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A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO NETWORKING ( SOCIAL AND PROFESSIONAL)

What networking means? Let me assure you that this is one of the very important skills required during all stages of your life. For me, this fact sunk in a little late and slowly, causing me to lose some valuable time. Here we are only concerned with social and professional networking.

Example.1

During my time with the Express Logistics, I was dealing with many large, medium, and small clients. A friend of mine gifted me a watch that could store a few telephone numbers and calculate apart from displaying an accurate time. I started to use the watch and storing telephone numbers of my good and large clients. My big clients were large multinational banks.

As time went by, Digital Diaries began appearing everywhere. One could see these devices made by CASIO. These could store a large number of names, addresses, and phone numbers. Some of them could also store email ids. I too got myself one which was manufactured by Texas Instruments with a storage capacity of 64Gb which was far ahead of CASIO at that time. I could store an immense number of contact details. I used to carry this with me on work. My clients working in big companies were appreciating the device.

During that time a salesperson from a competing company also used to visit a few of my large clients especially the large multinational banks. He too used to carry a Digital Dairy. He too used to value his clients and serve them as well as me. He used to socialize with the clients and take them out for dinner and drinks(liquor). My company had no such provisions. It was only at that time the mobile phones and services were getting launched. Our companies bought it for us too. Though they were expensive. Both of us and our clients were valuable to our respective companies.

After some time that executive of the competing company left his company. I had retained my accounts barring some minor ones. Over some time the purchase procedures changed at the client’s place. I lost a part of my business. My friend from the competing company had started his own company and started trading with my client. That man has become a company owner. Over a few years, his business started flourishing.

Some of the managers at the client companies had moved to other companies. As they joined at good enough positions, they had started trading with my friend’s company. This was possible only because of the way he nourished his relationship with the clients over the decade which passed and all I had done was just capturing the client’s details on my device. When the device gave way, the contacts perished as they were no more than just entries on my Linkedin network. I could not monetize my contacts.

All these clients were from the large multinational bank I was quoting earlier. Due to the patronage of those large clients, my friend was able to purchase a good number of good assets from the earnings. The moral being that, it is not enough to just capture the details of the persons. You have to constantly nurture the relationship by being to be able to help them when they are in need. Then the reciprocation factor will kick in and your turn to benefit will happen. You must never erase any contact but must carry it over to a telephone index and keep in touch with them too. You should be networking effectively.

Example.2

By now I had become the Area Manager of my company. My job function included the process of appointing sales personnel for my company which was taken over by a large American company. During which an application of a candidate caught my eye. I called him for an interview. He was not from the express logistics industry. But he expressed confidence in doing well by bringing good clients for the value as per his allotted targets for the period. I asked how he would achieve this result?

He produced a bunch of approximately 200 business cards from his bag. On the surface, those cards seemed to be of good clients. I asked him for the connection between his confidence and these business cards. He replied that he has been transacting with these clients for the past decade(ten years) and during this period he has switched three companies dealing with different products. During his time with the three companies, the decision making Managers of these clients were still the same and he has a good rapport with all of them and this factor will help him secure the contract in our favor our company for express logistics as well.

I took him in and he performed exceedingly well. This again is proof that keeping your contacts live and nourished will always pay you. In this case, all I had to do was to arrange to impart product knowledge to our recruit. This has demonstrated the networking capabilities of my new recruit.

Example.3

At this point, I also recall my boss at that time was a great networker too. He always carried a sleek telephone index in his wallet. This was the era before mobile phones became everyone’s phone. One day as he was approaching my desk, I was fixing an appointment with a client over my desk phone. He enquired about which client I was speaking to. I told him. He took out his telephone index, dialed a number on my land phone, and spoke to a person.

After the initial greeting, he asked the other person to consider our company too as a contender for next year’s contract. He also mentioned that I was in touch with his company. I asked my boss for the name of the person he spoke to. To this, he replied that it was the boss of the person I was dealing with. My boss had met that person in his club over the weekend with his friend. His friend had introduced my boss to the person who was the top man at the prospective client company. My boss had introduced himself in such a way that the other person had an instant recall when my boss called. Also, he had exchanged contact details and transferred it to his telephone index.

Points for practice

At this point, I must emphasize the importance of eye contact, perfect grooming, good handshake posture, and dressing for the occasion. Also, besides your ability to speak correctly with proper diction, pronunciation, and grammar is essential. One has to be remarkable for the other person to recall your identity later. The above points enable you to network effectively, be it social or professionalized get to the top.

This comes with practice in front of the mirror in the bedroom. It is a great investment for a lifetime. You will find quite a few videos on Youtube and from real persons is daily life. But practice over time is the key. I don’t say that change must be overnight. It is a process.

With the above incidents in my life, I realized the importance of effective Networking. It is not sufficient to just expand our number of contacts and recording details. Yes, every contact is valuable. The contact may be of the social or professional kind.

Pointers for social networking

Your Social network is a structure made up of social actors, your relatives, friends, along with their social contacts. One can meet these people in various functions and parties, weddings, funerals. You must get to know this group of people. You should know your family. Nowadays the trend of nuclear families in most countries has replaced the joint family system and people have lost touch with relatives, neighbors, and friends of families. This too is an important group. You should be able to draw your family tree to understand family legacies.

Do stay in touch with them. You can never know when you may need to speak to which person in which city and for what purpose. This group of people can be kept in touch with various social networking platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Whatsapp. It is worth your time to get yourself familiar with social media platforms especially with widespread coverage of the world with the Internet.

Pointers for professional networking

During our daily activities, you will be in constant contact with a lot of people. Some of you will meet people at a scheduled meeting or other business meetings or seminars. They may be colleagues or business contacts. It is very important to network with your colleagues. An organization is a collection of a lot of people with many skills of which you have a few of them. You can know about a lot of skillsets of others and you have an opportunity to display yours. Your awareness is increased about various skill sets.

By having a good relationship with all others at your organization you have a better chance of getting included in any special or new projects as others will feel comfortable as you have networked with them. Your networking with your colleagues will improve two of your skills tremendously – communication skills and interpersonal skills. You will go a long way with these two skills in life.

Due to this factor, I landed a job. My manager joined another company and he hired me to be part of his team. This was possible because I had kept a good rapport with him and he became familiar with my skill sets.

In the present era, you must network with your colleagues and other professional contacts on a social networking platform – Linkedin. Your potential employer or business contact will want to have a look at your Linkedin profile to know about you before meeting you. Ensure that you learn to optimize your social and personal profiles on all platforms including Linkedin. Do not hesitate to ask for recommendations from your contacts and colleagues. You too must provide when requested by others.

Networking with your professional contacts should be done in a skilled manner to get to the top. Your profile, right from your photograph must be optimized for a proper impression on you. This too you can learn from a lot of videos from Youtube. There you will be guided on how you should fill the other details too. This is an example of one such video.

You should make a sincere attempt to engage with a maximum number of people at the social events of your relatives and friends. You should also be able to exchange contact details or business cards if the occasion is an official meeting or gathering, training session, or a seminar.

General pointers

Assuming that you have collected contact details or business cards from a good number of individuals, it will be a big pile of them over some time. And these are people who may be from all walks of life. Imagine a situation that you need to talk to a person two years after your first and only meeting. In all probability, he or she may not be able to place you as there is no recall of having met you.

It is because you were not remarkable neither visibly nor verbally for the recall, nor was any attempt made to refresh the contact. How to do that? Keeping the recall is in your hands. Keeping the contact live is an art. One must strive to be of use or offer to help the other person by any means. In that case, the recall will be available. You have to make your self visible to them once in a while either to wish them and enquire about their welfare.

Always be on the lookout to be useful to as many people as possible. Help others in need of the maximum level possible. This is need not be financial unless it is affordable.

I am an introvert, how can I do it?

Now some of you may say,” I cannot do this, as I am an introvert.” Let me tell you that introverts are better at this. An extrovert may talk more than needed. I am an introvert. I thought that I can’t talk to people. I learned by using a technique. If you need something, you have to ask someone. Whether you are introverted or extroverted. Just talk. I learned to talk to people. Yes, it is a gradual process. If you are hungry, will you ask for food. or stay hungry. Constant practice made me pick up the nuances of networking. Treat the person in front of you like a button that will make you start speaking. This is a mental process which will come by practice.

More pointers

When you are introduced to a person at a first meeting, be it social or business contact, there are certain rules to be followed without exception. You should be dressed for the occasion. It is better to be overdressed. One should invest in proper clothing. Also not to forget grooming. One will automatically get confident when facing other people at the meeting when he or she is hygienically groomed and dressed well. Do mind your hair too. It should be washed and combed properly to suit the occasion.

I used to practice this part in front of my bedroom mirror. I used to assess the clothes and grooming. I used to practice my intro with a small microcassette player in those days. I now see people using their mobile phones for this purpose. Of course one should polish his or her language skills.

If you have been invited to a place for a certain event, the dress code may be specified. Or else make an effort to find out from genuine sources. Always adhere to the dress code. Adhering to the dress code also helps in effective networking. I have witnessed some premises which have declined entry to some individuals as they were not as per the dress code of the premises, though they were known to the organizers of the event.

Always be on time for the event. Ideally, you must try to be a few minutes early. If you have carry invitation cards, entry passes, or identity cards of any kind of tags, please carry them also display them to avoid any time loss on this account causing delays in entry to the event. It is important to wish your contacts on your arrival and before your exit from the even. All this adds to the positive recall.

Apart from investing in presentable dress and footwear, do invest in a thick telephone index and a calendar diary. The contact details should be entered immediately in it. You may be aware of or attending events of birthdays, weddings. Ensure that you wish the people on these occasions either by cards or over a phone call. Nowadays the social media platforms have provisions to greet and wish people on such occasions.

Now let me conclude. All of you might be aware of the number of entries to fill out while adding a new contact in Microsoft Outlook. If you can fill all the columns, in all probability you will have a long and fruitful relationship with that person. Please have a look at that if you are not yet aware. You may not be able to complete all columns at our first attempt. It is a process. One you expand on the details, the opportunities expand too.

Is there anything left?

You must have understood the importance and methods of social and professional networking to get to the top. You may always come back and leave your queries and comments here. This is not a detailed guide but an outline. Based on your feedback, I may do a Part II for this or write on an allied subject.

Use vertical social movement to success

There are several techniques adopted by people to get to the top. One of the techniques is by using vertical social mobility. This is not an instant process but a gradual one. This can be used for short as well as long term plans. This is an easy method and a mental process.

What is social vertical movement

What is Social Vertical Movement? We will learn this here.

This phenomenon was first observed by certain sociologists. They observed the movement of certain individuals of the society to the top layer comprising of the creamy layer of wealthy and influential individuals only from relatively lower social classes.

Mobility originates from the word mobile. Mobile means movable. Vertical is

perpendicular to horizontal or moving or placed in a way, upright.
in a direction from top to bottom or in reverse, in a vertical line, part or position.

These are as per Collins Dictionary.

As per Wikipedia-Vertical mobility refers to a person or group’s movement up or down a status hierarchy. This is commonly referred to as social mobility, yet vertical mobility can also refer to any movement up or down a hierarchy of any kind, not necessarily related to social status in the same way that social mobility is.

We are concerned with the upward movement. That is what we need to be doing to get to the top.

Types of social movement — Social movement

There are three types of vertical movement.

The upward movement from a lower social class to a higher social class. For example, a factory worker enrolls in a college to become an international businessman.
A supervisor makes a big error in judgment causing a huge loss for the factory. He is then dismissed from employment. Later on, this man could only secure the job of a worker in another factory in a different place. This is a downward movement. Here the individual moves from the middle class to the lower class of the society.
An accountant seeks a job in another establishment in a similar position is an example of horizontal movement. He remains in the same class.

At times the movement across classes is spread into multiple generations.

Intra-generational mobility– This bears the classic example of the factory worker enrolling for a college and rising to become an international businessman. Here the shift from a lower social class to higher social class happens within the same generation.

Inter-generational mobility- Here one individual may be living in a backward area. He may send his children to study in a big city nearby. After they finish studies, they are employed in that city. Thereafter they move to the next social strata, their children are married into the upper strata because of their superior education and better employment. By this, their economic status has grown and in a few years, they are into the upper social class. This process of movement from the lower social class to the higher social class is spread across generations.

Vertical Social mobility is the movement of a group of people within the society from the underprivileged group to the upper social strata. This can happen in various ways. This can happen through changes in jobs, education, marriages, and different cultural adoptions. As they move to the upper class, their presence and participation become frequent. This is because there are more social events like parties and get-togethers in places like clubs and other professional associations.

There are some other factors present in certain societies that affect this shift within societies. Some with more ease than others. Various societies are divided into different classes since ancient days.

Caste -Hierarchy– People were classified by the nature of their abilities and activities. A person of a particular caste engages only in a specific work. This is a limiting factor within some societies. Though this type of society is decreasing in number. This system is seen in the Indian subcontinent.

Class- Hierarchy- People in these societies are grouped or classified into further as lower, higher and middle class. One’s wealth and education are factors that facilitate the movement from one class to another. One can move if they invest in their education. These kinds of societies are prevalent in Europe.

Meritocracy– It if opinionated that this is an ideal society where the individual can rapidly move across social classes, be it lower. upper or middle, with speed and ease. The place of birth, race, color, gender, religion does not come in the way of one’s movement. It is only one’s skills and abilities that matter.

Intra generational mobility in the first two systems may take more time and effort for moving from lower to upper classes but more rapidly possible in a meritocracy.

Meritocracy is the ideal kind of society for most people. The United States of America is such a type of society. You only need to upgrade your skills to move up.

The abovementioned information is needed to be known by us to choose some vital situations and choices over which we have control.

Why the vertical social movement method?

We have found out the various methods. Obviously this was the most practical method of all of them . Surely you will agree with me on this as the other methods seem to be difficult to crack.

How to go forward

Now that we know that upward movement is possible. The time taken is as per your choice. What are your choices?

Now that we know that certain choices can be made by us. Assuming that we have made our choices after due deliberations. Now we are set to learn how to do it.

We have to make certain changes in our lives. The small changes do help in the acceleration of the process. Let us study them.

We have been made aware of vertical social mobility happening in so many different ways. The aim now is to achieve the same phenomenon within our lifetime. It must be noted that our entire life is a sequence of activities taking place with the finite time of or life. This indicates that our resources are not infinite. Agreed that time is not infinite but the way we can utilize this time to do the series of activities are of course infinite.

Our job is to use this time to do the sequence of activities in a particular way to take us on the upward path of vertical mobility. All of us know that 60 minutes make up an hour and therefore 24 hours of a day contain 1440 minutes. One week comprises 10080 minutes and one month of thirty days have 43200 minutes and a complete year is made up of 525600 minutes. It is these 525600 minutes of the year which should be wisely utilized to reach our goal.

It is the way we utilize these 525600 minutes of each year to make us what we become later. Assuming that we have set our goals and have planned on our activities for each year. It is this precious commodity that has to be utilized to move up the social ladder. The only other important commodity in this entire exercise is the goal of our lives.

Now it is almost clear on what we need to do. The same 525600 minutes are available to everybody on this planet. It is only the usage of these minutes as per the goals set are making the difference. The next point is what we can do with these 525600 minutes. This resource should be utilized only if is supporting our goals, or else we should not spend our time on that activity.

So this part about rationing our time to certain activities can be done effectively only if one has set his goals. Our years, months, weeks, hours and minutes have to be allotted to the planned out activities as per the goals set. Defining our activities of the day can be done if our various goals are set. Or else we will be simply drifting without any aim or direction. This method of living is a sure path to failure. We do not want this to happen to our lives.

Even now it is not late. Based on life elapsed, we have to set our goals. This is the only factor which will enable us to draw up plans along with the chain of activities which will consume our 525600 minutes of the year. Once this is done, we are having a schedule of activities ahead of us for the complete year.

Assuming that we have set our goals and have narrowed down on daily activities. We have only two more factors to be considered for our journey of upward social mobility. We should never deviate from our set timetable. Wastage of the commodity called TIME should be avoided. This can keep track of life events chronologically. This enables us to finish school, college, and other training as planned without any failures.

Now we have come to the last factor which is of utmost importance. This is the separating factor between success and failure. Life is a chain of activities that have a cumulative effect on the overall possibilities of success. These activities must be done as per the chronological plan and done with precision. This makes a success out of the task. Most of these daily tasks are of a repetitive kind. Each time we must try to ensure that we do it better next time. At college, we did a test this week. Next week’s test must be done better.

This weekend we cleaned our vehicle. Next weekend, we should endeavor that the vehicle should be cleaned better with some more maintenance steps added in. What happens gradually is that our vehicles will remain in showroom condition, preventing expenditure on maintenance and above all the vehicle is always ready and available for use.

Similarly, if every activity is done with a little more care than the previous time, all of us will agree that nothing can stop us from succeeding in our endeavor to get to the top. We will naturally rise the success ladder. Do agree that this will take us to the next higher social class.

There are thousands of activities or tasks we keep repeating. Some are to done to achieve our goals and some to keep our lives going. We must aim to achieve excellence in all our tasks. This is an attitudinal change needed to get better at the skills required for vertical social mobility.

By constant application of micro excellence in each of our daily activities will lead us to climb to the next level desired. Some activities are repeated every hour, every day, every week, every month and some every year. By this, we get better with our lives.

Even if one is sweeping the floor, it should be done better than the previous time. If one is folding and stacking the washed clothes, it should be done better than before. If we write an essay for our school studies, it should be done better than the previous essay written. This way when every task is improved upon cumulatively, you can imagine how good you will be getting in your life.

This way there is nothing in life you cannot get better at. For any activity, we will be getting better every hour, every day, every week, every month, every year, every decade and so on. So the phenomenon of upward vertical mobility kicks in automatically. And nothing can prevent us from reaching the point we desire to reach.

I urge you to leave your thoughts in the comments box below. You can ask me questions too. Let us continue to learn. We observe that there are certain factors we can change and certain factors we cannot change. But the fact remains that we can change ourselves to do the activities with excellence. We can learn all the skills needed.

2020-THE RESET YEAR

What is RESET? To reset means- adjust or fix in a new way. Once in a while, we have to reset our lives too. Let us learn it now.

By doing a reset of our life, we can feel the following and more.

# Open yourself to new light.

# You get exposed to new colors.

# Look forward to new things in life.

# Start a new project.

# Reward yourself

# Get energized

# Get focused

# Get more productive

# Get to the top faster and more certainly

Reset sets in a new vigor to ourselves. Our lives will seem to float in a sea of clarity and confidence.

Now we are going to do the steps to start the reset process. The best time to have done a reset in our life is a few years ago. The next best time is now. Let’s proceed. This begins with looking back at the years which went by.

We have come past the previous year. This can also be treated as an audit of the previous year. Let us now review/audit the year which we have just allowed to pass. What have we learned from the previous year? We have allowed many years to go by depending on our ages. If done at the end of the year, it can be called as the end of the year audit.

When to do the reset

Whenever we are faced with a situation of accommodating a new task, we tend to put it off to next week, next month, next financial year or next birthday to accommodate it. We subconsciously wait for a landmark occasion to make the reset. We can have 2020 as the reset year. The earlier, the better it is for us.

All of us had thought and planned to perform a list of certain tasks. The list may have been written or just thought out. Of the tasks on the list, some of them remain incomplete. Surprisingly some of them were not even attempted. Are we making any issues about it? Where will it lead us next year?

We may not know the consequences of not completing the tasks now but will realize it with the inconvenience caused only a little later when it starts applying pressure on us. It could be a pending debt to be paid with interest adding up or missed health checkups adding to our increasing healthcare bills as we would have ignored the preventive care.

We may have rejoiced on having completed certain tasks. How did we manage to complete these tasks? Were they easy? It may or may not have been easy. We had set the right goals and planned carefully for perfect execution.

Most of us keep moving this way, setting fewer goals and just reacting to the situations in life and not being proactive as per goals and planning with precise execution. This is playing small. We are not going to land up to any major achievements in our lives. We have to change the gears.

Let us move forward by reviewing the previous years. In the present age, most old thoughts and practices get obsolete at a very high speed. Every year, a new version of most items are rolled out. If we are the users, we have to learn and familiarize ourselves to proceed with it.

What if we do not do a reset

All of us had certain visions and goals formulated since our childhood, be it written or just thought out. Some goals just sprang up as we grew and proceeded in life to where we are now. As we are on a reset mode, we need to have to start writing now.

Do not worry. You are not alone in this. There are lots of people who ought to do this. Most people go on with their lives without doing this reset. This is akin to driving your vehicle without regular servicing. It is wrong to assume that we can get by to postpone the servicing until the appearance of trouble.

How to do the reset

The fact is that we save time in moving forward by avoiding loss of time and inconveniences caused due to sudden breakdowns at unexpected locations by making this reset and getting our vehicles serviced at regular intervals.

All our goals have to be written:

# Long- term goals

# Medium-term goals

# Short- term goals

# Yearly goals

# Monthly goals

All our goals in the respective categories may be pooled into the above types.

If we are having difficulty with our chosen goals. We can are free to choose our goals once again. Of course as life proceeds, we may come across a need to make such changes in directions and priorities. We will have to change courses and shift gears.

Understanding and continuing the reset process gets us more productive with our everyday lives.

Now we also have the keep in perspective, the current scenario.

Most products now come with an expiry date, after which they become harmful if used. Similarly, all activities/tasks have to be done by a certain time. If not done sooner or later, our schedule to successfully move forward will be hampered in many ways. If a certain application is not submitted by the last date of submission, we may get disqualified from appearing for a certain examination.

Fill in the calendar

Let’s let back to the list we were creating. We had wanted to fit that list into the calendar. Let that be the current year’s calendar. Let’s start.

Start the list by filling it with pending tasks of the previous year. Fill out activities of the current year to fulfill your goals of different categories. Now we have to merge the lists to the dates of the calendar.

On careful examination, we will find that there are bundles of simple and complicated tasks to be done to take our lives forward and also to get to the top. All these activities need careful planning and execution. If not carried out as per schedule, It throws us out of gear on our other activities too.

Assume that we have to pay our child’s tuition fee by a certain date. This should be ideally paid well before the last date when it is important and not urgent. We should not take it to the penultimate day when the same activity becomes important and urgent. We will be forced to replace some other job of the day to accommodate this activity. thereby accumulating a backlog of some other jobs. Such jobs should be planned out in advance and executed as per the plan . These cannot be changed or postponed.

While making our list we must take into consideration the available resources too for that particular task. If it is not provided, we have to ensure the creation of that resource by the target date. All the tasks are now against a date. Also, these are with the exact particulars of the task with the specific units like units of currency, weight among others.

These units are a carryover from the fact that the goals must be SMART.{ to know more about SMART goals- https://www.get2thetop.com/why-jobset-goal-how-to-identify-your-passion/} Now that we have understood SMART goals, our focus has got better, our resources are considered, the planning for the entire year is done.

With this our planned calendar is complete.

During this process, we should feel charged. After the process, we should be feeling lighter, brighter and happier as we have just strengthened our foundation and gotten closer to our goals. This process increases the possibility of completing the tasks as scheduled.

Ensure that the current date is the start of the calendar. This has to be the starting point of the entire exercise. Position the tasks accordingly, if not yet done.

Now we start the RESET life as per the freshly designed calender. Surely we are feeling that we are more in control of our life now. We just have to keep going as per the drawn-out schedule.

This designed calendar must be always visible to us must be ingrained in our brains. If possible this can be printed and placed in a very visible place. This is to constantly remind us of our direction.

Weekly review/planning

Now we have to continue forward as per the calendar. We must have a weekly review of our activities vs the designed calendar and course-correct if needed. This should be done every week. The weekend is the best time to reflect on this part of the reset.

Accountability partner

This gets us back in track. Also, it is better if we find ourselves an accountability partner. We should be able to confide our life plans and the calendar with somebody in our lives. Some people whom we value and will be able to guide us from time to time on various issues. As we have declared our plans to someone, we will be more prone to stick to the schedule as we will always be on someone’s radar. Wikipedia can be checked for more information on this.

Are we going to where we plan to go? Going to the top. Why not? We will.

Leave your comments and other methods we can follow.

It is suggested that this life reset be done every year.

Which part of the year? The choice is left to the readers.

Why job?|Set goal |How to identify your passion?

Why do people go for jobs?
Do they like their jobs?
How to find a job which is satisfying?
Set goals(SMART GOALS ).
How to plan to reach your goal?
Identify your passion? Two ways.
1-Medical method.
2-Logical method.

It is certain that you are in the knowledge of a lot of people in life who are working to earn a living. Also, may I ask you as to what percentage of them are happy with what they were doing? You will find that most of them do not like their jobs. Why they go to jobs and what is their passion for?

They are doing that job for their earning which is required for their survival. The amount of money is not the subject right now. If one does a job that he likes to do, he will certainly do it better.

Also, he would have grown much beyond the present level The mental satisfaction will be more. This has its own therapeutic benefits on that human. They may be longevity and general wellness among them.

Can we know why are all these people going to do jobs? We realize that all these people are going for jobs only for economic reasons. They need the earnings from the job to support their families and pay their bills. Are they satisfied with their jobs?

If checked, most of them will state that they do not like their jobs. They are in it only for economic reasons and also they have no job satisfaction. They are engaged in some activity just for financial support.

I believe that all will have immense satisfaction only when they engage in the activity of their choice and interest. For example, they are

Artists,

Musicians, writers,

Scientists(very useful for mankind)

Sportsmen and athletes ( want to be the best) to name a few

In these fields, the satisfaction levels are very high. All of them are highly disciplined in life.

The feel-good factor is very high.

Set your goals-HOW?

At outset, you will realize that the goals are set and action is taken on the plan as per the goals set very early in life.

So, you can reach the top by the time you are still in your prime.

This clearly demonstrates the power of goal setting.

Now, if you are wondering what is to be done now as you may have passed the younger ages.

The big world has a lot of space. You can get to any place you want from wherever you are right now. You can still reach the top. You just have to make a few adjustments or fine-tuning, make a plan after checking if the criteria are in line with the SMART Principles as given below-

SMART

S- Specific- Not “Will be rich man,” But” I will be a Millionnaire.”

Not “I will be an athlete.” But I will be a sprinter.”

M- Measurable- Goals can not be approximate. They have to be specific like this.

Not “I will reduce my weight” But” I will reduce by 15 kgs.”

Not “ I will clean the house” But “ I will clean the complete interior part of my house.”

Actionable- You have to demonstrate using the metrics, the resources, and your capabilities of achieving the goal. You cannot have a goal as I will lift one tonne. You have to list out – how and what.

R- Relevant- You have to indicate your goal is in line with the larger scheme of things you planned out.

T- Timebound- All of us normally plan our activities of the day by the priorities of the timelined items. We go as per the due dates of the items.

“ The Tuition Fee of the college ( 1500) has to paid by 25^thof Jan 2020. We plan and keep the resource ready by then.

“ I will reduce my weight by 15 kgs to weigh 75 kgs by 1^st May 2020.” Hence we plan our diet and activities accordingly. In addition, we also keep track of undertaking periodical reviews to monitor the progress towards up to the end.

“ I will mobilize all resources needed for building a 5 roomed sea-facing villa within five years ending. 2025. I already have the money needed.”

As the timeline is agreed upon and committed, we have to plan and, manage our activities accordingly.

We can reach any place you desire from wherever we are we are placed right now. But with exclusions and inclusions based on SMART principles.

How to plan

You may have to manage some resources. You may have to manage your time to set aside time for your new-found interest.

Now our PLAN has become important as per the SMART Goal. It is not enough to just plan. We have to work on the plan.

“If you go to work on your goals, your goals will go to work on you. If you go to work on your plan, your plan will go to work on you. Whatever good things we build end up building us.”- Jim Rohn.

Work on the goals per the timelines conceived.

How to work on the plan

Whatever you have planned, you have to work as per the plan. Your life depends on this vital aspect.

We may have to work harder in certain areas. This essential to be on the track to our goals.

Let us not forget that we have to ensure that we put appropriate effort into the activities leading us to the achievement of our important goal. The activities will not culminate in achieving the goals. We will miss the bus if we compromise. Hence we must put all our effort and concentration on working the plan till the end.

Now that we have the goal set, we have to take action based on the plan. At times we may feel that the goal may appear daunting. At this stage split the big goal into smaller goals and then achieve them one by one. This is the best way to achieve the main big goal. All we have to do now is to keep achieving these smaller goals which are apparently easier.

His way your plan to achieve your goal has become achievable. You only have to make a list of the

sub-goals and manage the resources needed to work on those.

Identify your passion

Have you found and identified your passion? You have to find your passion now if you have not yet

Identified your passion now. Ask yourself- what am I good at? What do you score more marks on?

What activity gives you pleasure? You like to engage in it. It makes you feel good. It could be an extra curriculum activity. Like sports, arts, music, dance, drama, acting, debating, athletics,

team games. Some are physical, some are mental activities. What are you enthusiastic about?

It is so very for you to be said by someone to tell you- just identify your passion and go ahead. This

It is not an easy task. Most individuals are unable to find their passion until it is too late to make an

Impact on the world. In fact, I found my passion after working on a job for several years. I was working just to care for my family. I have been studying how to identify one’s passion for quite some time.

#1.- Medical research- There is a substance called Dopamine produced in the body. When this is present in the body, one feels pleasure. This is generated when one engages in certain activities. Some of these are Dopamine consuming activities such as watching TV series, movies, drinking alcohol, and sex to name a few including smoking. Some activities are Dopamine producing such as art, music, sports to name a few. Other Dopamine producing activities include profit generation and helping employees to care for their families while being eco-friendly.

The activities which are Dopamine consuming are bordering on addiction. Avoid such activities. These are not good for the world at large. You look ahead and choose Dopamine producing activity and pursue that as your passion. Only Dopamine producing activity is sustainable for life. Just make a list of ten activities that are pleasurable to you, makes you feel good. Be honest with yourself. Try out the first item if it feels good. Or else move to the next one on the list after giving it a fair chance.

This way once you find your passion, just go full swing with that activity. It is OK to give several attempts to find your passion.

This is one of the methods to find your passion.

Another method is given below.

#2-Quadrant Method:

WHAT YOU LOVE WHAT YOU ARE GOOD AT D	I WHAT YOU ARE GOOD AT WHAT YOU DON’T LOVE
YOU LOVE NOT GOOD AT C	S DON’T LOVE NOT GOOD AT

There are four quadrants D and C on the left and I and S on the right side.

You will be able to place the concerned activities on the quadrants as per the labels.

Activities which you can place on Quad D is your Passion.

Activities which you can place on Quad I is for paying your bills. This the JOB where most people are stuck.

Activities under Quad C is your potential which can be developed by effort or upskilling.

Activities under Quad S are mostly supportive tasks involving cleaning, washing, maintenance, and other daily tasks to name a few. This is the general trend, it is the passion of few people to like and engage in these activities as well.

You can develop your own lists and classify the activities.

Now with the above methods described and your lists prepared you may have been able to narrow down on your passion.

The identified passion must be cultivated and nurtured. You must aim to excel in your passionate activity. You can definitely make a meaningful and profitable living out your new-found passion, which is identified by you.

When to set your goals | Goal setting stages

You should start the process of goal setting as soon as possible if you have not yet set your goal. The ideal time to set your goal is much younger age. If you have any children in your proximity, who are yet to set goals. You can guide them with the help of their parents.

Have you crossed your younger days? No issues yet. You still can succeed in life and reach wherever you want to be from wherever you are right now. you have to apply the guidelines and move forward. More details are on the other pages. Read them too.

This is actually adult content. We do not expect children to be reading this page. Of course, the period of goal setting starts at that stage. I urge the adults reading this to inspire and create communication channels with the children around them with the appropriate content to guide them. Part of our motivation is centered around the motivation generated by us in others. You should recall that you can begin your journey only if you clear on the destination. This is the purpose of goal setting.

There are various times when the goals can be set. Generally, the earlier the better for getting to the top.

Children with internet connected devices — Children with internet

The goal-setting stages can start at a very young age. A child’s brain is developed almost completely by the age of seven. It is in this period that deep imprints upon the brain are made by various factors. The child is introduced to new surroundings, people, food, habits, language, etc. by various individuals in the child’s life. The child gets the hang of its life as learns to cope with daily routines in various periods of day and surroundings in favorable and unfavorable situations.

It begins to develop tastes and preferences. It learns to avoid and engage in certain activities and situations. On certain deep imprints, the child can develop strong desires which will develop into goals in life. This may make them into great artists, athletes, scientists, big businessman or criminals. This is because the deep and strong desires turn into goals. At this juncture, traits may lead to addictive personalities.

More efforts get focused on desires as a result. Nowadays the nuclear families are the trait and not mother, father and other siblings. With mushrooming of various devices, the child is left to be bombarded with information from the digital media.

By the time the child comes to be 15 years old, he already knows the world. In contrast, his parents may not have amassed much knowledge even up to the age of 50. The older generation would have to be interested in various subjects and have taken the effort to have visited a couple of libraries to obtain knowledge. Now the boy or girl has the internet available at their command for information. The digital information is bombarded on them from a wide range of devices like television, mobiles, tablets, etc.

By now, this child who has become a teenager is exposed to so many individuals who are capable of inspiring them to become or not become like them. Some teenagers may have by now reaffirmed their desires. Some smarties may have managed to convert them into goals. If so, it is easy to convert these goals into reality. If elders have observed these and are in communication with the teenager, they should provide studied guidance.

Some smart children begin to learn to convert their desires to goals. Though this subject is a point of such wide discussion, only 2% of the total world population does this. This is that 2% controlling 98 % of the world’s population.

Now the desires should be written down. This written down list should be seen every day with great concentration and focus. Ways and means will arrive for the child. Some children are able to able to get their list and focus on the stage before the high school level itself. These children should be identified and assisted by the necessary support and inspiration.

Look at this example-

I want to run a marathon

I want to be a champion marathoner.

I want to teach other kids to become marathoners.

I should be able to look after my parents.

I want to read comics.

I want to create comics.

My ability to create comics will be my sustainable source of good income for me and my family members.

I should be capable to provide for all my family members.

Let us look at another example-

I want to ski around the world.

I want to ski in the Alps.

I will learn to ski and get myself a good outfit.

I will get physically fit, find a good trainer.

I will win the winter Olympics.

I will set up my own ski academy.

I will have students from around the world training with me.

This will enable me to help me to sustain my family pretty well.

All of us at home will have all the good things in life.

Now with a little focus, the child enters high school.

As the subjects of study are being chosen (this should be as per the merits and interests of the child and not the parent), the child has obtained more focus on the tasks for the specific period. After high school, the child is almost ready or facing life on its own by going for a job or to college to do graduation.

Assuming the child has finished high school successively as planned with the chosen electives, it is ready to an extent to take on the next step.

Please bear in your mind that these goals set at this stage can be changed or modified during the lifeline for various compelling reasons.

This stage where the child is on the way to the senior school stage, the child has to learn to be disciplined.

This discipline will enable the child to focus on and visualize the future. This will ensure a strong foundation for the child’s future.

Now is the stage for concentrating on the development of various life skills. The most important one being “Communication skills” like writing, reading and speaking. In life when the interactions with people increase over time, one should be able to grasp the ideas of others and be able to convey own ideas too. Human’s entire life is an exchange of ideas.

This happens throughout life at all stages. This exchange of thoughts between individuals is part of various transactions as in sales, banking, teaching, business to name few. The child needs to learn to analyze and learn this process. This is a separate field of study called- Transactional analysis.

The whole life of the human is a series of transactions, even between the family members.

Most importantly, it is at this stage, the child learns about money in life. This happens from the age of seven. Some people will say, money is everything, some will say money is evil and cause of all trouble in life. Also apart from humans, the electronic media is also bombarding the child with all sense and nonsense.

All these patterns and thoughts become ingrained in the brain. It is based on these, that the child begins to react to various circumstances in life. The child develops an attitude towards money and most relationships are based on this.

The child’s/young adult’s attitude begins to be shaped on this financial blueprint ingrained within.

Fortunately, these blueprints can be consciously modified at any stage in life. It is this financial blueprint that brings about the pattern and limits of earning on this young adult.

In all these stages, the elders who are guiding this child have to ensure that the child does not cultivate any negative blueprints. These may also depend on the culture of the place the child is growing. The positives and negatives of each culture differ based on each locality.

Now it can be concluded that the micro and macro components as mentioned in the above article are responsible for the child’s path to getting to the top in life.

Are the goals set? What happens if you do not?

Have you fixed your goals? If you have not yet done it, read the previous chapters and then fix your goals and proceed in life.

By fixing your goal, you can reach anywhere from wherever you are now. Some of you may argue that you are now at a place, satisfactory to you and you landed there without setting goals and working towards it. Be informed that you reached there by just drifting in the atmosphere like pollen drifting in the air from flower to flower to pollinate and help propagate plant life.

Think about it, you may have become a reasonably successful executive in a large corporation. You may not have aimed to join that corporation and grow to where you are right now. You may have never aimed for it years ago unless your sole priority/goal/aim was to find yourself a decent job to support your financial needs, Keeping in mind your education and past work experience. You joined the corporation, worked by their rules and policies, put in a lot of effort and hard work. By this, in due course, you rose up the ranks and grew up to where you are now. You had not fixed this as your goal. You got sucked in by nature to be part of someone else’s goal. You worked to support the owner of the corporation, and you did it well and you benefitted incidentally and made that person wealthier. In the process, you fulfilled your incidental needs too. This happened only because you had failed to set your goals which could have been much loftier. Is this your rise to the top? You could have set your goal to have run your own corporation instead you ended up supporting someone else’s goal. Therefore if you do not set your own goal early enough and work towards it, nature will make you part of someone else’s goal and not yours.

Now that some of you have sat down in a place and thought out your goals after all deliberations, there is an issue now. Just because you thought of having lunch, it does not mean that you get to eat lunch. You have to plan to find and choose the recipe and arrange to procure all the required ingredients. Now you need to spend time and put your effort and cook your meal and then eat it with all pleasure and satisfaction. After setting your goal, you have to plan on the track to get to your goal. The journey has just begun. There is a lot of work to be done. Starting to work your plan takes the biggest effort. For example, if you have picked up a goal to run a marathon in the coming year. You have to begin practicing your daily runs. That takes the maximum effort to start doing this. Once started, inertia takes you forward in your journey. On completion of a week to ten days, Practice runs become a daily habit and difficult to miss. Once the first step is taken, the journey forward keeps happening on its own.

To help you set goals there are a whole lot of APPS in the Android Play Store to be downloaded free of cost. Choose one of the apps like – GOAL PLUS. It is of mere 19 MB. Now keep up as per the instructions from the APP and move forward till you actually begin the goal journey. Once the goal is set, you have to start working on the plan early enough, almost immediately. Let me tell you why to do so in a musical manner.

On youtube.com, listen to the song titled – TIME from the album –The Dark Side of the Moon of

Group called PINK FLOYD.(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_VjVqe3KJ0)

It is suggested that you first listen to the song with the lyrics in front of you-

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day

You fritter and waste hours in an offhand way

Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town

Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain

You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today

And the one day you find ten years have got behind you

No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it’s sinking

And racing around to come behind you again

The sun is the same in a relative way, but you’re older

Shorter of breath and one day closer to death

Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time

Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines

Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way

The time is gone the song is over, thought I’d something more to say

Having heard the song, you would have got two points registered in you.

You have to get on with the plan to get to the goal to get to the top without wasting any time. If you waste your time, you may miss the starting point/gun and miss out on your opportunity. So there you missed your chance to get to the top. Say, you set your goal to join the Armed Forces. You kept wasting your time and attention. In the due course, you miss the last date of the application. Now you would have missed the maximum age for applying. So you have now lost the race even without beginning.

The next point is that most people think that the life expectancy of humans is 500 years. Having missed earlier, you wait for catching up, in the process you may have become of retiring age and closer to death. What does that mean? You have failed life because you did not set your goal and work on it. You have to do goal setting at the appropriate time or else how will you get to the top? Or else, you will spend your entire life on incidental chores of arranging and paying your bills. So get going now.

The above given is the recipe of success and to get to the top. So get motivated and get along.

Listen to this song, again and again, to keep reminding you to set your goal and start to work on it.

Please ask for clarifications, if any.

In this exercise, you must only listen to your inner voice from your heart and not anyone else’s.

You may consult, by all means, remember that it is your life in the end.You are alone in this game.

Use the space of the comments for it.

If you are viewing this Desktop, look at the beginning of the post, if viewing on your mobile, look at the end of this post.

You could leave your comments too.

This is my analysis and for the first time in the world and unique-

If you do not set your own goal early enough and work on it, nature will put you as part of someone else’s goal and not yours primarily.

Types of Goals

Now all of us have understood that we are going someplace only if we have goals. Once the goals are in place, our efforts will bear fruits. Once goals are in place, we can start making efforts towards that direction.
Just because you thought out that your goal is to be an astronaut, you cannot become that without doing certain tasks needed to become that. You have to further make certain short term, medium term and long term goals and achieve them in stages. Our goal may be on the 50th floor. We cannot climb up directly to the 50th floor but have to climb up the floors one by one right up to the top. Climbing the stairs one by one is the best way to get right up to the top.
We have planned to make our efforts step by step. We plan our moves as per our final goal. We have to think out the route. If we do not know it. It has to be researched. We may follow a role model. We may need to take advice from elders or experts from the respective field. We have to build our focus and never lose sight of it at any cost.
We got to have a goal for our lives, or else we will become a part of someone else’s goal. Now goals are of different types. Some goals are like climbing stairs, one step is one goal. One goal after goal we can end up with our # Lifetime Goal. Now we realize that the lifetime goal is split into various # Intermediate goals. By this we can achieve seemingly big goals step by step and get to the top.
Now we must understand the different types of goals. Some goals are based on duration, as per the situation one is at that time.
#Short Term Goals
#Medium Term Goals
#Long Term Goals
These types of goals are more clearly understood on your
#Academic Goals – These may be your Semester goals – you may want to improve on certain subjects.
Semester Goals may be Short Term Goals. Medium goals may be #Graduation Goal. Long Term Goal may be your # Doctorate Goal.
After academic goals , you will have #Career Goals- May be Journalist, Scientist, Beautician etc,
During or after this, you may have #Relationship Goals.
You may decide on boy or girl friends. You may decide on Marriage. Or Divorce or just being a Bachelor.
You will have various # Asset goals-
Transportation Goals- motorcycle , car , airplane etc.
Housing goals-Bachelor pad, Multi bedroom Apartment after marriage. Villa after having children.
You will have Aspirational Goals- working as senior executive of a top company, marrying a billionaire’s beauty queen daughter, children to study in top colleges. Own big cars and houses etc.
All the above goals are the major life goals. Apart from these there are some other goals which come at various stages of life.
All the above goals are very clear ones. Apart from the above there are lot of other goals which we include on our lives at various stages based on our needs and momentary fetishes.
The various types of goals are listed below. They are very obvious and do not need any explanation-
Fitness Goals.- This may be needed for those having certain games as part of their lifetime goal.
Styling Goals.
Wellness Goals
Career Goals.
Financial Goals
Spiritual Goals.
First step Goal.
All these are related to the meaning of these words and therefore does not need any in depth explanation. Of course it holds significance if related to one’s lifetime goal.
Do await for the next chapter.

Goal Setting for Non Adults

The earlier article was on goal setting for adults. Now let us see the same thing for children. When a child is asked, “what will you become when you grow up” you may have heard-“I will become a

Locomotive driver
Fire engine driver
Fireman
Astronaut
Nurse etc.,.”

among many items. You will most often find that these goals do not materialize. The goals of these children have been found to change as they grew up.

Anyhow, how do we assist the child to set his/her goal? Of course we have come across instances where a hungry child not knowing how to provide the next meal for himself and his younger sister and mother went on to become a business tycoon and a billionaire .

Why is it that a child exposed to his mother or father dying due to lack of money for a doctor possibly grows up to a great and charitable doctor?

Situations as this make up a great resolve in certain individuals to succeed.

Apart from such factors Parents too play a great role in some cases. A single mother worked multiple jobs to support her son’s training/coaching. This son went on to become the great Olympian swimmer.

A father did the same and the child become a great tennis player

These parents have gone through a life of great sacrifice and dedication for their children.

Surely there are very few such parents around in the world having great goals for themselves to make their children great and world class.

Similarly due to parents, some children have become criminals and cheats.

Let us not dump the entire load of the children’s failure on the parents.

Humans are thinking organisms and not programmed machines. Various exposures to certain circumstances knowingly or unknowingly can leave tremendous impressions on human mind at various stages to make strong resolve to shape certain goals for the individual.

Apart from the above written points, this incident impressed me.

I was browsing some videos on YOUTUBE.
I came across a lot of videos under keywords- [goal setting for children].

This blew me apart- when I was kid I was never exposed to anything like this. I wish that you spend some time on this yourself and do the same thing with your kids.
You could give them concepts such as long term goals, short term goals, goals of the year etc.
It was good to stumble on this. This was not prevalent during my formative years. It was not prevalent then. Please get these videos to the young kids around you.
Apart from these, everybody’s skill-sets and efforts are different . These have to be identified and encouraged and motivated for the continued pursuit of these skill-sets .

Look out for my next episode.

Single most important factor to your way to the top

Your present position is due to a combo of various reasons. It is based on your past decisions and efforts. Also, you may factor in your family background and your childhood upbringing. But definitely your future depends on your wish. You can get to where you want to be from where you are.

“The best preparation for tomorrow is to do today’s work superbly well”

“The poorest of all men is the one without a dream..”

“It takes as much energy to wish as it takes to plan.”

“The indispensable first step in getting the things you want in life is to decide what you want.”

Just to have a dreams does not amount to having constructed your goals. The goal is a goal only if it is well defined.

For convenience let us use an acronym- SMART . Your goal has to be SMART.

S-Specific

M-Measurable

A-Attainable

R- Relevant/Realistic

T-Time bound

I have searched all over for recipes for success. I have heard and read from a lot of gurus of success.

Everybody had unanimously decried that your journey to the top/success does not begin without your making of your SMART goal.

Most goals are numeric with a time stamp.

I will shed 20 kgs by March 2020

I will own a five bedroomed, 5000 sq ft home in Malibu California.

The goals should be milestoning- Getting the gold medal or becoming the Star salesman of the territory.

Do not be afraid to create lofty goals . If you had small goals you will regret for having set small goals and not bigger ones.”You will want to set a goal big enough that in the process of achieving it you become some one worth becoming.”

Let us summarize-

The goals have to be Specific-

I will become the Team Leader by 2021.

Your goals have to be measurable.

I will lose 25 kgs weight by May 2020.

The goals have to be attainable. You cannot aspire to win a Olympic medal if you are in your thirties and not have gained enough proficiency in your chosen discipline /sport. You cannot aspire to be the leading Cardiologist of your province if you are not a student of biology or life sciences.

Your goal has to be attainable and relevant. If you are not a Salesman, how can you aspire to be the Best Salesman of your company?

Your goal has to be time bound

I will lose 25 kgs weight by May 2020.

I will own my farm 5000 sq ft farmhouse in Malibu, California by 2025.

You will not attain your goals if you have not set you SMART goals.

A specimen of a good goal would be-

I will become the Vice President – Sales of my company by 2023 .

If no goal is set, no one is going anywhere.

Can you get to any place from your airport if you have not thought and planned out the destination..

So now we have realized that we must make SMART goals to take us to the TOP.

Everybody’s TOP is different and so are the skillsets. And efforts.

With SMART goals , everyone can move towards the TOP.

SMART goals have given us focus.

All are born skilless , hence all the concerned skill needed to take us the top can be acquired.