One Thing That Stands in the Way of your Happiness: How to easily identify your long term life goals27/3/2018 I don't focus on what I'm up against. I focus on my goals and I try to ignore the rest. The above quote is by tennis star Venus Williams There’s no denying of the fact that our lives are a mirror image of the decisions that we take. Sure there may be a rare exception—such as a major health challenge— but in the big circle of life, we are where we are today solely based on the decisions we made yesterday.
This brings us to the fact that the key then to our happiness depends on the decisions we make – like decision on where we stay, which job we go for, how to interact with your neighbours, where and to whom we spend our money on and how to make more money quicker and easier. I think you get the point. If you got then you are wondering why am I still writing this blog post beyond this point? We have all missed the most important question which needs to be asked – What do you want to do with your life? How are you going to go about this? All the questions which were listed above are the necessary ones for the day to day living but if we were to concentrate only on the day to day life, at the end of the journey I don’t think you will would have achieved your success or happiness and only be left with tiredness and fatigue. Where are you going? What do you want your life to look like five years from now? Ten years from now? Twenty years from now? Are you going drift with the tides or are you going to determine where you want to go, strap on a 200 HP motor, and start moving in that direction? Like most of you (I am making a gross assumption here) till recently even I was drifting like the feather in the opening scene of the movie Forrest Gump. It was really nice – moving with the wind, sailing as per the wind’s request. It was until I met this new team member of mine who asked me within a week of interaction with me “Sir, you are so talented and have great ideas and work methods. Yet you are only at this level. Why are you not attempting to go higher?” It was then I realised that I was waiting for the winds to pick up and push me higher and that assumption is totally wrong. The wind will never push me higher – the kites which are flying high are all those which are going against the wind. Now you get my point – why it is so important to identify your long term goals in life and think of how you are going to get there? In order to find my goals I answered 10 somewhat difficult questions to get there which I am listing it below for you. Regardless of where you are in life, you will benefit from answering these questions. Perhaps they will confirm that you are on the right track. Or, they may open your mind to opportunities you haven’t previously considered. They may also reveal the missing link in your quest to find happiness and fulfillment in your life. I’m ready with the questions, are you ready to find the answers?
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The Millennials are next in line to run this crazy, messed-up world. Millennials, in my dictionary, are those born between the years 1995 and 2005, so this generation includes all those born after globalisation in India. There is, however, a serious problem with this generation that needs to be addressed, and that is their intense lack of dedication in anything. This problem stems from many factors of their different upbringings. Before I setup the context, I would like to spend some time on what dedication means to me. While searching the internet for some research material I accidentally fell upon this data - Ezra Pound's The Cantos is a 120-section poem which explores the author's controversial opinions on government, economics, war, fascism, and a whole lot of other seemingly non-poetic topics. Pound also famously spent 57 years on this collection, which was still unfinished at the time of his death. Leave the unfinished part but look at this man’s dedication to work on his goal for more than half a century. Mindboggling it is – I can’t even think of how he got himself to motivate for this long. Most of us would have given up within 5 weeks (MAX) from start of this poem collection of his. Another example (this time with a positive end) is “Gone with the Wind” by Margaret Mitchell. It reportedly took journalist Margaret Mitchell 10 years to write and publish her staggering Civil War-era tome novel. I can only imagine her level of dedication. To start a project that would take almost a decade to complete seems almost incomprehensible to me with no surety that the outcome will become famous or successful or both. So is dedication necessary for all of us? Well to answer it plainly it is the only ingredient that you require for a guaranteed success. So what are some of the reasons why the generation of today are having less inclination for dedication towards work, play, life, family etc.? There seems to be clearly some kind of common trend across the globe. The possible causes may be [Spoiler Alert – A bit lengthy read but worth every word] A quick recap of the previous blog. In case you missed the first part please use this link to view it: The 10 scientific tips that no one told you about raising happy kids - Part 1 Whenever you say any parent on what they want for the kids, what do you thing is the most common answer? They want to raise happy kids. There are lots of adjectives and emotions that come out, for example – the well-being of the child is more important than anything else, they want their kids to be healthy and energetic. They all want their kids to be successful in the life and it continues. I know that the previous 5 tips themselves are quiet sufficient to raise happy kids but then for a complete and holistic development we need to go the complete distance for the final result. Anything that is well begun needs to be well completed. So let us try and view the remaining tips in this blog. All the tips given so far are all behavioural or habitual changes and requires a lot of effort and dedication from the person to overcome their comfort zone feeling and go the distance to see the results, It is mind boggling but trust me that when you go the distance, it's even more satisfying for both the parent and the kid. These types of parenting changes are like a marathon race - we need to stay fit, build the stamina, grind the laziness and sweat ourselves out before you can reach the finish line. For most part of the time the final finish line is not visible and yet you have to trust the guide rails , directions and keep a positive attitude that the finish line is just round the corner. So without much delay lets look at the remaining items on our list. Before that, here is a recap of the 5 points which we have seen already:
So what are the remaining 5, are we ready to go forward? Whenever you say any parent on what they want for the kids, what do you thing is the most common answer? They want to raise happy kids. There are lots of adjectives and emotions that come out, for example – the wellbeing of the child is more important than anything else, they want their kids to be healthy and energetic. They all want their kids to be successful in the life and it continues. While there are tons of materials on how to raise smart kids, how to raise successful kids, how to raise healthy kids but have not found too many materials on how to raise happy kids. I find that it hard for me to believe that most parents seem to think that if their kids are smart, successful or healthy they necessarily are happy in life. The one main point which is hard for the parent is to balance what’s best for your child with what makes them happy – both of the two do not go along with each other even once. Science has found that happier kids are more likely to turn into successful and smart adults and not the other way around. Happiness is a tremendous advantage to possess in today’s world of delusion. The happier the kids, the more chances they will succeed in what they pursue. They would get better reviews, more satisfied in life, make time to enjoy. So looking at the science, what really works when it comes to raising happy kids? Bosses make all the difference--for better and for worse. Many top executives have reported that managers are crucial to employees feeling engaged, and that actively engaged employees are crucial to an enterprise’s success. Experts pointed to a maxim: people join companies, but they leave managers. The quality of our relationship with our boss can greatly impact our satisfaction with our work life. The day a person recognize that he is working for a bad boss is the day that he will begin planning his exit strategy. In my opinion the exit interviews that HR conducts is a waste of an effort since the damage is done well before the time HR reaches out to the employee. What you see in your boss is what you will be seeing inside you in five years down the line. The best predictor of future behaviour is often past behavioural data. It’s possible that you may try in good faith to work with your boss, without an improvement in the relationship. You may find there just is bad chemistry or a lack of trust or other concerns. The best advice from me is not to blame your boss even if it is so. To a frustrated team, they may be wondering why not change this one person rather than the entire team getting burnt and thinking of losing their mental health. This point of view looks right but from a senior management point of view – it’s very hard to keep changing leadership people and so they try to coach/mentor these leaders in question and try to make them change. Changing behavioural patterns in a leadership experience role is very costly, time consuming and not very efficient. So what does the team do? The good performers starting going out first – either to other departments or outside the company and slowly the team becomes disengaged and loses steam until the complete unit is dismantled or they are infused with fresh outside talent. Still the question lingers in each of our minds – how come these bad bosses stay on? There are several reasons as to why these managers in question are still in survival. Usually a bad manager reflects the poor management over them and usually action are taken by re-assigning the person to a different role all the time. The worst case maybe that the manager is conveyed that his progression is finite and its stops here and is given time to move on. |
AuthorVasudevan is a Leadership Mentor and an Executive coach. I run an online website geared towards helping creative entrepreneurs and future managers to build their dreams. Archives
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