Friday, April 22, 2011

Nine things successful people do differently...

I came across this excellent article in the Harvard Business Review blog. I reproduce it below along with a few lines of commentary -

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Why have you been so successful in reaching some of your goals, but not others? If you aren't sure, you are far from alone in your confusion. It turns out that even brilliant, highly accomplished people are pretty lousy when it comes to understanding why they succeed or fail. The intuitive answer — that you are born predisposed to certain talents and lacking in others — is really just one small piece of the puzzle. In fact, decades of research on achievement suggests that successful people reach their goals not simply because of who they are, but more often because of what they do.

1. Get specific. When you set yourself a goal, try to be as specific as possible. "Lose 5 pounds" is a better goal than "lose some weight," because it gives you a clear idea of what success looks like. Knowing exactly what you want to achieve keeps you motivated until you get there. Also, think about the specific actions that need to be taken to reach your goal. Just promising you'll "eat less" or "sleep more" is too vague — be clear and precise. "I'll be in bed by 10pm on weeknights" leaves no room for doubt about what you need to do, and whether or not you've actually done it.

2. Seize the moment to act on your goals. Given how busy most of us are, and how many goals we are juggling at once, it's not surprising that we routinely miss opportunities to act on a goal because we simply fail to notice them. Did you really have no time to work out today? No chance at any point to return that phone call? Achieving your goal means grabbing hold of these opportunities before they slip through your fingers.

--> Shuba: The above is spot on. I still don't know how to resolve my particular challenge with this though: My weakness (and therefore goal) is to reach out more often. I recognize a moment which is not pre-meditated, want to seize it, and typically will find myself unequipped to do so. I won't have a phone number, or an Internet connection, or it's an inconvenient time of day for the person I intend to reach out to. I will hesitate even as I sit in the car parked outside their doorstep. Suggestions any one?<--

To seize the moment, decide when and where you will take each action you want to take, in advance. Again, be as specific as possible (e.g., "If it's Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, I'll work out for 30 minutes before work.") Studies show that this kind of planning will help your brain to detect and seize the opportunity when it arises, increasing your chances of success by roughly 300%.

3. Know exactly how far you have left to go. Achieving any goal also requires honest and regular monitoring of your progress — if not by others, then by you yourself. If you don't know how well you are doing, you can't adjust your behavior or your strategies accordingly. Check your progress frequently — weekly, or even daily, depending on the goal.

--> Shuba: Analytics! The importance and the utility of this I am fully on board with, to the point it's a personal mantra. You can't drive towards that which you can't measure and track <--

4. Be a realistic optimist. When you are setting a goal, by all means engage in lots of positive thinking about how likely you are to achieve it. Believing in your ability to succeed is enormously helpful for creating and sustaining your motivation. But whatever you do, don't underestimate how difficult it will be to reach your goal. Most goals worth achieving require time, planning, effort, and persistence. Studies show that thinking things will come to you easily and effortlessly leaves you ill-prepared for the journey ahead, and significantly increases the odds of failure.

5. Focus on getting better, rather than being good. Believing you have the ability to reach your goals is important, but so is believing you can get the ability. Many of us believe that our intelligence, our personality, and our physical aptitudes are fixed — that no matter what we do, we won't improve. As a result, we focus on goals that are all about proving ourselves, rather than developing and acquiring new skills.

Fortunately, decades of research suggest that the belief in fixed ability is completely wrong — abilities of all kinds are profoundly malleable. Embracing the fact that you can change will allow you to make better choices, and reach your fullest potential. People whose goals are about getting better, rather than being good, take difficulty in stride, and appreciate the journey as much as the destination.

6. Have grit. Grit is a willingness to commit to long-term goals, and to persist in the face of difficulty. Studies show that gritty people obtain more education in their lifetime, and earn higher college GPAs. Grit predicts which cadets will stick out their first grueling year at West Point. In fact, grit even predicts which round contestants will make it to at the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

The good news is, if you aren't particularly gritty now, there is something you can do about it. People who lack grit more often than not believe that they just don't have the innate abilities successful people have. If that describes your own thinking .... well, there's no way to put this nicely: you are wrong. As I mentioned earlier, effort, planning, persistence, and good strategies are what it really takes to succeed. Embracing this knowledge will not only help you see yourself and your goals more accurately, but also do wonders for your grit.

--> Shuba: I think grit is related to the optimism point made before that. The key is to be optimistic about the eventual outcome but be realistic about what could be an arduous journey to get there. Once this is in place, grit follows. <--

7. Build your willpower muscle. Your self-control "muscle" is just like the other muscles in your body — when it doesn't get much exercise, it becomes weaker over time. But when you give it regular workouts by putting it to good use, it will grow stronger and stronger, and better able to help you successfully reach your goals.

To build willpower, take on a challenge that requires you to do something you'd honestly rather not do. Give up high-fat snacks, do 100 sit-ups a day, stand up straight when you catch yourself slouching, try to learn a new skill. When you find yourself wanting to give in, give up, or just not bother — don't. Start with just one activity, and make a plan for how you will deal with troubles when they occur ("If I have a craving for a snack, I will eat one piece of fresh or three pieces of dried fruit.") It will be hard in the beginning, but it will get easier, and that's the whole point. As your strength grows, you can take on more challenges and step-up your self-control workout.

--> Shuba: This works for me. I relish challenges and a bring-it-on response comes naturally to me. I have found this advice doesn't work well for others I need to motivate who are not a Type A personality. What's the secret to motivating them to build willpower? <--

8. Don't tempt fate. No matter how strong your willpower muscle becomes, it's important to always respect the fact that it is limited, and if you overtax it you will temporarily run out of steam. Don't try to take on two challenging tasks at once, if you can help it (like quitting smoking and dieting at the same time). And don't put yourself in harm's way — many people are overly-confident in their ability to resist temptation, and as a result they put themselves in situations where temptations abound. Successful people know not to make reaching a goal harder than it already is.

--> Shuba: This realization came as a result of eating humble-pie a couple of times and reflecting on why I failed. My lesson learned there was self-confidence needs to be tempered with the right dose of humility to make it a winning combination. <--

9. Focus on what you will do, not what you won't do. Do you want to successfully lose weight, quit smoking, or put a lid on your bad temper? Then plan how you will replace bad habits with good ones, rather than focusing only on the bad habits themselves. Research on thought suppression (e.g., "Don't think about white bears!") has shown that trying to avoid a thought makes it even more active in your mind. The same holds true when it comes to behavior — by trying not to engage in a bad habit, our habits get strengthened rather than broken.

If you want change your ways, ask yourself, What will I do instead? For example, if you are trying to gain control of your temper and stop flying off the handle, you might make a plan like "If I am starting to feel angry, then I will take three deep breaths to calm down." By using deep breathing as a replacement for giving in to your anger, your bad habit will get worn away over time until it disappears completely.

It is my hope that, after reading about the nine things successful people do differently, you have gained some insight into all the things you have been doing right all along. Even more important, I hope are able to identify the mistakes that have derailed you, and use that knowledge to your advantage from now on. Remember, you don't need to become a different person to become a more successful one. It's never what you are, but what you do.

Monday, April 18, 2011

A story of grit, determination and achievement over a lifetime.

I am back as promised with the story of Saras Saraswathi. She and I are members of a technical women's mailing list and she had posted this to the list. I reproduce her posts below verbatim with her permission, in reverse chronological order. The "thesis" she refers to is her PhD thesis. Saras was traveling to Canada to help out family even as she was trying to write up her thesis to meet the deadline. I found it mildly ironical that the one who's named after the Goddess of learning and knowledge should experience this, but the outcome is only fitting.

Perhaps you will find it as inspiring as I did. I feel incredibly fortunate and grateful to have had all the opportunities I've had, together with extremely supportive family and friends (you know who you are!) that have enabled me to take advantage of them. Thank you.

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On Thu, Apr 7, 2011 at 4:27 AM, Saras wrote:

Hi Everyone...

My 38 year old dream came true yesterday. I successfully defended my thesis two years ahead of my classmates.

My research was in Secondary Structure Prediction of Proteins. We have very high accuracies of over 90% and I will be spending the next couple of months publishing my papers. I hope to join Nationwide Children's hospital in Ohio state later on.

Had to share this with my SYSTERS !! Thanks to all those people who rooted for me.. I still remember the day in 2007, when I was overwhelmed with all your responses and encouragement.

Saras
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On Tue, Nov 20, 2007 at 5:48 PM, Saraswathi wrote:

Hi.. all,

I am back in school after 35 years... Just wanted to be proud of it.. and announce it to all of you...The story of my pursuit of education is for all those who are still trying to pursue their dreams............ read on if you are discouraged in any way.... and I hope to inspire you to keep going.....

I did not get a chance to pursue my studies in a university after my marriage was arranged at 16 in India. (1972). My family thought the best bet in life for me is to be married to a 'well educated' person and it was not important for me to be educated myself... I was the best student in my class in high school and all I was interested in was books, books and books. Unfortunately , my family did not agree with my views and did not let me go back to college.

Of all the boys and girls ( cousins, almost 20 of us, with equal number of boys and girls) in the family, although they knew I did better than anyone in my studies, everyone except me got a college education. Except me, just because my horoscope matched with the boys' horoscope !! I later found out that it did not match after all, and that 'things' were moved along, so that the girls' side could get a 'good catch' and the boy's side wanted a good 'housekeeper'. !!

I made a vow to myself, that even if I am 80 I will go back to school, when I get a chance at education in a world class university. This was all I meditated on for the past 35 years.... One day, I will continue where I left off....

Meanwhile, just to keep my brains from rusting, I did a correspondence course soon after my marriage, to make sure I had a basic degree at least. I had to take math and economics since they were the only subjects which did not involve lab work. I had my daughter the following year and even had to take her to the exam hall, since my family refused to babysit her while I wrote my exams. But i was naturally thrown out of the exam hall when my baby started screaming!!. this afffected my grades of course... they hoped I wont graduate.... I was determined to do this anyway and got my degree after 5 yrs instead of 3.

anyway I did my MS in CS in 1985 at ODU, when I got a break while visiting USA for a couple of years. I was not allowed to attend all my classes and never leave my kids with babysitters ( not that we could afford it). Still, I managed to graduate. Since I was not allowed to work over these years, to pass time, I taught IT part-time in colleges/universities and I did many courses, CCNA, E-Commerce engineering, became a certified accountant and did many other courses and learned to play many musical instruments, to keep my mind busy ( to avoid going mad).

But my life ambition was to do a PhD and it kept nagging my heart all the time. Because of my age, I could not get any job offers. I was surprised that there was no response from any companies, although I applied to hundreds of them over the years in USA and Singapore (between 2000 and 2005). I never found out why.. .. no one wanted to employ me.. Perhaps too many degrees or too wide a base, not enough industrial experience ?? So, how to leave home with no job to support myself ?

I had to wait another 21 years before I got admission for MS in bioinformatics at NTU, Singapore. I managed to finish the course in one year.. I had applied to many universities in USA. No admission was offered until May and I was at the lowest point in my life. I had a GPA of 3.64 and three research papers and twenty years of research, teaching and consulting experience.. but still no offers !!... FINALLY..... I got admission at IAstate and here I am. I am 53 years old.. and hope to finish my PhD within 5 years.....

There have been untold miseries in my fight to get an education.. I did not want to agree with people who thought that I do not need to pursue what I wanted just because I was born a woman in a poor Brahmin family and married to a conservative family who did not believe in woman advancement. I was forced to be a cook and do house work all these years in spite of my insatiable thrist for knowledge. I brought up two daughters and was determined they got the education I did not get. One is a gold medalist with a MS in networking and another is a nanotechnologist with a PhD. Both are professional musicians also. I have two grand kids.. 6 and 2 yrs.. a boy and a girl

Finally when I insisted that I wanted to pursue my study on a full time basis, I was told that I could stay if I wanted to continue to be a cook or leave forever....In my last months of studying, I even paid the expenses for my food and rent, in my own house !! So, I left when I got the admission offer from IaState !! It is totally unbelievable that this could happen, since we have lived together for over 35 years... with me doing most of the housework with no servants .. most the tutoring for the children came from me and that too when he is a university professor !!. I guess it was foolish of me to have stayed that long.. hoping that there will be a change of attitude. But the things you do in the name of family and kids and a closed society are quite unbelievable. I never could convince him of my thirst for knowledge...

so.. wish me well.. and I hope to write to you sometime.. when I finish my PhD. 5 yrs..? 6 yrs..? who knows.!!. the important thing is I am enjoying myself pursuing what I always wanted to do... and bless the souls who finally gave me a chance at this !!

I am writing this not to brag.. but for those who are pursuing your dreams... in all those countries where women education is not a priority.. dont lose sight of your dreams.. it is NEVER too late... Sustain your hopes and there will be someone somewhere who will help you achieve your goals and fulfill your dreams....

It does not matter what anyone thinks what we can or cannot do. We can do one of the most wonderful things.. bringing a life to earth.. IN ADDITION to everything that THEY can do !! Isn't that good enough ??

WHAT IS IMPORTANT IS WHAT WE BELIEVE WE CAN DO ......

Saras

Saturday, April 9, 2011

An inspiring beginning to 2011

I can't believe I haven't posted once so far in 2011. But perhaps it was for the best because I come bearing an inspirational story this time. I have requested the protagonist to write a guest post on my blog, or if she's too busy, permission to reproduce an email she wrote to all of us on the mailing list. It's a story of incredible drive, tenacity, determination and an insurmountable will to win against all odds. It's hard not to be incredibly inspired by her story. Stay tuned!