Tips for Transforming Hobbies into Personal Effectiveness

2022-08-22T18:50:01+00:00

By TRWCBlogger

Our everyday habits tell a deeper story about us than we realise. Paying attention to these “hobbies” is actually a shortcut to personal effectiveness, says Masculine Digest writer.

Transforming Positive Habits and Hobbies into Learning Power

Learning is the process we go through to acquire new knowledge, skills, attitudes or values.We tend to think of learning only in relation to formal study but we learn all the time through our experiences. Understanding how we learn is a critical building block to personal effectiveness. Everyone is different and some of us appear more effective at learning than others.Curiosity contributes a lot to learning by making sense of trial and error, determination, and learning from experience. We sometimes forget about some apparently ‘unconscious’ aspects of the learning process. Understanding our hidden skills will help us to be more effective learners in all aspects of our life.Positive habits and hobbies that we form can lead our actions to efficiency. They also help our learning power domain. How? By letting us explore beyond the simple styles of doing things we have mastered over time. Habits and hobbies here focus on a broad range of behaviours, beliefs and preferences of the ways we learn in different situations, like how we respond to new tasks, information, ideas and people.The following are real-life simulations which we carry out daily without knowing their full importance on our personal effectiveness and impact on others.

Real-Life Experiences

If we love keeping and grooming pets, it portrays us:

As people who show interest in others’ welfare. We care!
As time-keepers,
As punctual in meeting up with schedules and shifts,
As humane, empathic and tender in relationships.

If we have ears for news, love watching documentaries, love memoirs or history, it shows we are:

Curious people,
Willing to learn new skills,
Methodical in resolving issues,
Analytical in approach,
Logical from the beginning to an end of a task,
Deploying different techniques in arriving at results.

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If we love to cook especially for multitudes, it may imply that we:

Can organize and prioritize our preparation and can keep to plan,
Are willing to do things for other people,
Can stick to a plan or a set of instructions,
Pay attention to minute and detailed manuals,
Can be time conscious.

If we are always regular and punctual in keeping appointments, this shows that we:

Can use a diary to remind and organize ourselves of important dates and times,
Can stay motivated, even in the face of challenges,
Can stick to a laid down plan and act on information or instruction in a timely manner.

Participating in entertainment and games, particularly team sports, shows that we:

Can play a defined role as part of teamwork,
Can listen to instructions and advice from a team lead,
Can understand the importance of practising and preparing before the commencement of tasks,
Are alert and ready at a short notice,
Would enjoy celebrating the team’s success and accomplishments,
Understand that a good team relies on all the members working together,
Believe in strategic planning.

If we tend to garden, this shows that we:

Can work constructively on our own,
Are creative and can use our imagination,
Can look after tools and equipment that we work with,
Can take time out and reflect positively on things that are happening around us,
Are meek, tender and patient,
Are hands-on and practical people.

If we have been mobilizing our community, it shows:

We have leadership abilities in us,
We can coordinate plans and people,
People around us trust us with responsibility for tangible results,
We are a rallying point,
We are opinion moulders.

If we are living with other people amicably, it is likely we:

Can work within stipulated ground rules,
Have skills such as negotiation in order to help relationships work well,
Can cope with challenging behaviour and not lose our cool,
Can show consideration and respect for other people,
Can speak up on behalf of others less able to do so themselves.

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If we travel around quite a lot, perhaps with a small group of people, this could mean:

Ability to cope with many changes and adapt to them, especially in new environments,
Ability to work within a system that is new to us,
Ability to use diaries or other methods of reminding ourselves of important dates and times,
Ability to stick to a plan and act on others’ advice.

Personal Effectiveness of Self on Others in a Workplace

Personal effectiveness describes how our behaviour impacts and influences people around us. We exert this influence in the way we communicate and interact. Underpinning this communication and interaction are the things that are going on in our bodies, hearts and minds.The need for personal effectiveness applies in our daily social interaction with people we relate with at all levels in society, especially in a workplace where staff can exercise discretion in their work. The need for personal effectiveness applies to many jobs at any particular organisational level. It is a life skill set transferable between job roles, which can be acquired through practice.

Impediments to Personal Effectiveness

In order to know what is right to do, we need clarity. It is clarity of purpose that allows us to figure out what is truly important. The biggest enemy of clarity of purpose is noise. Noise includes impediments and distractions like procrastination, lack of self-confidence, running away from responsibility, fear of failure, low self-esteem, failure in taking initiative and taking no actual action.

Way Forward

Knowing what is right to do is just half the question. It is useless to know what we are supposed to do if we do not actually do them.

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To do what is right, we need to overcome distractions to do otherwise. All distractions can be summarized as short-term pleasures. So, the action we need to take is to ignore short-term pleasures. Since the things we are supposed to do are often uncomfortable, only by being able to ignore short-term pleasures can we actually do them. From the foregoing, there are two abilities which are crucial to effectiveness:

The ability to minimize noise
The ability to ignore short-term pleasures

All our effort to increase personal effectiveness should be focused on honing these two sensibilities. Having only one of them is not enough. We may end up knowing what to do without actually doing them because of distractions. Likewise, we may be willing to do anything but end up doing the wrong things due to the lack of clarity of purpose. TemiDayo Babatunde is a Public Relations professional and can be contacted via his email: [email protected].