Life - A day at a time

One day Life - Living one day at a time!

My motivation is tomorrow, just one day at a time, right?   

Rafael  Nadal    

We all know death is certain and our time is limited here.
But we all plan our future. Strive hard to become rich, be professionally successful, we plan to have more money in future to enjoy life, want to go to world tour or to buy that yacht or super car.
It's absolutely fine to plan for our future, that's being optimistic and its good.

But it is equally important to live life Today. In present.
We should not forget to appreciate our present life in efforts of making for future one, which is uncertain.

It is important to balance the personal success along with professional one.

It is important to enjoy what we have achieved, what we have rather than waiting to achieve materialistic achievement.
Ultimately we want to live free and enjoy the journey of life, that's happiness.

One way to balance this is to live one day at a time -:
Live one day life, live today.

How do we do that, here we have listed  7 points below to practice one day at a time.

1. Believe: 

Believe in your self. Whatever you have achieved so far is from your abilities, dedication and work, so further things will come by the time. Don't wait thing to happen, build your confidence. 
Believe and act what you plan to be, don't just wait. It's only you who can help you and you have great potential to achieve what you have desired of. So relax and have faith in yourself.

Keep your dreams alive. Understand to achieve anything requires faith and belief in yourself, vision, hard work, determination, and dedication. Remember all things are possible for those who believe. 

~ Gail Devers 

2. Be natural:

Take the things as it comes. Be yourself, don't be hesitant of natural expressions. Let all your feelings come in, don't stop your emotions find out way to express it. It's OK to cry. It's ok to lose at something.
We can not always win and we have different set of emotions as a human so don't hide.
If you are sad today, you could happy tomorrow. Nothing is certain, don't take yesterday's emotion to today and today's to next day.

3. Don't think too much:

Do the best you can to your abilities in your professional front. Dedicate time to do all possible activities in a day.
If you keep thinking on long term results to be happen, you could develop negative thoughts and that will hamper your daily activities.

Don't worry, worrying is only going to take you down; find out hobbies or  interests that keep you mind occupied.

“Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning.”

 – Winston Churchill

4. Smile and Enjoy little victories:

Learn to enjoy short victories like, 
You started early and beat the traffic to the office.
You beat your computer in minesweeper. :)
Win a poker game with friends or jog that extra mile.
Celebrating small victories will sure help to build confidence for large wars.

Don't miss the opportunities to smile, it increases your life span. Share a joke with your friends, colleagues and have a smile.
It will relieve your stress for a while.
A pleasant smiley face is initiator of great conversation.
It is important to spend your day doing your favorite activities at least up to some extent even if you are occupied with your professional duties, you can always take time to friendly chat and some smiles. That would be the day you really lived.

5. Work smart and hard:

With your increasing experience in your profession, you have to learn to work smart along with the hard work.

You have same set of 8 hours at work as your competitors, seniors and juniors.

Learning to do maximum of 8 hours is smart work, so that you don't have to put additional time to complete the work. 

Work hard to strive for best, work on the task till you feel you have achieved best solution, best result in given task.

This will lead you to job satisfaction. Helps to reduce anxiety of results, if you are satisfied internally of your work.

Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. 

~ Steve Jobs

6. Plan Daily:

Planning and execution is important. Plan your day ahead.
Effective time management is open secret in any field. 
Study daily commute routes and pick shortest time to travel to your work and home.
Plan your breaks effectively to manage your work within time.
If you don't have to put extra time in work you can take that time for you personal happiness.
For taking guitar lessons or flying lessons.

Take time to spend with your family, nothing is more fruitful than having dinner together with your family.

“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” – Benjamin Franklin

7. Health matters:

Nothing is more important than your personal health.

If you are physically and mentally strong enough to sustain then you can make your way to success in any area.

Your well balanced mind and physical health helps you to take care of your family and loved ones.

It will allow you to do that hard work, calm mind helps you to concentrate and do smart work.

Physical fitness assures no illness, prevention of critical diseases.

If you are healthy and fine then you have all the time in the world to achieve material success and enjoy it.
So please take out time for jogging, exercise regularly. Take time to relax your mind, meditate or do yoga.

To keep the body in good health is a duty... otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear.

~ Buddha

Thank you for reading our blog.

Have a great day ahead.

References:

https://www.brainyquote.com/
http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/70-best-time-management-quotes.html

7 steps to simple living

7 steps to simple living

Simple living and high thinking is highly praised lifestyle but is it really that simple to live simply? It could not be that easy, as very less people opt for it compare to the competitive world. 

Would it be possible live happy life being simple. Yes it is.

Initially it would be difficult but simplicity could lead you happy life with lot of personal success. Personal success that is not directly proportional to money.

World has seen many great examples of simple living such as,

Gandhi : One of the world leaders for peace, worked towards simple and humble life style.

Warren Buffet : One of the richest man on the planet lives pretty simple life and yet he is super successful in 80s.

Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Zuckerberg are examples in modern times.

With simple living one can architect his own life and inspire others, that could help all of us directly or indirectly.

7 steps to simple living:

1. Declutter :

Clutter off the extra items you possess, you don't use. Your closet might be full of  dresses but how frequently you were the same shirt out 20 or 30 shirts?

Majorly we don't. Out of rapidly changing fashion, trends we tend to buy frequently and stack up the wardrobe.

Give away or donate the cloths you don't were frequently. Reduce you wardrobe size.

Clutter off all that extra which is cutting your pocket. 

Unsubscribe those cable channels you don't watch, I mean in the world of internet and smart devices you don't have to pay heavy for cable TV.

Unsubscribe print media magazines and newspapers you don't read often, if you use your laptop or smart phone for news feeds, even social media.
Decluttering lead you to sense of lightness, you could manage to live in comparatively small house or apartment with low maintenance cost. Less things to worry about.

2. Meet and greet people often :

“Too many people spend money they haven’t earned, to buy things they don’t want, to impress people they don’t like.” – Will Rogers

A day without smile is a day wasted. Smile to people, and see the response. Get out of the virtual world of smileys and likes on FB or twitter and try to take time to meet friends, relatives.

Mankind is a social animal. Having few but right real people in your life helps a lot. They elicit positives in your life and contributes to healthy mind.

Do good for people and good comes back to you. Several problems could be solved with helping each other, that could save your money. 
Good friends and family are like vitamins to healthy mind.

3. Fashion is what comforts you :

Fashion is complex and changing every hour. Don't be victim of trend rather be a trend setter. You can wear neat and clean what you are most comfortable with it, it is absolutely not necessary to strive to spend thousand dollars on branded suit. 
Honestly nobody cares in this super competitive world about what you wear or what you possess. Make your own fashion what comforts you.You don't have to prove anything to anyone.

Fashion fades, only style remains the same. 
- Coco Chanel

4. Watch your time :

Time is the most important aspect and it is the most limited asset we have. Time is something you can never recover. So track every day of your limited time you spend on things, which would be beneficial or not.

Plan your time for meetings, travel, your daily health routine, time for enjoyment and for family and friends.

Most successful people also has the same 24 hours day as least successful people.

You need to learn how to utilize maximum of your limited time, which is never going to come back.

“The cost of a thing is the amount of life which is required to be exchanged for it.” 

– Henry David Thoreau

5. Spend Wisely :

Any money magnet, would tell you the same. Spend your money wisely. In wealth creation program it is as equally important how much you preserve as how much you make.

Track your expenses, cut off unnecessary expenses. Find out better options with reasonable money.

"I don't fly private jets. I still have only one car, and that's a Toyota Prius. I don't spend money on a lot. Money is very important to me because it allows me the freedom to choose what I want to do as an actor and most importantly because I want to accumulate enough so that one day I can do something really great and beneficial for other people, for the environment, or for children."
- Leonardo DiCaprio

6. Your needs and wants :

It is important to know your real needs and wants. To save money one has to differentiate and re-think on what they want is really that important to affect simplified life.

A car can be need of individual but a fancy 0-60 in 5 seconds car is more of want than need. IF can get a car that is reliable, affordable, sensible, and that fits you without a squeeze then no need to take extra burden of EMI, loan to be in Prosche or BMW.
No loan means no liability implies no stress. Stress free life is happiest life.

I'm not that lazy, but I don't need that much money. I lead a fairly simple life. 

- Karl Pilkington

7. Work to live well :

Health is wealth, health is the best bank balance one could have.

Healthy body leads to calm and healthy mind. You could live longer with confidence with a better health. 

So plan your days, workout 3 days a week. Walk often. Meditate and pray.

Meditation improves concentration.

A well physic boosts confidence in individual. You could smile often and win friends.

Physical fitness is not only one of the most important keys to a healthy body, it is the basis of dynamic and creative intellectual activity. 
- John F. Kennedy

Have a happy life.

Thank you!

Your feedback it is important to us.

References to more reading -:
http://www.inc.com/stephanie-vozza/4-simple-habits-of-the-worlds-most-inspiring-leaders.html

http://www.storypick.com/successful-people-simple-life/
http://www.criticalcactus.com/frugal-millionaires-advice/
https://www.aol.com/photos/most-frugal-celebrities/#slide=989198#fullscreen

https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/simple_life.html

Are you living your childhood dreams?

Are you living your childhood dreams?

Most of the readers might have seen videos or read book on the "Last Lecture" given by Randy Pausch.

This post is inspired from Last lecture.
And wants to try to elaborate how easy or difficult is it to live your childhood dreams?
Will try to remind you what are your childhood dreams and have you lived it yet or not.

Every one would agree childhood days are the best days of our life.

But back then we all dreamt of doing or achieving certain things when we grow up.
We could have many dreams such,
performing like a  rock star, 
Or be a mechanic,
Or be a teacher, 
Or play for national team in any sport that the individual likes to play
Or to be an actor.
Or swim in a lake.

We dreamt of getting things we thought we would do when we grow up, be independent and able to what our mind wants to.

Most of the time what we dream of is related to our happiness, what would make us happy like driving to different destinations with good music and lovely people.

Most of these things we plan to or dream about in childhood, becomes irrelevant when we grow up. That is a harsh reality.

Childhood dreams are modest, sometimes impractical and may be outrageous but honest and easy, related to joy one could get.
But its free independent mind with curious imagination.

How many of us remember childhood dreams in their 30s or late 20s? 
How easy or difficult it is to achieve and live your childhood dream?

Easy -

Suppose I had a dream; wanted to buy a car and learn to drive and wanted to go places by the road.This dream was moderate when you live in middle class household in country like India.

But its simple you could take out some saving from your pay and in couple of yours you could buy a car. The purpose would be solved.

Difficult -
Well a kid dream of having a car. 
He/she would not know anything like BMW, Audi or Honda brands of car.
Now If I say I had a dream to driving in Ferrari or BMW and that is only going to give me happiness I thought then it would be outrageous to me or not honest.

The liking is to drive down the road, see new places and have fun.

Now having no money to buy BMW and grudge it over and stop enjoying what you have would make it difficult. Definitely.

Is trends, unnecessary competition complicating simplicity of our dreams?
Mostly yes. Everyone would laugh at person when someone says buying some cheap car is dream and praise a person who says buying a Ferrari is a dream.

People tend to buy expensive stuff to outsmart or out-stand from others. And wanting to buy more expensive stuff makes it more and more expensive.

The message we want to convey is life is simple and you can be happy achieving you have dreamt when you were innocent.

Professional dreams vs personal dreams:
Most of our childhood dreams are personal, about ourselves and things to do which would give joy.
By the time we land up in career, profession we set up new dreams.
New dreams to achieve certain things that would match our professional status quo.
Or satisfying the stay in or winning the race kind of dreams.

Conclusion
It could be matter of perception, but I think we have limited time on earth and we are not certain how much time we have.


It doesn't matter if you could not play for national team, but playing that sport is a joy play it for local club.
So living now is more important; than think to start living when you reach certain milestone.
Enjoy your time the best possible way you could, Because it is limited and you never know until when.


Thank you.
reference -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7zzQpvoYcQ&t=871s

7 Habits of introverts to SUPER SUCCESS

Power of being introvert:

"The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind."

 - Albert Einstein

Being an introvert could be the strength and one could change the way world sees it. Gone is the world when shy, soft-spoken and introvert people were dominated in professional and personal life. 

And the traits in introverts could lead to them to success.

These are thought characteristics in an introvert, could be more; I am introvert but don't fit for every trait listed here; but have some of it and it helped me.

The Book "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking." focuses on the introverts.

Super successful introverts:

There are many super successful people in the history who changed the thinking of the world, to name a few,

- Albert Einstein,

- Bill Gates,

- J.K Rowling,

- Emma Watson,

- Mark Zuckerberg,

- Audrey Hepburn.

- Warren Buffet

          Great leaders, business persons, scientist and even actors. In every field we have examples of super successful introverts. So being an introvert is not a weakness but a strength one has and here listing some habits, characteristics of introvert people which takes them to success.

 “I had the intellect for business, but not the persona.”  

“I had to learn to communicate with people better,” he goes on, “particularly in groups. I just couldn’t go through life being terrified to speak in public.” 

- Warren Buffet

7 Habits of introverts:

1. Cautious:

Will choose their words and with significant thinking before let it out to the next person. That reduces the chances of disturbing people upfront. Thinking before you speak or little bit of shyness, may not give instant popularity in the group but gradually one get recognition. For long term people will tend to listen.

It’s interesting, because people say things to me like, “It’s really cool that you don’t go out and get drunk all the time and go to clubs,” and I’m just like, I mean, I appreciate that, but I’m kind of an introverted kind of person just by nature, it’s not like a conscious choice that I’m making necessarily. - Emma Watson, emma-watson-interview

2. Active listening:

Introverts could be active listeners too. They show attentions to others and have patience to be a active listener. This helps in understanding people and responding to them inappropriate manner.

“Quiet people have the loudest minds.” Stephen Hawking

3. Imagination:

Introvert tend to imagine more before performing. Thinking on positives and negatives of things they are doing. Spending time alone tends to improve brain activity and imagination. Imagination helps to think out of the box and produce better ideas.

Introvert person like to spend time with oneself, and they feed their brain to work more and improve their imagination.

“I don’t believe anything really revolutionary has ever been invented by committee… I’m going to give you some advice that might be hard to take. That advice is: Work alone… Not on a committee. Not on a team.” ~ Steve Wozniak

4. Meticulousness:

Being shy and less expressive or taking time to put your ideas makes you to plan before you act.You put efforts on detailed planning and consider positive and negative scenarios, also tend to think about how you people will take your work.

You want to make sure performing checks on every step in the work before representing. That give you sense of completeness and job satisfaction, regardless of results.

5. Acceptance to failure:

Being less expressive to others or least popular introvert can digest failure and work on it with their pace. People believe in stay calm and keep working, let the work speak for itself. Almost every super successful introvert person has experienced failure, they accepted it and worked out to much more success. 

6. Sustaining success:

Being cautious and less expressive outwards, they know how to digest success and sustain it. Even after being successful some people don't let their daily habits change as in case of introverts, helps to keep focusing on the work and not to exaggerate success. To retain success this is vital trait.

7. Valuing relations and people: 

Mostly introverts are not always surrounded by people all the time. But they often put great value in relations they have with limited set of people. This helps in personal success, indeed professional success.

“He is shy and introverted and he often does not seem very warm to people who don’t know him, but he is warm.” . “He really cares about the people who work here.”Ms. Sheryl Sandberg on Mr. Zuckerberg in NY Times.

Thank you,

GrittyFeed

“A wise man once said nothing.” ~ Proverb

References -To the excerpts in this blog and for further reading to readers.

http://introvertspring.com/top-100-introvet-quotes/

http://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/famous-introverts_n_3733400

https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/alberteins132607.html

http://www.quietrev.com/quiet-the-book/

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/03/business/03face.html?pagewanted=all

http://www.inc.com/john-rampton/23-amazingly-successful-introverts-throughout-history.html

http://www.quietrev.com/warren-buffett/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJ1MW-OR0tI

7 Reasons Why living with less is more?

Why living with less is more?

I tried to elaborate that living more with less stuff, is rewarding, satisfying and stress free, in my previous blog post -living-more-with-less. This post is second informative write-up on the context.
Having less stuff is not label of poverty or low standard living or it may not cite that you are out of fashion.

If you have 20 dress shirts and 100 dress shirts how many people will know exactly how may shirts you have? Twenty is plenty and 100 is excess.

So living with less or minimal living is not about sacrifice, or giving up your style and leave the fashion. It's about selective living.
It's about clutter off, give up what is extra, whats not required. 
It is intentional, on purpose, not b'coz sacrifice.
It's about gaining time for your personal favorite things to do.

Get rid off things that doesn't matter, to distress you. To leave you off worry to live free.
7 reasons to try living with less

1. Healthy mind -: 

Less thinking about stuff you have, you need maintain and  less thinking about strive to get new stuff. Could reduce your stress levels and calm mind and healthy heart. Healthy mind to empower your thinking and get stress free life.

2.Get your entrepreneurial instincts activated -:

With less things to worry, and optimum savings you could get more time. More time to think on how to build your dream company, you have been waiting for long time.

3. Appreciate Little things with smile-: 

You would start appreciating little things in day to day life, which could make you a smiling face. You could become more flexible in day to day life style, and learn to connect to all traits of the society.
A smile on your face is vitamin to your life, long and healthy life.

4. Get real friends -: 

Minimal living could get you time to recollect and make new friends,  gaining time for your personal favorite things to do. Could make you meet real people and could make you happy. 

5. Focus and confidence -: 

With less distracted mind in stuff, you could find time focus on things that matter. Will help you to gain back to confident yourself.

6. Joy of giving -: 

By cluttering off excess stuff, you could get the joy of giving.
Giving without adding extra load to your pocket, there is underprivileged layer in our society. Some people had to go under great efforts to buy stuff you could get it easily.
Joy of giving lets you connect and understand the value of things.

7. Great personal life -:

With healthy mind, smiling face and less worries, you get more time to spend with loved ones, your relationships.
Often your kids wanted to play with you rather with the stuff you bought for them. If you could get that time, its contribution to great life.

Think and act people, have a great healthy life ahead.




How you liked the post?
You think living with less is  a bad idea. Not real or not beneficial. 
Please feel free comment back with your take.

Thank you,
Grittyfeed.

Why we need frugal innovation today.

Frugal Innovation:

“Others have seen what is and asked why. I have seen what could be and asked why not. ” ― Pablo Picasso

What is "Frugal"?

Frugal implies "simple and plain and costing little".
Frugal innovation suggest to simply develop or innovate products and services with optimum resources that reduces the cost of the development, reduces the complexity; resulting in reducing product prices and product maintenance cost.

Why?

In today's modern world we often look up to next big, flashy products. Every next new product is costly with extension to existing features.

With every passing day,superlative researches are being done, technology has been changing rapidly.

And we are seeing more and more superficial  products, but with increasing price tag.

With such great advances in technology present world, why can't we have better, sustainable products in low price?

Do we really need driver less cars or we need some simplistic affordable solutions to prevent accidents and traffic jams?

When Henry Ford came up with his innovative model T or A cars, it was not to produce high cost product, but to provide low cost product to every American household. Created revolution.

Frugal innovation focuses on thinking out of the box, and work more agile way.
It is observed that frugal innovation is most successful in areas under developed where unavailability of resources is common issue. Widely referred as "jugaad -जुगाड़ "
In India it is mostly observed in rural areas, people innovate to solve day to day needs and challenges.
While urban India is using on high profile global products in high economy.

There are many successful examples of products in developing countries like India, China.
Here are 3 examples of superlative low cost solutions, that did not happened in developed super power nations.

#India's Mars Mission:

India's much discussed mars mission achieved in fraction budget of developed countries. How they did it? Talent and approach by ISRO scientist.

Image Courtesy: trak.in

Read more: indias-frugal-mission-to-mars,

mangalyaan-isros-mars-mission-nasa/

#Generate Water out of air in Peru:

This South  American country has developed advertising billboards,that gives water everyday. Simplified approach with available humid conditions.

Image source: techland.time.com

Read more- a-billboard-that-creates-drinkable-water

#Kenya: No google maps, no car sensors to resolve traffic:
Nairobi is one of the most congested cities in the world. A mobile company with the help of IBM researchers and data analytics, helps to resolve traffic congestion by 20-30%.
It does not uses costly camera or sensors, rather uses low cost web cams.

Read more:fixing-traffic-congestion-in-kenya

Benefits of Frugal products -

• Meet the needs of masses. 
• Develop local and thus help in grooming local economy.
• Developed with minimum raw material, less use of natural resources thus preventing major loss to the natural resources.
• Simpler to use.
• Saves money and impact inflation.
• Less carbon footprints

Thank you!

Your thoughts will always be appreciated.

More to refer:
creative_problem_solving_in_the_face_of_extreme_limits
indias-mars-orbiter-mission-the-frugal-innovation
frugal-innovation-india-inventors/