A Sense of Control: A Career Approach

How does a controlling need can be utilized in a career progression?

We people have a different level of tolerance for something unfamiliar to us. For some, an acceptable risk will make one feel energized and adventurous. On the other hand, some are avoiding the risk as believing it as a threat.

To avoid the chaos from the risk, people will try to avoid or confront in several ways. The actions vary from accepting the risk comfortably, planning the solution, or even ignoring it. These actions have something in common, the sense of control.

The sense of control varies between people. Some people feel like to control, being controlled, or neither of them. The controlling tendency largely depends on some incidents, hardship, and family upbringing that affects personality development.

A person that has been spoiled when he is young, facing a family problem, or having a trauma will tend to be a controlling person. On the other hand, a person that is constantly overprotected fall into the category of being controlled. A plausible reason is due to the inability of expressing wants.

A good team should have the correct ratio of people with a controlling/submissive tendency. The team could not work well if the proportion is not fair, where it will create some inherent problem that can’t be solved apparently.

Moreover, once one has understood the tendency to control, one should aim to the correct position to achieve a positive outcome for oneself and the team. By positioning oneself in a suitable place and with the right proportion of people, a team in a career will flourish and become invincible.

“Understanding a need of controlling and utilizing it will build up the chemistry of a team and make a fulfilling career.”

How is your tendency to control everything?

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Repetition, Mastery or Stagnation?

Repetition, is it the road towards mastery? Or is it the path towards stagnation?

Every day we are doing chores that repeat day by day throughout our whole life. These chores that one does every day is forming one’s ability on solving a particular problem. With repetition, one could execute a task with a better result with less effort. However, is it make one master a skill?

Imagine that you are doing the work in the same job scope every day. This mundane task will slow disable one’s ability to think, especially when the demand for quality is not required. For example, when one is doing patrolling or become a sales clerk. Initially, one may try to find a way to improve the effectiveness. However, working in this way in the long term would reach stagnation.

On the other hand, some activities/jobs require one to be in constant repetition for one to master the skill, such as sporting and cooking. One is unlikely to become the best unless a discipline repetition training, that requires a serious commitment.

On the white-collar job, such as lawyers and doctors, repetitiveness would be unlikely to make one professional. One needs to expose oneself to the various case studies that sharpen critical thinking for solving the problem, repetitions not effective on the progressive growth of these people.

Understanding and harnessing the practical application would benefit one in various ways. Other than one could improve the existing skill based on the repetition, one could venture a new ability and strengthen it through repetition.

Repetition is not necessarily made one mastering something or getting one into stagnation. But one could arguably believe that repetition in a creative way could hone the skill to make one become a discipline being. Repetition, an intensive habit towards transformation, could be the secret to mastery if it is used properly.

“Repetition is the secret to mastery if could use it effectively.”

What is the thing that you do repetitively, yet you need to improve?

A Willingness of Embracing Chaos

How to embrace the chaos in our inner self?

Chaos, a destructive element, is commonly avoided by people to maintain one’s well-being. It is the uncontrolled force that one avoids. It has infinitesimally protruded in our daily life. It varies from a minor problem to life-changing events such as the major disaster that brings fluctuation in one’s life.

Chaos is inevitable will be in a part of our lives. While procrastination inhibits corrective action taken, the entropy ould escalate in the surrounding environment and one’s mind. There are several sources of chaos. It is not only from the inner self but also the unknown that one encountered every day.

If one is not guided properly, one would rectify the chaos in a wrong method and transform itself into chaos in another form. Understanding chaos is different from one to another due to various life circumstances. one could find an incident as chaotic while another perceives it as order.

Communication, a verbal method to connect one and another, would support one to convey a statement to another. It is an effective tool to point out the chaos. During a group discussion, different people would make a point for the way people solving an issue.

Resilience, the ability of one withstanding adverse situation, is a reliable tool to embrace chaos. Most people may start as undisciplined being and fragile towards uncertainty. Constant life training is required to make one getting more resilient. To improve resiliency, one needs to push oneself into the maximum chaos that one could handle.

Confidence and inner strength are improved when solving the unknown. To embrace chaos, clear communication for delivering an issue and constant training of resiliency is necessary. One’s tolerance for chaos not only make one grows into a better person.

“Communication and resilience is powerful tools to embraces chaos.”

What is your method to handle chaos in your life?

Creativity in a Constraint

Why creativity is a solution to solve a limitation?

When one hears of the word “creativity”, one could associate it with art or something related to abstract ideas. Creativity, an idea generated from the unconventional thinking method, is a skill that is essential despite no clear way to cultivate it.

In real life, creativity is not only limited to some fancy arts. It encompasses every single aspect of life. The living standard that people enjoy currently is the multitude of creative solutions that improve lives.

Creativity is especially to tackle the constrain given in the situation. For example, a space constraint will make one forced to think of a space-effective layout. When one embraces creativity, one would not break the rules and solve the problem beautifully.

When one studies in school or work in a company, most may follow the rule to get things done. To bring changes, one is not only following the rules but also distinct oneself through creativity. The more creative one is, the more valuable one is, given that one follows the game rules.

Creativity is a vague idea that needs to be actualized. With creativity, a person would strive beautifully. Before one has got through creativity, one needs to learn the basic rules. The basic rules that support creativity could provide a solution that would transform the world.

However, it is often that one ignores that the importance of creativity. To embrace creativity, one sometimes may need to listen to an opinion that contradicts one’s view. One is also to get used to people who break the norm. In a way, increasing tolerance of other people view would enhance one’s creativity. By incorporate other’s point and overcome the limitation, one could enjoy the benefit that creativity brings.

“Creativity is an effective solution to overcome a multitude of limitation.”

What is the limitation that you face currently? Could it be solved creatively?

Discomfort, A Growth Process

Why discomfort makes one grow faster mentally?

Having an unpleasant experience most probably could be an action that most people try to avoid. Other than it would make one getting frustrated, some significant unpleasant event may create a bad memory or even causing a trauma. However, why discomfort make people grow?

Discomfort is a feeling of uneasiness, anxiety, and unpleasantness. When one has encountered discomfort, one would subconsciously try to escape from the discomfort zone. Discomfort feeling is necessary to counter the human nature of survival. With these feeling, one could avoid being end up in a bad situation.

However, if one is constantly avoiding the discomfort zone, it will reduce the capability to handling risk. As one getting risk-averse, one could avoid any opportunity that requires the risk. Positively, the one who has stayed in the discomfort zone will aim for stability in their life. On the other way, it could stop one to grow.

The constant exposure to discomfort events can eventually improve the resilience towards adversity. A runner may be feel exhausted although he has practice running for a period. However, the trained runner distinct oneself from others from the stamina. A runner could be running at a faster speed and longer distance compared to the others.

To conclude, exposing oneself to discomfort circumstances will eventually train one to be resilient towards challenge and adversity. If one complete a more challenging task, one could be likely to achieve success in one’s field. One may not eliminate the discomfort feeling, by constant exposure to discomfort undoubtedly would make oneself withstand it and grow.

“One may not eliminate discomfort. By getting used to it, one could be resilient towards adversity.”

What is the discomfort obstacle that you want to overcome?

Expertise and Blindliness

Would you be outsmarted in an unfamiliar situation?

When buying a computer, renting a house, or purchasing a stock, one requires understanding and expertise to do the action. Therefore, engaging an expert in problem-solving could also help one to decide the correct decision. With their support, one could have a better understanding of what is going on.

With a specialized skill, an expert can deliver an unforeseen problem to affect the decision. The rationale behind this is the trained mind of the expert to look for the main specification/issue. With a piece of wise advice, it would generate an optimal benefit for the advisee.

However, it is possible that the person that one looked for advice providing a piece of cunning advice to maximize his/her benefit. For instance, a salesperson will try to harness his understanding of the product to persuade his client to buy more expensive items. A house agent may be using his social skill to get a higher rental price.

Therefore, one needs to be more careful in putting trust into an expert. Moreover, confirmation of benefit alignment among two parties before the service providing is required. If the situation is improbable, several solutions could be done to make sure the issue is solved.

Engaging several experts and comparing the advice can be done to integrate the advisee understanding of the issues. To compete, the expert would provide the best possible services that benefit both parties. The impedance would effectively let the expert help solving the problem.

If one faces the problem chronically, raising the degree of competency would tackle the issue. In other words, learn a new skill that will inevitably consume time and effort. Despite mastering an ability would be a challenge, it would lead a person out of competency blindness.

“A willful blindness can be solved by improving self-competence from learning with an expert.”

What is your long term issue that you always find others to help?

Limited Edition Is Not Limited Anymore

How does one harness human behavior to make one spend more than what one needs?

In this modern world, it is getting easier for one to fulfill needs. With a developing economy, increasing productivity will make a society produce more product for fulfilling social needs. Along with the improvement of social affluence, it improves the overall social purchasing power.

To facilitate money spending, online shops are developing at an unprecedented rate. One could easily find a promotion when one has open an online store. From there, one could easily purchase anything that one wishes. With proper control of spending behavior, one could spend much more than one realized.

Other than impulsive spending behavior, online shop developer also harnessing human behavior to increase their revenue. There are several methods: the usage of credit card, introducing limiting edition items, and simplify the user interface.

The usage of credit card is essentially supporting the development of online shopping. Some products are more expensive than what people usually can afford. A credit card enables one to trade off future purchasing ability with the current earning ability. With countless deals, credit card usage let people believe in their future payback ability, which is overrated.

Human is interested in something valuable. In other words, people find something limited is more precious and valuable. The seller is harnessing the buyer mindset of wanting to have a rare item, which is a limited edition. Due to the over-promotion of limited edition, products that supposed to be scarce is not scarce anymore. Therefore, people still fell into a “limited edition” trap.

Simplifying and beautifying a user interface is harnessing people desires on enjoying the beautiful scenery. People will tend to buy a good-looking item. People desires for beauty is incorporated into the online shopping platform. The tendency of human to enjoy beauty can let people fell into the trap of shopping.

In the end, the development of online shopping platform facilitates people to fulfill their needs of buying. With a careful mindset, one could enjoy the convenience offered and benefits at the same time. With careful observation, one could prevent an unwanted issue from shopping.

What act you could do to prevent yourself fell into the traps?

More People, Less Task Done?

When doing a group project, do more people in the group accelerates the completion of the task?

Have you ever experienced joining a group project with only one or two people do most of the job? What is done by other group members? Surprisingly, most have a little to no contribution to the project. Sounds familiar? It does not mean that the other group members are lazy and irresponsible. Hence, what causes them not to contribute to the group project?

This phenomenon is called social aloofness, where one could alleviate trouble if other people are bearing responsibility. There are other circumstances that people will be social aloof. For example, the job that is distributed among people and not assigned clearly. Another example is when one has asked question in a group and finally no one answer it.

This phenomenon will keep oneself free from the problem. One tends to act based on the obligation instead of voluntary, results in ignorance of voluntary action. From ignorance, one could eliminate potential troubles in terms of energy, time, and money. Overall, it will be harmful to a group/social or a particular party.

Social aloofness formed because one thinks the mindset of other people is willing to take responsibility. This phenomenon is related to the human nature of procrastination. It will become a fatal issue in some circumstances. For instance, one sees an old lady is dying on the street, surrounding people are speculating instead of helping. There is a possibility for you be the spectator instead of helping

After one has realized this thinking fallacy, what action that one needs to do? If one has encountered a similar situation, try to be the one who makes the initiative. As human will tend to follow one another, it will effectively resolve an issue. On the other hand, try to give people a clear responsibility for their tasks.

Moreover, if you are the one who can control the task and situation, try to assign the task to fewer people. It will lead to the importance of these people and increase their awareness of responsibility. Therefore, more people does not necessarily get things done faster and easier.

“Initiate when there is no one in action, taking responsibility to make this world better.”

What is your experience on social aloofness?

Self-Validation, A Key Element of Confidence

Why self-validation is a key element of being confident?

Being confident should be a key element to live happily. Everyone attain confidence in a different way. A workaholic possesses confidence from the career achievement and the admiration of other co-workers. An experienced gamer acquires it through the superb gaming skill that could win almost every single game.

From these examples, one may observe that a person could gain confidence through the activities one enjoys doing. The more thing that one believes one can do, the more confidence one exert to surroundings. However, it is undeniable that some people are not confident, despite the superiority they possess, why does this phenomenon occur?

It is due to the lack of self-validation. a person’s self-validation could be triggered by other people. For instance, a guy believes that he is handsome if he has been confessed many times. A winner believes that he is capable of something after routinely awarded with prizes and certificates. However, how does one develops confidence without believe oneself?

One could start to change environment by doing new activities, meeting new people, or create a new project. As one could expect to obtain almost the same result by doing the same task, it is impossible to bring a change if one does not change the situation. By changing the action, one increase the chance to discover a brand new hobby/ability.

As one has developed a new hobby/ability, one will feel better by being more motivated to pursuing a hobby or develop an ability. Eventually, one could start to accept oneself. Sometimes the process of developing a hobby or master a skill takes some times and challenges. One will feel proud of oneself by accomplishing the challenges that one has.

Another solution is to start accepting weaknesses. Human as a holistic creature, strengths and weaknesses are available inherently in every single person. By accepting weaknesses, a person could be more self-aware. However, if one is over-focused on weaknesses, one could become pessimistic.

To conclude, if a person could be self-accepting in a positive way. One would not blindly believe that other people are better than oneself. By having a robust self-validation, it is tiresome for other people to challenge confidence. One could also be more peaceful to oneself and eventually, it will reflect in behavior to others.

“The more we believe and accepting ourselves, the more the world will be accepting ourselves.”

What action will you do to increase your self-validation?

Productivity, A Matter of Habit

Some people could finish tasks faster with better results, how their ability is shaped?

Have you ever wondered? Some people are doing things very fast, neat, and having an outstanding result, whether in work, school, society, or public figures. One may feel that how does another could be always productive, is it because of their talent or because of other factors?

When one has done a task very fast with a good result. There are 3 main reasons: familiarity, mentality, and deadline. These 3 main reasons are inter-correlated. Regardless one has enjoy done their tasks or not, they are more likely trained to finish tasks in a relatively short time.

Familiarity on a Task

The familiarity on a task will reduce the time since one will clearly understand what to do when one has received it. Moreover, the human ability to find an easier way to finish it will improve productivity. The familiarity of a task is based on the prolonged period of redoing it repetitively.

Say No to “Procrastination”

“Want to go workout, just workout later. The homework deadline is next week, do it later”. Procrastination seems like a leisure way to defer the upcoming task. However, it is definitely a mindset that one tends to have but obstruct our life in future. It is usual for one to enjoy life. However, it is definitely not beneficial if the enjoyment will chronically bring hardship. Therefore, a mentality of not procrastinating is not only improving one’s productivity, but it will also guide one to have a better future.

Finishing Task Within Deadline

If a responsible person that has a lot of commitment, task, or deadline. He/she tends to prioritize them and try to actualize them within the target. Therefore, by making one busy until a certain extent, one will try to work hard and smart. When one can meet multiple deadlines effectively, that shows the ability for one to be productive.

Conclusion

Based on the three reasons, there is a cause of one to be productive, habit. A habit is an essential element for one to be productive. These habits can be formed under pressure, self-awareness, or even ambition. Regardless of the reasons, a person that sticks on what one wishes eventually will be productive and distinctive.

Habit, an essential element for one to be distinctive and productive.“

What kind of habit do you want to form to be productive?