How to plan for the coming new year - by Robin Sharma

Step #1: Evaluate 2009. Do a written story recording what went well this past year and, even more importantly, what areas you could improve on. Also list all your wins and as many high points as you can recall. Get a clear picture of how you showed up.

Step #2: Set Your Theme. Come up with a theme for 2010. It may be "The Year of Financial Freedom" or "The Year of Work Excellence" or "The Year of Fearlessness". But get a theme into a document you can start reviewing every week.

Step #3: Create a Mission. The next step is to develop a one paragraph mission statement and put it into this document. Clarity precedes mastery so the more clear your ultimate mountaintop for 2010 is, the greater your focus will be. And the most positive results you'll see.

Step #4: List Your Big 5. OK, now ask yourself this powerful self-coaching question: "What 5 things need to happen between now and December 31, 2010 for this to have been the single most successful year of my life to date?" Write down those five goals as simply and clearly as possible into this document.

Step #5: Sequence Your Big 5. Now break your Big 5 down into quarterly goals. Set 5 core goals for the first/second/third and fourth quarters of 2010 to ensure you nail your Big 5. Review these every week. Reflect on them everyday if you really want to win. Make these strategic objectives the sole focus of your life.

Step #6: Refocus Every Morning. Life's job is to distract you. Your job is to stay staggeringly focused on what's most important. Take 15 minutes during your morning resetting period to reflect on your goals, to envision your best moves and to track out a day that's productive, passionate and fun.

Step #7: Get Devoted to Learning. The #1 skill of super successful people is that they are relentless learners. While others are wasting time on low-value websites or watching mindless reality tv shows, they are listening to audio programs, studying books on leadership and success and basically creating a rich, beautiful and meaningful life. As you journey through each day of 2010, make the time to fuel your brain with ideas on excellence and creating your absolute best. Nothing's more important than that. And please remember that all it takes is a single idea to transform the way you lead and how you live.

Book: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Author: Stephen Covey

This is among the best self help books available. As I read many books, I tend to classify them into 4 categories -

• Books that are less interesting and also have less content value - not much worth learning
• Books such as some story books which are interesting but don't teach a lot
• Books that are interesting and also provide a lot of value - teach lot of good stuff
• Books that may seem not that interesting but have huge value. They teach a lot. For instance, during school days, one feels that some subjects are interesting, but some are not. But still they must be learnt, because they have high content value. They teach a lot. I call these books - study books

This book is a study book in self - help. Some parts may feel less interesting, but the content in the book is extremely useful. In many things, it changes the paradigms of the person.

Among the most useful content that I found was

• Concept of interdependent people
• Synergy
• Win/Win solutions
• Planning based on weekly basis
• Quadrant II lifestyle

To know more, read the book - just wonderful.

Book: The Alchemist

Author: Paulo Coelho

This is one of the best books I have read so far. This book is about a young boy who goes about pursuing his dreams. He follows his dream to become a shepherd. He further dreams of a treasure and gathers up the courage to follow that dream. He learns many many things in the process. A wonderful fable that teaches as it delights. The book teaches us to get out of the comfort zone. And to understand the Language of the World.

This quote is widely used in the book - "when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it".

In the SRK Hindi movie, Om Shanti Om, this quote was translated and widely used.

The ending is especially for anyone who wants to pursue his dreams, but may be thinking of the pros and cons and eventually decides not go ahead.

Book: The monk who sold his ferrari

Author: Robin Sharma

I had heard a lot of about this book. Several times I had searched in the library, but it had already been issued by other people. Fortunately I got it this time. My expectations were very high from this book. And this book surpassed all my expectations. Hats off to the author!!!!

This is probably among the best self-management books that I have read so far. Lot of timeless and priceless secrets are shared in this book. Well many self-improvement books have them. So what is special in this book. In addition to the explanation of the secrets, techniques are given how to actually implement them in daily life. This is practical stuff. Many things are new and I had definitely not heard/read them before. And since all of this is written in the form of a fable, it is more interesting.

This is a book worth reading by everyone especially, working people. When I mention this book to anyone, they have heard about it. They know it is a self-management book. But have not found time to read it. My humble suggestion to such people is to take some time from their busy schedule and read this book. It is only 200 pages!

Finally, Robin Sharma has created his own social networking type of website called http://www.successnation.com

Make the Most of the 'Present' which is Now

Make the Most of the “Present” Which is Now - by Pushpa Sreenivasan

via Oracle Corporation Recruitment Blog by david.talamelli on 2/22/09

When you look around, you notice the usual buzz of high-pressure work has diluted. With it we are gifted with abundance of time. Though it’s a gift that we have received in abundance, a lot of us don’t seem to have realised so. Here are some simple tid-bits about how we can make the most of the present, which is “now”:

1) Increase your Network: While I was attending a conference titled women 2:0, the senior speaker was mentioning how she also networked with various people within her organisation despite her hectic schedule. She would fix lunch sessions with different people everyday. I know, lunchtime is precious for you to relax and don’t want to include business. Why not mix business with pleasure? Its not everyday you go and have lunch with unknown people. Consider doing it once a week. Fix up to have lunch with a colleague from a different team. Think about the gain in return. Firstly, you get to know your colleague better and you never know you may just discover you and him share passion for a same thing. Secondly, you are not going out of your way spending your time to do this but utilising your lunchtime. Thirdly, you build your network. Fourthly, you are taking a first step to come out of your comfort zone and making an attempt to feel comfortable with strangers. Try it and see the results.

2) Develep hobbies: Each one of us is gifted with 24 hours of time every single day. When you look around, you find how some people are multiskilled while some are not. Sometime back, this is what our VP Jan had to say in one of his meetings with the team. He insisted we pick up one hobby every year and excel in that. Just imagine the number of skills we would have picked up after 10 years. It is going to be astonoshing imagine 10 new skills apart from climbing your regular career ladder. For this to happen, you have to devote at least 30 minutes to 1 hr every day religiously from your schedule. Are you saying, “Where is the time”. Save time and invest in these hobbies. This surely will take you a long way.

3) Multitask: Another best way to increase your productivity at work or at home is by multitasking. It’s an art that you can gain expertise with lot of practice. Look for various things around you that can help you multitask. Lets say you have sent a document for a print out and the printer is 20 meters away from your desk. Combine this with a micro break from your work, to network with a colleague on the way and pick up your print out. You have done 3 things at a time than doing 3 things individually.

4) Reskill: “If you want what you never had, do something that you have never done” so goes a saying. In order to reach more heights in your life, make skills development as your religion. Along with your regular work, enroll to a course, which will add another degree to your career but also gives multidimension to your life. This way, your primary goal of climbing your career ladder is taken care of. Also you will achieve your secondary goals of adding more degrees. At the end of it all, you are more skilled than people around.

5) Productivity: If you want to know how productive you were at your work, take a look at your activities on a day-to-day basis. Though your productive hours at your work need to be 9 hours, we all know we are not putting in all 9 hours. There is some wastage time in the process. Considering all that, your productive hours at work will be anywhere between 5-6 hrs only. You need to fill in as many activities as possible in these 5-6 hours. Make the most of 5-6 hours to get all that you want out of 9 hours.

6) Avoid time stealers: They say, “Time is like a coin. Don’t allow somebody else spend your penny”. What I mean by this is, don’t allow somebody else spend your time. These could be unwanted emails, interruptions for calls, invitation for casual conversations or any of these sorts. Find out what is stealing your time and put a full stop to it and save it for yourself. Make your own judgement to say “no” for any stealers.

7) Use calendar: One of the very best ways to save time and make the most of it is, use the calendar. It not only works like your personal organiser, but also helps you plan your day. One of my colleage uses the calendar diligently. At the end of every week, when he looks at his calendar he knows very well what he did best, where he erred and what has to be the scope of improvement for the coming week. On the day he takes off, he strikes the sheet. This I think is the first step to becoming great in your own life.

8) Discipline: Consider this. You want to take a break from work and walk into the cafeteria. It is up to you if you want to spend an hour there or stick to 10 minutes break. Discipline goes a long way in shaping your outlook towards time. That’s why it is said “invest time and not spend. Investment leads to returns”. Discipline your usage of time and invest it in various other streams to see the returns.

9) Read one article per day and use it: Develop this brilliant habit of reading one article per day apart from your regular dose of newspapers and books. Subscribe to articles that are widely available on the net free of cost and read them atleast one per day. The insight that is gained through these is unmatchable to any learning that you get.

The author of this article has been with the Oracle India Recruitment Team for the past three years and can be contacted at pushpalatha.sreenivasan@oracle.com

Book: The Greatness Guide

Author: Robin Sharma

Robin Sharma is one of the world's top success coaches. His ideas have been embraced by celebrity CEO's, leading enterprenuers and many FORTUNE 500 companies. He is the author of the famous book 'The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari'.

I had heard a lot of the book 'The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari'. I have not read it. But when I found the book 'The Greatness Guide'  and came to know that Robin Sharma was the author, I immediately picked it up to read. 

This book has 101 short chapters which offer priceless advice. The author expresses all the advices with his personal experiences or his observations. Which is what I liked the most about the book. I agree to whatever is written in the book. But following it is easier said than done. I hope I can follow the great advices given here and improve life.

Robin Sharma's website : http://www.robinsharma.com/

Here one can find a free audio lecture 'Extraordinary Leadership' by Robin Sharma. It is approx 1 hour lecture. It is an mp3 file with filesize approx 15MB

The Power on Generosity

Excerpt from an excellent article from www.mindtools.com

Here are some practical tips to enhance our generosity of spirit:

1. Give people a sense of importance: In Adele Lynn's book, In Search of Honor: Lessons from Workers in How to Build Trust, we learn that 55% of workers value "giving people a sense of importance" as the number one item for building trust in the workplace. Consider what small actions you could take intentionally today to make people feel that the work they do is important, and that they themselves, as people, are important to your team.
2. Give feedback, not criticism: If giving frequent criticism is your style of management, consider some of these questions: Is your motivation genuine, or is it to gain points? Are you picking the right moment? Are you stopping to reflect how you might deliver the feedback while still honoring the other person?
3. Give people visibility: Giving people visibility in your organization is a special gift we bestow to help others shine and grow. I encourage you to think how you might give people more access to senior executives, and more access to your boss. Consider as well that people like to know that their boss's boss knows the great contributions they made to a project, or about their significant effort in writing a report that does not bear their name. Knowing that our leader is representing us well to upper management is a high-octane motivator, and engenders fierce loyalty.
4. Give anonymously: Real generosity of spirit is doing something for someone without their knowledge. Think of one or two deserving people in your organization that you can help by planting a career-enhancing seed on their behalf - perhaps saying something positive about their work to someone in authority?
5. Know when to forgive: Martin Luther King said that "The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind." Consider how harboring vindictive thoughts, even though so compelling at times, is nothing but violence to oneself. A characteristic of a generous person is a total lack of resentment – it's in effect being too noble, too big for that. Who do you need to forgive? What do you need to let go?
6. Give encouragement: Look around you and pick someone who needs encouragement, and resolve to give them that. Consider that some people have never received encouragement in their life – not from teachers, not from bosses, not even from parents.
7. Give opportunity: One of the most valuable gifts we can give someone is giving them a chance. Is there someone right now to whom you could give a second chance to prove themselves? If so, what active steps can you take to create the right circumstances for them to succeed? What doors can you open for someone who is well deserving, but not well positioned to be noticed?
8. Share your knowledge and experience: Resolve to become a philanthropist of know-how. What knowledge, expertise, or best practices can you share with others as a way to enrich them? For inspiration, read about other leaders who practice teaching in their organization for everyone's benefit – for example, Jack Welch, whose calendar was filled with hundreds of hours spent teaching thousands of GE managers and executives at the company's training center at Croton-on-Hudson; or the ex-CEO of Intel, Andy Grove, who devoted considerable amounts of time to teaching newly hired and senior managers his philosophy on how to lead in an industry where innovation goes stale very quickly.
9. Give moral support: Public speaking is known to be among the greatest fears experienced by millions of people. The next time you attend a presentation given by an apprehensive team member, practice giving them moral support. The simplest of generous acts are abstaining from checking your Blackberry, giving the odd nod in agreement, and practicing looking with kind eyes. Finally, take some inspiration from Walt Whitman's beautiful words: "The habit of giving enhances the desire to give." Giving is like building a muscle. It requires practice and persistence – once it becomes habitual, you will emerge as a stronger leader

Stress free life

Some time back, we had reader's digest subscription. A free self improvement book came along with it. I have found it very useful. The name of that book is '100 ways to a stress-free life'. I don't think this book is available in the market. But the author of this book is G. Gaynor McTigue. I found his homepage and seems like he is very reputed author writing books on self-improvement. The following is the link of his website.

http://www.pickmeupbooks.com/ggaynor/index.html

Tej Gyan Foundation

Every Tuesday, there was a program on vividbharti from Tej Gyan Foundation. It gave very good information on spirituality and how to live life successfully.

Tej Gyan Foundation website
http://www.myhappythoughts.com/

Self improvement

A very good link for resources on self improvement
http://www.mindtools.com/