Welcome to the Weekly Reads, where I highlight articles that I found on the web and that are focused on career advice, lifestyle, beauty or anything I think would round-up as useful for the young, modern, working woman. Just get yourself comfortable, pour a cup of coffee – or tea – and enjoy this week’s reads!
What have I been up to this week
I’ve had some work travelling last week so I went to Switzerland for a couple of days – below I included a few pictures from beautiful Geneva. Given that I knew I had to travel, I organized my week such that I would make sure I could work out at least 3 times in the week. The consistency that I am keeping with my workouts – in the midst of crazy work schedules, studying and all other social commitments & household chores – makes me feel really proud of myself. At the end of the day, I can put my head on the pillow and know that I have allocated time towards achieving my goal and putting energy into what matters most to me.
One of the things I have started practising a lot lately is purposely allocating time and energy to what I care about. I love to work and deliver the best I can so I often tend to fully focus on it and disregard myself. I have been doing that with working out and I check in daily with myself to see what I have done today to ensure I can attend at least 3-4 workours a week whether it means scheduling or re-scheduling workouts, making the effort to get up early in the morning to get to the training or skipping on chilling in bed on the weekends. It’s crazy how much peace of mind it brings me at the end of the day/week/month.
What is your “anchor” currently, keeping you sane and afloat?
The Weekly Reads
The ideal woman. An interesting perspective on the economics behind the ideal, modern woman that Hitha shared in her #5smartreads last week.
Be so good they can’t ignore you. I love this career advice from Consultant’s Mind. He recommends Cal Newport’s book – So Good They Can’t Ignore You – and the career philosophy behind. Some highlights below:
- “Follow your passion is bad advice”
- “Compelling careers have complex origins”
- “Passion is fairly rare, and takes time”
- “Passion is often a side-effect of mastery”
Newport instead argues for career advice that looks like this:
- “Get rare and valuable skills. Enjoy the journey to craftsman.
- With mastery comes autonomy and creative control.
- S-curve after s-curve, you are getting (more) awesome.
- Your bill-rate increases, you start choosing your work and customers.
- This ironically, leads to more passion with your career and calling.”
Advice for first time managers. Transitioning to a manager role can some (most) times be tough. Learning how to best support your team and make them shine might not always come naturally to everyone. I love to read some good tips on managing people so here is some advice for first time managers from Career Contesssa.
Sweet tooth. As I am trying to clowly clean up my diet and incorporate more vegetables and home cooked meals, I am on the hunt for delicious sweet treats that are healthy. This chocolate almond fudge looks like a (sweet) dream.
What I am drinking. I have finally ordered mushroom coffee and I am so excited to try it out. I have read and heard about the healing powers of mushrooms – help to focus, support endurance or the imune system among others – and I am always up for trying new healthy (super)foods. I ordered my coffee from Four Sigmatic and I cannot wait to report back on my impressions.
Thank you for reading and I hope you are having a great week!
3 Comments
The ideal woman article just blew my mind. Nothing in it was new, but the darkness with which it’s written has me still reeling from shock.
Love the Geneva pictures and curious to hear if mushroom coffee tastes like real coffee. I need honest opinion on this new phenomenon! I love these Weekly Reads of yours so much and have been wanting to start something similar for my blog, but don’t know what to call it or how to commit! May be “Your Monthly Coffee with Komal” or just “Coffee Break.” Anyway, have a good week and keep these coming! 🙂
I don’t usually pick such articles, but it was a lengthy one that kept me scrolling and questioning pretty much everything; that feeling that our lives and aspirations are an illusion of an illusion was pretty unsettling.
On the mushroom coffee topic, I personally find it tastes very good overall and pretty much like regular coffee. I add
60-70% hot water and the rest oat milk and to me it tastes really good and a lot like oat milk. I have also had a friend trying it – she said the same – and my boyfriend who said that after a while he could notice the taste was somehow different but definitely not bad. I usually like to try new healthy foods so I can go with pretty much everything – even if it’s spirulina – so I might be biased. I at least, am renewing the order this week and also trying some more of their products like the hot chocolate and maybe an elixir.
Oh yes, go ahead and start it! When I started the blog I wanted a way to commit myself to regular posts so I thought that a weekly series would be the best way to do it. I can definitely encourage you to do it as well, whether it’s weekly, bi-weekly or monthly! I am definitely up for reading “Coffee break with Komal” anytime and all the time! Xx
Exactly. It was a daunting read. Good for self-awareness though.
Thanks for your detailed response about the coffee. It doesn’t hurt to try, so I’ll find it in the Netherlands!
Aw, thank you!! I’m thinking about it! xx