Posts from — February 2012

No  matter what you do or where you live , having a good health is the foundation for living a wonderful life. If you don’t have good health, you will not be able to enjoy anything including the rewards of your own hard work. So, taking care of your health should be an integral part of your daily routine.

People lose their health for earning wealth. Later, they lose all their wealth for regaining their health

Especially, in this modern world where people are getting busier by each passing day, it has become really critical to listen to your body and give attention to your health.

Fortunately, by adopting few really simple healthy habits, you can maintain good health, provided these habits  form a part of your daily life routine.

In this article, I am sharing few healthy habits for life which can make profound positive effect on your health and keep you fit and fine. Needless to say, to form any habit, you need to repeat them on a constant basis until your actions turn into habit. I am also tips/tools for forming the habit.

1. Drink right amount of water

This point comes on top for sure. Most of us work and live in air conditioned environment. With less physical movements and because of teh effect of air conditioning, you won’t make feel thirsty even though your body might be craving for water. So , don’t wait until you feel thirsty. Just make sure you drink water in frequent intervals.

Benefits of drinking water:

• Water does wonders. For more details, read this.

How to form this habit:

• Keep a water bottle handy near your desk or workplace and sip water regularly.
• Put up paper notice on your desk’s board reminding you to drink water.
• Set up an alert in your mobile reminding you to drink water every 2 hours.
• Use Microsoft outlook to schedule automatic alert every 2 hours reminding you to sip water periodically.

2. Take a walk

An easy to miss habit. Thanks to lifts and elevators which are easing your trouble of walking. But in reality, they are snatching away an easy opportunity of walking from you.

Never mind. It’s up to you, how much you use/adopt to technology. Try to walk whenever you get an opportunity. Don’t sit for long time continuously.

Benefits:

• Walking improves your blood circulation.
• It brings flexibility to your body muscles.

How to form this habit:

• Avoid lifts/elevators when possible. Walk.
• Take an evening walk/morning walk.
• Walk with your kid.
• Take a walking break for every 2 hours in your working routine.
• Walk for no reason. They all yield same benefits

3. Smile

Smile increases your face value.

Smile makes you feel good. And you work well when you feel good. Not only that, your feel good factor has indirect soothing effect on your surroundings as well So, smile. Be friendly.

Benefits:

• Soothing effect on your inner self.
• Makes you a better human being.

How to form this habit:

Just smile. That’s all

4. Wake up early

This one seems easy, but little difficult to implement (ask me). But, it has compound benefits. Waking up early can benefit you in multiple ways.

Benefits:

• You can do your creative work in the early morning.
• Reach office early by avoiding traffic. Experience the stress free driving.
• Plan for the day well ahead of time.
• Do exercises/yoga.
• Study. I have always observed that, morning time study was more effective for me.

Time for early waking up varies from person to person , but if you would like to enjoy as much as benefits , then I feel 5am looks good time to wake up.

How to form this habit:

Look at this article which helps you to wake up early.

5. Get enough sleep

This is again a very important. Get 6-8 hours of quality sleep daily.

Benefits of healthy sleep habits:

• Refreshed you,every morning.  Ready to face the world with better energy.
• More focus.
• Less fatigue.

How to achieve this habit :

• Set up a deadline for gong to bed.
• Switch off internet/TV early.
• Listen to soothing music before you go to bed. This will allow you to sleep peacefully relieving you from stress.

6. Blink eyes

People who work on computers on daily basis, it’s especially important to take care of your eyes since you are continuously exposed to monitors. Blinking  your eyes frequently helps your eyes keep moist and lubricated. Your eyes will be less stressed and you can avoid lots of issues related to eyes like burning or itching etc. Believe me, no eye drop is equivalent to tears. Nature rules.

7. Eat right

Eat at proper time. Don’t let your digestive juices go waste and attack your own stomach. Stick to an eating schedule and adhere to it. Improper food habits and starving often results in digestive issues such as acidity, gas and even more serious health complications. Just eat at proper time. Listen to your body.

Benefits of healthy food habits:

• You will maintain good health and make less trips to doctors.
• Prevention is better than cure. This is so true when it comes to diseases. Healthy food habits makes you real strong and immune to diseases.

8. Reduce stress

Stress has been a biggest challenge/threat to modern day life. It’s an unpleasant side effect of ‘busy’ ness.

Most of the people face some kind of stress in their work/home/environment. However, what makes a difference is how we respond to stress. Luckily, stress can be managed.

Benefits of reducing stress:

• Reducing stress from your life has amazing effect on your mind, body and on people surrounding you.
• Being stress free makes you a healthier person. When you are healthy and cheerful, you are in a better position to take care of your loved one and respond in positive manner to your surroundings.
• Reducing stress adds years to your life.

How to form this habit:

• Try to minimize debt/loans. This will help you becoming financially stress free.
• Have effective communication in work/life. This will help you to bridge the gap and build healthy relationships
• Wake up early. Become stress free from traffic and chaos.
• Try adopting minimalist lifestyle. This will free you from unnecessary commitments. Be simple. Live simple.
• See the things, as they are. Take things in practical way.
• Never assume. Instead take decisions based on facts and analyzing pattern trends. Decisions taken under emotional circumstances often result in emotional stress.
• Cultivate hobbies and increase your happiness quotient. Life is not all about work. It’s about work/life balance.

I hope, I have shared some practical ways to develop and nourish few really needed healthy habits for the modern day you. Have I missed anything? Please feel free to add in the comments. Let us all benefit

Looking forward to your comments.

Photo credit : evilerin

 

This is a guest post by Jemima Lopez from Zen College life. To guest post on this blog, check guest post page.

For most people, the worst part of being unemployed isn’t the absence of income.  Rather, the most unbearable thing about not having a job is the feeling of worthlessness and purposelessness that quickly builds as the job search draws out.

It’s easy to take the unresponsiveness of an employer as an insult or let your success at obtaining a job define your success or failure as a person.  Still, it is important to remain positive, no matter how trying the situation might be.

In addition to changing your perspective of your job search, and keeping you from the dark thoughts that actually work against you, interviewers have reported that how positive a person is has a direct impact on their performance in the interview.

Keeping your head up when everything else seems down is certainly easier said than done, but here are a few ways you can stay positive while you look for work:

1. Volunteer

You won’t get a paycheck at the end of the day, but volunteering pays you back in more fulfilling ways than a full time job ever could.  There is little in the world more satisfying than helping others, and you might find a new passion in a field you never knew you loved.  Or, if you volunteer in your field, you will have opportunities to sharpen your skill set, learn new skills and even make useful contacts that could help you get a job.  Furthermore, volunteering is a great way to fill the employment gap, and will definitely be a powerful conversation piece during an interview.

2. Explore your hobbies

Often we get sidetracked by our jobs and lose sight of the things we really enjoy doing (unless you are one of the few and far between people who holds a job doing what you really love).  While you are between jobs, why not get back into sailing, painting, writing, cooking, carpentry, crafts, or whatever else you might be passionate about?  Besides being personally satisfying, you might even find that there is a business opportunity waiting to be discovered in your hobby.  Love to play piano? Teach others to play.  Make furniture and sell it.  Use the time between jobs to rediscover what you love — you might be surprised where it could take you.

3. Start an exercise program

As we get comfortable in our jobs and our lives, fitness is frequently the first thing to go out the window.  Make it a point to exercise when you are job-hunting — you’ll find that you’ll feel better about yourself (which is due in part to the endorphins exercise releases) and also start looking better to, which is always a nice confidence and spirit booster.

The “in-between” time is never easy to cope with, but if you apply yourself and keep moving, you might discover a deeper happiness than any job could provide.

About the author : Jemima Lopez is a freelance blogger and writer who writes for Zen College Life, the directory of higher education, distance learning, and best online colleges

Photo credit : Flickr

1. Admit that you have failed. Make yourself  a commitment to reverse those failures. Work on it. Start with below 19 tips.
2. Attach yourself with right people.
3. Don’t ignore small tasks. Unfinished /delayed small tasks often result in big problems.
4. Value time. No one cares your reasons for being late. Especially your boss.
5. Don’t underestimate yourself. You are important.
6. Do what needs to be done, right now. Procrastination is not just a problem, it can turn into a disease if you make it a habit.
7. Cultivate the habit of verifying your work. 5 more minutes of verification can save your hours of re-work.
8. Don’t judge anyone by their first impression. Instead, analyze the pattern.
9. Be honest. This tip might have been shared a million times, but there is a reason for it. It makes you great person.
10. Do smart work rather than hard work. Smart work is not shying away from hard work, but finding the real reasons why you are working so hard and automating/simplifying your hard work.
11. Don’t hurry to learn advanced topics. First,make your basics strong. Advanced topics are just extension of basics. If your foundation is weak, you might understand/relate things in a wrong way which is worst than not understanding the things.
12. Try not to push yourself too hard for achieving many things at same time. Just focus on one goal and put your quality efforts towards it.
13. Make your work environment less distracting. Clean your desk, put headphone, or put an away status in messenger. Do whatever it takes to give yourself a productive hour. A focused hour is much better than a 8 hours of distracted efforts.
14. Don’t put hopes on luck, instead have faith in your efforts. Luck is nothing but known outcome for your hard work.
15. Negative people are more attractive than positive people, because they speak lots of interesting non-factual things. Best way to deal with negative people is to stay away from them or make yourself immune to their thoughts.
16. Always validate your important achievements with your peers. You might surprisingly receive few valuable tips for improvements.
17. Be consistent in your efforts. Don’t expect results or appreciations overnight.
18. Don’t be a busy man. Instead, have proper work life balance. Being always busy robs your beautiful years from life.
19. Stop being a consumer always. Instead, try creating something of your own.
20. Personal development blogs won’t change you. They can only inspire you. What brings the real change is your determined action.

Photo credit: aloshbennett

A first impression is the last impression – If you fail to make a good first impression, then you are all set to come last in the race because you will never get a second chance.

This is what  I was taught during my schooling, colleges and even the same advice was passed on to me while taking up employment.

I believed this advice firmly and decided that I will always try to make a good first impression in order to succeed.

While this advice of making a good first impression pushed me to start my career with a bang , but the fact was I was not able to keep the momentum going.

I met with failures very soon and embraced frustration, found myself in clueless situation.

I was a teenager who jumped into information technology industry immediately after my college wrestling with keyboard and learning MS DOS and Word star (which were popular in those days) sitting in front of that monochrome monitors.

When I was trying to make a good first impression my job, I was forcing myself too much during the first few days of employment to make others think that I am the fastest learner and will do everything that was given to me. I was saying yes to every work coming on my way.

My bosses liked my super-charged attitude and  soon trusted me as a valuable player in the team. Their impression about me was that I had learned everything in a short period of time.

But, that image was short lived. I was no more a new employee and since I had set the benchmark high during my initial days (reason: to make a first impression), I was assigned multiple tasks and asked to complete all in stiff deadlines. Soon, my enthusiasm started coming down. Pressure was building up inside me to complete pending tasks.

I just couldn’t handle those. Advice of making a good first impression was working against me.

I failed. I couldn’t complete the tasks and ended up with silly mistakes. Because, I underestimated the value of time for learning the new system.

I thought I had understood everything (at least tried to show like that) .

The first impression thing screwed up everything. I failed miserably.

This was almost a decade back. Then, I was not aware how to progress in life. I didn’t know that the ultimate progress in life is learning things in correct way and implementing them in right way. What I was trying was to build a skyscraper with weak foundation.

Thanks to personal development, which opened my eye to my inner self.

When I took up a task of discovering myself and decided to fix myself, I started experiencing an exact opposite of what I was taught during schooling, colleges.

I realized that first impression is not the last impression. And judging the life based on a ‘first impression’ could bring me dangerous results. And allowing some one to judge me on my first impression would have the same effect too.

My experiences were not limited to my job or competitive areas, there were chunks of lessons in other areas of life such as buying habits, relationships and much more.

Lessons were pretty clear.

First impression is not the last impression.

You just need to be yourself , natural and practical.

Everything falls in the right place if you focus on creating a solid foundation.

Research is always accurate than trusting the hype.

I learned these lessons because I had reversed the popular belief called making a first impression.

Instead of trying hard to make a good first impression, I started involving in the new job as a brand new comer. I was humble, polite and hardworking. I started with smalls steps by putting my efforts into understanding each module of the job and slowly understanding the whole ecosystem of the work.

I was seeking information from seniors and thanked them for their inputs.I admitted my silly mistakes and corrected them immediately and kept going.

Surely, I was on the right path. I started getting more and more support and attention from seniors and the boss over the time. I didn’t focus on making a first impression, I just worked hard and focused on developing a strong knowledge base. I was slow but steady.What I was trying is to release my true potential.

A strong foundation was built.

Results were outstanding and I was appreciated for my contributions and that developed more confidence inside me. This is what I practice after those life changing lessons.

I hope you got the message in the above story.

So, don’t try hard for making a good first impression. You will be MISJUDGED. Because you look artificial when you try to make a good first impression. Instead, be natural, be hardworking and honest.

Nobody can (should) judge a person or a thing based on first impression

This is the core message I wanted to convey in this whole article.

Most of  first impressions are not real. They are either inaccurate, deceiving or fake.

Let’s look at your own daily life examples.

How many times you have seen a new person, and at first thought he looks like a baddy. However later after spending some time with him, you found that he is a humble and a good guy. A first impression about him was unreal.

How many times, you have bought a new phone by it’s first look and later found that it lacks some of the very important functionality? You would have surely surrendered yourself to aggressive marketing which would have created an urge inside you to get this new phone. A first impression of the gadget was worth a 5 star rating. But what you failed to notice is ,first impressions are some created to infuse a sense of urgency within you to buy the new gadget immediately whether you really need it or not. In the age of consumerism, you might have experienced this many times.

As a manager, how many times , you wrote off a new employee thinking that he is  ineffective because he failed to make a good first impression? You later surprised to see that he is doing quite amazing in some other team. First impression of the new employee again deceived you.

You can’t judge anyone based on their first impression because you are ignoring a simple truth that human behavior is complex.

This truth not only applies to human behavior but extends itself to other areas of our life as well.

The worst thing that can happen to people is they might get married to a wrong person if they judge him/her based on the first impression.

I hope you can imagine the consequences.

What is the right way to judge a person/situation/stuff then?

 

You need to have patience and thankfully, there are plenty of resources available for research.

You need to analyze the pattern over the time, instead of judging a person/stuff/situation instantly based on the first impression.

In fact, it’s no more optional. You SHOULD adopt this habit right away if you want to make RIGHT choices and handle the situations in a better way.

Stay calm and observe the variations over the period of time.

I am sure , you will come to an obvious conclusion soon which is far accurate than the instant opinion which was created based on the first impression.

If you are a boss, don’t judge a new employee on day one or even within a week. He might be misjudged. Instead, give him a month. Extend your support to him and expose him to valuable information. Offer constructive feedback for his silly mistakes. Appreciate his small accomplishments. Soon, he might do wonders for you.

If you are tempted to buy that new gadget by seeing it’s first look on TV or internet, don’t rush to buy it immediately. Instead, hold yourself back and wait for user reviews and feedback. After going through reviews, if the gadget still excites you, go and pick it up. But if user reviews are all negative, do you still want to take the risk?

If you see a business offer coming on your way which is too good to resist and offered with unbelievable goodies, be patient and step back for allowing yourself to do some research. You might even later find that the business offer was nothing more than a scam.

If you are a software programmer and the code you just wrote works perfect in it’s first run (by it’s first impression). don’t hurry to celebrate. Instead, observe the code behavior in the whole ecosystem of the project. Test the code in various scenarios and see that how other modules respond to your code. By doing so, you will be a better programmer. Real programmer spends most of the time in testing, not in programming.

I am sure, above examples showed you the consequences of exercising  judgement by first impression.

I am not saying that first impressions are always false, but they surely need a second look.

Don’t worry. Life will give you a second chance. Observe, analyze and work hard.

A long lasting impression is what you should be aiming for, not for the temporary first impression.

Your turn

How about you? Have you ever judged some one by their first impression? Or have you ever been judged by some one based on your first impression? I am genuinely interested in hearing about your experiences. Tell your story in the comments.

Photo credit : free digital photos