A to Z of Office Stress

• A for Anxiety, which we get after seeing the pending paper-work. 
• B for Budget, which we always get less than the expectations. 
• C for Chai/Coffee, whose excessive consumption adds more toxins in our body. 
• D for Delay in decision making, which kills the enthusiasm of work.
• E for Exercise, which we avoid doing. 
• F for Fried Food, which makes us over-weight. 
• G for Group tasks, which overshadow the individual efforts. 
• H for Helplessness, which we feel because we fail to ask for help. 
• I for Ignorance, which we never try to remove through constant learning. 
• J for Justice, which is either delayed or ignored. 
• K for kill time, which we do in gossips and long meetings.  
• L for Listening, which we do less because speaking gives us more pleasure. 
• M for Motivation, which we rarely get from outside. 
• N for Nutrition, which we care least due to our glutton tendency. 
• O for Ownership, which we try to pass on someone else. 
• P for Politics, which is a part of our profession and brings no conclusion to the problem.  
• Q for Questions, which anyone can ask under Right To Information without having any clue on the subject. 
• R for Rotomac Pen, which always gets lost at the time of signing important documents. 
• S for Sympathy, which no one shows when we desperately need a holiday. 
• T for Timeline, which we always cross due to unknown factors. 
• U for Unpaid bills, which haunt us in different ways. 
• V for Vision, which is generally blurred due to short-sightedness. 
• W for Water Closet, which remains untidy because sweeper is always on strike. 
• X for Xerox Machine, which would always have shortage of pages esp. when we need it.
• Y for Your Spouse, who always believes that you have no time for him or her. 
• Z for ZZzz, which means we don’t take enough sleep and invite health related troubles. 

How introverts can develop Social Skills?

In 21^st century, people decide your net-worth by the network you have. We can never succeed in life if lots of people don’t want us to succeed. We all need a social support system around us.

Networking is a tough task for introverts. I can understand this because I myself is an introvert.

Both of my parents were working and most of the time, I was alone in my house guarding it and protecting it. When we spend most of the time in isolation, we start enjoying it and avoid social interactions as much as we can. Believe it or not, I had never went to my college canteen just to avoid conversations!!! Introverts avoid people because most of the time introverts don’t know what to say. Other than my classmates, I never tried to know anyone else in the school or college. Juniors and seniors were alien for me. When I was doing my Bachelors in Business Administration that was the time when I learned the importance of networking in one of the management classes. I learned that talent and relationships both help us jointly in real-life. From that point of time, I am working on my social intelligence.

Though, I don’t consider myself as a master socializer but I can share some practical tips by which any introvert can improve his or her social skills.

1. Introverts are not talkers- This is a reality. No matter how many communication classes you attend, you would find that talking does not gives any pleasure to an introvert. However, listening is easier for introverts. In the real world, listeners are quite rare. Most of the people want to talk, but don’t want to listen. Listening others attentively can make any introvert a master communicator. When other person stops talking then ask questions related to his or her interest and he or she would start talking again. This is one of the best ways by which introverts can engage others in a conversation.

2. Smile- Introverts do not smile and this is a universal trait of introverts. Introverts always have a flat face. This is a big mistake which we do. Smiling face attracts more people than a dull face. Force yourself to smile. Smile whenever you get chance to smile. Stop scaring people with your flat face.

Vladimir Putin Not Smiling Vs Smiling

3. Take help of friends- Making friends and forming groups is natural characteristic of human beings. Even introverts have few good friends (not more than four). In order to expand your network, take help of your already existing friend circle. When I was doing MBA, I had 4 roommates and through them I break-the-ice with rest 106 people of our batch. This process was long, but effective. Through this method, we can know more people in less time. 

One person can help in knowing six other people

4. Make use of social media- Writing is easier for introverts than speaking. Writing engages mind of introverts and they can interact easily with more people through messages. Make use of LinkedIn to form a good professional network. Facebook can help in making an interesting informal network and WhatsApp can help in daily chats. Introverts would find themselves to be more actively involved on social media than in real life.

5. Take care of your appearance- Once a film actor was asked that why so many people are mad for him and he said that “May be because I am beautiful.” What an easy answer for a complex question. Actors understand the importance of appearance more than any other person. Actors know that human beings are highly visual people. Our eyes crave for beautiful things. Take care of your appearance. Looking good requires only two things- (1) Exercise daily to keep your body toned (2) Don’t wear disorganized clothes. Do these two things and you would look better than two-third people. Good appearance would give you confidence and it would attract others. This would make interactions more quick and easy. 

Tom Cruise in the film Top Gun

All the best to all the introverts.