How to utilize the self isolation period for your benefit

We are all fighting the Coronavirus by wearing masks, maintaining social distancing, and staying at home.

WHAT ELSE CAN WE DO?!

Watch monotonous, disturbing news continuously! , and ache our finger in liking and commenting on Social media!

To have an update on Coronavirus, a news bite (for 5 to 10 mins) is enough. The more you overdose your brain with news, the more mindnumbing it would be.

And anyways WILL IT HELP??

SO WHAT CAN WE DO?

To get away from the monotony and boredom of lock-down and do something constructive for ourselves.

INVEST  IN OURSELVES. DON'T WORRY. I AM NOT ASKING TO INVEST YOUR MONEY (NO HARM IF YOU ACTUALLY CAN DO THAT!), BUT HERE I AM ASKING TO INVEST YOUR TIME AND ENERGY. OUR AIM SHOULD BE TO KEEP OUESELF UPDATED AND CONFIDENT.

Simply put. Grab this opportunity to hone your skills and acquire new ones if possible in this FREE TIME  

I have listed FIVE simple steps for you and would request you to ponder upon - 

  1) Read books. (Read more if you are already reading) -  ( Romantic novels, Bestsellers are okay but I would ask you to focus more on books of your subject of study or your domain of work and self-help books or Motivational books) Many a time we forget what we have read in the last few years  This is a good time to pick up some of our own old collection from the shelf and browse over a cup of coffee. I am addicted to the smell of old books. You might love it too!

   2) Analyze yourself! Yes, you heard it right. Change a 'Habit' if you want to, which you feel is n't that good. Nobody can understand you better than yourself. See where you can bring in improvement in your life and work on that. For example, you can slowly change to an early riser from a late riser. You can start incorporating freehand exercise into your daily routine. You can start speaking in English with any of your family members or even friends over the phone to improve your verbal communication etc. You can also start working on building your own Image. Start exercising or a new diet to increase your Immunity.

  3)Youtube Videos - It's a Treasure Trove. Search for videos on the topic you want to work on or learn about and I bet you would find a good number of videos with excellent quality content. Subscribe to some of the popular training channels to start learning. For example, If you are a Hindi speaker and want to learn English, then,'Learn English with Zita' channel would be really helpful. Youtube can play an important role in improving communication.

 

Watch them for free and take down notes of important points. Three to four quality videos ( you can watch more )on a topic would enhance your knowledge proving a good grip on the topic. You can download the videos for watching them again later.

  4) Free ebooks -Explore free e-books on various topics available on these five websites and start reading, online or offline ( by downloading)

Here are five famous free e-book sites - 

Please note I am not endorsing them but these are sites which as I am using. You yourself can find more of such sites on the net. Please do help me by providing their names if you can in the comment section.

 - https://manybooks.net/
  

 - https://www.overdrive.com/search -  It's worth a visit. Got a huge collection of e-books on various subjects.

 - https://bookboon.com/ - A great hub of free textbooks from top universities.

 - https://www.gutenberg.org/  -  A library of 60000 free e-books

 - https://openlibrary.org/ 

  5) Online Courses - Many of the E-Learning courses are available for free till May31st.You can try to acquire new skills. Subscribe to any of the courses as per your liking on the available platforms.

 

Here are the five e-learning sites that are trending - 

 - https://www.coursera.org - Coursera is a leading learning website that has tie-ups with Universities across the globe. and offers MOOCs  - Massive online Open Courses along with degrees, certificates to upgrade your career graph.

 - https://alison.com/ - Alison offers diploma and certificate courses in various streams of Management, Language, Science, Math, Marketing, Lifestyle, Health, etc.

 - https://www.mercurysolutions.co/ - A Basket full of  IT (Information Technology) courses are available on this site. So if you want to enhance your IT skills, you can definitely check this out.

 - https://www.edx.org/ - edX is another great platform for learners offering free courses. It provides 2500+ online courses. It has an association with top universities in the world like Harvard and Boston. It is worth value for your time and effort.

 - https://www.udemy.com/ - In Udemy, there are a lot of free courses available and many of the paid courses are now being offered at a highly discounted rate of  Rs. 360 per course till the 14th of May 2020.  It's a real big deal.

 Post-Coronavirus Lock-down days, courses from any of the above-mentioned sites may help you in your current job or while trying your luck in some other job. An additional skill always helps you to be noticed. It can also increase the value of your CV.  As an HR professional, I can guarantee you that a very common job interview question after the Coronavirus pandemic would be - " How have you spent your time during the Lock-down". I hope that the above suggestions would surely help you in providing an appropriate answer to that question. :-).

I am positive that the above information would be beneficial for you in the same way it has been to me.

Stay Safe, Keep your Immunity strong. Goodbye.

Discover how to enhance your Skill-sets during Corona Lock-Down

 Online courses available to enhance our knowledge to utilize the lock-down available during the free time available in Lock-down

Some good courses are available for free.  This is the best time to work on our skills -

 Let's check out a few of them - 

Let's consider the courses available for free in 2020 on the Linked Learning platform.

 -  Excel 2016 essential training - (LinkedIn Learning  previously Lynda.com)

 - It's a beginner level course with a total duration of 8 hours 53 mins.

 - This course teaches you to manage data in a spreadsheet, using simple formulas, different ways to access formatting features, approach to creating charts, and many more things.

 - MS Excel is an important tool Having a thorough knowledge in your daily of excel would definitely help you in your daily work or preparing a report. Having good excel skills definitely gives you an edge over others.

This is offered with a "one month Free  Trial"  package, which then would be 1400/p.m subscription and 900 for an annual subscription. You can anytime opt-out from the program.

Please do check out the other programs they are offering. There are multiple  skill development programs as

Website - https://www.linkedin.com/learning

 -  Tata Steel is also running an online Advanced  MS Excel course @Rs.1! The last date for enrolment is 30th April 2020! Please hurry.

There are also courses available in different fields. Another related program is in MS Office. Quite an important tool.
Check website - www.capacitydevelopment.org for details.
https://www.capabilitydevelopment.org/


This is high time for skill enhancement, as we are in Lockdown and even once we open up, We would prefer to be at home during most of our free time.


 - There are multiple short term courses in Udemy related to various fields like programming and others
In this blog, I would refer to two English courses. 

Why English? Because both you and I require English in our day-to-day corporate life even if not at our home and knowing English definitely gives you an advantage.

So here are the following - 

Udemy - English Launch. Learn English for free - upgrade all areas. free course. (Ranking - 4.5)

https://www.udemy.com/course/english-launch-learn-english-for-free-upgrade-all-areas/

(Please check out  the preview of the course video first)

There's also a  Beginners English Speaking course available for free.

https://www.udemy.com/course/freeenglishspeakingcourse/

This is a very basic level course for all those whose native language is not English (like me) and they want to learn to speak from the basics. This would add to their confidence level and help in communicating in English in general.

There is huge number of paid courses on Udemy. As of today most of their rates are showing Rs. 420. You can buy them if you feel the need. The feedbacks are good and according to me, the rates are nominal.

Friends, I am personally taking the first three courses and thus recommending them to you. If it helps you in any way, I would be truly happy.

 I am researching other courses and would post them in my upcoming blog. Please do check them out.

Till then take care and be safe.

Please share these courses with your friends even if you don't take them. Maybe it can help them some way.

Goodbye.

How to convert your Passion into Profession

How to go about your  Career to transform your life.

We All have a career whether we know it or not. We may consider some as successful in their career and others as not so successful. The problem is that we quantify success with money. We have a mentality of comparing individual success stories.  Our success story is our own and it has nothing to do with our peers or friends' success. Stop comparing yourself with your friends or people you know. Make your career in what you are passionate about and just don't venture into something which is very hot in the market. Remember the character Farhaan from 3 Idiots. He had to choose between his passion or engineering. He chose the first and carved out a successful career out of It. So if you can pursue your passion or dream chances of being successful are automatically high.

In India, in middle-class families, you require to fulfill your parent's dream to acquire a degree to get a good job. to achieve that in most cases you keep aside your passion or just forget about it. There's nothing wrong with it as long as you yourself are contented with what you are doing and if you love your work. But what if you feel frustrated and burdened with your job and above that, you have family responsibilities. What do you do then? You need to think of doing something to bring alive your passion.

 Today we have a vast pool of live information regarding any field on the internet. We have various online training courses available through various sites like Udemy, Upgrad, Coursera, Open Culture Online Courses, EdX, Open Yale Courses, Stanford Online and many more 
You can find out a topic of your choice to start learning from these platforms at your own pace.
You can also enroll in some of the courses offered by IGNOU.  These are cheap and offer good quality education. It won't take away a lot of your savings. These are for self-paced learners and you can do so without hampering much of your current schedule. ou just need to stay focussed and put in your best foot forward

Please remember the purpose, you are doing the course not to get your job but to do something about your passion. So your focus should be on learning and not on the degree. Once you acquire knowledge, start searching for avenues to practically apply or work on it even at free of cost for the initial days if required. Your aim should be to showcase your skill. Let your colleagues in your current company know about your newly acquired skills. Let people around you know about it, like friends, family, neighbors, etc. You never know from which way a new avenue would open! Maybe your current company is looking for someone with the same skillset and they might approach you or even you may officially apply for it. Keep in mind that you wouldn't have to leave your current job or profession for this. You would be just trying to shift into something that you love doing. Doesn't that feel Awesome? Converting your passion into your profession! To me, seems the best thing that can happen to me, because I would never get tired working on it and LOVE MY JOB!

I never say that all this would happen at the flick of a second. Yes, of course, it would require time and energy and maybe a bit of money. But you DESERVE a Chance to Shine in your life, Right? You've got a single life to prove yourself to yourself. Please note I would never recommend you do these to collect praise from others, but just for You. THE MOST IMPORTANT PERSON IN YOUR LIFE. IS YOU AND YOU DESERVE SUCCESS AND SELF FULFILLMENT.

SO BUILD YOUR OWN CAREER PATH IRRESPECTIVE OF ALL NEGATIVE SITUATIONS OF YOUR LIFE. LIGHT UP THE FIRE IN YOUR LIFE. LEAD TOWARDS FULFILLING YOUR DREAM.

Take care. Let 2020 Shine for you.

You can't miss these two four letter words!

Dear All Thinking Beings!


Greetings from Free Mind.

We all have it, but we can't see it and use it the most. Could you catch the word?
We call it the "Mind". We use it to think, to perceive, to act, etc. The four-letter word. We are the mental beings who can discriminate between the good and bad, that makes us different from other beings. We express our emotions, courtesy goes to our mind. Our mood is also the creator of the thoughts that we think through our minds. So this four-letter word is damn important in our life. The wonderful things and the horrifying things happening to our life has its root to our mind. and it does not love to be controlled rather behave like a mad monkey! Sitting at present you can think about anything in the past or the unknown future! Oh, my Mind!

Having said enough about our magical asset called Mind. now l have one question. Can we Play with our Mind?

You can if you think you can!! and vice versa.

How about playing with our mind through another four-letter word?

WORD!

Words are important.
Words create impact
Words Motivate
Words triggers actions.
Words make us fall in love
Words lead to hatred and war!

 We can't deny the importance of verbal communication. Throughout ages, our leaders both Spiritual and political have impacted masses through words.
 Just by exchanging the position of the words see the impact it gives!

Can I? to I Can!

 As it is said IF YOU THINK YOU CAN DO IT THEN YOU REALLY CAN!
 So our mental dialogue is important. Controlling the mind is a tough job but we can be cautious about our internal dialogue. If you notice we keep on speaking to ourselves and react to things happening to us. And we express feeling through words and words used repetitively with an added bit of feeling does create an Impact. Vitamins help to keep our body fit, similarly, positive words help to keep our mind fit and positive. This doesn't happen at one go but requires practice. The way we used to practice maths in school days, in the same way, we need to practice CHOOSING OUR WORDS CAREFULLY! Slowly it would become our habit. So we need to promise ourselves that we would use affirmative, optimistic words rather than negative words. Self Audit is necessary to observe ourself, Slowly we would see the change.
The only thing is we need to believe that the process works. We need to BELIEVE that it would steer our life towards positivity. Now after reading these lines, we might think that this process works or it is a bullshit idea! Bothway we are right! This is the mystery! For all those who think that it works, start working on it.  I can feel the change and so can you. After all, there's nothing to lose. So if we don't lose then we win.




NOTE - I have been reading on the related topics for few years and lately have watched videos of experts speaking on this subject. It is a vast field of research of modern science and the field of Quantum physics is working on it. Whatever I have said in the above lines is a reflection of my understanding of the topic. I have tried to KISS! Keep it short and simple. I am practicing myself and seeing some changes. So I am sure that you can feel some changes in your life too but only through consistent practice :-).

Good Luck!

In the upcoming articles, We would explore more into the field. Till then Happy Reading.