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Ensuring A Smooth Transition to the New Year

It is important to stay anchored to our priorities, as the tide of new year enthusiasm sprinkles on all of us.

Just like that, the Christmas decorations are put away. The time from October to December felt as if the entire world was one lit with lamps, diyas and adorned with decorations.

The festive energy helped the autumnal blues in-between. There was the next festival in sight to look forward to, as we talked about in one of our earlier articles. It’s the first week of January now, and it could feel like a fresh, but a daunting start.

The first week of the year can be daunting. The pressure to be a ‘new you’. Pressure to start afresh. Pressure to do something different. Pressure to make new year resolutions and stick to them. Pressure to make the year the best one possible. While some of us can find motivation in this, most of the times, it just leads to unnecessary stress.

What can you do to ensure you have a good start to the first week of the new year, realistically speaking? What can you do to ensure you are ready to combat the overwhelming amount of online traffic going in the direction of extreme tides and later ebbs of enthusiasm?

Sort out your priorities:

As the week begins, you’d have noticed tons of content (including this one, haha!) about things to do for a great 2024. Sorting out our priorities in a realistic way can help in curbing the initial overwhelm. Make a sensible to-do list of things that are urgent, things that can wait, and things that one should start working on so that eventually one may get to finish them at a reasonable pace.

This is a much better exercise than starting out a superlative hyperbolic list of all the things you should be doing to make the first week of 2024 memorable.

Keep the rhythm flowing:

While most companies in India are having regular workdays with perhaps a secret Santa event and a party or two, being in a globalised, connected economy means one could experience that post-festive ebb and overwhelm vicariously as well. One of the better ways to combat with it is to simply keep that sense of normalcy intact in any way possible.

If your working schedule and ethic have been helping you to achieve targets and excel in your career, it might be a good idea to keep that rhythm instead of trying to shake it up. Sometimes it’s best to not fix something that isn’t broken! Why break the momentum of something that has been working fabulously? Keep up the normalcy in your to-do lists and work routine, and let the internet and media do the enthusiastic work.

However, if you are someone who wants to ‘feel festive’ in spite of everything and have been feeling that Fear of Missing Out (FOMO), then the next point is for you.

Let the lights remain in your heart:

As the decorations come off, and the LinkedIn pages start to act like festivals don’t exist, let the lights in your hearts shine. Festivals and events will come and go, but you can still attempt to meet your loved ones more often. You can still keep your workspace pretty and colourful in your own authentic way. You can still give yourself the gift of optimism and attitude of abundance, and you can still do your best. You can still take out time for yourself in ways possible by practicing mindfulness and you can still see the world as a gift-bag of opportunities to learn, shine and provide for yourself and your loved ones. 

As we step into 2024, let us try to stay anchored to our dreams and think about maintaining a sense of rhythm and harmony. Team UHR wishes everyone a harmonious and prosperous 2024!

Align Your Actions to How the World Works…

….and the world will do the work for you!

Question! What is that one tiny but major, basic but elusive secret to being a happy, successful, level-headed professional and human being?

Answer: According to research and this article by Farnam Street, it’s by working with keeping the basic principles of how the world functions in mind, and aligning one’s actions in that direction. Now that might sound confusing, generic and somewhat vague. Let us delve deeper into this.

Universal Principles:

 We will start by taking a very general example. We have all heard truisms like ‘health is wealth’ since ages. We know being healthy is a basic step to living a good life- everything else comes secondary. We know that without good health, we can’t enjoy the fruits of our labour. And yet, if we were to be honest with ourselves, how many times do we neglect our health in the day-to-day life? We forgo little chances of leading a healthy life. We scroll endlessly on our phones late into the night, or decide to keep the homecooked lunch on the side and opt for that vadapav.

Or consider waiting. Investments, be it financial or personal, take time to show results. We must wait a bit. We know this. But do we have the patience or willingness to wait?

Or how kindness leads to kindness, and fire leads to more fire.

Do you find yourself thinking of similar universal principles? Think principles around return of investments, savings, compounding, effort-reward, reciprocity of actions and so on.

Our peculiarity as human beings is that we tend to ignore these basic universal principles a lot of times. We know that we are ignoring, but we continue to ignore, and sometimes only follow them when we are forced to.

No one is an exception to these rules. Everyone needs to put in effort to live a healthy life. Everyone needs to wait for their investments to come to fruition. Everyone needs to put in effort to maintain and improve the status quo, whether we are talking about our professional or personal life. There are no exceptions to these universal principles of effort and returns.

Instead of aligning our actions to these universal principles, we tend to steer away from them, even when we know it’s not a good idea.

Where the Magic Lies:

The magic of universal principles and sticking to them is that once we start aligning our actions to them, the world will do the work for you.

All you need to do is align your actions to these universal principles. Nothing complicated. Whenever confusion arises, all we need to do is remind ourselves of these universal principles and align our actions to those, the rest would just be noise.

Nervous about an interview? Just think about the universal principle of effort and returns, and work on it accordingly. The rest will fall into place.

Confused how to approach a supposedly difficult client? Just think about the universal principle of reciprocity of behaviour, and approach them with a behaviour that you’d want them to reciprocate. The rest will figure itself out.

Wondering why a project seems stuck? Just think if you have waited long enough for the investment to show, and if you have waited long enough, think about the alignment that we talked about in our older article about working hard easily.  

One could also think about this in micro terms. Consider your office or field of work as a world. How does this world work? What are some ‘principles’ that seem to be embedded in its functioning? Find those out, and align your actions to those principles, and chances are, you will be pleasantly surprised by how perfectly and easily it all fits.

‘Alignment’ is the word to keep in mind. As we align our actions to how the world (and the multiple ‘worlds’ we inhabit) works, and stay true to ourselves, the world will do its magic for you.

Tips to Manage Work Related Anxiety

Anxiety is normal, and isn’t something to be ashamed about. Anxiety calls for us to tweak how we function and look after ourselves.

Have you ever felt a sense of dread or panic flow through you as you think about work? Have you felt a sense that you are constantly being judged by your colleagues and employers to the extent that you are conscious about every little mistake you make? Chances are, you have work related anxiety.

Being stressed about workload is normal. Caring about your work, and thus making sure you give your best is a good thing. But on an extreme end of this spectrum lies work related or workplace anxiety where the extreme worry manifests in symptoms such as:

  • Inability to concentrate, difficulty in breathing, tightness of chest, overwhelm
  • Extreme nervousness or persistent nervousness
  • A need for perfection and hyper-focusing on mistakes, feeling like one slip-up will cause a massive downfall. In other words, engaging in catastrophic thinking

The good news is that anxiety can be managed and one can even channelise it in a different, healthier direction. (Shoutout to an article by Manah Wellness for inspiring us to have this conversation!)

Here are some tips to manage work related/workplace related anxiety.

Create your boundaries:

Boundaries are your best friend. Creating boundaries enables you to only take up that which you can and are willing to, and ensuring you remain in your own energetic space. Creating physical boundaries looks like owning up your space:

  • Decorate your cubicle in ways that make you feel comfortable.
  • Little post-it notes of affirmations, pictures and small objects on your desk that give you emotional support- these are all ways one can ensure one’s space remains one’s own.
  • It also involves not compromising on your health and nutrition; taking breaks as and when needed, and not forgetting to eat well and drink water.

Creating emotional and psychological boundaries can look like:

  • Politely declining to talk about one’s personal life, or using tact to make sure you don’t divulge too many personal details.
  • Finding other ways to ‘participate’, when conventional ways to socialise feel too overwhelming.
  • Declining, delegating or asking for more time if you have reached your limit and you cannot take up extra work. Work-life balance is not just a buzzword to use!

Boundaries aren’t ways to be cold to people, or to push people away. Boundaries in fact can act as our own fuel which enable us to provide the best version of ourselves.

Speaking of best version…

Understand that anyone can make honest mistakes:

Being your best version isn’t about taking extra stress to be the best! Many of us put so much pressure on ourselves to be the perfect colleague, or the star performer, or just to make sure we are hustling to the best of our abilities, that we forget that mistakes are a part and parcel of life. We think a slip-up from us will be remembered forever, and its impact would be irreversible. Tell your anxiety, that the world isn’t waiting to see you slip up!

The thing is, it’s okay to make mistakes, and it’s okay to not be perfect and be on a learning curve. People, groups or organisations will find ways to figure things out even if a big mistake has been made.

Catastrophic thinking and fear about making mistakes and slip-ups only prevents us from living a fuller life and reaching our potential.

Ask for help, accept the good:

An attitude of seeing the positive in everything can go a long way in helping us cope with anxiety. It’s a blessing that as the world is changing, many organisations these days provide counselling services, and other resources to work with. As awareness about mental health increases, many bosses and colleagues are also willing to offer support and destigmatise in whatever they can. All you have to do is look around and ask.

There are multiple mental health well-being apps, digital well-being features on phones that are here to help in managing our anxiety.  

Anxiety about work is not something to be swept under the carpet, and it’s not something to be ashamed about. It’s a sign of our mind and body’s innate wisdom. Anxiety is a signal from our mind and body to pause, and reevaluate our approach to our well-being.

Working Hard, Easily

We often associate working hard with slogging and trudging along. But working hard is often more about getting into an easy state of flow, a sign of being deeply engaged with our work.

Tired of trudging along and pushing forward?

Here’s a slightly different advice- stop and reevaluate, instead of pushing harder.

In this hustle culture, it is often a sign of grit and motivation to keep pushing when it gets harder. If you are a working professional, it is rarely that someone would tell you to stop and revaluate. Most of the motivational advice out there is to keep working harder. To try again and again and again until you succeed. To rise in one’s career, or to come up with a million-dollar idea, or to run a business or to be the star employee, the chief advice is to slog and work hard. Work harder. It’s always about being more disciplined. More focused. To push against all odds.

But is that always good advice? Does achieving something and working hard always mean we must feel like we are constantly swimming against the tide? Would it not be better if we could rather swim and flow amidst everything? Is there a different interpretation to ‘working hard’?

An insight by psychologist Julie Gurner is worth paying attention to. Speaking on a podcast for the online mindfulness and motivational page Farnam Street, she says: 

“I think we talk about discipline because it feels tough to do. We’re doing the hard thing. We’re slogging through. But when we are at our best, we’re not slogging through. Great people are obsessed and they’re not slogging through. They are driven. They are motivated. They are deeply, deeply engaged. … If it starts to feel like a slog and you’re pushing yourself every day—I mean, we all have periods of that—but [do it] too long and that really becomes laborious. To me, it’s often a flag that perhaps you shouldn’t be in that area at all.”

Haven’t we all, at some point, found ourselves working in a state of flow, working deeply, losing all track of time and finding a deep sense of accomplishment within ourselves?  Was that about ‘pushing’ harder? No, it was about flowing with our work. It was about being so engaged in what we were doing that we felt one with it. It was hard work that didn’t feel like ‘hard’ work.

Good, hard work should put us in a state of flow. It should engage us. After some slogging, after some pushing, if we still haven’t reached that state of flow, of the state of feeling engaged enough, perhaps it would be a better idea to reevaluate things instead of continuing to slog and push harder. Revaluate, so that we can find a way to flow.

Revaluating could involve changing our approach, or changing our thinking. It could also involve changing our objectives. It could also involve changing our path, in a minor or major way. The point is to aim for a state of flow, of deep engagement with what we are working towards, instead of feeling the slog.

Working through the festive season ahead and feeling gloomy about it? Worry not!

Festive season also brings some festival blues. Here’s how to cope.

As we talked about in our earlier article, this is a good time to bask in the festive spirit. Major festivals are taking place around the world as we write this and within the next two months. This part of the year is high on energy- spiritual as well as celebratory. As the Diwali celebrations conclude, we have Thanksgiving and Christmas in the air.

As many of us look forward to holidays, celebrations and office parties, there are some of us who may have to work through it all. Reasons could be multiple.

  • Maybe your job is such that the festive season demands extra work from you.
  • Maybe your company is going through a period when taking off days or celebrations aren’t very profitable and sensible activities.
  • Maybe you were not able to travel back to your family for some reason.

And so on.

It is difficult to ignore all the celebrations around and find your focus. It is also difficult for many of us, who do love the festivities to not feel what is popularly known as ‘FOMO’, the ‘fear of missing out’. What are some strategies to use if you are someone who is going to be working through the festive season?

Find ‘other’ ways to break the monotony:

While it might not be possible for you to get a leave, it might still be possible to break the monotony by changing your perspective. After all, breaks, holidays or celebrations of any kind, festivities included, are ways to break the monotony of the mundane life. They are rituals to signify a change in rhythm of life. Festivals are shifts in life’s gears offered by traditions.

This change in rhythm of life can be created by oneself as well. If one cannot change the gear via the method given by age old traditions, we can create our own ways of changing gears. This could be creating simple practices and rituals. Simple, doable practices. For example, if it is not possible to dress nicely at your office, you can still make a tiny, micro change in your bearing and routine to feel the change, like wearing a different watch. Or changing the wallpaper of your desktop or cell-phone. Or taking something different for lunch. Or preparing your tea differently than usual.

Simple change in your own modern ‘rituals’ can still work as a break in the monotony.

Noticing your commute with slightly empty roads, the unusualness in your regular inbox, the way your office building feels different and being mindful about countless other small changes can still be ways to find the magic in the mundane, to break the monotony.

 Be happy for others:

Being happy for others is an underrated superpower.

Often times, the ‘FOMO’ mentioned earlier comes from the simple fact that we are envious of the ones who are getting to take a break. We want what they have. We feel that lack, that injustice, the unfairness. We feel tired and exhausted by looking at the photos of others posted on social media.

Many people will tell us to block out these ‘distractions’, to remain so focused on our work, manage the tasks such that we don’t feel like there are festivities going on out there. That is definitely one way.

But what if we flipped the script there and tried to enjoy through others, vicariously?

Looking at the photos of festivities around, and feeling a sense of gratitude that one lives in a place where there is so much hubbub around, or have that kind of access, might actually improve our mood instead of having the attitude of missing out. Listening to the stories about vacations and office celebrations with a sense of curiosity and love, instead of a sense of lack and unfairness might give us the warmth we didn’t experience directly.

Warmth doesn’t need festivities:

As the Diwali sweets are stored away, Christmas decorations brought out, and the gloom of working through the festivals still around, it would be a good reminder that one can find the spirit all year round. Meeting loved ones, and keeping the love and laughter alive could be a year-round thing! A gentle reminder to self that festivals are one of the ways to take in the warmth of human connections, and not the only way could go a long way in changing that script of FOMO to that of the joy of simply being.

Focusing on our work or denying the unpleasantness might be counterproductive. Instead accepting that we are missing out, but still being curious to know how others are celebrating might be a bigger step towards feeling slightly less unpleasant.

While it is true that missing out on the festive season, for whichever season might lead to a gloomy mood and a sense of unfairness, it is also true that magic can also be found in the mundane!