5 Powerful Habits to Change your Life for the Better!

I thought of penning these five tips for the benefit of all the young professionals and undergraduates out there! Throughout the past decade, as a leadership trainer and youth mentor, I have had the privilege of working with thousands of young people from different backgrounds. Many of these young people had career aspirations and dreams to achieve. I was truly happy for them for having such dreams. However, to my surprise, a few years later many of them had ended up becoming mediocre professionals who were trapped in a monotonous routine.

When I say this, I am also aware that nobody has the right to judge whether someone's life journey is mediocre or not. Also, it could be really toxic to measure personal success through external factors which we do not have any control over. However, this observation of them becoming mediocre professionals was solely based on my personal interaction with them. For a fact, I knew that these young people wanted something else in their lives though they have now settled for something less. So, it's them who came to the conclusion that they are not living their dream life. Whenever, I speak to them during our brief encounters which occurs at a random conference, a party or a social gathering, they keep telling me that this is not what they really wanted.

So, my attempt here is to share these five important tips with all the young professionals and undergrads out there who are at a critical juncture in excelling their respective career journeys because I strongly believe that these tips alone could make a significant impact on your life if you really put your heart and soul into it!

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In this digital era, there are a plethora of resources for public use. Reading should not only be limited to the traditional form. It could be a You Tube video, a journal article, an online news article or a traditional book(I am 100% sure that you haven't still completely read all the books in your bookshelf or all the PDFs that you saved in your laptop!). So, you may start now!

Just imagine how amazing it would be, if you could add something new to your knowledge each day? It will significantly raise your confidence too and affect how you show up as an individual. In order to make your reading habit more feasible, I would like to suggest you to maintain a list of books, videos, documentaries that you watch or read whilst allocating some time for reading from your daily routine. It could be a moral booster for your own self to see how well you are doing in developing your reading habit.

Don't forget that reading has no limits. You can read anything including resources on your profession, personal interests, better management techniques and hobbies as well as your physical and mental well-being, relationships and public relations etc.

So, READ! READ!! READ in all forms!!!

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I personally think its better to take some time off and brainstorm to assess what 'Success' means to you. Most of the times, I notice many young people try to make comparisons with their peers in terms of measuring personal success. This habit of comparison could be really detrimental to someone's growth as it could lead someone to a position where they can never be truly happy or satisfied even after reaching some of the most important milestones in their lives.

Believe me or not, some of the famous people in the world have run into this trap though their success stories look absolutely amazing and inspiring on the outlook. Unfortunately, they could be never happy because their success matrix was based on an uncontrollable-external factor or how good someone else was doing(most of the times, it was a competitor or ex-partner or colleague or an enemy). Due to this reason, reportedly, many of them were having internal regrets even though they had reached the pinnacle of success even after decades of hard work.

I would like to remind you that we all didn't start our journeys from the same starting line or took the same path to reach where we are today. Thus, you need to own your success story and it should be based on a matrix which is defined by you. You shouldn't belittle your milestones by comparing it with someone else's success who had a different walk of life than yours. So don't forget to humbly celebrate your small wins which could mean a lot to you and your loved ones!

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As I have mentioned earlier, I have met a number of young people with exciting career aspirations. Unfortunately, many of them didn't make it to the places where they really wanted to be. According to my personal experience and observation, this could happen due to three major reasons.

The first reason could be, those dreams were not big enough to expand their comfort zone. Thus, there was no room for growth. Secondly, they didn't really believe in their dream though they had one. Thirdly, even though they had a dream which they believed in, they didn't break it down to small-actionable steps which could be daily worked upon. So, it remained as a big dream forever which never came true.

Thus, firstly, I would always encourage you to have a bigger dream which could bring some discomfort as well because ultimately it will expand your comfort zone. Secondly, you need to unconditionally believe in your dream. Thirdly, you need to break it down to small-actionable steps that you could work upon every day.

On the same note, I would say BIGGER DREAMS could metaphorically be best represented by the top step of a staircase rather than a floating balloon in the sky! Getting there is a process which is comprised of thousands of smaller steps! In my opinion, there are no short-cuts!

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This could be the vital habit we all should have been taught in schools. I think practicing gratitude as a habit carries much importance in our lives because it could give us courage to face difficult days without letting our blessings go unnoticed. I would suggest you to gratefully start your day with the reminder that you wake up to 'an opportunity clock' not to a typical alarm clock.

Also, at the end of each day, if you could recall the day to notice at least one or few things that you could be grateful for, it would wind up the day on a positive note. It should not necessarily be something in grand scale. It could be anything such as being able to meet or call a close friend, getting some quality time to spend with your parents/partner/ friend, listening to your favourite song/playlist, having some lonely time to watch stars etc.

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There are many instances in life where we need to make decisions.?Sometimes, there are instances where we are just driven by consequences which do not allow us to make our own decisions. However, in my opinion, it would be wise to make conscious and calculated decisions on in every possible occasion. Sometimes your decision could be wrong. But don't worry! It will register in your mind as a learning outcome if you had made a decision. Let's assume that you run into the same outcome without making a decision. In that case, there is a high probability of you making the same mistake again and again! This could be applicable for simplest things in your life.

Let's imagine that on a Friday evening you need to select a route with less traffic to reach a destination soon. If you make a conscious and calculated decision, you may have to quickly pay attention to all the available details and eventually you will earn a learning even if the route you selected was full of traffic on that particular day. But now you know that 'On Friday evenings, that particular road has traffic during particular time period.'

So, I would always encourage you to make conscious and calculated decisions! Though we assume that there are instances where we are pushed to rush through situations without getting enough time to make decisions, I personally think that we always get some time to choose(at least a few mini-seconds) in between any stimuli and our response unless its an automated response from our body. So, try to make conscious and calculated decisions which would eventually lead to more learnings and experiences!