Author: UnitedHR

Love Thyself

We often look or wait for love to walk into our lives. But what about the love that has to be directed towards our own selves?

Esha was just looking around a bouquet for her husband when she noticed Aliya looking over the other counter. It was the week of Valentine’s Day, and the flower shops were looking picture perfect with a myriad of flowers. Just as bright the shop was looking though, equally dull was Aliya’s demeanour.

Esha guessed the reason- Aliya was single, and this time of the year, many single folks felt that sense of loneliness. As Esha inquired into this, Aliya agreed, and confided, ‘Everyone seems to have someone. I just feel left out. I wish I too had someone to love.’

‘Well, you have yourself, don’t you?’ Esha asked enthusiastically.

Aliya got into thinking mode. Looking at Aliya’s expression, Esha continued,

‘Often when we are single, we focus on the absence of a partner. But we have ourselves, no matter what! Singlehood is an opportunity to nurture the relationship with self…

‘Pursue your passions, build all that for yourself which brings you joy. No other relationship is more accessible and easier to nourish and nurture than the relationship with self. Embrace this relationship, and love might find you. Love often finds us when we are genuinely content and aren’t looking for it.’

With this, Aliya had a big smile on her face. She decided to buy flowers for herself this Valantine’s Day.

Valentine’s Day posts on social media may remind some of us of our loneliness. But we have the choice here to look at it differently. To look at singlehood differently. Self-love is the idea!

Self-love can look like:

  • Buying gifts for ourselves, materialistic, like flowers, chocolates or any other thing we like, or something more symbolic, such as making a promise to yourself to begin a good habit.
  • Working with a sense of self-love. Your career, your skills, your competence, and the efforts you take to develop them are first and foremost for yourself, and then for others.
  • Looking within, and mindfully setting/reevaluating goals for yourself that will help one feel accomplished, and giving one a sense of purpose.  
  • Explore new hobbies.
  • Strengthening personal connections with family and friends.  
  • Being kind to oneself- accepting all our flaws and humanity unconditionally, and at the same time promise ourselves to be a better person, gently.
  • Being your authentic self- celebrating your small quirks and eccentricities that harm no one and make you, you.

Love comes in all forms. Sometimes it comes to us when we are least expecting. While some of us are yet to have that special someone walk into our lives, we can love ourselves first in all our authenticity, walking to the rhythm of growth, connection and purpose. Before we look for love outside of ourselves, we must also nurture the love that we direct towards ourselves.

The Power of Small Achievements to get your ‘Big Break’

We often wait for a ‘big break’ to happen to us. Actually, we make the ‘big break’ happen with our ‘small achievements’. Read on.

image with working professionals celebrating small wins for the big break

Bindiya had joined the company around two years ago, and so far, she felt she had not achieved what she wanted to achieve. She had big dreams- she wanted a cabin of her own, a business card and an email signature she can be proud about. But so far, all she had to boast was that she was a junior associate. In other words, according to her, nothing much had been ‘achieved’.

Divya, a senior colleague and a friend of Bindiya’s walked in and saw the latter’s cheerless visage. As she asked, Bindiya confided how she had been feeling like a failure since the past year and a half since it wasn’t the career graph she had been expecting. She had been in the workforce for the past four years or so and two years with the company, and felt she hadn’t had any progress.

‘Is it so? Have you had no progress at all? Think about it. I remember a few meetings you attended in this company in your first year. You were quiet, and barely seemed to be handling the information that had been thrown at you.

Now look at you! Remember the meeting we had last week? You were asking great questions, and at one point, you also offered to mentor the interns. Isn’t that progress?’

Bindiya’s mood lightened up a little. But she still felt that this was just a random glimmer in an otherwise lacklustre career. She said, ‘Yes, but I don’t feel like this is a very significant achievement…’

‘Is it so?’ Divya quipped. ‘Remember the very first report you drafted? You were asked to make so many corrections. Now, most of your reports get the approval, and it is almost given that since you have made the report, it is going to be a job well done!’

Bindiya smiled at Divya’s optimism and countered it with…well, her pessimism, saying, ‘These little achievements are fine. I am grateful that I have learned so much over these couple of years, but I do not see the point of these small successes. I need a big break. Something that actually changes things…’

Divya at this point shared a story, ‘You know our boss, how did he start his career? He was a personal assistant to the head of another company. This wasn’t a job that many considered great. But he nevertheless continued to do his job of an assistant well, and learnt all that he could.

‘By ‘all that he could’, I mean every little thing. Just like you, he improved over the years his networking skills through the meetings he attended with his boss, which he wasn’t even a major part of for many years. He continuously found smart ways to do his job as an assistant as efficiently as was possible for him. He learnt to take phenomenal minutes of meetings which over the years gave him a keen eye for small details and a meticulous way of doing things. He was the first one the interns talked to when they had to approach the boss, and eventually, he developed a way of creating rapports with new recruits. One day, his boss himself referred him to this company for the role of a junior manager, and now he is the boss since a couple of years!’

Bindiya was looking at Divya wide-eyed. ‘Really?’

‘Of course!’ Divya continued, ‘I am telling you this story because I want you to understand that life is made up of small achievements, that can eventually lead you to the ‘big break’ that you are talking about. You make the ‘big breaks’ happen through your small achievements; the big breaks don’t simply happen to you.

‘Celebrate your ‘small breaks’. Celebrate how you have improved over the years. Keep learning, just keep learning. Keep finding ways to do your present job well. We often underappreciate the small cumulative improvements we make with things. Celebrate them, learn from them, because eventually, they will only help us with our big break, and to make good use of our big break from all that we have learned.’

Bindiya finally felt her mood lift, and found a new dose of motivation to keep doing her work efficiently.

Life is made up of small achievements that could lead to the big break that we all want.

The point is to:

  • Learn from your small breaks and achievements.
  • Remember the cumulative power of regular small achievements.
  • Remember that we stagnate only if we let ourselves stagnate- we can learn even from the smallest of tasks if we develop that famous growth mind-set we all must have heard of. Because what is growth mindset, if not developing a mentality to constantly learn?
  • Do our job well, and do not pore on the designation and the status wars that come with it. What our designation is, we must do full justice to it.

Eventually, the small achievements take you to the moment that will give the big break. Not only that, the lessons you learn from small achievements could be applied lifelong, even with your big break!

Transitioning from 2024 to 2025

As the new year sets in, the transition from 2024 to 2025 might feel…surprisingly underwhelming. After the parties and celebrations, we go back to work. The festive season, which kicks off in many places worldwide October onwards, now comes to an end, and motivation levels might be hard to maintain.

In fact, the pressure to make resolutions and start the new year with a bang might work with a reverse psychology- this pressure making it difficult to start doing anything, forget new year resolutions.

Amidst this, how can one make the transition from 2024 to 2025 smoothly, in a productive manner?

Keep Up the Momentum

Most workplaces globally had holidays and out-of-office days. Many workplaces though may not have had that long break, and enjoyment of festivities may have been done vicariously, or/and along with the rhythm of the work already going. In fact, many professionals and workers may have been working harder during the festive season. If generally speaking, there is no burnout and you have actually enjoyed this momentum, why break that rhythm now?

This is a great time to actually keep that rhythm going, stick to that work ethic. Keep the normalcy in your work routine intact, and keep up the momentum. This is a great way to ensure a smooth productive transition to the year.

However, if you are still someone who’d like to start things afresh or at least with a sense of something ‘new’, the next point might work out for you.

Set Your Priorities

Make a realistic to-do list. Something concrete. Sort out the tasks that are urgent, tasks that can wait, and tasks that need a change of direction. After all, just because the date changed, doesn’t mean old tasks have disappeared with the calendar flip as well!

If you are someone who feels life is going to feel mundane and boring now that the festivities are over, the next point comes to the rescue!

The Festivities of Daily Life

Why wait for special occasions to enjoy? Enjoyment at a big scale is fun and something we all must indulge in, but enjoyment through the little things in life can bring as much joy. In fact, this is a joy that can sustain. Festivals will come and go, but you can still try to see your loved ones more often. You can keep your workspace beautiful and decorative without a big reason. You can still do things like taking a different route to and from work once in a while to break the monotony of daily life. You can wear a different colour than what you usually wear. Celebrating life and our small triumphs is always an option, regardless of the calendar.

You can still give yourself the gift of optimism and abundance. Life is here to be experienced in all its shades and forms, and it is indeed this dance between the routine and the festive. Be it routine or festive, life is still a dance that can be enjoyed in countless ways. So let 2025 be the year when the version of you that you knew is now looking into a new sunrise, a new attitude to the shades of life and perhaps, you might become someone that inspires someone around you.

Team UHR wishes everyone a very happy and successful new year!

Gifts that Say ‘We Care’

The festive spirit continues!

However, Anjali was going through a rather depressive phase in her life. She had recently faced a personal setback. Yet, she had overcome it, and had continued to come to the office after taking a few days off. Although she carried on her work diligently, one could feel the change in her energy.

Aruna, her boss, had been observing, and trying to find a way to be supportive to Anjali without giving her reminders about the setback. The office was decked up thanks to the festive season. All the employees had been given gift hampers and sweets to take home. Although Anjali participated in some of the activities and received the hamper graciously, it was clear that she did need a different kind of lift up. The question, for Aruna, was of what kind? Aruna thought that Anjali could use some other kind of a gift. But what kind?

Aruna did not want Anjali to force herself to be happier when she needed time to process and just be.

Aruna also did not want to give Anjali an extravagant gift, like a voucher to a retreat, or some heavy incentive. It felt too empty as a gesture. She would if she could, but that meant ensuring the other employees didn’t feel like Anjali was getting special treatment. As a boss, Aruna had to keep all these factors in mind.

Aruna thought long and hard, and finally, it hit her. Anjali needed to be gifted something meaningful. Nothing too extravagant. Not anything that reminds her of the setback, nothing that acts as a sign for her to ‘quickly get back on track’. And nothing patronising!

Aruna decided to gift Anjali a small indoor plant that she could keep on her desk.

And it worked. The plant worked as a perfect gift for Anjali.

As a gesture of gifting, it helped her to feel cared for. It also reminded her of the power of nurturing. It reminded her that a little care goes a long way. Eventually, she also started to feel how little gestures of self-care regularly, just as watering the plant regularly, would help her to feel better about herself as well.

Gifting doesn’t always have to be extravagant.

As the festive season goes on around the world, we all must be thinking about secret Santas and gift hampers. Besides the materialistic gifts (and we love and want those too!) as humane humans, what we can offer are gestures which could act as gifts, no less than an expensive one.

Do you see a colleague struggling to talk about something? Listening without being judgmental could be a good gift for them.

Do you see a colleague overworked and then stressed out about their long commute? Offering to drop them till a certain distance might be a good gift for them.

Do you see a colleague who usually has their lunch by themselves, lonely on a festive week? Having a meal together with them might be a good gift for them.

And the list can go on.

Gifting is all about caring for our fellow human beings. While sometimes gifts must be in proportion to the material culture and must feel like effort was put into thinking about the gift, there are also times when we can give small gifts of humane gestures. And they are as valuable, sometimes, even more so, than expensive gifts.

The Value of Waiting

We work hard so that we may get what we want- that promotion, that raise, that prestige. But before we get there, we must wait. And waiting has value.

  • I can’t just keep waiting around for opportunities! I have to take actions!’

  • ‘I just don’t like the idea of waiting passively. You must do the work for the progress to happen. ‘

  • ‘I am running out of patience; I am tired of waiting!’

Do these statements sound familiar? A lot of us who believe in working diligently towards our goals must have thought or uttered these sentences. Presently, Rakesh was also saying these very lines to his friend Raj.

‘I want that promotion now. I put in the work, I have the merit. So why this wait? I am running out of patience, really.’

‘Rakesh, I know this will change your life, and you have been due for this long now. But things unfold at their own time, and sometimes, waiting is the best thing we can do’, said Raj, with a empathy in his tone.

‘What if it all slips away while I wait and do nothing?’ Rakesh had grown more impatient with this response.

Contrasting this attitude, Raj patiently listened to Rakesh, and responded, ‘Who said waiting means doing nothing?’

‘Then what does waiting mean?’

Raj went on:

‘Think of it this way. When you plant a seed for a tree, you water it as needed, and then you wait for it to grow. This waiting is precious, because if you over-water or under-water it or try to check again and again by upturning the ground if the seed is growing or not, it will not grow. Right?’

‘I see what you mean. Go on’, Rakesh had finally started to calm down a bit.

‘You are seeing time ‘gone’ in the waiting as a barrier. But time is actually a gift. This time will let you be prepared, so when the promotion does happen, you will be well-equipped to deal with the new responsibilities. Achieving your dreams, whether professional or personal comes with a new set of responsibilities for which you must be prepared.

‘Waiting and patience, are not simply about sitting around, passively. They are about learning to be in the now, and appreciate your journey. Have you noticed, how sometimes we tend to look back on even our most difficult times fondly? The present moment is a gift and all the time that goes in waiting is the time given to us to grow for the future.’

‘Grow for the future, patiently?’ Rakesh asked.

‘Exactly! When the time is right, you will get the promotion, and all the good things that come with it. And this is the time you give yourself the space to grow into them.’

Rakesh was now smiling, calmly. ‘That makes a lot of sense. Waiting is a gift that lets me grow into the future that my efforts are going to bring in…’

‘Yes’, Raj went on, ‘And waiting teaches you that the journey itself is as precious as the destination.’

We are often told to be patient about our efforts. Things unfold. We get to reap the rewards of our efforts, but not in our time, but at the right time.

Patience is not passive waiting. As we wait, we learn to appreciate the present as well as the journey. As the proverb goes in Hindi, ‘sabr ka phal meetha hota hai’, meaning, ‘patience bores a sweet fruit’. How will the seed lead to the fruit if we don’t wait?