Being proactive

These days I own more projects, which potentially help me to learn and grow extensively. I believe that being proactive is the key to growth and success

• proactive to learn
• proactive to take responsibilities
• proactive to connect, inspire and co-create

...

By being proactive at work, you have ownership of your work, you contribute more and achieve more.

How to be proactive at work?

• Consider it is your own business
• Awareness: 
• Understand the business objectives
• Understand your customer (employees when you work in HR, end-consumer when you work in Customer Service, etc. )
• Decision:
• What we can do better?
• What we can do more?
• Propose the ideas (if needed)
• Take action

The same process applies to life/ learning

• Know that it is your life
• Understand your objectives, goals 
• What do you want to accomplish this year and why? (in the family, at work, for your own development, emotion, health,etc.)? 
• It is important to be clear with yourself about these objectives and goals. Use SMART principle: Specific, Measurable, Realistic, Timebound
• Decision
• Draw a plan of what should be done
• Take action

The Power of Purpose

Hello sunny friends,

I have been being a learner for the whole of my life and I have been working in business and social sectors for many years. The most valuable lesson that I have learned is the Power of Purpose. 

Oxford dictionary’s definition: “Purpose is the intention, aim, or function of something; the thing that something is supposed to achieve”.

A purpose helps us to be more efficient, more productive, more authentic, and more connected. With purpose, we can live a better life, create more value for the society, and make the world a better place. One common mistake is that we think that the purpose is clear, but actually not. We start learning at school and keep learning as a habit, without knowing why we are learning these subjects, topics, or languages. That is one of the reasons why learning is not effective since students are not engaged and most of the knowledge is not applicable to their real lives. Another example is the repeated frequent meetings, these meetings are on our calendar and we often come to the meeting without purpose. In the end, it turns out that 80% of the meeting contents are not relevant to us. How could we afford to be so inefficient? 

A purpose can also transform every single daily activity. A purpose enables people to bring love into the conversation, talk heart to heart, listen attentively, and have an enjoyable and meaningful time together. Without a purpose, we are not engaged, even in our own lives. For instance, when we are having dinner together, a basic purpose is limited to enjoying the food and having energy for the evening. But when people are not clear about such a purpose, they grasp some fast food, which harms their health, they eat hastily without taking joy in eating, they are angry about what happened today, or worrying about tomorrow, etc. With a clear purpose, they can pick nutritious dishes, and leisurely enjoy a meal. Building closer relationships, enriching understanding are other purposes of eating out together, but when such purposes are not clear, people check their phone, focus on their food, talk without taking into consideration if the topics are relevant for the listeners, and they don’t listen to each other closely. How can we afford to be so surficial? 

So, define a purpose for every learning activity, business project, social events, etc. as clearly as possible. It is the guide for our awareness of where we are and where we want to go. It is the filter for us to make better decisions and perform better actions. It also arouses/ awakens our passion, keeps us motivated and resilient during the progress. And more importantly, it allows us to live a life that we want.

How to learn effectively

Dear friends, education is my passion, and learning is my hobby. Today I would like to share with you some tips on “how to learn effectively”. They are the tips, which help me to learn faster and remember more when learning. I hope that they are also helpful for you on your learning journey.

Start with your goals

Learning materials are effective and interesting when it is RELEVANT to you. Therefore, the first step is to define your goals for the upcoming weeks or months.  And then, try to figure out what kinds of knowledge and skills you should have to move closer to your goals, overcome your challenges, and achieve more. The objectives will keep you motivated when learning and will guide you to draw your learning path and action plan. 

Don’t read from the first to the last page of a book

When you have good materials, for example, a good book in your hand, don’t read every page of the book. Instead, you can go through the Table of Content and see which chapters are important for you, for your objectives for now. By doing this, you can save a lot of time and effort by not overwhelming yourself with many irrelevant pages. 

Take notes

When learning, you can take notes on the most important ideas. Because even if you read the most important chapters of the book, not every idea or argument in these chapters is helpful for you. So by taking note, you can filter the interesting ideas for yourself. Taking notes also helps you to remember the ideas more and saves your time if you want to review it once more later.

Apply the ideas into your real life

As a saying goes: "Practice makes perfect", the knowledge turns to wisdom when you apply it to your real life, experience it. Also, only when applying the knowledge into your life, you can test if it is right for you.

For example, when you read these tips, try to put them into practice in your daily learning activities. 

Share the ideas with others

Sharing these ideas and your experience with others allows you to repeat the lessons which you have learned, helps you to connect with people of the same passion, and to learn from one another.

Thank you very much for being with me today. I wish you a lot of joy when learning. Remember: the more you learn, the wiser you are!

Soleil