KACHARAGADLA

We have to be very careful in choosing our pursuits, because our habits make us. In Hans Christian Andersen’s fable  The Red Shoes , a young girl longs for a pair of pretty red shoes. She ultimately tricks the blind woman who cares for her into buying her a pair. Her love for the red shoes causes her to give them priority over the more important things in her life, and, as often happens in fables, karma is not on her side. The shoes become firmly stuck to her feet and force her to dance non-stop, to the point where she almost dies from exhaustion and starvation. We can scoff at the little girl’s foolishness, but, in real life, we often do the same thing -- we chase after the things that we  think  will make us happy and don’t realize that we’re heading down a dangerous path. One study found that the people who experience the greatest job satisfaction aren’t the ones in the big, fancy offices; they’re the ones who approach their work as a calling, even when that work involv

You are the sum of your habits. When you allow bad habits to take over, they dramatically impede your path to success. The challenge is bad habits are insidious, creeping up on you slowly until you don’t even notice the damage they’re causing. “Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.”   –Warren Buffett Breaking bad habits requires self-control—and lots of it. Research indicates that it’s worth the effort, as  self-control  has huge implications for success. University of Pennsylvania psychologists Angela Duckworth and Martin Seligman conducted a study where they measured college students’ IQ scores and levels of self-control upon entering university. Four years later, they looked at the students’ grade point averages (GPA) and found that self-control was twice as important as IQ in earning a high GPA. The self-control required to develop good habits (and stop bad ones) also serves as the foundation for a strong work ethic and high pro

You have to pay the cost if you want to be the boss. The cost is discipline. No leader can achieve success without a certain level of discipline. A disciplined person is willing and able to give up short-term pleasure to achieve long-term gains. Of course, becoming disciplined requires you to have daily habits. Only disciplined people with habits can turn their lives around. Habits can change the direction of our lives. While some people have pitiful habits, like gossiping; others have powerful ones, like praising others. No matter who you are or where you came from, your habits can make or break you. What are your habits? Where are they leading you? People ask me all the time, “What are your daily habits? What time do you wake up? What do you do when you get up in the morning?” These questions make me chuckle because I used to ask the same questions when I started my journey to success. The only difference between you and I is that you’re actually getting the answers right

Respect is something not automatically given. It must be earned. When you’re in a leadership position, it is imperative that the people with whom you work respect you. They might respect your work habits, your intelligence, or your ability to close a deal. Yet, there’s more to respect than that. If you can earn their respect as a person,  then   you’ve really won the game. Here are some tips for earning more respect. 1. Be polite. Always be polite to  everyone  you meet during the day, from your family members to your co-workers, to the checkout person at the grocery store. Give others the same respect you’d like to receive yourself. Seek out actions you can take to offer politeness. Open the door at the coffee shop for the person behind you, or let the person with one item go ahead of you in the grocery store. Say please and thank you whenever possible. 2. Act respectfully. Eliminate disrespectful behaviors such as rolling your eyes, interrupting or talking negatively ab

I don’t know anyone who couldn’t use a little boost in their energy, productivity,  and  self-control. Researchers at the University of Nottingham recently published findings from their exploration of 83 separate studies on energy and self-control. What they found will change the way you start your day. The researchers found that self-control and energy are not only intricately linked but also finite, daily resources that tire much like a muscle. Even though we don’t always realize it, as the day goes on, we have increased difficulty exerting self-control and focusing on our work. As self-control wears out, we feel tired and find tasks to be more difficult and our mood sours. This exhaustion of self-control kills your productivity, and it makes the morning hours, when self-control is highest, the most important hours of the day. But the trick isn’t just to spend your morning hours working; it’s to do the right things in the morning that will make your energy and self-control