Investing in ‘I’
The Shenomics Mentoring Circles are monthly gatherings of our Community members, where we talk about all things that impact the lives of women and men at work. Follow the #MentoringCircleInsights series to learn more about the discussion from the day!
High achievers often make us wonder about how they create stellar results. This Saturday, we at Shenomics had the wonderful opportunity to host Swayta Murarka for our first mentoring circle of 2020. Swayta is an award winning business leader, an inspiring mother, a budding tennis player, a passionate poet and so much more! She generously shared her journey, and what has helped her scale great heights, both in terms of personal growth and her career. Here are some powerful insights that emerged from Swayta’s session which had an underlying theme of investing in oneself.
The Growth Mindset
One key factor that has contributed to Swayta’s tenacity and resilience is her belief in her self-efficacy – her belief that her ability, to learn and perform well is ever-expanding. It is self-efficacy that survives life’s inevitable challenges and Swayta’s journey is such a beautiful example of this fact. She believes in the value of cultivating a growth mindset – a mindset that perceives ones’ ability to be malleable.
The growth mindset helps one perceive challenges as opportunities for growth. It takes away the worry to keep proving oneself because the focus shifts to continuous improvement and investment in long term learning. Praising ourselves as well as others for the effort rather than ability, is found to be an effective way of cultivating the growth mindset. Keeping a larger purpose in mind also helps one strive for a higher order goal rather than getting bogged down by temporary setbacks.
Healthy Impatience
We are familiar with what impatience feels like – the feverishness, the feeling of being enveloped in a pressure bubble and the mind racing from one anxious thought to another. There is a need to keep moving, to somehow bypass the present moment and force our way into the future. Patience, on the other hand, is considered to be a powerful virtue because it helps one slow down, wait, watch and develop a sense of knowing about when to act. What if one could combine the forward momentum from impatience with the compassionate space created by patience? I guess, the unique state born out of this union would be what Swayta describes as healthy impatience. It would be a state where:
: One can self-regulate to slow down enough to choose a response instead of reacting, and leverage the space created between the stimulus and response to reflect, make choices and grow.
: One can keep up to the commitment to get unstuck from one phase and move on to the next. To take pauses, enjoy moments of success and yet keep moving.
In her own journey, Swayta loves to enjoy the attainment of one goal and then move on to the next without lingering around the success of one goal for too long. She believes in dedicating 20%-30% of her time to endeavours that make her uncomfortable so that she knows that she is creating space for exploration, expansion and evolution (in a way – circling back to the growth mindset).
Authenticity
The central theme or rather the core tenet of Swayta’s leadership is authenticity. Being true to her essence makes her feel in alignment with herself – as an individual as well as a leader. An important insight that she has discovered as a leader is that while early years of leadership may see us leaning towards stereotypical leadership styles, as we grow, what truly determines whether or not we enjoy each moment of our journey is understanding our own leadership style. Taking the time to “know” ourselves and staying true to who we are, lays the foundation of authentic leadership which makes our journey more enjoyable.
Value your Time
A prerequisite to investing in yourself, is having the time to make that investment. Swayta shared a wonderful technique of managing time effectively so that the 24 hours available in a day can be invested wisely in what matters the most. She uses time blocking to make the best of her working day. Creating 15 minute time blocks and then allotting one or more time blocks to the tasks at hand ensures that work/individual tasks don’t expand to fill up the day. She looks at each block of time as an investment that she is making and gauges the return on investment – much like an astute investor 🙂
Packed with valuable insights and action based takeaways, Swayta’s session truly gave us a peek into a high achiever’s mindset!
