Imagine you are watching television with your spouse, but the volume is too low to hear. You ask your spouse to turn it up. The volume button is pressed twice but you still cannot tell a difference in the volume. Your spouse presses the button two more times before you are able to notice the increase in volume. This just noticeable difference applies to a wide variety of senses including touch, taste, smell, hearing, and sight. It can apply to things such as brightness, sweetness, weight, pressure, and noisiness and most importantly, the quality of the lives we lead daily.
I have heard the ‘grand’ people (grand-dad, grand-mom) say- the quality of steel, iron or wood used in the almirahs, cars, home products used to be much higher in quality. I can say this for myself because in my pushtaini makaan, we still have a brown steel almirah made by Godrej. I am seeing that from childhood, so I am sure, it must be more than forty years old. Till date, it is intact, no rust, no dent, nothing. My mom-in-law’s father used to play soccer and was also the referee in the team. He was going through her old trunk and found out a ‘whistle ‘that he used! When she showed it to me, I was like “This is antique! And look at the quality of the iron!” Yes, it was made of iron. I bet that quality of iron items we do not get anymore. Also, remember the Maruti 800 when it launched in the Eighties? You know what I mean right?
The Vintage Iron Whistle
This is exactly what happens in our lives as every day we may not be able to focus the way we should be or the extent that we can. Here I am sharing 3 practices that has worked for me to recognise my JND and work towards filling the gaps.
Logical Consciousness
Taking just few mins every day (I do this usually every morning for 15 mins). This is where I contemplate about my previous day, what could I have done better, how better could I made a conversation impactful, how could I have approached a problem better, my behaviour and empathy during the day, my energy and motivation, did I learn anything small or big, did I procrastinate on any task, did I keep up to my commitments for that day, did I missed to reply or call back someone , was I relevant and yes…did I make someone laugh. I call this logical consciousness because I logic it out with myself as my own critic. I reflect and this sets me up for the new day.
Complacency
A dangerous one if not paid attention and if the signals are not understood. It is given that all growth happens outside of comfort zone. Body and mind respond to situations as we train them. With age, we need to work on it more because our natural metabolism tends to go down, our ability to learning goes down and we tend to not define our sense of success, but we keep moving on. It is good to move on but one that we can measure and that we can say is adding to our growth. If not anything, a quarterly self-SWOT analysis helps deeply to avoid the JND within us because it is just-noticeable (what I understand, ideally connotes may not be even noticeable!)
Be your own volunteer
Everyone is probably going through their own share of pain. In business, try and understand perspectives, respect opinions and do what is best for the business vision and goals first. In short, be your own volunteer of improving your work, improving business and improving yourself. I always say that in order to be a good leader one needs to be a good follower as well.
For working professionals this may even more be helpful due to the dynamic work environment and pressures, something we may be aware of but probably do not recognise its importance in shaping up daily moments for working professionals. To summarise, small things such as being our own volunteer to recognising the signals of getting too comfortable and being cognisant of micro improvements of deterioration in our daily lives will work as an umbrella to protect us from stress factors.
Ankoor believes in the power of Energy and Energize while bringing to the table a pedigree of 23 years with a rare combination experience across the spectrum of media - print, digital, mobile, event productions & successful pilot projects. Worked across functions - ad operations, business operations, content, strategy, sales, events, media planning & buying. Ankoor has been part of six Sigma Green Belt project and also worked in cross functional roles with - conglomerates and start-ups. Ankoor has been part of the core pilot team of launching International IPs such as ad:tech, iMedia Summits and TechCrunch events in India. Ankoor has directed and enabled the winning of multiple pitches while actively involved in overall and tactical strategy. Trained from Dale Carnegie in Mentoring, Ankoor is a knowledge manager, avid writer with more than 50 published articles: speaker and jury in multiple forums including reputed B-Schools. Most recently Ankoor has been onboarded on the Advisory Board -Marketing Department at ISBR Business School. Ankoor is POSH Certified and has been selected to be part of core Committee for POSH at 2 organizations during his work tenure till now. Ankoor is also a Tabla player and wishes to sky-dive more often.
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