Tag: self care

Work-Life Balance – Why It Is Essential to Maintain Harmony in Job and Personal Life

written by PRIYA ACHARYA

In today’s fast-paced world, maintaining a balance between professional responsibilities and personal life is crucial. With increasing work demands, people often find themselves overburdened, leading to stress, fatigue, and a decline in overall well-being. Achieving a healthy work-life balance is not just beneficial but essential for long-term success and happiness.

The Importance of Work-Life Balance

Improves Mental and Physical HealthExcessive workload can result in anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues. Additionally, a sedentary lifestyle and irregular eating habits can lead to physical health problems. Striking a balance allows individuals to focus on their well-being, ensuring a healthier lifestyle.

Enhances Productivity and EfficiencyOverworking does not necessarily lead to higher productivity. In fact, employees who maintain a work-life balance tend to be more efficient and focused, leading to better performance and job satisfaction.

Strengthens RelationshipsSpending quality time with family and friends is essential for emotional well-being. Neglecting personal relationships for work can lead to loneliness and dissatisfaction. A balanced approach allows individuals to nurture meaningful connections.

Reduces Burnout and StressConstantly working without breaks can lead to burnout, reducing overall enthusiasm and creativity. Taking time off helps in rejuvenation, ensuring sustained motivation and innovation.

Tips to Maintain Work-Life Balance

Set Clear BoundariesAvoid taking work home and establish a clear separation between professional and personal life. Define working hours and stick to them as much as possible.

Prioritize Tasks and Manage Time WiselyOrganizing tasks based on urgency and importance can help in effective time management. Utilizing productivity tools can also enhance efficiency.

Take Breaks and Practice Self-CareShort breaks during work hours improve concentration and prevent exhaustion. Engaging in activities like exercise, meditation, or hobbies can also contribute to overall well-being.

Learn to Say NoTaking on excessive workload can be overwhelming. It is important to set limits and decline tasks that are beyond one’s capacity.

Utilize Flexible Work OptionsMany companies now offer remote work and flexible schedules. Taking advantage of such options can help in better time management and reduce commuting stress.

Conclusion

A healthy work-life balance is essential for a fulfilling life. By prioritizing well-being, setting boundaries, and managing time efficiently, individuals can enjoy both their professional and personal lives. Employers and employees must work together to create an environment that fosters productivity without compromising on personal happiness. Ultimately, a balanced life leads to greater success and satisfaction in both career and relationships.

Written by Priya Acharya

Meaning of Confidence

Confidence means having security about oneself and oneself ability. It is belief of being valuable, worthwhile and capable. Confidence turns thoughts into action.

Factors affecting Confidence

There are several factors that affect confidence both internal and external. Genetics, childhood, environment, society, media, health, experience can all add or take away how you feel about yourself and your abilities. The choices you make, risks you take and how you respond to challenges play major role in confidence development.

Tips to boost Confidence

  • Don’t compare yourself to others.
  • Surround yourself with Positive people.
  • Take care of your body.
  • Face challenges.
  • Continuous practice to sharpen your skills.
  • Good diet plan.
  • Try new things.

WHAT TO DO WHEN WE FAIL?

We all fail at some point. It’s unavoidable and definitely not a pleasant experience. Our self-confidence and self-esteem might hit the ground. Constant questions of self-doubts arises. But any kind of failure can be an amazing opportunity for growth and development when we approach it the right way.

Here are few things to remember when something doesn’t go your way.

FAILURE IS NOT FATAL

It’s never too late to re-start and pursue your dreams and goals, in one way or another. If you look around there always be hidden opportunities waiting for you to showcase your abilities and skills. There will always be another chance, and this time you can approach with greater readiness and experience. Remember that everything happens for a reason, each opportunity has something to teach you.

LEARN YOUR LESSON

One of the greatest advantages of failures, is that it makes you wiser. It gives you a chance to question yourself about the faults in the process and gives you a chance to re-invent and re-discover yourself. Helps you consider your situations from multiple perspectives. This is also the time when you seek for help from trusted  friends and colleagues for their inputs and reviews.

BE PREPARED FOR THE WORSE

It is harder to accept failure when you did not consider it be one of the outcomes of your process. Confidence is a good trait but being fully prepared for any outcome is helpful since this mindset will help you avoid feeling devastated when something doesn’t turn out the way you envisioned it.

Always keep a plan B and act on it immediately. This doesn’t mean that you need to give up or have a defeatist attitude, just to be ready for any outcome. This might help you have a backup or consider your resources more carefully than if you go all in.

NOTHING IS PERSONAL

A problem with failure is that we see it as something that reflects on us and our personal failings. But just as often, our failure happens due to factors that have nothing to do with us. Maybe we offer something that is not wanted or maybe there are objective circumstances that  change the situation beyond our control. Learn from your mistakes but don’t pin each situation solely on yourself. By Acknowledging that we don’t have control over the world, we can become resilient and focused on what’s within out purview.

keep going, keep growing

BE KIND TO YOURSELF

Approaching the failure with compassion is an important thing to remember. Often, we are really harsh to ourselves and that discourages us from trying again or learning from the mistakes we made.

Failure is not pleasant but is significant, and looking at any story of success, we will always find the failures that built it. See it as a necessary step, a chance to learn, and you will bounce back better and faster.

What Happened When I quit Social Media for a week!

Photo by Tracy Le Blanc on Pexels.com

As technology gets advanced, we as humans also get advanced and updated with all the latest techniques which we implement in our daily lives. In particular, the era in which we are all living is also known as: “The Era of Pandemic”, or  “The New Normal” or famously known as the “Tech World”.

It’s a fundamental phenomenon as a Human being since civilization that, we tend to find positivity and relieves from our stress when we are in any sort of social activity. Profoundly our youngsters who usually had “Friday nights enjoying with friends” or maybe going on a long drive with loved ones or maybe just chilling around in a beach with their homies is always their favorite part. Unfortunately, the world got standstill and the world collapsed out from the deadliest pandemic ever which changed all our lives.

Living in a situation where we are restricted to go out of the house, we find social media as the best way to be socially active with our friends and loved ones who are far away from us, and in this scenario, the meetups are done through face call, Chats, video calls which are little relief in these days.

According to my personal experience: when lockdown started, then my usage for social media increased and this growth of interest for social media became my addiction in the end. Imagining a life without social media made me felt anxious and depressing whenever I got this notion. This Notion was a state of perplex and also was a phase of my life when I was frightened of my addiction.

Technology brought both Bliss and discontent into our lives, which is also a major part of concern if we look into the darker side of how it is affecting every human, especially at the time when everyone is bounded to be inside their homes.

The secret of Detoxing My Social Media Addiction :

Out of wonder, I tried an experiment of myself which brought an unexpected but successful result for controlling my Social Media addiction.

To control addiction is never an easy job, but all we can do is to strive upon ourselves and one must be having faith in themselves only then they can accomplish their goals.

Things happened with me when I quit social media for a week, here are my accomplishments :

  • Sometimes Fewer Interactions are good for an Individual: Living in the world of social media, every individual feels like being active to gain a lot of attention and become popular among their friends and communities. But it is always not necessary to interact with people, sometimes not using social media and less interaction is essential as an individual should spend some time with themselves and forget the glittering life of social media. As it is a form of self-care which will help us to understand ourselves by introspecting the inner us.
  • You are less Anxious and Live a happy life: When a person becomes an addict of SM ( social media)world they tend to feel SM as the “Second Home”, which ultimately put them into a pit of anxiety and lowers their self-confidence, Watching other people who are glorious with all types of luxurious life and wearing a fancy dress makes them feel unwanted and people try to imitate their idols by watching their profile. Sometimes people find themselves useless in front of the bigger celebs who are having all sorts of materialistic things and compare their lives with the celebs.

This itself is a sign when people belittle themselves and there comes anxiety in their minds. When we are using less SM than we live a happy life because all we are focused on is with ourselves and we won’t compare our lifestyles with others. Especially the youngsters should keep this in mind that their lives are not meant for comparing,  as everyone has their own life which is beautiful in their ways.

  • Detoxing is a way for self-care/ self-love: As we can look that the people who usually spend more time on social media are often depressed and sad by scrolling things that are not available in their situation and environment. There are several contents which show us the negative side which provides a negative feeling to the people.

Cutting off social Media also helps to focus on yourself as it is a way of caring for yourself and caring for your health. Being addicted to anything destroys our sanity and deteriorates our health. So it’s better to avoid SM as much as possible.

Instead, explore yourself and find things that you love about yourself. “Before knowing the world, one must know about themselves as knowing the inner self is a way of understanding the world”.

  • We come out of the unrealistic / counterfeited world: Social Media is a world where everyone is living a fake life. There is no reality, everyone tries to show how perfect they are, but in reality, they are not even confident about themselves. So, it is better to avoid social media and switch on to the real world and live an adventurous life where the world is real and your experiences are real.
  • It helped me to find my real self: After Removing my social media for a week I realized one thing that I felt confident about myself as no one was there to judging me and no one passed comments, rather living in a real-world where I was the critic of my own life and explored my real self.

The time which I used to spend on SM for hours, were now invested in growing my inner self and keeping my body healthy by some workout and meditation, this helped me to focus on my personal growth.

This was the time when I explored myself and found my passion and hobbies which were realistic.

Social Media is not a bad place, but one must always remember that everything we do should be within limits. As social media is not the real world and we should know the difference between the real world and the unrealistic world.

What Is Survivor’s Guilt?

Some of us thank our lucky stars when tragedy happens, those we cherish while we remain unharmed, while others feel guilty. “Why should I be the only one? “What could I have done differently to avoid this?” we wonder. ” These are the defining characteristics of survivor guilt, an unofficial but very real condition.

Survivor guilt occurs when a person believes they have done something wrong by surviving a catastrophic incident in which others have died or otherwise succumbed. It can take many forms, ranging from bittersweet emotions to outright sadness. It is most frequently associated with large-scale disasters (such as combat casualties or plane accidents), but it can also manifest itself in unexpected ways.

The term “survivors’ guilt,” according to experts, has its origins in the Holocaust. There are people, for example, who refuse to forget and  instead feel obliged to ‘remember’ by an inner sense of responsibility; they purposefully deny and refuse themselves any happiness in living. Some wish to erase the memories but are unable to do so.

Most psychologists agree that survivors’ guilt is not a medically diagnosable syndrome, but it appears emotionally and physically in those who survive a terrible incident; guilt has traditionally been associated with war veterans, survivors of natural disasters, catastrophes, and sicknesses.

Survivor’s Guilt often falls into one of the the three overarching themes:

  1. Feeling guilty over one’s survival – When we think about survivor guilt, we usually think of this: if you were unharmed while others have been injured, you may believe you didn’t deserve to be protected and should’ve been hurt as well. You doubt the world’s fairness and justice.
  1. Feeling guilty over what you could have done – You’re regretful that you didn’t go above and beyond. You should’ve known better, and you should’ve tried harder. Perhaps you attempted but failed to save someone. There’s an exaggerated feeling of disappointment or blame: “If only I’d done things differently.”
  1. Feeling guilty over what you had done – You could also feel bad about something you did, such as shoving people out of the way to flee an armed gunman or abandoning your family for greater chances abroad. Alternatively, you may experience a great deal of guilt over things that happened by chance.

HOW TO COPE WITH SURVIVOR’S GUILT

  1. Embrace and let yourself feel the emotions – Survivor’s guilt is a known response to trauma, even if it is not particularly rational. Embrace and allow yourself to feel the emotions that emerge. Allow yourself time to absorb the feelings of guilt, sadness, anxiety, and sadness that often come with a traumatic incident and the death of a loved one. It is critical to get treatment if these feelings become overpowering or do not become more tolerable with time.
  1. Build relationships with others – Share your emotions with your loved ones. Search for an appropriate support group if loved ones are not able to comprehend your feelings. Survivors may interact with others, vent emotions, and offer advice in both face-to-face support groups and online forums.
  1. Make use of mindfulness exercises – People who have experienced tragedy may benefit from mindfulness, particularly amid flashbacks or moments of strong and unpleasant emotions. Focusing on the breathing, touching close fabrics, and hearing sounds both within and outside the space are some grounding strategies to try.
  1. Practicing self-care – It is terrifying and upsetting to see a loss or potential loss of life. Survivors can benefit from engaging in pleasurable activities. It is also critical for a person to get adequate sleep, maintain a well-balanced diet, and start exercising on a regular basis.
  1. Do something good towards others – Survivors of traumatic incidents might feel much better if they help others in some manner.

According to studies, some individuals experiencing survivor’s guilt and other symptoms  get better without therapy during the first year of the occurrence. Yet, at least one-third of individuals will experience the symptoms for three years or more. If an individual feels they would be unable to manage on their own, or if the symptoms are getting worse or becoming persistent, then it is critical to seek help.

JOURNEY TO SANITY – ACCEPTANCE

We thrive to learn skills in order to make ourselves useful. But the most useful skill of all is the art of learning to do nothing. In this fast-moving world where everyone is doing something and proving themselves, a large group of people who are probably doing their best might start doubting their abilities and start to compare their success from that of others. This might form a vicious circle of never-ending doubt and low self-confidence. Over time, it might get serious and even effect a person’s ability to work or look at things with a clear perspective.
However, self-acceptance and self-awareness is a tool that might help rebuilding the confidence and boosting positivity. Self-acceptance means accepting oneself completely irrespective of the flaws.

The question that arises here is that how will accepting a flaw change the situation and make us feel better?

To answer that, Acceptance is the first step to change. Acceptance does not mean that we have to live with it whether we like or not. Acceptance is the fact that we are aware of the flaw. We know the flaw and how it effects us. Acceptance means knowing and understanding the flaw. One cannot change anything without knowing the cause of the problem. Now, that we have accepted the problem and are at peace with it’s presence, we start to take small steps to change it into the way we like.

Let’s understand it in a simple way
You hurt your finger while chopping vegetables. So, the first thing you do is notice the wound and clean it and then, apply appropriate antiseptic medicine. You do not deny to look at the cut and let it be to heal itself on it’s own. Moreover, if we leave a wound open it might even get infected or worse. Similarly, a flaw or a problem in our life is like a open wound. We might choose to ignore it but that will never solve the problem, rather it would make it worse. Just like the wounded finger our own wounds need to be seen and heard. It requires acceptance and then only we can choose the correct medicine or the correct way to heal it.
It might be difficult to begin with as we have been conditioned to constantly find our flaws and compare ourselves with others who are better than us. But only self-awareness and acceptance can change that. One of the most promising way to do that is listening to positive affirmation before going to bed and after waking up. Repeated affirmations might help the subconscious brain to reprogram itself into believing new things and changing itself.

Do not forget to read more from the series 🙂

JOURNEY TO SANITY – MINDFULNESS

JOURNEY TO SANITY -JOURNALING

JOURNEY TO SANITY – SELF CARE

JOURNEY TO SANITY – DOUBLE STANDARDS

JOURNEY TO SANITY – SUNSHINE 🌤️

SELF CONFIDENCE

Self-confidence is defined as a feeling of trust in one’s abilities, qualities, and judgement. Self confidence can help you become successful in your personal and professional life.

Having self-confidence can bring many benefits – at home, at work, and within your relationships. Few of the positive effects self-confidence can have on your life.

1.Healthy relationships: Self confidence helps you better understand and love others. It also gives you strength to walk away if you’re not getting what you deserve.

2.Better performance: You’ll perform better when you feel confident. Rather than waste energy and time worrying that you aren’t good enough, you can devote your energy to your efforts.

3.Openness to try new things: When you have confidence in yourself and your abilities, you’re more willing to try new things.

4.Resillience: Believing in yourself can enhance your resilience, or ability to bounce back from any challenges or adversities you face in life.

There are things you can do to boost your self-confidence. When you struggle to feel confident about

anything, these strategies can help.

WAYS TO BUILD YOUR SELF-CONFIDENCE

  1. Surround yourself with Positive people: The people you spend time with influence your thoughts and attitudes about yourself more than you think. Surround yourself with people who love you and want the best for you.
  2. Take care of your body: If you practice self care, you know you’re doing something positive for your mind, body, and spirit, and you’ll naturally feel more confident.
  3. Practice positive self talk: Using self talk can help you build self confidence, overcome self-doubt, and take on new challenges. On the other hand, negative self-talk can limit your abilities and lessen your confidence.
  4. Face your fears: Stop putting things off until you feel more confident. The best way to build your confidence is by facing your fears.

How to judge people

Yes you got it right. We are often told  don’t judge people on the basis of any parameter.

And yet here I am suggesting to judge not just people but situations efficiently.

What kind of judgment are we talking about here? You should learn to do selective judgment. Judgment Done by you should be on an individual level and it should not affect adversely the second party in anyway.Like I said there is good in the world along with the bad so your judgment should be limited to warding off the bad people around you.

Your call should not become any sort of discrimination towards the people.Your hatred or your indifference should not become social or societal indifference.

Judgement of a person is only for cautious purposes.

Like it benefits girls the most.Seeing the number of rapes and hate crimes committed against women,a key of caution towards judgement of intention can be handy.

Similarly,mothers and sisters of culprits can judge their son’s behavior as to what tendencies he has.This can help in avoiding at least a few incidents of female cruelty.

I agree,In india parenting is different.But that’s what we need to learn as a country.Adopt the positive things from other countries.

It can help you be safe.Prevent accident,incidence of injury to both mind and body.

Another angle to judgement is we learn to analyse situations and can foresee our reaction to it.We constantly react to external stimuli in many ways.

It helps provide a presumption of a situation and hence we can bravely fave the wicked ones.

The fight between right and wrong even establishes itself at government level.

Whilst arguing that selective judgement is good and can be helpful to you there is yet another angle.To learn where to not judge.

Some wrongs we can avoid-

To judge people on the basis of their beauty.Bad.

Judging them on the basis of their money. Bad.

Doing friendships or relationships on the basis of pros and cons or advantages and disadvantage without having any emotions. Bad.

Judging someone on the basis of the language they speak,Fluency in English. Bad.

Judging someone on the basis of clothes to wear. Bad.

Judging someone on the basis of their religion/Caste. Bad.

Judging someone by the life choices they make ie being on married choosing a spouse etc.Bad. 

Considering Everyone who is not like you inferior and satisfying your pride.Bad.

&

Self analysis and helping others learn selective judgment to prevent or overcome possible future wrongs.Good.

Motivation – the eternal driving force

What is motivation?

People’s behavior usually has multiple reasons.

When a person is inspired by external forces, other people, or rewards, the motivation can be external. Motivation can also be internal, so inspiration comes from within, that is, the desire to improve at a certain point in time. Intrinsic motivation tends to motivate people more and achievements are more valuable. The structure used to understand motivation is the pyramid of needs proposed by the American psychologist Abraham Maslow in 1943 and by gradually discovering and satisfying a variety of needs, from the most basic needs (such as food and safety) to the overall need for love, belonging, and self-esteem, to fully realize the potential of self-realization.

Over time, Maslow extended this theory to include the need for self-transcendence: people reach the peak of growth by paying attention to things outside of themselves and find greater goals in life. Although the universality of Maslow’s theory has been questioned, many people believe that it reflects basic truths about human motivation.

How can I stop Procrastination ?
Procrastination is usually caused by underlying stress or fear of tasks. But there are some ways to overcome discomfort and hesitation. You can break the project into smaller, more manageable parts; taking one step will increase your motivation for the next step. You can limit the time spent on preparation or try to complete the task as quickly as possible. You can also set the rewards you get after completing tasks or parts of tasks.

How do you keep up with challenging tasks?

It is natural to get into trouble at some point, especially when dealing with complex tasks, but research shows that several strategies can help. One of them is to focus on the positive results of the work, such as passing a final exam. The other is trying to control his emotions while doing homework, for example, if he thinks of your next vacation while running on a treadmill, while others are trying to track your progress and tracking allows you to proceed to the next step. Try to enrich the task and make it more interesting (called a “temptation set”), such as listening to a podcast while doing laundry.

How can I stay motivated to exercise?

When motivation becomes an obstacle to training, some creative ideas should be considered. One of them is to expand your options: if you don’t have time to exercise in the gym, go for a walk, use your body weight for circuit training, or watch a video about yoga; the other is to make exercise more comfortable, such as B. Listen to one with a tape recorder Book. The other is to make a social contract with a friend or relative; for example, if you give your mobile phone time instead of exercising, you need to donate to the activity chosen by the other party.

Self care

Self care is a need which every one should practice, it is the need of the hour. In this fast pacing life where people are busy with work and responsibilities self care can be refreshment. It does not matter if you have many responsibilities and do not have time for yourself, you should always make some time from your busy schedule to care yourself not only that it will help you to lead a healthy life but it will also help in improving your mood so that you are active the whole day. Start the practice of self care now don’t keep it for tomorrow.
The steps you can follow in order to care yourself in a better ways are

  1. Manage stress- It is very important that you relive yourself from stress, tension stress is just a part of your life your should never treat it or give so much importance to it that it hampers your health. Refresh your mind by doing Yoga and doing breathing exercises. Take a walk to the nearest garden or a park. Taking a shower especially a hot water bath will help you a lot. This refreshment will motivate you and yes it will also increase your productivity and concentration to do your work.
  2.  Have fun – Do things which would make you happy, like being surrounded by your friends , going to watch a movie with them. Revisit your happy childhood memories which will make you feel good. Spend a quality time with your family  talk to them, laugh with them and feel grateful of having people who care about you.
  3.  Develop a hobby- hobbies are something which help you to engross in it and make you feel happy in the process of doing it. Like reading  book always transports you to the era or place where novel has its story plot. For sometime you just forget about your present and feel the book. You can pursue such hobbies so as to  rejuvenate yourself and make yourself happy.
  4.  Get out of your self doubts- Some times we are in a place where we doubt our capabilities, like “Can I Do it?”, these things are normal as you are in a process of achieving something big. At such points give affirmations to yourself that you can do it, it will boost your confidence. Definitely it will give you more strength to go forward for it  and you would strive to succeed in it.
  5.  Physical fitness-  It is very important that to maintain the physical fitness because it is very important to feel good from the inside so as to feel energetised. It does not mean to have a perfect body with six packs  ABSand muscles. It is to be active and fit and fitness is a habit which one has to develop. It is not necessary that one hits the gym but what is required is to do a routine exercise everyday. Like you can dance at home or have do yoga.
    It is really important to eat right, that is to maintain a healthy food eating habit that includes to eat food in time, not to skip meal and also to eat more healthy food.

    These steps will improve your lifestyle and will give you happiness as well as pleasure. Because  we can make others happy only when we are happy.

Self love is important

If someone ask you, name 5-10 people who you love the most, or 5-10 people who is in your priority. You will make a long list including your family, partner, relatives, friends etc but your own name is may be somewhere at the bottom or may not be even present in the list. As we don’t even think that self- love is as important as loving other or may be much more important than that. And it is not selfishness.

Self-love is accepting yourself fully with all your flaws, treating yourself with kindness and respect and nurture your growth and well being. It involves not only how you treat yourself but also your thought and feelings about yourself. When you love yourself you positively see to yourself. Not everytime, you may feel angry and disappointed sometimes but you will forgive yourself in sometime.

HOW TO SHOW YOURSELF LOVE

  • Say positive things to yourself. Like I’m beautiful, I’m able to do this in a proper way.
  • You prioritize your health and well being. If you are not feeling well or feeling sad then cuddle yourself, hug yourself, make feel yourself special. Make coffee for yourself. Read your favourite book or enjoy your favourite song. Spend time with yourself.
  • Spend time with those people who support you or make you feel happy and comfortable and built you up and avoid those people who don’t.
  • Try to recognise your strengths. Work on your skills. Try to polish them. It will help you to make yourself feel great.
  • Always value your feelings. Don’t do such things which you don’t like, just to make others happy. Sometimes thinking about yourself is not selfishness, it’s self-care.
  • Challenge yourself to do the tasks. It gives you positive motivation and help you to achieve your goal.
  • Accept your imperfections. Always think that you are beautiful in your own way, the way you are.

If you don’t love yourself then you are likely to be self critical and always fall into people’s pleasing and you start looking for perfectionism due to which you started feeling low and you started feeling flows in yourself which decrease your confidence. You also start tolerating abuse or mistreatment from others. You start neglecting your need and feeling because you don’t value yourself.

So, it is necessary to love yourself and prioritize yourself. It will help you to develop confidence and self-esteem. Self love is the foundation that allow us to be assertive, set boundaries and create healthy relationship with others, practice self care, pursue our interests and goals and feel proud of what we are.

Personal Development

Personal development can include any skill that you build to improve yourself—your emotions, thoughts, or behaviors. It doesn’t really matter which skills you want to improve; the key to personal development is taking the right steps — steps that help ensure that you reach whatever goal you are pursuing.

What are the most important personal development skills? It really depends on what you’re trying to achieve. But here are 9 that I have found to be important to successful personal development.

1. Start by figuring out which personal development skills you need to build. The first step in any personal development strategy is to figure out how to best use your time. It makes little sense to learn how to code if you don’t plan to be a coder or to bench press 400 pounds if you don’t plan to be a weight lifter. These can be hobbies, but personal development is more about building skills to reach your goals. So it’s good to take some time to self-reflect. (If well-being is a goal of yours, take this well-being quiz to see which skills you need to build.)

2. Develop entrepreneurial thinking. Everyone can benefit from learning how to think like an entrepreneur, regardless of whether or not you are one. Why? Because entrepreneurs are innovative, good at planning for all possible outcomes, and skilled at getting others to buy into their vision or dream. And perhaps more importantly for personal development, they tend to be adaptable to all sorts of situations.

By developing entrepreneurial thinking, you better adapt to whatever your circumstances are so you can more easily achieve your goals, whether those goals are to start a business that makes a positive impact in the world, to set yourself up for an early retirement, or climb Mount Everest.

3. Develop a growth mindset. If we have a “fixed mindset,” we may shy away from challenges that could help us grow. But this can be problematic because our fear of making mistakes can lead us to avoid challenges and new experiences—experiences which would help us grow, improve ourselves in important ways, and create the life we desire.

If we have a “growth mindset” we seek out challenges because we value learning and growth more than we value feeling smart or knowing what we’re doing. That’s why those with a growth mindset often build new skills more easily: They believe they can and so they really work at it.

4. Develop your self-soothing mechanism. High levels of stress are not only bad for our health and well-being, they can prevent us from effectively pursuing and achieving our self-development goals. By learning effective, long-lasting stress-reducing strategies, your body and mind will be more equipped to handle the inevitable challenges that arise when you’re trying to develop yourself.

5. Develop resilience. Resilience is that super-important skill that helps you bounce back quickly after being knocked down. This is one of the most important skills for success because none of us will achieve anything if we don’t keep trying when we fail. We can build resilience by improving skills like emotion-regulation, mindfulness, and positivity.

6. Develop your value compass. It’s not always easy to live by our core values. But when we go through life without following our personal values, we can easily get lost. We may suddenly “wake up” and realize that we are not who we want to be or where we want to be. This is why it’s so important to stay in alignment with our personal values.

What are your values? Perhaps: kindness, curiosity, creativity, hard work, or personal relationships. Define your personal values so you know which actions are in alignment with those values.

7. Create a personal development plan. A good personal development plan takes all these factors into consideration — the WHAT, the HOW, the WHY, and the WHEN. So ask yourself:

What skills will you build?

How will you build them?

Why will you build them?

And when will you build them?

8. Record your progress towards personal development. Keeping track of our progress as we move toward our personal development goals is key to making sure we’re on the right track. Then we can pause and take a different direction if we’ve gone off course. By maintaining self-awareness and frequently checking in with ourselves, we can identify things that we need to devote more attention to. As a result, we can make better progress toward our personal development.

9. Keep developing yourself in new ways. The science is clear: The more ways we develop ourselves, the broader our skill set, and the more success we tend to have. So try learning some new emotional skills or do some activities to build new skills. You just might learn something that changes your life.

Confidence build-up pathway!

One way to make a big difference to your life is to gain confidence. From negotiating your salary, to standing up for yourself, to believing you can make your dreams a reality, confidence is often the most important ingredient. But confidence doesn’t come naturally to most of us. For the majority of people, those big moments where you have to believe in yourself usually result in self-doubt and a little anxiety. This is normal.

The good news is that confidence isn’t just a magic quality that some people have and some people don’t. Confidence can be developed, it just takes a few tricks and some practice. It might seem impossible at the start, but if you keep a few things in mind then you really can gain confidence with time. Here’s a few simple tips to get you started.

1. Take care of yourself

One of the best ways you can begin to value yourself and see your own importance more is to start taking care of yourself a little more. Take some time to make sure you are eating a little better or giving your body the exercise it needs. Over time, you will begin to see the improvements you have made to your health and the importance of valuing yourself.

2. Give someone some help

It could be something small, with a neighbour, a friend, a colleague, or a complete stranger. Most of us have a family member who could do with a little assistance in their lives, especially the elderly who need caregiving sometimes. By making a difference in someone else’s life you will see just how impactful you can be, which can be a great way to gain confidence.

3. That voice is not right

We all have voices in our head that tell us things we shouldn’t listen to. Those voices can trick us into doing silly things, but did you know there are some great psychological techniques for ignoring or controlling those voices? The next time you hear the voice that tells you that you can’t do something, or don’t deserve something, just remember “It’s just a voice, that doesn’t make it accurate.”

4. It’s not about what you can do right now

If someone asks you to do something that you can’t do, don’t lose confidence. The only important thing that is that you can find the motivation to learn how to do this thing, or that you can tell the person this is just not possible. Having confidence is not just about who you are right now. It’s definitely not about who you used to be. It’s about who you are going to become.

So, keep these few tips in mind, gain confidence little by little each day, and keep moving forward. This can make a real difference to your life and work, so give it a go. A more confident you starts today.

Shampoos: Adding Grime & Subtracting Shine

We all crave for luscious, silky, thick, shiny and long hair, shampoo ads can blind us with the attractive videos and the visuals it has to offer, especially with a famous celebrity. We blindly trust the attractive and amusing shampoo ads which make us believe in drastic changes in the hair quality after we use that respective shampoo. It never really meets our demands. One is unknowingly damaging their hair by using such products.

Most of the shampoos which you get over the counter in stores are not SLS free, contain silicon and also are plastic based, which means the effects are temporary, most of us must have tried all the new brands available in the market to see a major improvement in our hair quality. But I wonder if anyone of us were really satisfied with the product.

Even though the products claim to have argon oil, grape seed oil and other essential oils which can solve our hair woes but the dangerous chemicals like cyclomethicone, copolymers, SLS or even methylchloroisothiazolinone are present in huge amounts in-comparison to the natural, organic and biodegradable components hence making no difference to the product and its users.

Shampoos which contain waxes, SLS and silicone etc. apparently lead to product build up on your hair, which is adding unwanted synthetic layers on your hair and eventually causing damage. Same goes for dry shampoos, hair gels, hair mousse and hair serums which state that it will replenish your hair and repair the damage but that’s not true after all. When one gets split ends or damaged hair there is no solution as such to clearing that damage by using products which state that it will “repair the damaged hair”. There is only one solution when it comes to the eradication of damaged hair that is to cut those hair off.

Not only this, but plastic based shampoos contain resins which are extracted from petrol(by products) and hence can cause hair product build up and with more product build up in the hair one is more exposed to a dandruff build up as well. The same goes for conditioners, they are loaded with silicone and waxes which gives us a temporary shine and makes your hair smooth and soft only for some time. Shampoos only act as cleansers and some of them are so harsh that if used without a conditioner they can make your hair super dry and frizzy.

They also contain colors and preservatives and synthetic essences which can become host to numerous allergies, and also thickening agents that actually damage the hair strands and it will strip the natural oils that our scalps create and can make the hair crisp and give it a parched appearance.

These shampoos not only are doing unwanted damage to our hair but are damaging the environment and polluting the ecosystem especially marine life and the sea creatures, one of the reasons behind coral bleaching is because of the chemicals found in hair care and skin care which are dumped in sea water, even the waste from factories producing silicon and plastic based shampoos causes a lot of damage to the sea life.

We all know that we don’t have many options to choose from when it comes to organic shampoos but one definitely must try and get their hands on an organic shampoo and see the difference it can make. Many brands like khadi, soul tree and Organic Harvest etc. offer some of the best organic and hair friendly products without damaging the environment. These brands are easily available on online e-commerce websites like Amazon or Nykaa which caters to a wide array of consumers.

Abdhi Upadhyay