Holistic Approach for Achievement Orientation

 Holistic Approach for Achievement Orientation 

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

 

As we are discussing Achievement Orientation both at self and through others, the process is a continuous and lifelong experience.

Why is a holistic approach required?

Instead of being content with any short-term benefits with an external motivation to get things done, if we understand the HOLISTIC approach of achievement orientation, that will help us be highly motivated to achieve something or make others achieve.

Also, In today’s world, there are ample opportunities and equally distractors. Staying in line with your purpose and orienting yourself towards achievement is a challenge. If we are not aligned with our purpose on a sustainable basis, any setbacks or any new distractions would derail us from achievement or tapping out potential.

For example, you might have come across some people who are changing jobs frequently, even switching careers, but not feeling fulfilled with the achievement. The reason could be the lack of clarity on the purpose and values. The earlier one gets the clarity, the more fortunate to make an impact in their chosen areas. 

Hence, we need to understand the holistic process of achievement orientation.

I had developed a holistic framework based on my experience when i embarked on a significant life transformation. I  believe more perspectives on the following framework will help you stay on course on achievement orientation.

Let us discuss the following queries
 

• What is the priority in my life? What do I like most? How to identify my values?
• How to identify the purpose of my life from a long-term perspective?
• How to design my life in line with the purpose
• How to develop the inner desire and how to stimulate the appetite of others in a professional environment?
• Why the environment matter and the process of creating a conducive environment to achieve at self and an organizational level?
• Need for self-commitment and developing ownership for self and at others?
• Developing the roadmap to achieve and focus on the result and the challenges
• How to be in a winning mindset when things go wrong or during the challenging time

Let us discuss in the coming weeks, and stay safe until then!

What drives people to achieve?

 What drives people to achieve?

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

 

As we discussed in the “Achievement Orientation  Introduction," the key challenge for every professional is motivating or keeping others in the same state?
 
You might have observed some people are always on a high energy level or highly self-motivated despite all the challenges like age, health factors. What does motivate them to be in that state?.. They are driven by their thoughts to achieve something in their profession or life.

Different schools of thought believe that people are motivated by external factors like money, a high positional status that comes from the title, and exposure. Some studies found that those external factors help to some extent to keep the person in a motivated state; eventually, the energy level is getting reduced. The pace may depend on the individual at what stage he/ she is in the lifecycle.

In one of the interviews, the interviewer asked Ratan Tata, " What drives you to do more even at this age as well? He said, " exactly i do not know, but it could be the fire inside." His rich experience reveals the truth.

Hence, what drives people is the inner desire to achieve something. That inner desire manifests externally in a different way.


How can you identify those people who are driven by inner desire?

1. They are passionate about what they are doing.
2. Eager to learn more in their passionate area
3. Most of the time restless and unhappy with the current state or status quo
4. Displaying a high level of energy in their passionate work despite any challenges

When an individual develops the inner desire or fire to achieve something, he/ she uplift self and make a positive impact on the team or in the working environment.
 
The question would be how to inculcate the inner desire? Whether it is inborn or can we develop?

In my experience, anyone can develop the achievement orientation within and with others and a structured process and practice.
 
Next week, let us discuss the holistic framework of achievement orientation, starting from creating the inner desire to achievement and dealing with the achievement challenges during the journey.

Achievement Orientation

 Achievement Orientation

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

One of the emotional intelligence competencies for aspiring managers or leaders should develop “Achievement orientation.”

What is Achievement orientation?

Achievement orientation is a combination of mindset and practices to accomplish the task or moving towards achievement. It ranges from small task completion to achieving something meaningful in life as a broad context.

You might have observed some people are continuously progressing in the life journey, and some people are stagnant at some point in time. In my opinion, regardless of the field of work, environment, and external  challenges, the clear  differentiation between a highly growth-oriented person and a mediocre person is “Orientation intensity towards achievement.”

You might have experienced some of the scenarios in the professional environment.

1. Some people can get things done amidst all the challenges.
2. When you assign some tasks to someone, he/she will finish it, and your intervention or follow-ups would be relatively less.
3. Some people would complete the task due to follow-up/reminders, or the quality of work may not be up to the expectation.
4. Even at your level, you may be finding joy to do some task and, in some task, you do not find yourself enjoying. You will be wondering how to keep your motivation high all the time.

One of the challenges for  most professionals is "How to be in highly motivated level at an individual level and keep others to accomplish more?"

In this new topic on “Achievement Orientation,” let us discuss the challenges and perspectives on 

1. What motivates us to progress continuously?
2. How to be highly motivated internally?
3. How to bring the ownership feeling on others in a professional environment
4. Steps in achievement orientation and insights 

Let us discuss in the coming weeks and solicit your views.

Power of Progress or Small wins

 Power of Progress or Small wins 

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

 

For the last 20 weeks, we have discussed the importance of channelizing the low-level emotion into a higher level and the different methods of channelizing the low-level emotions like anger, fear, frustration, sadness, and envy into productive emotions.

In all the methodologies, the common underlying factor is our awareness of the emotion and taking action to subsidize it.
 
One more effective way of being in high-level emotion at the workplace is to make small progress or small win in our core work area on a consistent basis.

Why small progress or small win is important?

Irrespective of any setbacks, everyone craves fulfillment or happiness at the end of the day. That is the emotional aspect everyone is looking forward to. One way of getting into that state is to make meaningful small progress in the work.

Generally, we can not achieve great success or milestones on all days, but we can make small steps toward milestones. In the absence of a small step or meaningful progress, we feel low.

For example, achieving a higher sales target may be the destination and that will happen only once, whereas the initiative or progress towards reaching the destination can happen every day. When you make a progress or small win every day in that direction, that improves your inner emotions.

One of the studies done by researchers indicates that when people make a little incremental progress in a meaningful way, that boosts the people's inner emotional positively. The researchers came out with the book “The progress principle”.
 
How can we achieve small progress?
 
To achieve little progress or small wins, you do not need any special occasions or reasons. You just need to be conscious about bringing incremental, progress through your effort.
 
For example, on a typical day and in your routine work, if you stimulate your team’s thought process, initiate new ideas or take a step for solving chronic issues, you may think that you have made some progress towards milestone success. That thinking will elevate your emotions. In routine work, you are making a small difference in your effort consciously.
 
The key point is the small progress or small win through your effort will offset any low-level emotions and keep you on elevated emotional level. Progress is progress, the quantum does not matter. The momentum makes you engaged and relieve you from low level emotions.
 
Just you need to be aware of making small progress or small win every day that makes you be in higher level of emotions.

Overcoming Envy (Contd..)

 Overcoming Envy

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

 

As we mentioned, some of the simple and powerful approaches to overcome envy last week. We discussed developing an abundance mindset by counting your blessings as one of the approaches. Let us discuss other approaches.
 
 

• Counting your blessings
• Setting your standard and compare
• Learn the nature of creation
• Appreciating the goodness frequently

Setting your standards and compare:
 
Envy as emotion disturbs us mainly due to comparing ourselves with others' success and scarcity mindset. To counter that state, we always need to set standards for us in terms of engagement. That could be learning new skills, taking new initiatives, or meeting new people. When we commit ourselves to many activities, our focus shifts to a new horizon rather than dwelling too much by comparing ourselves with others.

I know one of my managers cum mentors used to keep him always engaged with some activities even though his boss did not insist. He never indulged in comparing himself with any of his colleagues or even in any gossip or low-level activities. I learn from him to set a standard self and chasing the standard rather than giving yourself low-level emotions.

Also, when you have some priorities and comparing yourself against your standard, that boosts your self-worth.
 
Learn from nature:

As mentioned many times, the law of nature suggests that nothing is permanent in this world, and everything will go changes as cyclic. If you compare yourself with others, and feel about the shortcoming of the skills or the success of others, wait for your turn. When your intention is right and keeps raising your standard, you eventually get what you deserve.
 
Appreciating the goodness frequently:

When you observe any great people and their interviews, one typical pattern is the demonstration of appreciation. Recently I met a successful entrepreneur who ventured into many businesses and turned into a successful. During the discussion, someone mentioned their competitor in the conversation. The moment he heard about a particular competitor, he elaborated on their positives in some markets and appreciated them. Not even once, he said any negatives about the competitor. That is the mindset of highly successful people when they compare themselves with others.

Generally, we can appreciate others only when we operate at a higher emotional point. To counter envy emotions, we need to be conscious of our high-level emotions.
 
To sum up, envy is a most dangerous emotion than any other low-level emotion. We need to be conscious about that and choose any combination of approaches to be in a high emotional state for our own sake of well-being!

Overcoming Envy

 Overcoming Envy

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)
 

Having discussed the causes of envy and its effect on our workplace productivity, let us discuss the approaches to deal with jealousy as an emotion.

As mentioned, there is a thin line difference when we look at others for comparison or inspiration and get envy. The consciousness is always required not to get into the envy trap. I am sharing below some of the approaches as i experienced.
 

• Counting your blessings
• Setting your standard and comparing yourself.
• Learn the nature of creation
• Appreciating the goodness frequently

Counting your blessings always:
 

Envy comes in when we have a thinking that others have something which we do not have. It is an outcome of a scarcity mindset. To counter that thinking, we need to count our blessings and the positive things we have in our lives.

For example, you may observe a colleague who has extraordinary social skills, which you may lack. Eventually, you will compare yourself and feel envy about it. To counter that, you think of your blessing, say you may be having extraordinarily analytical and problem-solving skills which others may be lacking. That is a blessing or gift you got. Think about what you have, and feel grateful for that. When we count your blessings, we become less envious of others.

Just think and recognize what you got in this life in terms of skills, personal qualities, people you surround with, exposure, and opportunities you got. Most of the time, we take things for granted, and in reality, most of the privileges we got in life are not readily available to others.

The more you think of your blessings and make it part of your personality; eventually, the less you affect by other's possession or success.

Just list down your blessings and make it a habit.

When we have not associated ourselves with the blessings, any comparison of us with others results in envy as it emerges from scarcity.

Let us discuss other approaches next week.
 

Why do we envy others?

 Why do we envy others?

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

One more emotion or feeling that disrupts our well-being and productiveness in the workplace is envy.

Envy is a feeling of discontent or unhappiness about other's success, advantages, or possessions.

We develop envy when we see others have something we wish to have. It could be personal qualities, skills, success, positional status, materialistic advantages, and opportunities.

for example, 

We become sad, angry, or resentful, 
when someone is getting appreciation or being noticed in the workplace
when someone is having some skills or other qualities than us
 
How is envy getting developed?
 
 One of the habits that most of us have is to compare ourselves with others. Initially, it starts with inspiration or general reference; eventually, it becomes envy. The process of comparison goes like this. We start comparing with others on skill sets, competency, possession, etc., start amazing, and then eventually looking at self, finding the gap, start feeling as inferior, becoming self-pity and weak. When we repeat the comparison habit with many people, we eventually conclude that “I do not have much positive qualities or possession, and  I am not deserving of greatness.”The self-pity becomes envy.
 
 The strange thing in the comparison process is that we compare and envy only our known circle or at the same level. For example, a rich/poor person compares him/ herself against another rich/ poor person and envy it. Most of the time, we may compare ourselves with our colleagues or friends’ level only, not on a higher level, says boss or beyond our network.
 
How does envy affect us?

Unlike other emotions, envy is something more inward and harmful than other emotions.

1) Internally, we lose our self-esteem as we always feel a scarcity/shortage of something when we keep on comparing with others. Lack of self-esteem will invite all the troubles, as we have discussed in many articles.

2) Externally, we express our emotions into rude behavior, criticizing other’s success with our own opinions

3) We lose our identity and focus of our priorities
 
Even though getting envy is a universal emotion of all human beings, which may vary with the hierarchy, we need to control with a clear borderline of inspiration and envy.

Let us discuss the approaches next week!