Anuradha Sridharan

As I reflect on the year gone by, I feel a lot of gratitude for a relatively peaceful and purposeful 2023 as compared to the challenging period between 2020 - 22 . Jan 2023 - the label I was associated with was VP Product Management for a B2B startup focused primarily on employee wellbeing. Dec 2023 - the label I'm now associated with is Yoga instructor and Shloka class aunty! The labels have changed but the underlying motivation and objective remain the same. To empower myself and others to practice and experience holistic well-being and lead a life of balance and harmony. As I look back, this has been the objective I had set for myself since 2015, though I wasn't able to articulate it clearly. The steps taken in these past 9 years are all aimed towards this objective. The clarity and conviction emerged in 2023. The path to reach this objective (the right knowledge and insights) also presented itself clearly - health, wellness, and psychology from Indian Knowledge Systems poi...

  I read 36 books in 2023 so far. 36 or 76 books - doesn't matter. 36 or 6 books - doesn't matter. What matters is that we embrace the habit of reading every single day. Reading has helped me in multiple ways. Let me share some of the benefits I have experienced: The 36 books I read this year were written by 23 different authors. Seeking different perspectives from multiple people reduces the chances of biased viewpoints and prevents being misguided by just 1-2 people's ideological views.  It takes time and effort to structure and pen down thoughts in a larger content format like a book. The output of such efforts creates way more impact than someone sharing their perspectives in a 1-hour workshop, 2200 character-limited Insta post, or a 30-second reel. Among the 36 books, 10 of them are repeat reads. Re-reading the same book after a while reinforced the learning and surprised me with new insights I might have overlooked the first time. We discussed 17 of these 36 books in ...

  "We overestimate what we can achieve in a day and we underestimate what we can achieve in a year" - I heard this quote many years back and I agree with it completely. As another year draws to a close, our minds might throw a lot of questions - "How did the time pass by so quickly? What did I even do this year? Did I achieve anything significant?", etc.  I used to get a lot of such questions, but the yearly reflection and review exercise helped me find answers. I find this exercise very helpful as it helps me introspect on various key moments of the year. I strongly vouch for taking the time to reflect upon the year gone by. I've been following it since 2005 and the process has gone through multiple iterations. Here's the one that I've been sticking to for the past few years. My review of a year begins on the 1st day of the same year. I'm not kidding! On Jan 1st of every year, I start a Note (on the Evernote app) with the title "Year in review...