Right Attitudes » Ideas for Impact
» by Nagesh Belludi

Have you ever realized that most of your adversities never occur? Or that most of your worries like in anticipation of such adversities? That some of life’s most common troubling scenarios never come to pass? That most of your worrying is ultimately fruitless, and life goes on?

Below, I present a simple exercise to help you discover the lifecycle of worry. I encourage you to sit down at a quiet place, a place where you can relax and reflect. If necessary, fetch yourself a journal, special notebook or a piece of scratch paper.

Mindfulness Exercise

Consider a recent upheaval or stressful event. Go back in time and experience that moment for a minute. How do you feel? What preoccupies your mind?

Under the direct influence of your anguish, your mind is bewildered. You feel disoriented. Your mind is preoccupied with the apprehensions. Filled with distress, you cannot take your mind off the apparent ramifications of your suffering. The wounds of your sorrow appear incurable.

Now, fast forward a few days after the stressful event. What do you experience now? Your troubles no longer hold a grip on your life as before. You feel released from the immediate affliction of the moment. As you now investigate the progress of the stressful situation, you feel amazed by how your feelings have changed. What has become of the irreparable hardship?

Storms of Distress

Allow another interval of time to elapse. How do your feelings compare now? The original despair has experienced further diminution. The stressful event appears formless; your apprehensions are no longer recognizable. You are beginning to smile indulgently at the misfortunes.

A few days later, you are surprised how easily these storms of distress passed. You begin to wonder how these depressing emotions could have possessed you. The events are not undone and the external circumstances remain unchanged. What has changed is the condition of your mind.

“This too shall pass”

“Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight.”
* Benjamin Franklin

It is your mind that relates the external circumstances to your internal being. Joy and sorrow, hopes and despairs, elation and desolation, pleasures and annoyances are nothing but outcomes of your sensibility. External circumstances are difficult to conquer — our control over the outer world is narrow, and merely illusory. The evolution of your thoughts and feelings, and your responses to distressing situations are within your power.

The next time you experience a hardship — a conflict, a distressing situation, or annoyance, recall what happened with your prior hardships. Recognize that everything happening in your external environment is but impermanent. Say to yourself, “This too shall pass.”

Suggested Resources

• Four telltale signs of an unhappy employee
• How to create more time
• Self-assessment Quiz: How stressed are you?
• Finding work-life balance
• Seven easy ways to get more done in less time

***See other articles related to stress, worry, anxiety, heath, well-being, happiness, living the good life

Anxiety and stress are the body and mind’s natural responses to anything that jeopardizes your sense of balance. Your nervous system releases cortisol, adrenaline and other stress hormones that make your heart beat faster, tense up muscles, rise blood pressure, and sharpen the senses to respond to physical or symbolic threats. Your breath becomes faster and shallower.

Deep diaphragmatic breathing: An obvious antidote to stress and anxiety

When you feel nervous, frazzled, overwhelmed or worried about something, try the following exercise:

1. Sit quietly in a comfortable posture with your back straight.
2. Release the tension in your face, jaw, neck, and shoulders.
3. Softly close your eyes. Smile and relax. Breathe through your nose.
4. Examine the inflow and outflow of air through your nostrils.
5. Make a conscious effort to slow down the pace of your breath.
6. Deepen your breathing by inhaling and exhaling more air. As you breathe deep into your lungs, flex your diaphragm, expand your belly, and feel the sensation of air filling up your lungs. Do not flex by flexing your chest. Exhale slowly.
7. Repeat the inhale-slowly-exhale-slowly cycle five times.
8. Reflect on how your mind is now more composed, stable and clear. Gently open your eyes.

Simple and powerful relaxation technique

Deep breathing from the diaphragm is easy to learn. It’s a technique you can practice anywhere, anytime to quickly get your anxiety in check.

Research has shown that deep breathing gets more oxygen into the brain and exercises the parts of the brain responsible for concentration and regulation of emotion. The brain regulates the release of stress hormones and reverses the symptoms of stress and anxiety. Your heart rate slows down and your muscles relax. Consequently, you can calm yourself down.

Self-Assessment Quiz and Recommended Reading

• Take this self-assessment ”How Stressed am I” quiz
• Health and fitness for the sedentary professional
• A secret of dieting success: do not deprive yourself of your guilty pleasures
• Seven easy ways to get more done in less time

***See other articles related to stress, anxiety, yoga, meditation, well-being, health, wellness

1. Clear the clutter around you

Disorder and clutter are the primary sources of the feeling of not being on “top of things.” Messy workspaces can quickly get out of hand and drag you down. Conquer clutter by processing each paper or object at your desk by asking, “Why is this here?” Consider throwing things away; ask, “What is the worst that could happen if I dispose of this?” Organize, simplify, and setup an environment that works for you.

2. Stretch at your desk or brisk walk

Interrupt your deskbound lifestyle by practicing a few exercises right at your desk, walking up a few flights by stairs, or brisk walking around your office block. Simple workouts can revive your energy, prevent afternoon slumps, help you think more clearly, and help control anxiety.

3. Get caught-up on your email and remain caught-up

Given the pervasiveness of email in our lives, regulating email, remaining responsive and productive about email are critical soft-skills for any knowledge worker. Empty your inbox everyday by using following productivity guru Merlin Mann’s ‘Process to Zero’ and ‘Inbox Zero’ techniques. Systematize your email habits by deleting, archiving, responding or delegating every email in your inbox.

4. Embark on a “10-Minute Dash” to conquer procrastination

Not finishing what you have started can be a source of stress and anxiety. Pick a task that you have been putting off, turn on your favorite music, sip your favorite beverage, and work on that task for just ten minutes without any interruption. You will probably find that the seemingly difficult task gets easier once you start working on it. This “10-minute dash” technique can build momentum, get you into the “flow,” and motivate you to work and complete the task.

5. Write a “thank-you” note

In today’s fast-paced world, it is easy to forget to repay kindness with gratitude. Thank-you notes not only help people feel appreciated for things they do to for you, but can also motivate them to do more for you in the future (this secondary reason should not be the key motivation for your attitude of gratitude.) When writing a thank-you note, mention what the other person did for you, how it was relevant, and how much you appreciate their help.

6. Tend to your network

Tending to your professional and social network is not as time-consuming as you might expect. Invest ten minutes each day to email or ring a friend or two, perhaps even to say a quick hello. Cultivate and maintain a strong network. Remember people’s birthdays and anniversaries and reach out to them on their special days. Avoid contacting people only when you need something from them.

7. Update your résumé or your list of achievements

Most professionals tend to procrastinate on keeping their résumés updated. Do not expect to pull your résumé together when you need one and expect it to work efficiently. Spend ten minutes updating your résumé by adding details from your latest projects and assignments. Try to review each section and question yourself, “Is this section relevant? Is there anything more worthwhile that I could replace this section with?” Keeping your résumé updated can reduce the anxiety of preparing an impressive résumé at short notice.

8. Walk the floor, talk to your customers, and seek their ideas

Companies and leaders who excel at customer service talk to customers on a regular basis and follow-up scrupulously. Simply walk the floor for ten minutes or pick-up the phone and talk to a customer or two. Ask customers how your product or service has been of value to them, seek to understand their needs, run your ideas past them, and incorporate their views to design/improve your product or service. Going the extra mile to reach out to a customer can have a big impact on customer loyalty.

9. Look for easy ways to simplify your life

Differentiate between activity and achievement. Rather than finding ways to squeeze more activities into your life, find ways to leave out some things. Focus on things that actually need to be done and eliminate anything that does not fit your immediate priorities. Ask for help, delegate, and lower your standards. Plan for the next day or the week ahead and prepare to-do lists to get things off your mind.

10. Take a break and chill out

When you feel overwhelmed, take ten minutes to rest, relax, and clear your mind. Meditate, listen to music, catch up on news or sports, play with your pet, take a short map, look out of the window, or do something else that can benefit you the most. Stepping out of the moment of busyness can lower your blood pressure, slow down your breathing and heart rate, and bring about psychological changes that can reduce the harmful effects of stress and worry.

Bonus: Put your own needs first

When you are overwhelmed with the demands on your time at work and at home, try to examine if you tend to succumb instinctively to the pressure and put others needs ahead of your own. While it is virtuous to be selfless and attend to the needs of others, devoting too much of your own time to others can become an impediment to your own happiness. Consider constructing boundaries on your time and try to think of at least one activity you can stop, or one task that you cancel at once. Do not become a victim of your own generosity. Taking care of your own needs first is not about being selfish; it is rather about being fair to yourself. Exercise your right to protect your own time and interests.

Suggested Reading

• Four telltale signs of an unhappy employee
• Self-assessment quiz: How stressed are you?
• Finding work-life balance
• Health and fitness for the sedentary professional
• 7 easy ways to get more done in less time

***See other articles related to productivity, getting things done, happiness, work-life balance

The turn of the year brings about a plethora of advice on the ritual of New Year’s resolutions. Articles in magazines and websites and features in the media might interest most of us in pursuing this advice. However, change is rarely as effortless as we assume it will be. Only those of us who are committed and consistent enough to maintain our regimens do actually stick to our resolutions.

I would like to reiterate one particular aspect of healthy eating and dieting. Many discussions on New Year’s resolutions tend to overlook this important consequence.

Deprivation, Guilt and Indulgence

An all too common mistake that people commit when dieting, especially in the first few weeks, is that they tend to be overambitious and force themselves to do everything right from the get go. At once, they drive themselves to cut out everything unhealthy, take up green vegetables, flaxseeds, and other wholesome foods they hitherto resisted and exercise aggressively.

Alas, their optimism subsides quickly. They relax and begin to compromise on their goals. They make excuses, revert to their former habits, crave for their guilty pleasures, and tend to overindulge on impulse. They lose sight of their New Year’s resolutions. Consequently, they feel sorry for themselves, renounce their goals, and assume they could never embrace lasting change.

Here are three suggestions for dieting success.

• Cut back, do not cut out. Food is one of the basic pleasures of life. Cutting out some guilty pleasure does not mean depriving yourself of something you like. Treat yourself on occasion, but limit yourself to smaller servings. This will help you resist the urge to splurge.
• Target small, incremental goals that can lead you to lasting change. Realizing your New Year’s resolutions is part of your long-term commitments. Therefore, in goal setting, less can be adequate. Be realistic in what you can expect of yourself. Adjust your expectations and try not to overwhelm yourself. Pace yourself for success over the long term.
• Do not feel guilty if you fall off your plan. Guilt is counterproductive to health and well-being. Get over your lapses and simply begin pursuing your goals again. Ask yourself, “What can I do differently? How can I improve?”

Personal Story

Over the years, chocolate milk had become an obsession of mine, thanks to ads of chocolate drinks featuring my favorite cricket sportsmen in India and a seemingly limitless supply of milk and Hershey’s chocolate syrup at my dorm during graduate school.

One of my goals for year 2009 was to cut down on chocolate and chocolate milk. During the course of the year, I have to admit, I often caught myself overindulging in Hershey’s Miniatures chocolate bars and such from candy jars at work.

Recommended Reading

• How to work exercise into a busy day
• Health and fitness for the sedentary professional
• How to renewing physical energy
• How Mahatma Gandhi kicked the habit of eating a lot of sugar (A fable)
• Meal manners: pace yourself to others

***See other articles related to dieting, eating healthy, health and well-being, food habits, wellness, fitness, goals

1. Divide and conquer. Break up large projects into smaller tasks. If you think a task will take less than five minutes, get it done right away. If you can reply to an email in less than two minutes, reply immediately and file or delete the incoming email.
2. Fight procrastination. One of the easiest ways to fight procrastination is to focus on starting your task. Commit to your task for just ten minutes. Avoid distractions and interruptions and continue to work for just ten minutes. By the end of the ten minutes, you probably get absorbed in the tasks, build momentum and can choose to continue working towards completion.
3. Put things in their place. Designate a place at your home and office for everything — your keys, wallet, watch, clothes, electronic gadgets and all personal effects. Always put each item in its proper place. Being orderly prevents you from anxiously searching for these belongings the next time you want to use them.
4. Create checklists for all tasks. Consider preparing checklists for everything from cleaning the home to packing for travel. Checklists help you remember everything critical and thus reduce the persistent worry of forgetting something important.
5. Start planning your day on the prior day. Before you leave office or before you go to bed, plan the next day and prepare a ‘To Do’ list. Check your calendar for meetings, deadlines and commitments. In addition, put out everything you need the night before. Planning ahead not only helps you start the next day with purpose, but also gets things off your mind. You can thus enjoy your time away or sleep better.
6. Pick up after yourself and clean your home and workspace. From time to time, glance through all areas of your home and office for things that are out of place. Tidy up before the clutter gets out of hand. Use the wastebasket liberally. Realize that mess leads to stress.
7. Maintain a ‘On-The-Go’ folder. When you receive your copy of a subscription magazine, tear out all the articles that interest you and dispose of the rest of the magazine. Maintain an “on-the-go” folder and file such articles. Take this folder wherever you go and read these articles during transition times — when you wait for a doctor’s appointment or when your flight is delayed at an airport. Review this folder frequently and toss out everything that is older than six months.

Recommended Reading

• Self-assessment Quiz: how stressed are you?
• The “10-minute Dash” technique to overcoming procrastination
• You have a pile of reading material at your desk?
• Everyday reflections for effective time management
• Seven habits to beat Monday morning blues

***See other articles related to time management, personal organization, productivity, stress management, getting things done, work-life balance

The first step to overcome the causes and effects of stress is to acknowledge stress and become aware of its symptoms. By identifying the following telltale signs of stress, you can take steps to manage them.

Evaluate your level of stress by taking a simple quiz that I developed recently. Rate your experience against each category of stress symptoms in the following list. Score 1 for “Rarely”, 2 for “On occasion lately”, 3 for “Often” and 4 for “A lot lately.”

• Irritability, nervous temperament, moodiness, short temper, aggressiveness
• Lack of enthusiasm, neglect of responsibilities
• Inability to relax, concentrate, focus, or remember
• Poor health, body aches, pains, indigestion, constipation, nausea, etc.
• Eating and sleeping more or less, poor hygiene, substance abuse
• Nervous habits: fidgeting, foot tapping, nail biting, giggling, etc.
• Excessive frustration, cynicism, paranoia, distrust or worry
• Feeling of loneliness, withdrawal from friends and family
• Reluctance to express opinions, feeling of being “used” by others
• Excessive sensitivity, feeling of being overwhelmed
• Indecisiveness, poor judgment, unwillingness to take risks, impatience
• Blaming self for problems, evoking past distresses or sorrow demanding attention, aggressiveness
• Feeling of lack of control and authority, pressure to yield to demands

Assess Your Level of Stress

Tally up your scores and rate yourself on the following scale. The more symptoms you observe in your everyday life, the more stressed you are.

• 18 or lesser indicates a normal level of stress. Stress is an essential part of existence.
• 19 to 25 indicates that you may be facing a brown-out. The temporary hardships you are experiencing may intensify your level of stress if you do not address their causes immediately.
• 26 to 34 indicates acute level of stress. Carefully address everything that bothers you and consider changes to your lifestyle. Seek therapy.
• 35 or greater indicates potentially serious consequences to your wellbeing. Seek medicinal or therapeutic help.

Recommended Reading

• Budget your time by your values and priorities
• Fight clutter and simplify life
• Health and fitness for the sedentary professional
• Working exercise into a busy day
• Make your weekends feel longer

Brad Feld on Work-Life Balance

Here is an excellent podcast (summary here) where Venture Capitalist Brad Feld discusses his thoughts on the concept of work-life balance. He also shares the changes he implemented to achieve more balance in his life. Also, see a previous article by Brad on this very topic. Here are key takeaways:

• The sense of busyness is not the same as the sense of achievement.
• Balance is an important issue to consider at all ages, as many make the mistake in believing they will “get the balance on the back half of life” and find it shorter than they hoped (”you don’t know when the lights are going to go out (when you are going to die.)”)
• Work-life balance is an important issue to everyone, yet each person’s approach will be different. There is no one-size fits all approach.

Work-Life Balance is an Individual Choice

Balancing the various demands on our time is by no means easy. It is unrealistic to establish a ratio between ‘work’ and ‘play’ time to pursue the sense of balance.

Balance is an individual choice you have to make based on your personal and professional values and associate relative priorities between these values. Here are five essential guidelines to make such choices.

• Don’t become a slave to your work. As Mahatma Gandhi once said, “Work is a means of living, it is not life itself.”
• Slow down your life and develop mindfulness. Simplify your life and inculcate discipline. Focus on the simple things. Control your wants and meet your core needs.
• Talk to your family and friends and explore ways to introduce more fun into your daily routine.
• Sleep more. Help around the home. Go on more vacations. Cultivate a hobby or two. Volunteer for a good cause. Do something meaningful with your spare time.
• Learn to control how you react to other people and their demands on your time, money, or both. Consider the cost on your own resources and become skilled at how to refuse unimportant demands.

Realizing the balance in your life is your prerogative.

Recommended Reading

• My three-step process for better time management: time logging, time analysis and time budgeting.
• Fighting Procrastination: ‘Ten-Minute Dash’ technique
• Working exercise into a busy day

***See other articles related to happiness, time management, managing priorities, effectiveness, personal organization, getting things done, execution, work-life balance

Busy professionals tend to live a deskbound lifestyle. Their hectic schedules develop into easy excuses for abandoning regular exercise patterns. Consequently, their sedentary lifestyles, when combined with insufficient sleep, a disregard for healthful eating and drinking habits and the greater levels of stress in the modern workplace, can lead to fatigue and ill health over time.

Here are nine simple suggestions to encourage the busy professional lead a healthier lifestyle at work.

Practice Simple Workouts

• Consider a healthier commute. Bike or walk to work at least once a week. If you ride a bus or train, get off a prior stop and walk the remainder.
• Take stairs instead of elevators. Research suggests that climbing stairs can burn as much as seven times the calories burned when using an elevator.
• Seek out opportunities to stand or walk. Walk up to colleague’s desks instead of instant messaging, emailing, or calling them. Take longer routes to restrooms, water fountains, meetings rooms, and others’ desks.
• Take walks during breaks or after lunch. Consider starting a lunchtime walking group with like-minded coworkers. Walk for twenty minutes at a nearby park, around your office building or in the hallways. Better yet, take the stairs to walk up a few flights. Doing exercises in a group is more enjoyable and helps sustain the habit.
• Stretch at your desk. Adopt a handful of simple exercises to stretch your fingers, wrists, arms, shoulders, chest, neck, back, and legs. Although these activities do not contribute to any form of serious aerobic exercise, they are nevertheless advantageous to promote fitness and reduce anxiety.

Eat and Drink Healthier

• Eat healthy. Do not skip breakfast or lunch. Favor full-service salad bars or healthy choice menus at company cafeterias. Better yet, pack your lunch — it is economical too. Regulate your eating when dining-out with customers, visitors or management — studies suggest that we tend to overindulge in social settings or while on expense accounts.
• Keep a supply of low-calorie, nutritious snacks, raw vegetables and fruits at your desk. These serve as healthier choices to snack food usually stocked in office vending machines.
• Avoid indulging in sugar- and calorie-laden pastries, pies, cakes, cookies doled out on birthdays and anniversaries, or spread out in break rooms.
• Drink more water. Try to limit carbonated beverages and fruit juices to one can/bottle a day. Avoid caffeine in the evenings to prevent sleep deprivation at night — the half-life of caffeine is about six hours.

Recommended Resources

• Stretches you can do in your office (Slide Show from Mayo Clinic)
• Google blog on ergonomics, posture, tendonitis, carpal tunnel syndrome, and other repetitive stress injuries (RSI.)
• 20 simple at-your-desk exercises
• Reasons to drink more water and how much
• Ibrahim’s Spring Fitness Challenge

***See other articles related to wellness, health, well-being, fitness

The benefits of physical activity and exercise are well known: reduced risk of chronic diseases, lower stresses, increased physical fitness, improved sleep, greater self-confidence, etc. However, incorporating physical activity into our demanding schedules can be very challenging.

Recently, the Wall Street Journal offered five great guidelines to help include exercise into a busy day. See the full article here.

1. Exercise early in the morning. Typically, after work, you’re hungry, exhausted and you have family obligations. Exercising early in the morning can give a great energy boost.
2. Stay close to home or office for convenience. If possible, possess exercise equipment at home.
3. Mix exercise with family time. For instance, ask family or friends to join you in the morning-walks; this will help you stay motivated.
4. Do a weekend workout. The weekend offers two days of opportunity.
5. Stay active during the day. Mix exercise into your daily activities.

Call for Action

With the help of a physician or a personal trainer, choose activities that are appropriate for your fitness level and your goals. Be realistic in what you can achieve. Schedule exercise in your calendar.

Make the most of small bits of time that become available during the day. Take the stairs instead of an elevator; park your car as far as possible in the parking lot and walk into your office; take a quick walk around your office building when you need a break from work.

Take time out–do not exercise every day. Regular breaks allow for recovery and return to exercise with renewed vigour.

***See other articles related to recharging, re-energizing, energy management, relaxation, work-life, stress management, health, well-being, exercising

In an article entitled “The Making of a Corporate Athlete” in the January, 2001, issue of the Harvard Business Review, authors Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz describe executives as “corporate athletes.” They explain the concept of recovering energy to bring the body, emotions, mind and spirit to a peak form and thus sustain high performance over the long haul.

Practices for Renewing Physical Energy

The authors consider physical well-being as fundamental to the high performance state of an executive. Here is a (paraphrased) list of six healthy practices they recommend for renewing physical energy.

1. Eat multiple small-meals a day. Eating just one or two meals a day with long periods in between may slowdown metabolism.
2. Never skip breakfast. Eating breakfast early in the morning helps maintain metabolism during the morning.
3. Eat a balanced diet.
4. Reduce the consumption of sugars. Sugars represent empty calories and cause “energy-depleting spikes in blood glucose levels.”
5. Drink at least 1.5 litres (four 12-ounce glasses) of water every day, even if you do not feel thirsty.
6. Exercise regularly. The authors recommend “three to four 20- to 30-minute cardiovascular workouts a week, including at least two sessions of intervals—short bursts of intense exertion followed by brief recovery periods.”

Call for Action

In the face of ever-increasing demands to perform, deliver and excel, both at work and outside, it is easy for us to ignore our physical well-being; most of us do.

Critically examine your current lifestyle and fitness level: your eating and sleeping habits, your relaxation and entertainment choices, and, your commitment to physical and brain exercises. In consultation with people around you, viz., family, friends, bosses and physicians make the right choices to adopt a healthy lifestyle. Pick physical activities that work for you and you will enjoy. Get to and stay in the ‘Zone’.

***See other articles related to recharging, re-energizing, energy management, relaxation, work-life, stress management, health, well-being, exercising