by rossanahead | Feb 7, 2017 | Business Tips, career, family
Pursuing a career or managing a business while raising a family puts unbelievable demands and pressure on women, and if one is not careful, this can lead to serious health issues.
Needless to say, we must never put our health and well-being at the bottom of our list of priorities. Always keep in mind that a healthy body is key to enabling you to carry out all of your daily tasks and responsibilities. As inspirational speaker Joyce Meyer put it: “I believe that the greatest gift you can give your family and the world is a healthy you.”
The good news is that with time management, you can always fit some exercise into your hectic schedule. Get as much physical activity in your work and home life as you can, and you’ll soon see an improvement in your stamina, productivity, and energy levels—guaranteed!
Wake up earlier
Try getting up earlier than usual on most days for some quiet “me time” and about 15 to 30 minutes of exercise. To ensure you focus on yourself during this period, prepare the breakfast and other needs of your children the night before. When the kids finally wake up, you’ve already worked up a sweat or enjoyed an invigorating run around the neighborhood.
Adopt an efficient exercise plan
Choose a workout program that can be performed quickly with little preparation, but yields maximum results in a shorter period of time. With such an exercise routine, it’s easy to sneak in your moves anytime and anywhere. Running and high-intensity workouts are some exercises that can be a good fit for your lifestyle.
Use what’s available
Whether you are trying to lull your baby to sleep at home or finishing paperwork at the office, use the things and furniture around you to reach your fitness goals. For instance, use your chair to perform stretching or bending exercises. Or you can invest in a yoga mat and do some planking positions or stretching exercises. And, yes, you can do this at the office, too.
Invest in dumbbells, bands, jump ropes
These pieces of exercise equipment can help speed up your heart rate and improve your blood circulation. While at home watching TV, pick up your dumbbells during commercial breaks and just flex your muscles. During a 30-minute sitcom, for example, you can get in nine minutes of exercise on average.
Make it fun
Who says exercise has to be boring and tedious? If you are not really into working out, consider other activities that appeal to you. Perhaps you’d like to enroll in a dance class or take yoga lessons or pick up a sports activity like boxing. These days there are tons of opportunities to get fit, so explore what’s out there and give it a try.
Escape during lunch time
Before or after taking your lunch, head out for some brisk walking outdoors for a mental and physical pick-me-up. When you return to work, make sure you have enough supply of fruits and raw vegetables, meal bars, or protein shakes for healthy snacking. This is a neat way to burn off extra calories and fill up on healthy food.
Include your family
What better way to exercise than to invite your husband and kids to join you in your quest for a healthy lifestyle? You’re all not only getting fitter, you’re all also getting closer to one other. Indeed, the family that jogs, walks, bikes, or treks together, stays together.
Photo: Claire Griffiths
by rossanahead | Feb 2, 2017 | Business Tips, career, Education
By Ruth Manimtim-Floresca
You’ve probably heard the story of how Thomas Edison failed more than a thousand times before he finally produced a light bulb that works. Instead of looking at failures as mistakes, Edison acknowledged them as a successful discovery of 1,000 ways to not make a light bulb.
Throughout history, Edison and many other great men and women have proven that we can always “fail forward.” Their stories teach us that no one can be a total loser as long as one keeps trying. Here are uplifting lessons to keep in mind when setbacks threaten to dampen your spirit.
- Let failure refine—not define—you. For people with a teachable heart, committing and acknowledging mistakes enables them to turn pride into humility that, in turn, develops their character.
- Never associate setbacks with complete failure. Although not succeeding is surely disheartening, wallowing in self-pity for long will not help you move forward. Get up and try again.
- Consider failure as a stepping stone. Everyone is bound to fail at some point, but those who persist despite stumbling are the ones that usually succeed. Read up on famous people like Walt Disney, Isaac Newton, Charlie Chaplin, and J.K. Rowling to find the inspiration you need to keep going.
- Treat failure as a learning experience. Before making another attempt, evaluate your past actions, reflecting on what went right and what did not. Take note of what to avoid doing or what to do differently the next time around.
- Allow failure to help you pinpoint priorities and values. When you fail, you are forced to inventory what truly matters to you and to make the needed adjustments. One mistake people may make is focusing on the wrong things. If you value the right things, it often becomes easier to succeed because you have the passion and determination to chase after your dream.
- Consider if you need to seek help. Being self-sufficient may not always be the right approach. It won’t hurt to ask for and accept assistance from trusted partners. As the saying goes, “Two heads are better than one,” and that often applies to many situations.
- Credit failure for improving your financial perspective. Major debacles will force you to look at money-related things differently. Losing money through bad decisions will remind you to treat your finances with more care. As your decision-making skills improve, you’ll be creating a stronger foundation for future wealth and success.
- Thank failure for filtering out superficial friendships. Unfortunately, there are people who stick around only if they can get something from you and who disappear once you fall. While betrayal hurts, be comforted in the knowledge that true friends will not care about how much money you have or how you can continue to be of use to them. Know that real friends stay and motivate you to get back on your feet.
Ultimately, failure reminds us to look to a higher power for comfort and guidance. Personally, I rest my faith in God, knowing that everything happens for a reason and that failure teaches me lessons I wouldn’t otherwise learn if things always went smoothly.
Photo: Leonardo Shinagawa
by rossanahead | Jan 31, 2017 | Business Tips, career
If you’ve been lamenting how much hassle it is to travel to work and deal with the nightmare traffic, the pushing crowds, the pollution, and the heat, the good news is that employers in the Philippines seem to be more open to the idea of flexible work arrangements, or FWAs.
Mary Grace Riguer, OIC-executive director of the Institute for Labor Studies, an attached agency of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), said in a recent business forum that more and more employers in the Philippines have begun adopting FWAs, such practices now made more feasible by technological and telecommunications breakthroughs.
“In the Philippines there are some players already [engaging in FWAs],” confirmed Riguer, mentioning Metro Pacific Investments which implements flexi time and work from home arrangements, and Aboitiz Equity Ventures which has adopted flexi time and earlier-shift schedules.
Meralco is now also implementing telecommuting, launching its pilot last year and currently planning to expand the coverage of the program, said Paola Verayo, an HR business partner at the company, in her presentation in the same gathering.
Riguer said some fields in the services sector are a particularly good fit for FWAs. These include industries engaged in medical health, computer and IT, marketing, communications, customer service, sales, administration, education and training, and finance.
Meanwhile, among jobs or occupations that may adapt well to FWAs are online teaching, customer support, web and software development, administration, sales and marketing, engineering, design and multimedia, mobile development, writing, accounting and bookkeeping, networking, and business services.
As long as the work or some aspects of work will be using technology, it is possible for the employee to be allowed to work from the house or anywhere outside of work premises, said Riguer.
She said forms of flexible work arrangements that are currently being applied in the country include telecommuting (working from home), telework (taking home some of your office work), virtual or freelance work (working full-time away from the workplace), and crowdsourcing (outsourcing jobs online to groups of people who operate independently).
Interest in telecommuting and other forms of flexible work practices is rising amid the terrible road congestion in Metro Manila and the growing desire of workers for a more equitable work-life balance.
A study conducted by the Japan International Coordination Agency foresees the traffic costs in Manila increasing to P6 billion a day by 2030 from P2.4 billion per day in 2015.
Last year, Senator Jose Villanueva, chairman of the Senate Committee on Labor, Employment, and Human Resources Development, filed Senate Bill No. 1033, or the Telecommuting Act of 2016, on August 16, 2016.
The bill encourages employers to allow “telecommuting” or the “partial or total substitution of computers or telecommunication technologies, or both, for the commute to work by employees.”
On January 25, said Riguer, DOLE made a representation before a Senate hearing in support of the intent of the bill, noting that by institutionalizing telecommuting, the legislation can provide protection to telecommuting employees.
She added that benefits for the government of telecommuting include reduced road traffic and pollution, while employers stand to gain from greater worker productivity, lower employee turnover, and a deeper talent pool.
Employees, on the other hand, can enjoy benefits such as reduced travel time, greater flexibility, higher autonomy, and increased work satisfaction and motivation. -RCA
Photo: Mike
