2013-batch IAS officer and DM of Sant Kabir Nagar, Uttar Pradesh, Divya Mittal, is known for frequently coming on social media with guidance and counselling for day-to-day problems. There are people who wait eagerly for her tweets as they can identify the problems she highlights and feel comfortable with the easy ways she advises on how to handle them. This time, the officer has come on Twitter to offer some tips on how to transform intent into action.
Most of us can easily identify such situations or phases in our lives when we have the right intent but defer working on it for whatever reasons. It could be mental and physical exhaustion or not getting what we want even after working hard. The situation can get worse if we continue sitting on our intents instead of translating them into actions. As it will affect our personal and professional lives both, bringing disappointments our way. So, how to correct it? Know from Ms. Divya Mittal herself.
VOLUNTARY CHOICES
Through a series of tweets, Ms. Mittal suggests making some voluntary choices first. “For people who are smart enough to know they’ll have trouble doing something they want to do.
There are two basic ideas: 1. Make a voluntary choice today to align future action with goals. 2. Increase difficulty of doing undesired actions (examples to follow).”
REDUCE MOBILE USAGE
Then she suggests some tips on to reduce the use of mobile phone. “Reduce mobile usage –
1. Keep it at a distance from you with net switched off. You need to get up to check. You will then make active decision rather than absent-minded scrolling.
2. Use blocking apps to forcibly block distracting apps/internet for some time, e.g. Blackout, Cold Turkey.”
INVEST IN SAVINGS
In her next tweet, she talks about savings and investment. She wrote: “Set autopay to deduct amount from account every month to go into recurring. Use only remaining amount for expenses. Automatic SIPs into index/mutual funds.”
“Take the decision making away. You will learn to adjust in the remaining amount.”
EXERCISE REGULARLY
She then touches on the importance of taking care of our health, saying health should be a top priority, too. She suggests an innovative idea to focus on health with exercises.
“Place a bet with a friend on a process goal (walking 10,000 steps each day for 30 days), not outcome (reducing weight). The money is blocked for both. The one who achieves the target gets the money back.
Else it is donated to charity/friend wins.”
STAY AWAY FROM UNHEALTHY FOOD
She also advises to avoid eating unhealthy food and suggests how to stick to it.
“Don’t keep such options in the house. If you need to keep them, tell a family member to hide it. Ask them to give it to you only in limited quantity in a pre-decided way.”
START YOUR DAY EARLY
Her next tweet is all about starting the day early on a positive note.
“Getting up in the morning. Put an alarm in phone/clock and keep the alarm away from you. Unless you can sleep through the alarm, you will have to get up to switch it off. Once up, you have a way to decide actively.”
COMMITMENT DEVICES
Lastly, she dwells on the concept of commitment devises and narrates a story to back it up.
“These are based on the concept of commitment devices.
A Story: In sea, anyone who heard the sirens’ song jumped overboard. Odysseus wanted to hear, but did not want to jump. So he got himself tied to the mast to avoid temptation. That’s probably world’s first commitment device”
STAY DISCIPLINED
In a last tweet as bonus, she stresses on the importance of discipline. “Trading with discipline. Put automatic orders for stop loss or take profit. For e.g., GTT orders on Zerodha. Take the emotion out of the trade by using predefined and precommitted orders.”
