A Leader's Corner

That which is the most appealing often turns out to be the reason for a slowdown. And people fail to recognize this aspect. We adjust ourselves to the circadian rhythm of our lives and lifestyles: office->home->marriage->kids->death. We don’t dare to dream, because the fear of failure engulfs us tightly and don’t believe in ourselves to succeed. Familiarity breeds stagnation, and potential dies a slow death.

In the book “The Alchemist” by the renowned author Paulo Coelho, the protagonist undertakes a quest to travel around the world, in search of treasure and personal benefits. However, upon completing his venture, he discovers that the treasure was right where he had started. The journey though was not a waste of time, as he gained enormous experiences from his encounters with people along his way. This relates in many ways to our lives and our respective journeys. Every step that we take in “search of that treasure” is another step out of our comfort zones, another step in recognizing our true potential and in gaining a new experience altogether. Dealing with uncertainty and change can be crippling, in terms of your imposed stress, yet to live a compelling future requires stepping out of the familiar to reach new horizons.

“Move out of your comfort zone. You can only grow if you are willing to feel awkward and uncomfortable when you try something new.” — Brian Tracy

In this article, I have collated several steps that will help you break the monotony and take a step ahead.

Dream Big – The Sky is the Limit:

The first step to succeeding is dreaming, and dreaming big. Let the imagination fly wild and form a set of goals and dreams for yourself. Every entrepreneur who has made it to the book of success and popularity today, started as a mere dreamer. And you must be capable of seeing your dream turn into reality. Once you start believing in your dream, you also learn how to filter your emotions, retain the positive and let go of the negative. Your dream must be passionate enough to keep the adrenaline high and to make you realize that hard work is the only way to achieve it.

Set Goals- and achieve them:

It is very important to set short, mid and long-term goals. This not only helps you to focus better but also keeps you on track and in check. Once you have clearly defined your goals, the perspective changes from “what” to “how”. Having a goal makes you work toward it harder and faster. More importantly, if you’re in a position to see yourself progressing toward that goal, as you do when you’re paying off debt, you’re more likely to accelerate harder. Reward yourself after you have successfully achieved a goal, and you will see the dopamine-rush encouraging you to accomplish the others with greater spike and focus. Also, remember that goals are not the ultimate do-or-die situations. On course, they may change. For e.g, an aspiring CEO of a Fortune-500 company may open his/her venture with time, after realizing his/her entrepreneurial interests.

Ameliorate, Learn and Upscale

The corporate world is an ever-changing, ever-competitive place. The one thing that remains constant in this world is change and an effective way of dealing with an ever-changing environment and world is with continuous learning and development. This can be achieved by taking up short courses in sites such as Udemy, Coursera, LinkedIn learning, etc. A few professionals also scale themselves up by enrolling in a master’s degree program, such as an MBA, MS etc. The future is unpredictable. Continuous learning will go a long way in helping you adapt to many unexpected changes in the future, for instance, your career requiring an advanced level of expertise and skill-set or a change in profession, industry or continent.

Last but not the least, success is a destination that requires constant dedication, sincerity and self-belief. Having the urge to succeed is definitely the start of a long journey of commitment, but anyone willing to onboard for the journey must recognize his/her comfort zone(s) and be willing to come out of them. It is natural to get a sense of behavioural security and safety when staying in a comfort zone, but the fruits of labor come to those who dare to shatter the glass ceiling!