Finally, I learned something

I had a chance to talk to one of my friend who is working on his dissertation. He is focusing on psychological aspects of success. After a long discussion with him about many topics, one thing really stood out by itself. Success is all about creating realistic targets and achieving them with pragmatic efforts. For example, if you can lift say 35 lbs/kgs then go for 35 or say 36-37, but beyond that you are in the stress zone. Now if you set the target of lifting say 40 lbs then give yourself some time – a realistic one would be a few weeks – anywhere between 2-3 weeks. If you try to achieve this overnight then you are in the stress zone. Be realistic is what I heard almost every time we talked about success.

I am definitely overweight. My weight should be in the 150 lbs range and it hovers around 162 lbs. So I belong to the club of 60% overweight Americans. If I set the target of 150 lbs in 3 weeks, I am in the stress zone, but if I do it in say 8 weeks – that’s more realistic.

Another stress factor was really a news to me. The Focus – almost every job requirement on DICE and Monster has it – we need someone who can multitask. Multitasking is not a synonym for focus – is it? According to psychologist, multitasking will reduce the quality of your work and will lead you to a stressful situation. So realizing the limits of what is doable and what is not is really important. Yes, we can chat with our friends while seating in a long design meeting, but I don’t think that’s possible if you are in the middle of a refactoring session.

Personally, I would like to avoid multitasking as much as possible. Now I know this is not something my boss or employer would like to know. But I would prefer quality over quantity anytime – anywhere. I have just started reading a WCF book –Learning WCF. My goal was to finish it over the weekend and to get the ball rolling come next Monday. Without realizing, I was pushing myself into the stress zone. Practically, this is an impossible target. So I am going to give myself a few more weeks and try to stick to my plan. I have one more book seating on my desk – Service Oriented Modeling. But for now, I am going to move this book back to my bookshelf. Wow! Finally, I learned something…