push to complete the course.

If you need to up your vocabulary or find creative ways of using the language, I would recommend you start reading books in that language or watch series on OTT platforms with subtitles on. Immersing yourself in the language and continuously exposing yourself helps you improve your vocabulary.  If you are working on your English language skills, I would suggest you get the ‘The Magic of Metaphor’ from my personal favorites to practice your speech giving and articulation skills. You can also find more book recommendations here.

Upgrade your skills

Another daily example is a mundane task at work that you have always felt the need to outsource, because you do not know how to do it. For eg:  you are great at developing sales presentations but always need help with putting your ideas creatively in a PPT format. As much as it is okay to outsource work, you can always decide to upskill and learn the basics of putting your presentation together. Slowly you can keep experimenting with all the options you have available and try to incorporate to see what works and what doesn’t. Google does an excellent job at tutoring and providing skills if you wish to upskill.

Brain Training

Innovation happens from Inside Out. Just like physical fitness is essential for the body, mental fitness is essential for optimum functioning of your brain. Keep it occupied with trying to solve puzzles, exploring new roads during your commute to work. Using your less used hand (For eg: if you are right-handed, using your left hand) also activates your brain cells and works towards developing your memory and memory retention.

You can start with simple activities that do not need you to make drastic changes to your lifestyle suddenly. It is all about the consequence of a changing mindset. This plays a major role in magically finding creative ways around all the barriers created during the journey and subsequently learning to deal with change.

Another interesting tip to note is when you fire new and less used areas of your brains, in small steps it still feels safe and it wires new connection network which is needed to improve our cognitive and problem-solving skills.