Pursuing Passion and Purpose - Dr Sangeetha Madhu and Vani Bhardwaj

 

A prevalent phrase in contemporary times is a variant of ‘follow your passion’. Everyone seems to be looking for something that makes them feel alive, and drives their life into eternal contentment. However, passion and purpose are more complex than that. How do we find our passion, and what do we do after?

Difference between passion and purpose:

Being passionate about something allows us to feel profoundly and enthusiastically about it; it is the emotions and motivation to do what makes us feel good. Our purpose is the reason or the ‘why’ we do what we do, primarily for others. While passion may come and go or fade away, our purpose remains with us, helping us navigate through life and into doing what makes us happy and contribute to others.

Which one to choose?

Research has pointed out that people who believe that passion can be developed instead of being found are more likely to persevere when things get hard, put in consistent work, and stick around to reap the fruit. While our passion helps us get started, our purpose allows us to stay focused and put our minds to what we do!

Unveiling passionand purpose:

 Understanding that passion is developed rather than found helps us take action towards both.Reflection is key in understanding our ‘what’ and ‘why’. Some questions that may help in the growth of our passion and purpose are:

 

·         What pursuits would inspire and give meaning to you?

·         What impact would you like to make on others?

·         What are your unique gifts and superpowers?

·         Who have you been when you’ve been at your best?

·         Who must you fearlessly become?

As we begin to reshape our life to align our purpose and passion we can certainly move past our self-limiting beliefs. Adopting a growth mindset, cultivating our passion and focussing on our purpose will helpus lead a significant and meaningful life.

References:

Moore, K. (2015). The Great Power of Connecting Passion with Purpose. Forbes.

Khazan, O. (2018). Find your passion is awful advice. The Atlantic.

 

Focus and Peak Performance - - Dr Sangeetha Madhu and Vani Bhardwaj

Focus is a key concept of cognitive psychology, referring to one’s ability to concentrate and sustain attention on a target stimulus for any period of time. It plays a vital role in performing most of the tasks on an everyday basis; allowing us to be precise, improve results, reduce errors, come up with innovative and divergent methods of performing the same task.Focus helps us perform at the maximum of our ability (i.e., peak performance).

What are some barriers to focus?

Identifying barriers to focus is essential to understand where we lose our focus.

·         Distractions:the biggest causes of dwindling focus; be it your emails, Facebook, colleagues, or family members, all of them can impact your focus.

·         Distressing or intrusive thoughts that are occupying your mind might force you to focus on them or getting rid of them.

·         Procrastination is a big contributor to making an individual unfocused.

·         Being uncertain about the purpose of what one is doing, being unable to start, or lack of motivation or interest are also some factors that contribute to lack of or decreased focus.

How do we maximize focus and improve performance?

·         Identify when and why you lose focus. Understanding what factors hold you back from putting your complete mental effort on the task at hand will help in addressing it.

·         Setting realistic goals helps with motivation.

·         Elimination of distractions, for example, switching off mobile notifications, removes disturbances.

·         Avoid multi-tasking; it focuses your brain to switch your focus back and forth very quickly from one task to the other,making it impossible to sustain attention.

·         Recognizing your peak focus time in the day and scheduling your most demanding task at the time helps you in being your most productive self.

·         Adopt a lifestyle that allows you to engage in healthy habits; this means exercise regularly, eat healthier, practice mindfulness and get adequate sleep.

·         Most importantly, take regular breaks and give your brain a rest!

Focus allows us to reach our peak performance but remember, it is a process that requires practice and effort and is a long but worthy one. Ensuring alertness and agility in your mindset and eliminating distractions will help you improve your focus.

References:

(2013). Various Barriers That Prevent You from Focusing and How to Tackle Each One. Psych2go.

CogniFit. (n.d.). Focused Attention. Cognitive ability-Neuropsychology. CogniFit. 

Patel, N. (2016). 7 Brain hacks to Improve your Focus at Work. Forbes.

 

High Performing Teams - Dr Sangeetha Madhu and Vani Bhardwaj

The value of teamwork is not unknown. Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn cofounder, summed it up by saying, “No matter how brilliant your mind or strategy is, if you’re playing a solo game, you’ll always lose out to a team.”  An organisation has its foundations in cooperation of individuals in achieving common goals. Executive, projects, marketing and sales teams dominate the contemporary work settings. However, not all teams are conducive of growth and progress. Many times, teams hit stagnation and thus, performance is impacted.

What is a high performing team?

A high performing team consists of ‘a group of goal-focused individuals with expertise and skills, who collaborate innovate and produce consistently superior results’. Consistent efforts towards higher performance result in innovative ideas, fresher perspectives, better problem-solving and communication, and more productive collaborations.

 J. Richard Hackman suggested that teams thrive on certain enabling conditions, three of which are of particularly critical- a compelling direction, a strong structure and a supportive context. Compelling direction refers to knowing explicitly what a team is working towards. Strong structure refers to the right mix and number of members, with designated tasks and processes designed in a manner that work along with norms, discouraging destructive behaviour and promoting positive dynamics. Lastly, a supportive context allows a maintenance of reward system that reinforces good performances, an information system that provides access to the data needed for the work, and an educational system that offers training along with securing the material resources required to do the job.

Factors & Characteristics of High-Performing Teams.

Beech & Crane (1999) also recognised three important factors that were crucial to development of teams with superior performances, namely, transparency, check ability and a climate of community.

Some characteristics of high-performance team are:

·         Having clear goals tied closely to team and organisational priorities.

·         Having defined roles and responsibilities.

·         Understanding how their work fits into the organisational mission.

·         Communicating clearly and respectfully.

·         Managing work and deadlines based on priorities.

·         Trusting and respecting each other.

·         Celebrating success together and recognizing contributions.

·         Practicing continuous learning.

Practices that can help in enabling high performance teams are creating a shared sense of purpose to which the team can work towards, investing in employee development, streamlining communication so that everyone is updated, having an environment of mutual accountability, sustained commitment towards performance, rewarding achievements, having good leadership and ensuring healthy resolution of conflict.

References

(n..d.). Developing and Sustaining High-performance Work Teams. Society of Human Resource Management. https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-samples/toolkits/pages/developingandsustaininghigh-performanceworkteams.aspx

Haas, M & Mortensen, M. (2016). The Secrets of Great Teamwork. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2016/06/the-secrets-of-great-teamwork

Keller, S. & Meaney, M. (2017). High-performing teams: A timeless leadership topic. McKinsey & Company. https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/high-performing-teams-a-timeless-leadership-topic

 

 

 

Developing Grit - Dr Sangeetha Madhu and Eliza Abraham

Dr. Angela Duckworth a leading psychologist from the University of Pennsylvania is the one who coined the term “Grit”. This traitis a key factor in the personal success of individuals. Dr. Angela defined grit as “passion and sustained persistence applied toward long-term achievement, with no particular concern for rewards or recognition along the way” (Fessler, 2018).She first started studying grit while she was teaching mathematics to seventh-grade students in the USA. Post which she spent numerous years studying grit and its effects on the performance of individuals at work, academics, and interpersonal relationships. She later went on to publish a book titled; Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, which also became a New York Times bestsellerand gave numerous TED Talks about it (Fessler, 2018).

Through her research, it can be understood that grit is an outcome of nature and nature and it is developed in individuals who have a growth mindset. She believes that grit is a trait that is developed through experience and along with a shift from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset. On the other hand, resilience is the ability to “adapt well in the face of adversity, trauma, or significant sources of stress” (“Building your resilience”, 2012).

Ways to develop Grit and Resilience

1.      Connect with others and be more social.

2.      Learn to control your response to unfavorable situations you encounter.

3.      Learn to accept constant change in life and to abandon goals that are not attainable anymore.

4.      Use the Kaizen principle on your goals, i.e. start with the smallest component that pertains to your long-term factor.

5.      Acquire decision-making skills so that you can make independent decisions in tough situations.

6.      Be open to learning from your struggles and bad experiences. It will provide you valuable insights.

7.      Refrain from negative self-talk/criticism and inculcate the habit of positive self-talk/affirmations.

8.      Life consists of ups and downs, learn to accept the low moments and bad experiences and try to have a different perspective while viewing your life.

9.      Be optimistic.

10.  Be self-compassionate, introduce exercise to your routine, laugh, and spend time learning something new (Miller, 2020).

Dr. Angela also developed a Grit Scale, which you can use to understand how gritty you are. This can help you to learn to develop the level of resilience and grit within yourself.

 

References

(2020). Building your resilience. American Psychological Association. https://www.apa.org/topics/resilience

Fessler, L. (2018, March 26). “You’re no genius”: Her father’s shutdowns made Angela Duckworth a world expert on grit.Quartz at Work. https://qz.com/work/1233940/angela-duckworth-explains-grit-is-the-key-to-success-and-self-confidence/

Miller, K. A. (2020, October 12). 5+ Ways to Develop a Growth Mindset Using Grit and Resilience. Positive Psychology. https://positivepsychology.com/5-ways-develop-grit-resilience/

 

 

 

Finding Flow - Dr Sangeetha Madhu and Eliza Abraham

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi who is one of the co-founders of the field of positive psychology is the psychologist who identified and researched on the concept of “Flow”.

Csikszentmihalyi, 1990 defined flow as “The best moments in our lives are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times . . . The best moments usually occur if a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile” (as cited in Oppland, 2020).

Flow experiences varies among people, some experience it while engaging in sports and other in activities such as writing, drawing etc. According to Csikszentmihalyi, people experience flow when they have a task to complete and their goals need specific responses. He states that if the task does not have many challenges, then flow can only be attained when the challenges increase or if the individual learns a new skill to cope with the challenges. Having flow improves performance and skill development (Cherry, 2020).

Csikszentmihalyi gave the following 8 characteristics of flow:

1. Complete concentration on the task.
2. Clarity of goals and reward in mind and immediate feedback.
3. Transformation of time (speeding up/slowing down).
4. The experience is intrinsically rewarding.
5. Effortlessness and ease.
6. There is a balance between challenge and skills.
7. Actions and awareness are merged, losing self-conscious rumination.
8. There is a feeling of control over the task (Oppland, 2020).

Ways to achieve Flow

1.      The task or activity should be something, that you are interested, passionate and enjoy doing.

2.      It should have at least one component that is difficult or challenging.

3.      It should force you to stretch your current level of skills.

4.      You should have a clear idea about your goal and plan of action (Cherry, 2020).

 

References

Cherry, K. (2020, June 3). 'Flow' Can Help You Achieve Goals. Understanding the Psychology of Flow. Verywellmind.https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-flow-2794768#:~:text=Experiencing%20the%20State%20of%20Flow,The%20ego%20falls%20away.

Oppland, M. (2020, October 12). 8 Ways To Create Flow According to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Positive Psychology. https://positivepsychology.com/mihaly-csikszentmihalyi-father-of-flow/

 

Work life Integration: The New Normal - Dr Sangeetha Madhu and Eliza Abraham

COVID-19 has introduced the concept of working from home (WFH) to people of all ages and from all areas of life. We are not used to this way of functioning and it is difficult to maintain a good work-life balance during this pandemic. Lack of structure in work timings, taking on multiple roles & responsibilities, guiding children with schoolwork, technology issues, low work productivity, lack of social connections, increased stress & anxiety, diminished boundaries between work & personal life, lack of free time to relax makes it exhausting and demanding for all of us. It’s been approximately 4-5 months since and it is important to learn work-life balance even during work from home.

To-Do List to improve the quality of WFH

·         Design/ Allocate a particular area at home as the workspace: personalize workspace, use a comfortable chair, be assertive & set boundaries while working.

·         Maintain healthy systematic routines: work timings, breaks, sleep, appetite, physical exercise.

·         Secure Work Environment: Keep laptop/computer in a safe place to avoid loss of sensitive confidential information.

·         Increase productivity & reduce procrastination: Set clear deadlines for the day, set healthy work timings to avoid burnout.

·         Stay Focused: Control social media use, interruptions / distractions, utilize your time effectively during the day, with discipline

·         Plan Out: Set clear short term &long-term career goals with your team, work towards achieving them, prioritize & break down (To-Do-List) your workload to avoid stress. This will help you be more focused & motivated to complete the work.

·         Celebrating Success &Achievement: Reinforce yourself with small treats when you complete a difficult task, maintain a record of your achievements as this helps with increasing satisfaction. Celebrate success with family and team members over a video call, acknowledge people who helped you.

·         Quality Time &Relationship: allocate time to spend quality time with your family or reach out through social media/video calls.  Have informal team calls to catch up with colleagues and managers.

Following these tips could improve your work from home experience and maintain a good work-life balance. Although this is a very difficult situation and might go on for an undetermined amount of time, it is a season of life and it will pass and we will return to feeling healthy, safe, productive, and connected (“Working from home”, 2020).

References

(2020). Working from Home. MindTools. Retrieved from https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/working-from-home.htm

 

The Art of Delivering & Receiving Feedback - Dr Sangeetha Madhu and Eliza Abraham

 We all have heard the saying “communication is the key to success”. We tend to overlook the fact that effective feedback plays a major role in both our professional and personal lives. Feedback in the form of affirmations and criticisms tend to improve the overall performance of individuals. However, we all know that it is easier to give and receive affirmations or appreciations rather than to give out criticisms. It is a tricky situation that can become awkward or even lead to a heated argument. Feedback can strengthen a relationship, build trust, show support, and improve the quality of work and life for the individual and everyone around him/her (Petersen, 2015).

Therefore, it is important to understand and equip yourself with the skills to be able to provide and accept constructive feedback. Effective listening consists of openness, encouragement, acknowledgement, and reflection. The following suggestions can be followed to enhance your skills of providing and receiving constructive feedback.

Delivering Feedback

·         Have a private meeting and start with affirmations.

·         Be humble and empathetic towards the individual.

·         Provide feedback regarding the behaviour not about the kind of person they are/their personality. Cite examples.

·         Describe the effect/impact their behaviour had on you, as only You know how it made you feel or what you thought.

·         Use I statements: “I liked what you did” “I felt hurt when you said that”.

·         Be specific, realistic and focus on the issue at hand. Avoid bringing in unnecessary or past details.

·         Give regular feedback promptly, avoid delaying it a lot.

·         Understand the emotional intelligence and identify the emotional state of the individual before providing them with feedback.

·         Explain your expectations and the consequences if a mutual understanding is not reached.

·         Provide suggestions and be willing to help the individual.

·         Identify and state their strengths and positive to improve the morale and confidence of the individual(Seiter, 2018; “Giving and Receiving”, n.d & “Receiving & Giving”, n.d).

Receiving Feedback

·         Be open-minded & accepting.

·         Use active listening

·         Identify and understand nonverbal communication.

·         Clarify and reflect on the feedback.

·         Avoid being defensive.

·         Be aware of your emotions and feelings.

·         Have good self-control.

·         Have a growth mindset.

·         Identify your developmental areas and take accountability for your errors.

·         Follow up with the individual and ask for regular feedback.

·         Thank the individual for giving the feedback(Seiter, 2018; “Giving and Receiving”, n.d & “Receiving & Giving”, n.d).

References

 (n.d.). Giving and Receiving Feedback. Skillsyouneed. Retrieved from https://www.skillsyouneed.com/ips/feedback.html

(n.d). Receiving and Giving Effective Feedback. Centre for Teaching Excellence, University of Waterloo.Retrieved from https://uwaterloo.ca/centre-for-teaching-excellence/teaching-resources/teaching-tips/assessing-student-work/grading-and-feedback/receiving-and-giving-effective-feedback

Petersen, D. (2015, July 24). How to Get Better at Giving (and Receiving) Feedback Good constructive criticism takes practice.Inc.  Retrieved from https://www.inc.com/stanford-business/how-to-get-better-at-giving-and-receiving-feedback.html

Seiter, C. (2018, May 9). How to give and receive feedback at work: the psychology of criticism.Buffer. Retrieved from  https:/ https://uwaterloo.ca/centre-for-teaching-excellence/teaching-resources/teaching-tips/assessing-student-work/grading-and-feedback/receiving-and-giving-effective-feedback/buffer.com/resources/how-to-give-receive-feedback-work/