Meet and greet to be happy.

Does walking to someone unknown and starting a conversation scare you?

You’re not alone.

Many people shy away or make excuses to avoid meeting people, be a part of social gathering or network.

In fact NOT many make an effort to talk to the people in the same organisation, cubicle or neighbourhood.

This attitude may impact social image, brand, professional growth and success.

When it comes to professional networking people can benefit and expand their knowledge, opportunities and connections.

My Dad had a major fall last week and was immediately rushed to the hospital. There was no single room available, long wait time and busy doctors. Even though he had to go undergo surgery we were told to wait till a room gets vacant. Luckily his connections helped. He’s always been a friendly person and a kind being. That has helped him build some beautiful relationship both at work and in personal life. The connections helped us secure a room, an immediate slot for surgery and post care. I felt truly grateful at that moment for having such supportive people in our life. Our family was physically and emotionally supported.

Great relationships enhance your happiness. It’s not just about taking but giving as well. Many workplace relationships turn into deep friendships.

Networking helps in building motivation and collect creative ideas. It helps gain confidence and overcome fears . Recently, in one of the virtual workshops after a breakout room activity the participants shared we just realised how similar we are though we have known each other for the last 2 years but never interacted so deeply.

Here’s how to start networking even when you are shy:

🤝 Greet – Best-way to make two people happy is to smile. The giver and the receiver benefits equally. So when you meet someone next time in an elevator or social gathering give the gift of attention and smile instead of looking in the phone.

🤝 Smart – Use this strategy to build connections.

↪️ Small (Have small goals such as call one old friend everyday or 5 new connections per week on LinkedIn)

↪️ M – measurable (Setting a target)

↪️ A – achievable (Can you do that consistently every day/week)

↪️ R – resources (time, gadget, niche could be some of resources)

↪️ T – time (make it time bound such as for next one month or 3)

🤝 Tag – Take a friend along when going to an in person event. Tag someone here in the comments who helped you network.

🤝 Reach out – Every person we meet has some unique experience or story to share. Make an effort to go out, socialise and connect with like minded individuals

🤝 Work on body language – Notice how you sit and stand, if you are closed and not interested people will hesitate to make the conversation. Look up from phone, smile and make an eye contact with someone you can see around you.

Tag some connection you found through networking.

Share ideas what worked for you?

Let’s acknowledge & applaud helpful people who supported you during tough times.

After all what are we here for, if not to make life easier for each other?

Happily Hybrid

During my recent workshop on “Work Life Balance” someone asked this important question just as we were closing.

“With Hybrid work becoming the new normal how can we create a balance and stay happy at work?”

Due to lack of time couldn’t answer in detail 😄 so post the session I was having a feeling that this concern definitely requires more deep dive then just touching upon the topic.

A hybrid work model is one in which some employees work from home while others work onsite. Other hybrid models include a mix of in-office and remote work throughout the week for employees, such as three days onsite and two days at home. According to Slack, 73% of employees prefer a mix of remote and in-office work.

Businessmanagementdaily.com

As with everything else WFH has its own share of challenges such as distractions, inability to unplug, define personal & professional boundaries, lack of motivation, gaps in communication and collaboration over virtual calls.

Having said that there has been an increasing demand for hybrid working as it gives much more flexibility and productive time which could be be used quite effectively.

More time for pets, kids, exercise, learning and recreational activities are some of the things that got picked up during Covid 19.

To continue working on hybrid mode we need to equip ourselves with new ways of doing the same work. Let’s call them the 3 E’s (ease)😄

1. Effective communication: A lot can get lost if we are unable to see the person or the body language. The nonverbal communication plays a big role in getting across the message. Listening not just with our ears but observing and understanding the other person can be a skill that can be learned.

Effective communication and efficient leadership are intertwined.

2. Environment: Having a routine and setting a workspace at home can enhance focus and create boundaries between work and home. If possible choose to work from a room which is least disturbing or else opt for a Co-working space couple of times during the week. A workspace that’s comfortable and inviting with good lighting, ergonomic chair, fresh flowers at the table can add to joy of working. Dressing up for work instead of being in PJ’s can prevent from slouching and help create a better video presence and interaction.

The work wear & home wear are remarkable boundary setting ideas.

3. Enthusiasm: Less physical interaction and team activity may lower the desire to strive for more and achieve long term goals. To maintain the intrinsic motivation it’s important to have a mentor guidance, setting short term goals and concrete action plans. This can be further energised by outdoor team building sessions, rewards, appreciative meetings and celebrations. With every change we adapt and find new ways to manage. Adaptability mindset is crucial in today’s work environment.

So whether it is WFH or from office, what is needed is the freedom to choose, flexibility and options to be your best at work.

Let’s stay open to the opportunities and develop a work system that enhances your happiness and productivity.

☝️Which E you think will ease the way to Hybrid working? Eagerly awaiting your comments 😊

Little things that make a difference.

Hey do you know this nostalgic feeling?

When we meet someone who acknowledges us OR we enjoy the conversations with them.

Most of the time we keep reminiscing the talk in our mind.

The words float every now and then, the bio chemistry of body changes, we smile within and notice the heartbeats go a notch faster.

These are mainly thoughts of appreciation. It means recognising and acknowledging the qualities of someone or something.

Everyone loves recognition for what they do, including young kids. But here’s why leaders use appreciation at workplace:

1. Appreciation enhances engagement and commitment.
2. Appreciation increase productivity and builds intrinsic motivation.
3. It creates happy workplaces, with ripple effect of smiles and good thoughts.
4. It builds loyalty and reduces attrition.

Recently I worked with a client who used appreciation techniques at work, what worked best for him was not only the workplace environment improved but the good energy flowed into his personal life as well.

Employees feel happy to come at work and go back energised to their personal relationships.

Let’s make gratitude and appreciation a daily habit. But remember there is difference between a thank you note and a sincere expression of timely and relevant appreciation.

Best part it’s free!!

So would you like to appreciate someone or would you like to acknowledge someone who appreciates you? Let’s chat in the comments section below.

Stressed and still happy?

Can you be stressed and yet happy?

The answer is YES!

But it has to be the right amount of stress towards a meaningful purpose.

According to the research published in Journal of Happiness Studies, people who work hard at improving a skill or an ability do tend to experience stress but also greater happiness in the long run.

Working on new goals can be tough, creating new habits requires lots of effort, learning something new is hard and dealing with people with different mindset and volatile emotions can be stressful.

That’s why many organisations came forward and created a space for employees to talk about and learn ways to deal with stress during April, being the awareness month.

Stress has many beautiful attributes. We stress about things we care for, like our career, raising children and relationships at work and home.

So what tools and techniques help you deal with stress?

1. Meditation / Mindfulness

2. Nature walk

3. Journaling

4. One step at a time approach

5. Reading good books

6. Watching videos

7. Listening to music

8. Sleeping

9. Meeting friends

10. Yoga / Gym

Let’s remember “Happiness” is a choice and so is “Stress”!!

Grow through what you go through.

She fell in love, went against her family, struggled to keep her relationship alive. Lost herself in the process and became unhappy. Finally separated after suffering a lot and never got support from the society until one day she decided to change her story.

Today she is working in a top global organisation as a senior manager. She recently got married in a beautiful location with family and friends. She is my client and I am so proud of the way she transformed her life at such a young age and has become an inspiration to many. 

Photo by freestocks.org on Pexels.com

During one of our reconnect calls she shared with me that now whenever she finds herself confused or stuck, her partner would ask her, what would Henna do in this situation? What will she ask you? 

She said, “I think of our conversations and I am able to find a solution no matter what!”

From weekly session to once in a year connection we have come a long way. She is empowered with the mindset to grow through with what we go through.

All it takes is one deciding moment, when we choose to change. 

We are all capable, We are all limitless and we all have the ability to be the best version of ourselves. 

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Challenges are a part of life. Inspite of being a coach I do get confused, I do feel stuck and I do fail too but I know the answers we seek are mostly within.

So I ask you, If you were your own coach, what coaching would you give yourself? 

What would you like to change in your life? 

What area of your life needs improvement? 

What action can you take today?

On a scale of 1-10 how do you feel about taking these actions?

I encourage you to step into your power and refuse to make excuses for what’s not working in your life. You are about to have your moment of change.

www.hopeandhappinesscoach.com

Think your way to happiness

How do you feel right now?

Knowing how you feel is the first step towards making a connection with your emotions.

Our feelings and emotions determine the quality of our life. It can make us either miserable or magical!

When we feel good everything seems great, tastes better and energy for any task is high. Whereas when we feel low, we feel demotivated and lost.

Emotions are a powerful guiding mechanism. It can help us to become aware of the changes we need to make in our health, relationships or career.

Most of us were never taught on how to manage emotions and channelise them in the right way.

Here’s a quick checklist for you to connect with your emotions.

1. Identify which are the top 2 to 3 feelings, currently you are experiencing. (Ex: anxious, sad, tired or overwhelmed)

2. Notice your body, become mindful of the sensations in your physical body. ( Ex: Notice your breath or tightness in the body)

3. Once you identify the emotion learn ways to overcome them. (Ex: Journalling, walk, coaching, EFT etc)

4. Be consistent, if need be practice daily, you may be surprised how this simple awareness exercise brings a conscious positive change.

You are not a helpless victim of your thoughts, rather a master of your own mind.”

Be grateful, be happy!!

If you are reading or listening to this, you are alive, breathing, have a smartphone and a roof over head. There is always something or someone that we are grateful for and today is a day to acknowledge that. It’s world gratitude day, a day to pause and reflect on our blessings and gifts.

This day was reportedly first observed in 1965, during a Thanksgiving gathering at the International East-West Center in Hawaii. Sri Chinmoy, a spiritual leader and meditation teacher, had suggested that a day can be observed when the entire world comes together for the message of thanks. 

Last year and half has been tough and the pandemic is still prevailing threat around us. Corporates and stay at home parents are feeling burned out by the double duties of working remotely and managing children’s education and household work.

Photo by Polina Kovaleva on Pexels.com

Yet progress from this unprecedented situation is definitely remarkable, the kids have adjusted to the virtual routine and attitudes for work from home have changed. Employees are less tolerant of unhappy work situations, and many are seeking help and support. 

Over the last one year we have witnessed many organisations coming forward to inculcate a culture of gratitude at work. Grateful employees form stronger relationships, perform better, and tend to have greater job satisfaction. 

Saying “thank you” helps overcome “Poor me” mindset and though it seems simple yet science has proved that these words are powerful and the impact is profound, both for the giver and the receiver of thanks.

Gratitude lifts up our mood, rejuvenates our spirit, and gives us a renewed energy to meet the unprecedented challenges the world is facing today. 

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Gratitude opens our eyes to the limitless potential this universe offers whereas dissatisfaction closes our eyes.

I hope this year each one of us will take sometime to appreciate the blessings we have and express gratitude to thousands of people who have worked hard, some without knowing us at all but to make our life easier. 

You may choose to keep a journal going forward and note down any 5 good things that you feel particularly grateful for. With regular practice one can notice that expressing and feeling grateful becomes easier and makes you feel happier!!

Share one good moment that you experienced in this year or acknowledge someone in the comments and spread a wave of joy and positivity.

Choose to win, Refuse to fail

As we got hit by the second wave of pandemic and cities under the grip another lockdown in India, friends and families are wondering how we are going to cope with this challenge.

Over last one year many organisations have started assistance programs and well-being sessions. But the challenges are still there. So the need to create awareness is still there due to the emotional turmoil everyone is going through. This is amplified when we hear the news of families suffering and losing lives due to Covid-19.

Frank Snowden, author of Epidemics and society: From the Black Death to the present, calls it a second wave of “psychological pandemic”.

Pre COVID days, we could move out, meet friends, laugh away bad meetings and socialise to take off the work burden. Now with WFH there is more responsibilities and no outlets. A lot of belief transformation is happening during these unprecedented times triggering change in organisational and family dynamics.

Meanwhile the hospitals are filled with large numbers of cases and people running around making futile efforts of seeking a bed or oxygen cylinders. As per one of the corporate well-being providers, the senior executives are suffering from mental health issues more than the employees. Tracking growth and productivity along with keeping people motivated requires more communication channels. The endless Emails, phone calls, zoom, Slack and meet has lead to massive burnout.

The situation we are in today is a global experience in which we are all enrolled with or without our choice. Here’s what leaders with growth mindset would do:

1. Restart : Think of new ways of working and providing support. What CAN we do? Rethink strategies for overall development of yourself and your organisation. Though it won’t be easy, it will help teams innovate ways to weather the crisis.

2. Readjust : Review your policies and limitations. Find the gaps and create “Learn it all” culture instead of “know it all”; so that there is openness to ask for help and support. Let’s express grief and hold space for each other.

3. Refocus : This crisis is a good time to encourage deeper introspection on values, purpose & mission statements of the organisation. Encourage team to assess and improve established practices.

4. Reconnect: I remember last year everyone was so conscious of their presence on screen and now we see kids and pets on screen, it’s the new normal. Get to know your teammates, connect and coordinate. Create time for casual conversations and laughter. Good relationships at work helps in increasing productivity.

There is no “one size fits all”, so innovate ideas that provide support, makes employees happy and then repeat the process. No doubt when the pandemic ends a large number of worldwide workforce will adopt a hybrid/flexible schedule. If supported by the right leaders and mentors we all can come out of this pandemic stronger and more emotionally balanced than before.

Check out my free webinar on Life Work Balance here.

OR

Reach out for individual coaching session or group coaching for your teams here.

When we can’t change the situation we change ourselves.

Wear mask and stay safe 🙏

Let’s colour the life happy!!

Within each one of us is a fountain of colours, which keeps changing with time and experiences.

There are different colors associated with our feelings and emotions.

Anger is associated with red.

Jealousy is mostly seen as green.

Joy and happiness with yellow.

Love and romance with pink.

Sadness with blue.

Peace with white.

Sacrifice with saffron and

Knowledge with violet.

Harmony in diversity makes life vibrant, joyful, and more colorful.

Let’s make our life like Holi, where each color is seen clearly, which adds charm to each area of our life – be it work, relationships or health.

Yesterday during the Holi festival I experienced the vibrancy, joy, colourful and forgiving nature of life.

When colours are seen individually, it is awareness.

When all the colours get mixed up, we end up with muddy brown just like our emotional and mental clutter.

Each one of us plays many roles and handles various emotions which needs to be clearly defined.

Emotional confusion can create hurdles in living a happy life.

Here’s ways to add happy colours to our life:

1. Name it to tame it: Develop a daily practice of checking in on your feelings. What am I feeling today? Pick any three words that describe your feelings. For example: Anxious, nervous and frustrated.

2. Reason it out: Create any two statements with those three feelings. For example “I am feeling anxious as there is lots to do.” & “I am frustrated that I am unable to finish my tasks; that makes me nervous.” Expressing your feelings gives you a chance to untangle emotional ball of thoughts.

3. Act: Create an action statement that will help you overcome this emotional turmoil. For example: As I am frustrated and angry to the long list of task, the suitable action could be making a to-do list or prioritising.

Let’s add some happy colours and habits to our day to day life and stay vibrant and joyful. Happy Holi.

7 ways to WFH Happily

These days I wake up to a peaceful morning, birds chirping in the balcony, no morning rush hour traffic, which gives me a bit more time for my morning rituals which includes a nice cup of tea with my book.

But this peace soon gets shattered and the morning madness starts when kids wake up and everyone occupies their designated space in the house with their gadgets. A cacophony of voices starts rising from the kitchen, online school classes and Zoom based office meetings. From national anthem to gummy bear song and meditation to placating demanding customers.

The kitchen is the “new water cooler” where we all meet in between our sessions to grab coffee and snacks etc. Other times the conversations between family members happen only on WhatsApp chats or gestures. We have mastered the art of using sign language to ask, do you want tea, going for a walk, no tv till you finish homework and going to sleep in other room :).

As a mother I feel, there are more responsibilities than just household work. We tend to be more emotionally available for our children even if it means just a cuddle. Most women usually invest additional 3 to 4 hours a day on household responsibilities and child care – adding up to essentially another part time job. No wonder they are among the most likely group to be considering stepping back, so much so the pandemic induced economic downturn is being called she-cession rather than recession.

As we step into the second year of pandemic, here’re 7 ways to bring more balance and happiness in our life while WFH:

• 1. Take a nature walk: Studies reveal that spending time in nature has a positive effect on the mind, body, and spirit. Yoshifumi Miyazaki from Chiba University, Japan, discovered that going for a 40-minute walk in a green forest lowers the level of cortisol, the stress hormone, blood pressure and supports the immune system more than a similar 40-minute walk indoors. Use this time to exercise, reflect, recharge and heal. Due to time constraints me and my husband have combined the walk in nature as “us” time where we connect and talk about everything ranging from kids to planning holidays.

• 2. Power of routine: Routine is a schedule that you create to prioritise and make space for habits that are important. Yes, it takes time and effort and yes, it may not be possible to follow it on certain days but it also brings more discipline in following the schedule which is more winning and productive. Just Start and the add complicated tasks slowly once you are in the discipline of following a routine. For example, waking up at 4 am didn’t happen in day. I started with 6 am and slowly worked my way up to 4am.

• 3. Clutter free space: Our surroundings have a strong influence on our behaviour, cognition, emotions, decision-making, and even our relationship with others. A study by researchers from Princeton University Neuroscience Institute found that clutter limits your brain’s ability to process information. Look around your space and see what can you remove to create a better space for yourself. Effectively working from home requires optimising your environment to maximise health, happiness and productivity.

• 4. Setting boundaries: Boundaries can be physical or emotional, and they can range from being loose to rigid. Setting boundaries is an important part of establishing one’s identity and is a crucial aspect of mental health and well-being. Setting healthy boundaries can have many benefits, including helping people make decisions based on what is best for them, not just for the people around them. This autonomy is an important part of self-care.

• 5. Self care Sundays: Practicing a weekly digital detox and spending time on self will help a lot in enhancing your health and well-being. More and more studies are showing how our screen time negatively impacts everything from our sleep and memory to attention span, creativity, productivity, and even health. Unmindful social media usage can also lead to social comparison, which can result in impaired self-esteem and even depression, just having our phones in sight causes a rise in cortisol – body’s main stress hormone. Carve out time for meaningful purposes, relationships and self care tasks.

• 6. Make social connections: Meaningful relationships remain at the core of our emotional and psychological well-being as humans. However, the last one year has isolated us in our homes and left us with only virtual connections. More and more people are experiencing anxiety, depression and loneliness due to lack of human connections. Encourage ‘virtual water cooler chats’ during breaks. Login early to just ‘check-in’, ‘build emotional connections’ and have a ‘buddy system’.

• 7. Ask for support: Sometimes it’s not other’s unwillingness to provide Support, it’s our inability to ask for help. While growing up if I have seen my mother managing home front efficiently, somewhere I started believing that asking for help would mean “weakness” or “lack”. Most of the organisations and leaders are also willing to help but how often do we come over that self – limiting thought and seek help. Remember, people like to reciprocate and as a leader you can create the culture of asking and giving help in your organisation.

^{Embrace change, give up perfectionism and fine tune where you need to. After all what life throws at you is not your choice but what you make of it is 100% your choice.}