It is never too late to become (or to do) what you might have been…

A great number of employees seem to be perennially stressed out, loose interest in their work & slowly develop a general dislike towards the work they do. This dislike eventually spills on to their whole work environment including their colleagues, bosses & the organization as a whole.

Many a times this is due to our lack of interest in what they do. Most people love their jobs, but many do not like their work. ‘Work’ is different from a ‘Job’

A ‘job’ is a combined function of your company, designation, position in the organisational hierarchy, salary & last but not the least, future prospects. These are all, the external stimuli which attract you to your occupation. On the other hand the ‘work’ you do needs to come from an internal stimulus, which is different from all of the above. This stimulus can be your innate liking for this type of work, hobbies, passions, dreams & aspirations either partly or all of them. If the ‘works’ that you need to do in the ‘job’ you are in fall within the scope of any of the above, you will like your ‘job’ as well as your ‘work’, else you can only like your job.

In situations where employees like their jobs (basically for the status it gives them, one of the external stimuli), but do not like their work (because they are not able to connect it to an internal stimulus) frustration or despair is bound to develop sooner or later.

What then is the key to having the best of both worlds? Success lies in loving your work, not the job. If you like your work, have a passion for it, you will definitely succeed in your job irrespective of whether you like either of the external stimuli or not. Vice versa is however untrue.

For those who are stuck with this problem, there are only two ways out. First & the easiest is to develop a liking for the work that you are supposed to do. Start feeling for it, get inspired from the great achievers in the field, develop a passion for it and dramatic results will start showing up before you even know them. If somehow, you do not find yourself comfortable with the idea of continuing to do the ‘work’ you are presently required to do, then, better than languishing around & spoiling yourself along with others; it is time to change the ‘work’ itself. Recession is well past, opportunities are surging everywhere & it should not take somebody long to find the right fit, provided the fit really exists.

Professional success, in essence is mostly about nurturing your ideas & nourishing your dreams, being passionate about them & striving to achieve greater heights of success in what your relish rather than be bogged down in a monotony you do not connect with. Always do what you love to do, else you will not like what you do & can forget about succeeding in it, but for some stroke of brilliant luck, which seldom comes at the right time. It is never too late to become (or to do) what you might have been….but YES, to win; you have to play first, without any preset notions of definite immediate success. You will have to make the attempts & take the risks; rewards don’t come automatically. If you don’t like taking risks, start loving your work. NOW.

A few words about Time Management

Very often, we want to do a lot of things, but don’t seem to have the time for them. Routine office work, travelling & other chores take up the whole day & by the time we can think of starting some developmental work, its time to go to sleep. The next day follows the same routine & so on.
Everybody has almost the same time at his disposal, but some people seem to be doing so many things at once. How does that happen? Time Management is the key.
Time management skills are the ability of a person to understand and overcome the paucity of time. A practitioner of time management is always in control of his life & able to slow down the clock, is never under stress and has high energy levels. He makes dramatic progress in his professional life. The ability to balance work, personal, and family time is a direct offshoot of the ability to manage our time as it gives enough flexibility to respond to changing circumstances.
Time management is not a talent; it can be learned quite easily. Even if we just think about this all the time & try to introspect on the reason of being perennially busy, many benefits can be derived. No need to attack all the reasons at once, just start with the smallest obstacle that is wasting our time & many problems will disappear.
It may very well be that we might have already thought about this problem earlier & might even know the solutions, but if we still don't do it, it is time to work on developing our willpower to put us into action. Knowledge without action is useless, try to become mentally strong. If we forget to manage our time in the rush of things, its wise to keep multiple reminders, alarms, etc. or ask others to remind.
Don’t wait for something to happen, better to start immediately. No matter what our schedules are, all of us can improve upon them & increase our efficiency. If not sure of how to make a beginning, start by planning to keep yourself free for thinking about your/your team’s/you department’s future development for some fixed time in a week (don’t do routine work in this time), say the Fridays or Saturdays (depending on whatever is the end of your week) & we will begin to see results.