The Age Factor in Developing Habits
Some habits develop during childhood, and some during adulthood:
Sumanlatha Sanghi: Some habits we learn during childhood at home, school, community, etc. Others we learn when we start working. For me the habits that I learnt from childhood include being honest, working hard in terms of doing my best and accepting failure. The last one was learnt in school when one is always the topper.
Some habits that I learnt during my work
life include networking (interacting with different people and connecting with them differently), being positive and open to learning new things and finally, being empathetic while managing people and learning to accept their strengths and areas of development.
Babitha B P: When we talk about habits it can be inborn talent or which we have acquired from our mentors. Being a CISO, knowledge of security across various platforms is very much important and one should be aware of the latest technologies and latest attack vectors. I was a part of the IT team for over 17 years. I got the opportunity to work in all fields in IT like development, network, operations and digital channels in different capacities and roles. The experience and knowledge I have gained during this period have supported me to succeed in my role as a CISO.
The habit that has led me to a leadership role is the ability to understand others. As a leader, it means understanding how they think and why they do the things they do. All these helps to create a better work environment.
Lalitha Bhatia: I love reading and it has been my hobby since childhood.
I think when you are a young manager, most of the times your focus is on trying to get things done. You are not so much mature and you tend not to listen to others. As I matured and reached middle management and now senior management, I think the habit is to first understand and then take action. Over a period of time, I have developed this habit - I listen more to my colleagues, team members, outsiders and customers to understand their point of view. Listening helps you to understand people better.
Also learn to sharpening the saw, ie improve all aspects of life and learn on many areas such as latest developments. You tend to develop these habits better with experiences as you grow in life.
Many people had this problem during lockdown that they could not segregate personal and professional lives. I have a separate workplace in my house and a separate place where I would like to relax. I never worked in places like my bedroom.
In the lockdown lot of things happen so suddenly, that you really did not have time to adjust to it. So, prioritize and being systematic really helped. My office space is totally uncluttered and I like to keep a clean desk. I had the same thing at home also.
Ashima Bhat: Hard work and to be honest to yourself were ingrained in me as child. Time management and the ability to keep commitments came in the early years of my work life.
Nilufer Mullanfiroze: Constant learning right from school and college was about reading different aspects. So, while I am BCom and an MBA marketing by background, I liked economics and political science, and for learning in those days, the only option was reading books. So that came early in life and that habit was built subconsciously. Balancing professional career and biological clock is something I learnt as I became older and out of necessity.
There was no break between work and home during the lockdown. The concept of discipline changed - how to break work and personal life, that was a recent learning. As the physical environment (moving from office to home) was not changing, having a disciplined way of managing time became important.
Lockdown brought an introspection of what is important in life - are we balancing life well. It gave time to read something different. I had learnt French in school. I used an app to improve my French skills all over again.
Shalini Rajani: When I started my career, the most important thing then was to earn. Hence there was a desire to be financially independent, to earn. As I grew, I realized that money will keep on coming if you are working hard. So, in the later stage, the idea was more to be constructively occupied with work. One should be able to learn something new everyday in one’s life. The second phase is more constructive than the money.
Rajashree Nambiar: Obviously, the self-discipline habit came on very earlier in my life, during my school and college days when I was very competitive. In India, especially during the time I was growing up, it was survival of the fittest. Hence one had to be very self-disciplined about the investment of time they put for their academic career.
I have always had a self-bias for action. I am self-driven. As I started working and became a mother, balance in life and compartmentalizing my work and life and finding time for hobbies became the habits. Now, making time available to spend with my family came in later in life, as the pressure and demands on me became more.
I have realized that I am very restless and hyper trying to do many things at the same time. Hence, I have just started to develop mindfulness through meditation
Shoma Narayanan: Reading and making a to-do list are the things that came naturally to me and hence I am doing that all through my career. Making time for learning was an acquired habit and it took some time to embed. That is because once you start working and you get into the day-to-day regimen of deliverables, targets, plans you sometimes forget to focus on self-development, preparing for the next level, etc.
Reaching out to people is interesting. When you are young, most of your stakeholders you meet regularly, you talk to them often and you’re pretty much know what is happening. When you grow older, you actually realize the need to schedule these meetings to have more structured conversations. That was a learnt habit over
a period of time.
Exercising is one thing I used to miss out on. This is perhaps the biggest one that I developed during the lockdown - exercising regularly.
Maul Bodiwala: First habit is that whenever I was in school or college, I was always prepared for the day. At that time of course the goals were different, like completing a certain percentage of my syllabus. You need a soft-board where you can mention everything that you want to do today. The same habit I am continuing now.
The other thing, which is very important, is to be informed. Whenever I was studying, I always knew what are the alternatives available for my career. For that you need to have a good interaction with the team members and colleagues. For career progression you can have the help of your seniors. So, these are the habits which were developed in the earlier part of my life, which are still helpful to me currently.
A habit which I developed later on is the ‘we’ approach rather than the ‘I’ approach. Because till the time you are studying you are more focused on your own life. When I was working as a credit officer, I was more focused on the credit appraisal, because I was working individually, I was just reporting to one head. But as and when I progressed in my life, I am now an HR head and have a team of around 7-8 people and I look after 850 staff members. So, now I cannot have an ‘I’ approach, because my designation is different, my roles and responsibilities are different. So, the approach gradually shifted.
L Chiranthi Cooray: Habit of believing in humanity is innate and of second nature to me. I related to it even as a child. The resolution writing concept was developed later in life. Other little habits include making to do lists and checklist. Time is of essence to me hence I have learnt to economize on time and follow the reduce, re-use and recycle habit.
Monu Jain: Most of the habits were developed earlier in my life. For example, striving for excellence, I have been number 1 in everything I do. In fact, I was leaning into perfection which I am trying to move away from now, so distinguishing between striving for excellence and perfection is important.
When I was on my journey to excellence, I gave my 120% to make everything perfect. Gradually, I realised that there is an optimum level and then there’s perfection. The j ourney from optimum level to perfection takes so much energy that other bits fall in the process. The habit of walking away from perfection is something I have learnt with great difficulty. It makes things faster and smoother. You get there at 99% rather than 100%, but it works.
Another is diligence. I have a kind of OCD for planning and organizing but it helps me so much - everything is in place and you save so much time.
Nitu Samra: Passion has always been there and over the years, it has developed. If I go back to my older working days, my training and my internal passion have always been there because there has been a zeal to do something. When you have that zeal, you have that passion, because it’s very important to put your energies at the right place. You have to see where your passion is going and how you bring it towards what’s the important thing in of your life right now.
Planning started developing in me when I was doing my qualification. I did my CA along with my graduation. Along with college, internship, CA, that’s quite a bit of juggling, so that is where it started. Over the years it has risen to the next level.
Pur v i Bhavsar: Obs e s s i o n for perfection came i n very early, while delegation with efficiency came in later.