Lessons learnt in 2009

2009 - A year with no specific landmarks/milestones achieved. A year that offered the most lessons and enlightened me more on the mistakes of the yester years.

Regrets.. ofcourse there are plenty but would rather take the perspective of setting things straight in the coming year using the lessons learnt.

Though it might sound cliched, I love to take time at this time of the year to organize my thoughts and my understanding of life LTD :).

So, what did I learn:

Good things first :)

I've a great set of friends. I cannot say how lucky I have been with this aspect of my life. True hardcore friends - caring, honest, sincere and smart(with great EQ and IQ). Well, this is not a learning of this year but something that has been reinforced again this year. I love y'all :xxx.

I connected better with my family this year. Making them realize where I need their help has helped to take our relationship to a firmer ground.

Take time off every now and then from everything day-to-day. It will give you a refreshing perspective towards life.

Other lessons:
(1) Dont bite more than you can chew.
(2) Do not procrastinate.
(3) Get your act together yourself: soon and quick.
(4) Love thyself ; Take good care of yourself; nobody else is in a better place to do that for you.
(5) Pathiram arindhu pichai podu - take time to know people before you allow them to have any effect on you.
(6) You cannot get to know everybody and everybody need not get to know you. Ensure you give/have a positive experience in every human encounter.
(7) Dealing with nasty people: always been my weak point. When people are nasty, I just plain suffer instead of putting them in their place. Definitely have got better over the years but still have a long way to go. "Mean time to cutoff nasty people" has to be reduced.
(8) Met some real nice inspiring women from other cultures. Need to get out more and meet people from other cultures.
(9) Stay away from "negative" people: people who focus too much on the "wrong" in any situation. There is a fine line between being "critical" and "negative".
(10) Many a times, it is good to not draw attention to yourself. You can still achieve your end goal without being center of attention :). Heard this from a friend's mom...just wanted to share this here.
(11) Talk less and listen more.
(12) From my informal mentors: (1)interpersonal skills is the key, (2) dont go into any meeting loaded - go with an empty head, take in the environment, observe people and the vibe in the room, and play accordingly. (3)under commit and do a kick-ass job on the commitments. (4) commit to a few highly visible projects and deliver.
(13) Denounce people's bad behavior but not the person.
(14) Never ever complain. Just shut your mouth and see what you can do to straighten out the situation.