On 14th January 2023, Ryan Barretto, coach, trainer and Take Charge mentor conducted a workshop on ‘Design your Life’ at Loyola Hall, St. Stanislaus Bandra, for TC-5 mentees.
Everyone wrote their expectations on post-it slips and put them up on the sticky wall… overcoming fears, gaining confidence, speaking well in public, career guidance, resume building, time management, managing personal and professional life .
The workshop would clarify the difference between life and career design. What is career design? Why is it critical? With tools for career design and life management.
Some revealing and fun exercises suggested were:
Ask 5 friends to describe you in 3 words. Shut up and listen. Don’t justify it. Think about what they said and if you feel it is accurate, then these are places for you to develop and grow through positive action.
Sign your name with your dominant hand. For most of us it is our right hand. Note down your feelings and experiences. Now sign your name with your non-dominant hand, and note down your feelings and experiences. Challenge yourself to difficult tasks. Move out of your comfort zone.
To Build Interview Recall
Know yourself – Awareness of your strengths and weaknesses, talents etc is key
Know your industry – Read up and learn about the industry you want to work in
Create a strength-based resume – Focus on your strengths and showcase them
Create interview responses based on strengths – Highlight your strengths in your response especially those that match the job requirement.
Your personal superpowers
· Thinking - Quality of your thoughts (happens inside you : cannot be seen by others)
· Feeling – Ability to regulate your feelings (happens inside you : cannot be seen by others)
· Speaking – How you think and feel will reflect in your speech
· Behaving - How you think and feel will reflect in your behaviour
Skills to develop
· Analytical – understand and evaluate what is happening
· Constant learning – be infinitely curious
· Communicate with clarity – be precise and specific
· Influencing others – (we have been doing this since childhood and often do not realise it)
· Emotional influence/ Flexibility – Are you an effective team player?
· Delivering value to the organization – Prioritise the organization’s needs and show how your skills can help achieve them.
· Self-rating skills – can you objectively rate yourself and work on your biases, weaknesses etc.?
· Digital and Soft skills – Technology drives the world today and we need to be up-to-date.
Types of jobs:
There are Strategic and Execution jobs and what is needed today is a blend of both, where analytical skills take top priority.
Skills + Talent + Education Courses = Tasks + Deliberate Practice = My Dream Job
· Emotional Intelligence: the ability to understand, use and manage your emotions in positive ways to relieve stress, communicate effectively, empathize with others, overcome challenges and defuse conflict. Today your EQ is more relevant than your IQ
· Physiology of Brain: The brain always protects us from perceived danger by eliciting from the body a freeze, flight or fight response to fear.
· Facing Insecurities: These may stem from fear, guilt, shame, insult, past negative experiences etc.
Which are all in our minds. Some techniques to deal with them are: challenging your thoughts, overcoming fear by facing it, keeping pleasant company, asking for help, prioritizing your needs, reflecting on the good and avoiding negative news. As Edmund Burke says – When you fear something, learn as much about it as you can. Knowledge conquers fear.
Your circle of focus: Increase the areas within your control/influence – Do not focus too much on concerns as these are often not within your control. If you increase the areas of control and influence you will be able to effectively deal with the concerns and they will not overwhelm you
Johari Window helps us understand our open and hidden areas, blind spots and what is known to us and others.
Wheel of life: is a way to look at each facet of your life and rate its relative quality level, so you can uncover which areas need more attention than others. You can identify where you excel and where there is room for improvement. You can also discover where the gaps are between where you are today and where you want to be. Design your life.
A special thanks to Ryan Barretto for conducting this wonderful workshop for our Take Charge mentees and sharing his workbook with us. Hopefully it will take us closer to ‘Living a Life by Design’.
Sharon Pires
Program Manager