Every day in S60 is like revealing a gift from the gift box. With lot of excitement and interaction our journey into week 8 begins. The entire journey in this week gave us lot of insights about problem solving, building habits, knowing our boundaries, breaking stigmas and art of listening. We got to know about more and more stories which created a great impact on us.

DAY 30 : SYSTEM THINKING FOR SUSTAINABILITY PART – 2

“Systems Thinking is a mixed bag of holistic, balanced and often abstract thinking to understand things profoundly and solve problems systematically.”

Part 2 of system thinking for sustainability was a thought-provoking and eye-opening session for us. Mr. Vivek gave us a lot of insights into the importance of system thinking. As we all know complex problems are difficult to solve, we need different perspectives and certain technologies to solve the problem. At the starting of the session, we were given a couple of scenarios and pictures which happened in recent days. He revealed the pictures one by one. We were asked to recollect our latest memory, the reason behind the scenario like how it happened, who is responsible, and how it can be solved and system thinking applies there. To understand system thinking even deeper, he played a video about feedback loops. We came to know about the positive and negative loops, how loops are interconnected, how one effect pops another. We got to know an interesting story about six blind men and an elephant. The story changed our perception entirely. It made us realize that we tend to feel that what we understand is a fact, we just see only a small point of the problem and we are trying to get solutions for it without having a holistic approach to it. This leads us to come up with a temporary solution without realizing it makes the problem even bigger. We all just looking for temporary solutions and approaching the problems on a large scale. Real-life problems are like dinosaurs. Approaching things at a small point sometimes leads to unintended consequences. Problems are like iceberg 70% are unseen. In order to overcome the linear approach, Mr. Vivek left us with few tips. While solving a problem we have to connect the positive loop, negative loop, regenerative and stabilizing loops. This helps us to see things in a holistic approach and broaden our perspective.

DAY 31 : BUILDING YOUR PROFILE

The session on your profile was handled by Ms. Hanu Indiran, an energetic, ambitious, and innovative personality. We all know how the profile is important for perceiving a job or to attain our goals in the respective field. Before entering into the session, the session handler asked us to submit our resume and our profiles on social media like LinkedIn. She started the session with a question who is your inspiration? We all came up with different answers. She taught us about career focus, community outreach, skill-building, research initiative, portfolio development, and co-scholastic development. We came to know why we have to build a profile? Firstly it enhances motivation, improves self-confidence, gives clarity in decision making, helps to maintain commitment, and gives us satisfaction. She gave us few tips to build a good profile like we need to attach to our goals, we have to choose our goals in specific, challenge yourself and others to move forward, and get feedback to improve your skills.

    Set goals – Make plans – Get to work – Stick to it – Reach goals.

Then we were given a couple of minutes to visualize that compare ourselves with an animal. She asked us to draw that animal and penned down what are the characteristics that we could match with the particular animal we have chosen. Each of us again came up with different animals and different reasons to chose that animal. Then we discussed the four styles of personality. She gave few insights about few learning tools. This session helped us to realize who we are, where we are and where we want to be.

DAY 32 : BUILD AND BREAK HABITS

Our next session in week 8 is Build and break habits by Shobana mam. The session was started with a question about why it is difficult to build or break habits? The reason is that we all need to stay in our comfort zone. Beating our comfort zone is quite difficult. In the entire session, we discussed the myths and facts about habits. We all believe that the mind is everything, we can break or make a habit if we think. Yes, we too believed the same thing before entering the session. But the fact is our mind is only a starting point, the real challenge begins when we implement it. Implementation beats oration. We have discussed our new year resolutions, how long they last and what makes us keep that aside and even left that.

The second myth we discussed was that 21 days is enough to build a habit. Again it’s just a start but it’s not enough to make the habit stick. We all had a quick interaction about our own experience on 21 days challenge. She gave a beautiful definition of hard work and smart work. She taught us when hard work becomes a habit, We can automatically do smart work in it. Speaking about luck, Luck is about being in the right place at right time, and to reach that right place, we need to start working on it and have to maintain consistency in whatever we do. We came to know that habit is an individual process we should not do it for others, it should be done only for our own purposes. Through her session we understood that we shouldn’t compare our journey with the others also we shouldn’t expect immediate results because nothing comes overnight, consistency matters. The session made us introspect a lot and gave us a clear understanding of building and breaking habits.

DAY 33 : BREAKING STIGMAS

Breaking stigma was a mind-opening session by Ms.Monisha. The way she handled the entire session was awesome. In life, we all have a lot of stigmas. Small small things we do add up into big things and goes to the next level. Body shaming is one of them. The session handler asked us what according to you the word beautiful is. We all had different answers like kindness, mother, smile, and innocent. Again we were asked a question what is beauty in ancient times. Yes, the word changes from generation to generation. We discussed a lot of stories about body shaming. We shared our own stories like how it affected our lives and what we did to overcome it. She also made us think about whether we did the same to others. We realized most of the time body shaming starts for fun and it started in a close circle for a joke and entertainment. But when the same repeats in public it becomes body shaming. It all started with the rhymes. We bring in a format and we say people who fit in that format are beautiful and out of order are obese, short, skinny, not skinny which leads to body shaming. Yes, we need to change the rhyme and change the order of beauty. Let’s break the stigma. Start seeing the other side. We realized teasing someone without even realizing the reason behind it or the other side of one’s life affects their life and down their confidence. Yes, we should think before we comment on someone. The session handler drove the session in a wonderful way.  She gave us insights about positive offending with few examples. Yes, people will never stop telling such things but don’t hide yourself, love yourself and come out from hiding. Just inspire others.

DAY 34 : BUILDING YOUR SAFETY NET

The 5th session of week 8 is Build your safety ne(s)t handled by vallikala mam. We started the session with an activity. Mam gave us a tagline and asked our tribe to develop a story. The prompt she gave us is I had a bad day today. We framed our own story with a lot of fun and twist. We discussed significant factors like trust, belonging, and self-love. We were asked that being so long done we found someone who has similar interests like us. She gave space for us to open up and share. She tried to make us comfortable and talk. We compared our life to the ocean, sky, and game. Then we had a creative challenge that is we took a quick snapshot and crystallized that image and we shared that with our tribe. We came to know that how one’s energy increases the whole tribe’s energy and how one’s participation creates an impact on others. Next, we moved into the topic boundaries. We introspected ourselves that what type of boundary we have or we created. Yes! Boundary depends on the individual so we should respect others’ boundaries. Boundaries play a major role in relationships. We got know interesting stories. The story was all about an Old man, son, and a donkey. Anyway every time the people will criticize us whatever we do so don’t fall back. Always be yourself. Let it go. We learned that sometimes letting go is good instead of holding it. So forgive others and practice gratitude. Lastly, we ended the session with some positive affirmations like I am precious, I am lovable, I accepted, I am capable, I am beautiful, I am a winner and I belong here. Our tribe shared our positive affirmations with each other.

What we think we BECOME

What we feel we ATTRACT

What we visualize we CREATE

BELIEVE YOU CAN!!!

DAY 35 : ART OF LISTENING

The last session of week 8 is Art of listening by Seema mam which is one of the best interactive sessions we had. The session started with an icebreaking activity that made everyone speak. Then we were given an activity. Each team had given different themes and concepts like Dumbledores – Mime, Hagrids – Act (Loud Noise), Weasleys – Low Noise, Grangers – Poem and  Potters – Recitation. We were all given 15 minutes in break-out rooms. After 15 minutes each team did their play for about 5 minutes. That was really a creative challenge. We were amazed at each other. The session handler gave us a  lot of insights into how listening is important in all aspects of life. She revealed the reasons and importance behind each theme and concept she gave us. We came to know about the difference between hearing, listening, and active listening. We realized how important it is to listen to our loved ones. Sometimes we just throw our opinion to others without listening to what others trying to say. Yes, we should listen and respect while others talk that helps us to strengthen our patience, broaden our perspective, and increases our knowledge. We thoroughly enjoyed the entire session.

“Be a great listener and win the world of career, relationship and trust”

BY

C. GAYATHRI

THIRD YEAR BIOTECHNOLOGY

Post Views: 25