What areas must you introspect on the last day of the year?

Today is the last day of 2007. This is the best time to look at the year that is ending. However, this has to be done in a systematic manner.

What areas will you focus upon?

Physical

• What health enhancing activities did you do this year?
• What health deteriorating activities/habits did you acquire this year?

Mental

• What new knowledge did you acquire this year?
• What books did you read this year?
• How many books did you read completely this year?

Social

• How many new friends did you make this year?
• How many friends did you lose touch this year?
• How many friends do you have today?-current count
• How much time did you spend with them?
• How did you give back/contribute to the society?

Family

• How much time did you spend with your spouse this year?
• How much time did you spend with your children this year?
• How stronger is the bonding in you family this year?

Work/Business

• What new skills did you learn today?
• How many new contacts did you add to your network this year?
• How well did you perform this year?

Finance

• How is your bank balance?
• How is your debt?
• How much have you increased your earning to?
• What alternative sources of income did you add?

Spiritual

• How close are you to your spiritual goals?
• How much time did you spend in prayer, meditation, etc.
• How much time did you spend in helping others

Looking back, what would you have done better?

Looking back, what would you have avoided?

What action steps do I need to take and in which areas do I need to take them?

Being Arrogant and/or Judgemental

How do you look at people? Do you look at them with contempt or with a neutral outlook or with admiration? I have seen arrogance/contempt written all over their face, in many people, I have met.

"Contempt ---Neutral---Admiration" scale is a very useful scale.

Another scale that is very useful, is the one, that checks how judgemental you are.

"Arrogant---Neutral---Judgemental"

Some people are arrogant and some people are judgemental. However, if you are arrogant and judgemental, then you will be walking alone, all the way, through out life.

We need to be aware, how we affect others.

Maintaining Friendship

How many friends do you have right now? Is your lifestyle and job conducive to friendship.

As I look back, I find myself getting more and more alienated from all my friends. Having lived in different countries across continents and being in a very highly demanding job, I have found it difficult to maintain continuity with any friend. This was more because of my neglect than anything else.

In this crazy, high speed, multi-tasking, low attention span world, it is becoming more and more difficult to get good friends. What I have learnt is, that it is not only difficult to get good friends, but also to keep them. Friendship requires a lot of investment of time and attention.

I have decided today to revive my friendship with several of my old friends. With cell phones and internet shrinking the globe, there is no excuse for me, not to be in touch with my friends.

What about you? What are you waiting for? Make that call to a friend you have not spoken for in years.

I have a list of friends and I am going to call them.

Leadership must be earned

In every team you will find people who want to be leaders. However, very few people realize that leadership should be earned.

Few months back, I assigned few mini projects across my team members. Each mini project had a leader and a few team members, who will help the leader to complete the mini project. There were few projects, where the leader of one project was also a team member of another.

The results were very interesting:

There were few leaders who did a great job, while there were others who miserably failed. There was this one leader, who wanted to relinquish his leadership, as very few team members cooperated with him. He just couldn't move forward.

The lesson learnt out of this exercise were the following:

1. Leaders who failed, were invariably, poor team members, who did not cooperate in other leader's projects.
2. Leaders who failed were found to have a common trait-arrogance.
3. Leaders who did not make it, were the ones who had relationship issues and were not liked by many of the team members.

Learnings:

Leadership must be earned. Even if you are the appointed leader, you need to build trust for you amongst the team members. You may have all the authority in the world and fail to be a leader, while someone else may have no authority at all but may be the the unspoken, unnamed, and undisputed leader.

There are times, when we make the same mistake again and again. We wonder, why we falter despite our resolve never to get into that mess again.

Every mistakes we do spring from a web of dysfunctional habits. For example- not claiming the expenses of shipping your household stuff even after months of relocation because you lost the cargo invoice. Why did you lose the cargo invoice? It is because you are disorganized. Why are you disorganized, even though you have read a lot of books about organizing things? It is because you procrastinate. Why do you procrastinate?---.

Hence if you want to prevent a mistake, you may need to take action in multiple areas, not just resolve never to do that mistake again.

A complete post critique of what went wrong and which habits contributed to the mistake will be the first thing to do.

Based on the post critique, you need to develop an action plan to prevent the mistake once and for all. Please remember, you may need to look beyond yourself too, because the dysfunctional habits that contributed to the mistake may not lie with you alone.

I think the best person to start with is yourself.

In my experience, I have always hit "pay dirt" when I started with myself.

How much deep do you dive with respect to information? Do you collect information only to get by or do you make a full study?

There are many things in life that require deeper study and understanding. Many of us short cut the process. While it is not possible to know everything about everything, it is important to know everything about few of the things that are important in life. Let me give some examples:

Things you use daily-cellphone, digital assistant, home theatre, credit card, your bank and it's services, your DVD player---.

More examples-your companies incentive policy, your country's tax laws, health and fitness,---. The list can go on.

Many of us know a lot about few things. It is important to take stock. We need to ask this question frequently-What are the stuff in my life that needs complete or near complete information which if I have will give me a quantum leap in tapping its benefits?

It will be a good idea to develop a list. You may be surprised at the lack of your knowledge in specific areas and how it is impacting you.

Anything too much, for too long a time, is tiring, this is what I discovered today. It is so easy to have too much of the same thing for too long a time.

Too much work and no vacation. Too much study and no play. Too much play with no serious goal seeking activity. Too much stress with no relaxation. Too much silence with no meaningful conversations. Too much email with no meaningful work done. Too much of stimilui and no quiet time. The list can go on and on.

We take these excesses for granted, but life is about balance. The ill effects of such imbalances soon begin to take toll on our health, our wealth, our relationships,---.

For most of us, the danger is, we are not even aware, before it is too late.

The solution that comes to my mind is to take stock of these imbalances in one's life and begin to correct them. One imbalance at a time.

I will report back after a few posts on this important aspect of life.

How about you? Are you ready to take a similar stock of the imbalances in your life?

How do you know that you are in the right job? How do know you have chosen the right career for yourself? I have changed careers and enjoyed the process of relearning and doing things that excites me. However, if you ask me, whether I am tapping all my talents and potential, I would answer with a big "NO.".

I feel I have not explored, sufficiently. I can blame it on my teachers and my education, but I know, that will be a cowardly act.

May be I could have become a great painter or an archaeologist, or a tailor, or a sailor---.

The point I am driving at is, unless we explore, we will never get out of our blind spot. You may be a good CEO, but you could have become the world's greatest author.

I think the good news is we always have a choice to try different things. May be we will, suddenly, come to focus on some hidden talent that will take us to the stars status.

The key is the courage to try. The courage to choose.

You always have a choice.

How do you tell a subordinate to go? I told him to search for another job. I had tell him firmly, while being professional. Iron hand in velvet glove.

This was after all attempts to coach and mentor him and he showed no sign of improvement. I had an option to fire him, but chose the option to ask him to search for another job.

It is important as a leader to take tough decisions while being compassionate.

Step by step: Coach and mentor-Ask him to seach for another job-Ask him to resign-Fire him.

The decision depends on the situation and the person involved. Sometimes there is no other option other than firing immediately and sometimes you need to take a longer route.

What do you think?

This is the time of the year for new year resolutions. I made one on the christmas day itself. I soon found that I had already defaulted by the end of the day.

Unless we carefully plan how we are going to implement the resolution, it will usually fail. This is, specially, true for any resolution that affects lifestyle change-exercising, meditation, spending more time with the family, etc.

Following things needs to be done:

1. Remind yourself of the resolution constantly
2. Plan how you are going to implement it daily
3. Identify your habits that may be barriers to the new resolutions
4. Have a plan to overcome those barriers-renegotiation with yourself may be needed
5. Do a post-critique everyday on how you are faring with respect to the new year resolution
6. Take corrective measures immediately
7. Do not be a perfectionist-few slip ups are OK. Don't give up because of the slip ups.
8. Allow a months time for the new habit to set in
9. Expect resistance and disinterest in you initially. It is normal to have resistance.
10. Allow time before the fun begins.
11. Enjoy the fun and the feel good when it occurs. Nurture the fun and talk about it to others
12. Take the support of others to help you to build this new habit

I am going to try these out. In case you want to try them, please do so. If you are trying these please do share it with me. Your success story will definitely inspire me.

A person ,whom we know closely, refused to send his daughter to a Christmas party. The reason he gave us was, that, his daughter felt the people who hosted the party were rich and were getting differential treatment (Her uncle-father's brother- and family had stayed with the "rich folks" instead of coming to their house, directly, few weeks back.).

How do parents tell their children the difference in their economic status compared to their relatives and friends?

I feel this was a golden opportunity, that, this father missed. They were not poor. They were well of themselves. I think all of us will be relatively poor compared to some other person. Unless, of course, you are the world's richest man. Even if you are, still, you may be dethroned some day or the other.

Children should be taught that their self-esteem is independent of anything else. Their self-worth is a given, because they are unique and have the potential capacity to contribute in unique ways. Moreover, people who get differential treatment need not necessarily be bad themselves. These "rich folks" in question are very nice folks. It is also important to teach children not to differentiate people based on status, wealth, etc.

This incident reveals another very important point. Every parent needs to process the events, positive and negative, openly, with their children. They should not leave it to the child to process it on her/his own. This is one of the best ways to inculcate sound values.

However, to do this there needs to be a lot of internal work and thinking through by parents themselves, in addition to developing a shared set of sound core values.

What do you think?

I got a call from a long lost relative. I use to hate him right from childhood, purely because he was self-centered and selfish. He treated my parents with disrespect and never took responsiblity of his near and dear ones. He always shirked his responsibility and my parents had to offer support and fill the gap.

My mother used to advice me to forget and forgive. Somehow, I could never do it.

He called today for his needs. I found myself talking to him with respect and compassion. I felt good having talked to him. I also felt strange. Where is my anger and hatred?

Did I forgive him because I forgot? I spoke to him after 25 years. I don't know.

May be time erases everything. May be I followed my mother's advice. I don't know, but I do know that it felt far, far better than nurturing the hatred and anger.

I think we need to be compassionate and forgive others totally and let time do its work of erasing the hurt. If you forgive time may erase it quicker.

What do you think?

What do you do when all your attempts to correct a subordinate fails? You have given him sufficient time and now you have to take a decision and ask him to resign.

What will you further do, when he suddenly, also begins to exhibit disloyalty? There are times when you have to be ruthless as a leader. If you are not ruthless, it will confuse your other team members working for you.

During these times, you also need to communicate about this wayward team member to the others in your team. If you do not communicate, the only message they may get will be from that wayward employee. What he will tell about you and the situation will not be the one corresponding to reality.

A basket of apples is good one apple at a time. It is said, that even one spoilt apple can gradually spoil all other apples.

This true for us, humans, too. The only difference is, we have a choice not to get spoilt, eventhough, many of us are not even aware of such a choice. To take this observation further, we not only have a choice not to get spoilt, we also have a choice to "change the spoilt apple" to speak metaphorically.

Alas! Many of us are not even aware of this important truth and even if we are aware, many of us do not act based on this truth. We give into group norms.

You always have a choice!!!

Today, my daughter narrated to me something that happened in her college. They ridiculed her for buying or taking a stand to buy only original software, music, movies, books etc. She said, "Dad! Our family is a minority in the context of being very ethical and value based in buying only original versions of anything.".

As a family principle, we have always bought only original stuff and refused, completly, to buy or download, any pirated version of anything. This has been our way of life.

It is important for families to think through deeply and act on wholesome values that are based on eternal principles of honesty and integrity. As we scanned our families and friends list in the context of their stand on piracy, it was sad to note, that many of them bought pirated versions of music/movies or downloaded them. We found one family that bought only original stuff, but when we analyzed a little deeper, it was more, because they considered themselves well off and to buy any pirated version was below their status, rather than they being aligned to any well thought out principle of honesty and integrity.

This small conversation threw light on following points:

1. You cannot be dishonest in one department in life and be honest in other areas.
2. The best way to teach children is to role model and be the principle you want to teach them.
3. Rolemodeling of wholesome principles will hardwire them in your children, in such a manner, that these principles will guide them to decide and to act in honest ways, even when the peer pressure and other forces try to tempt them to act in the dishonest manner.

I am sure there are lots of families like us. My daughter told our family is a minority based on her experience in her small teenage universe.

What do you think? Are honest people and families a minority in todays world? I hope not.

The more you pamper your children with love and kindness, the more you build their trust in you. This gives you the freedom to be stern and firm when it is required.

It is important they have a paradigm that they are valued and loved. Without such a paradigm and foundation of trust no critique can get through.

It is important to ask "what if?" question and break the routines that get set in our lives. For the pasr few months we were visiting a Mall frequently, however, yesterday we went to a different mall far away from where we live. We could make totally different kinds of purchases.

It is important you ask the "what if?" question to different areas of your life periodically. What if I go after this new career? What if we go to this new vacation plave? What if I start this new hobby? ---.

What do you think? When was the last time you asked the "What if?" question? For many of us it will be way back in time. Try it!

My daughter and I were travelling together in her car. We always sit in the rear seat and we use this opportunity to have long conversations as our chauffeur negotiates the car through the thick Mumbai traffic. I was on my way to my office and she to her college.

As we spoke, I suddenly told her of a specific personal productivity problem I am currently facing and asked her to develop a solution by end of today. I told her she is my consultant and she needs to give me advice. She took the assignment pretty seriously and came up with a brilliant solution. I am so proud of her.

I learnt the following from this experience:

1. Children are great problem solvers. They are very creative.
2. Involving them teaches them that every problem has a solution and they need to think it through.
3. The parent child bonding is rapidly enhanced
4. Parents can get very creative solutions which they would have never even thought about.

Moreover if you implement their solution and demonstrate success to them, they will truly develop immense self-esteem and have confidence to solve problems.

Children should be involved, wherever possible, in developing solutions to common family problems along with the parents. This will come a long way for strengthening family bonding and creatively solving problems together.

A colleague of mine came back, today, after successfully finishing a project. He came to me and started narrating to me the various victories he had won while implementing the project. I could see him, right in front of me, so happy and confident. It was his first project.

The person in front of me, today, was a stark contrast to the person he was, before he went to the project. I changed, completly changed, my opinion of him and I firmly, now, believe he will be a great asset to my team.

I learnt several lessons from this experience:

1. Never lose faith in the potential of your followers
2. Groom them with the hope they will perform
3. Take time to form conclusions of people by giving them a chance to perform
4. Most important, people need that initial success to build confidence in themselves

How quickly we judge people and form opinions. We need to nurture them and believe in their potential. This is true in work, as well as, in families, especially, while dealing with children. I have seen parents, teachers, bossess, peers label people and these labels stick to them for their entire lives. Some of these labels are destructive and can cause a lot of harm.

Do you have labels stuck to you? It is time to examine them.

A colleague of mine just made a business presentation. It was average. How is it that people stay unprepared? You need to be prepared all the time. This is a great competitive advantage. Just like a great musician may be called to perform suddenly and she gives a brilliant performance, similarly in every walk of life one needs to be prepared-always prepared. A student for a test, a doctor for a surgery, a business man for a presentation, a pilot for a take off, a soldier for a combat, an employee for a promotion, --- the list can go on and on.

The difference between mediocrity and excellence is preparedness, because when you are called to perform you have no time for anything else.

Sometimes when you are sincere and nice to people they back stab you. Your kindness, compassion, and desire to improve the person professionally and personally will be interpreted as weakness.

A leader can tolerate everything except dishonesty and disloyalty. In such a situation, he has to take the iron hand out of his velvet glove and act. It is then time to remove that person from the team, division, company, or country.

What do you think---?

It is important to have different alternative sources of income. Becoming financially independent is a goal that needs to be set in childhood. How many of us as parents help our children to set this goal.

It is not surprising at all if your child emulates you and ends up in the same financial status as you are in-positive or negative.

The best way to teach a child is through role-modeling.

I have this tendency to go to important events unprepared. This springs from a sense of overconfidence. Then, invariably, while the event is unfolding, I wish I had gone there better prepared.

It is important to prepare oneself fully for important events in life. Doing a pre-critique is crucial and will go a long way in preparing yourself for important turning points in your life.

Does that mean that you need to be prepared for each and every event? Not at all! However, you definitely need to know which are the crucial ones you will need thorough preperation.

A FPL is important and should be drawn out periodically. What is a FPL? It is nothing but a "Fully Prepared" List which needs to be fully prepared.

How much planning needs to go into a day? Am I doing things that really matter? How do I determine what those important things are?

How many of us like planning? What impact does planning have on our personality type? What impact does our personality type have over our planning? Can all personality types plan effectively? Can all personality types enjoy planning?
These are profound questions, that needs to be answered. We need to negotiate with ourselves about the task of planning.

Without planning everything tends to move towards chaos. However, there needs to be some form of chance or serendepity to come to play, periodically, to shake us out of the rut we fall into.

Effective life is finding a balance between planning and random chance/serendipity. For those who enjoy planning, they need to learn to enjoy chance and randomness and those who enjoy flexibility, randomness and serendipity, they need to learn to enjoy planning. It is not "either -or". It is "and".

I recently was interviewing a group of fresh MBAs to take them as Management Trainees in our organization. These MBAs hailed from a premier business school. As I interviewd them, one by one, it suddenly dawned upon me, how ill prepared these candidates were. In fact, that interview day was one of the most important days in their lives.

Life brings us to these important days, periodically. How we fair and excell on these days depend on how well we have been preparing for them. For many of these important days, which are actually turning points, the preparation required may be a lifetime.

These students were trying to shortcut the process. An Olympic Gold Medal is won only by years of practice. For a short marothon run you may need to invest days, months, and years of effort. Think about it---

How many of us have a talent inventory of ourselves? We need to constantly check what our talents are and also take stock of which ones we are using effectively.

Using our talents effectively will help us to forge ahead and live a fun filled life.

Why run on land when you have hidden wings by which you can fly high?

How many of us give sufficient time for ourselves. To be alone for a few hours and look back at life can have therapeutic effect. Otherwise, what happens is we react from one situation to another, with no time even to think. With email, cell phone, pagers, RSS, TV, Radio, Video Games, IM, and people to distract us and keep us engaged, we end up alienating ourselves.

We need to establish relationship with ourselves first before we can have meaningful relationship with others.

So, get to quiet place, be alone and say "Hello" to yourself. Do you recognize yourself? What have you become? Are you the same? Try it and share your experience with others

Why do people take short cuts? It is risky and dangerous. It is one thing to take short cuts on a key board and totally another thing to take short cuts in life. In fact, short cuts are very contextual in nature and may do harm or good depending on the nature of the situation.

In this age of instant gratification people treat their lives as if it was a key board. Parents use the control & shift key too often with their children leaving them confused and bewildered.

People use short cuts to enhance their relationships with others. They portray a false image of themselves and try to win admiration from people who matter to them. However, people see through the facade quickly and the end result is that they lose their respect as quickly as they won it.

It is very important to be aware when we can take short cuts and when we need to pay the price by our effort.

It is amazing how perseverance can dissolve obstacles and get things done. I just completed a task that I was postponing for quite a long time. It was unpleasent and I was avoiding it.

I was using other tasks as distractions or excuses to avoid this one. Today I set aside time, and returned back to the task when ever I was interrupted and determined not to leave the office till I completed it.

Looking back, it was not as bad as I imagined it to be. Most of the obstacles are in our minds and we create them.

What do you think?

Where does your self-esteem come from? For some people it comes from their title, for some from the organization they work for or for some the family or nation they belong to.

More your self-esteem is tied to some thing external, the more vulnerable you are. Self-esteem should come from a strong character base which springs from a stream of wholesome values. Self-esteem should be based more on one's own contribution in different areas of life, more than anything else.

How many of us get stuck in a rut. Some people are not even aware that they are in a rut. Even small steps towards new pathways can change our perspective and give us a breath of fresh air we all need ---

What steps ahve you taken to explore new frontiers? When did you last find a new way to drive to your office? When did you buy a new magazine you have never laid hands upon before? When did you eat in a totally new restaurant?

Whatever you start you need to follow through. This is one area I need improvement, especially when I start multiple things and finally get lost. I am exploring different ways to stay focused and will report here.

What are the techniques to stay focused? If you as a reader know special ways to stay focused, please do share.

What do you do when people lie to you? or tell you half-truths? In such cases it is very important to study facts and inquire completly. This is very important , especially, when other people are involved.

It is one thing to trust and let go, it is a totally different thing to abdicate. Sometimes I trust people too much and take it as a given that they are performing and all is well with them and who they are serving. Many a times I interpret no news as good news. I think this approach to leadership is very dangerous. Trust but verify from all quarters---

If you want to change a habit, you must also examine an ecology of other habits feeding into or supporting/hindering the one you want to change. For example-not exercising may be linked to watching TV, getting up late, sleeping late, overeating, no true recreation --- the list could go on.

Eliciting these interlinked habits and creating a new ecology will be needed to support the new habit in the long term. One cannot start too big nor can one start too small. What is important is addressing the key ones to bring about change.

When a husband and wife fights in front of everyone it is a sad spectacle to watch. The blame game that triggered this fight (misplaced air tickets) is perhaps the tip of the iceberg. It is very important to resolve conflicts in the real time rather than wait for it to accumulate.

In the absence of conflict resolution the dart board gets bigger and bigger along with the number of darts you have with you to use against each other.

I wonder how they will be feeling now, with continents seperating them, litterally and figuratively ---

Some people switch their behaviour depending on the type of person they meet. This is what I was observing in my colleague and thus gave him critique about it. This springs from an opportunistic leadership style.

Such people are rarely liked. They are abrasive with a lot of people they meet and selectively very nice to some. They use differential treatment to get along and progress in life. However, little do they realize that they cannot go too far.

However far they may go in life, in variably they will find themselves alone with no one to cheer and clap for them.

Today, I reacted to a behaviour from another person, totally, in a different manner, as I would have reacted to the same behaviour a year back. Perhaps, I changed the way I looked at the behaviour and forgot to tell the person who initiated it. This resulted in a lot of surprise and diasappointment for both of us. I heard comments like"This is not you"

I had to explain myself and try to talk myself out of the behaviour, which was not very effective.

What I learnt is that one needs to examine one's way of looking at various things periodically. All of us change, most of us, silently, and we often forget to communicate to other people around us. Communicating upront to people around us will save us all a lot of unpleasent surprises.

In throwing a dinner, as well as, in delivering in other areas of life, it is better to set low expectations or no expectations and deliver a very delightful experience rather than setting high expectations and delivering. Sometimes the expectations you intent to set may not be the ones formed in the minds of the recipient.

You may run into the danger of disappointing people because of the mismatch of what you set and what was formed in their minds

Habits are formed gradually---. A house gets disorganized gradually---. You get overweight gradually---. Eventhough this is the truth most of us want instant change. A positive change too happens gradually. How about daily, gradual approach to multiple, pre-determined change

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Life is a maze.Some barriers and pathways are set at your birth and some by your upbringing and circumstances. However, most of the pathways and barriers have been built by you, mostly unconsciously.

Every decision you make, small or large, builds pathways and/or barriers. You are now caught in the maze and it is up to you to find a way to where you want to be.

How happy are you with other's success? I think it is one of the key parameters that give you a clue to what kind of person you are.

If you don't use your skills and knowledge to your full potential, people with lesser skills and knowledge will get ahead of you. Think about it.

Trying things that you have never tried before is what makes life fun and interesting. We get stuck in routines. Same route to office, same kinds of clothes, same food, same way of earning a living--- we get in to a "shame same" mode and fall into a rut. Let me try to do one new thing a week to start with. Try this idea out and share it with others

Another week over. What did I accomplish? Progress is slow. Let me try weekly goals instead of weakly goals for a change. I think I will restrict myself to three major goals I want to achieve this coming week. I will report next Saturday...

Some days you really get upset. Especially with people whom you don't like. You may then consciously or unconsciously try to fix them or nail them. You may begin to view past events and give them a new color. You may then want to take action to fix this person. In these times it is better to pause--- study the matter more carefully and then take action. If you fail to do so then your actions may boomerang on to you --- think about it

I recently discovered that I have paternistic tendencies. I quickly changed myself to 9,9 in that situation(resignation)

Never let anyone threaten a consequence like quitting the job. If someone does it ask them to quit.

There are days when you sink so low that everyone notices it. Including yourself. Yesterday was such a day. I took time to be by myself and take stock of things. I identified 12 areas which I have been neglecting. These will be my top attention areas for next 6 months to a year

Sometimes you can predict your colleagues behaviour. Here comes another resignation. When you are heading a team it is better to keep this in mind and plan for attrition.

It is funny --- we postpone things forever and then just doing one of the action items that will create a movement that will create sufficient momentum to move things forward to completion. I think I need to use this principle more often, consciously.

I completed something I had kept on my list for months. What this means is profound. Putting something on the list can be counterproductive. Just find a time and do it. Let me explore this principle. It flies in the face of many who advocate lists.

Start an activity and you get the momentum. Slogan --- Just start.

How about a commitment/contribution dashboard? What do you think are the areas each one should focus on? Are there areas that are common to everyone? How many areas can you foucus at a time? These are questions you need to ponder over.

How much commitment do you have for various areas of your life? If you examine the results you are getting, you will get a clue. Is life lived good about achieving everything on your list or is it about contributing in areas where you can contribute?

May be we need a commitment meter that warns us that we are running low. Relationship ---warning low---exercise--- warning very low. Think about it. Examine the various areas of your life.

It is so easy to forget. Take exercising for example. How about creating advertisements for yourself? How many of our bad habits are influenced by ads in some form or other?Even other people can be "living ads" for some bad habits. Smoking is an example.

How about creating an environment conducive to your new habits? Think about it.

If you want to change yourself, you need to take one step at a time. I started exercising today. My goal is to get to my ideal weight. For a while I am going to focus on this one aspect in the physical realm. How many changes can one handle together? Too many can cause stress. How ever we are adding changes to ourselves whether we are realising it or not. We make silent decisions that go unnoticed even to ourselves. Do these changes cause us stress?

We develop bad habits like overeating, lazing around, watching too much TV etc which can cause stress too. But the changes are always downstream with some pay off that keeps us going after the bad habit. Over a period of time the pay offs become addictive. Think about it---

I have updated my blog. It took sometime to come back to it. What did I learn today? I learnt that you need to spend time alone and write down your thoughts. Just let the thoughts flow. You may be surprised at what you have written. Experiment it and share your find here.

Today I have started writing my new book. I am also on a Life style changing mode. I will write about this daily.

Today I decided to apply the 80/20 rule. Let us see what happens after one week.