Ingredients of a Kickass Life Résumé: Part II

In this quest to find your passion, fulfil your destiny and achieve all that we want to achieve, we find many distractions. Some of them good, some of them not so good. To give you an example, one of my recent distractions is calligraphy. I have become obsessed about my lettering and I have even enrolled in an online course to better myself! This is what I call a good distraction. Because this is something that definitely adds to my Life Résumé.

But what about all that time I have spent just scrolling aimlessly through my social media feed or binge watching a TV show ? It is a distraction all right, but does it add to my Life Résumé? Does it support where I want to go? Does it really further my cause? These are some very important questions you need to ask yourself before you give in to any distractions. Which brings us to what we are going to talk about today: The second part of Ingredients of a Kickass Life Résumé. These posts just aim to give a rough direction about what you should be working on.

In the last post, we talked about three of the six key ingredients of a superb Life Résumé. Today, we are going to talk about the remaining three. Just to jog your memory, here are all six:

1. Education
2. Hobbies
3. Unique Experiences
4. Professional Skills
5. Travel
6. Volunteering

Ingredient 4: Professional Skills

I am sure all of you working folks out here have heard about ‘Professional Skills’ a million times. And here, I am talking only about the soft skills necessary to do any job. Be it Effective Communication, Decision Making, Time Management, Self-motivation, Conflict Resolution, Work Ethics, the list of these skills in never ending and working on yourself to improve in these areas is crucial for success.

Robert Greene, the author of the ‘The 48 Laws of Power’ said, “The future belongs to those who learn more skills and combine them in creative ways.”

These skills are essential because most of the time that you spend at work and in life in general, is spent interacting with people, working with people, building relationships and getting things done from people. And we are never taught most of these things in school. Some of the most essential life skills are never a part of our formal curriculum.

So, what do you do? The key is in identifying your strengths and your weaknesses, be it through taking personality assessments, actively seeking feedback, self-reflection or using other tools like SWOT analysis. Once identified, there is a ton of resources available online in the form of blogs, courses and videos. This may seem like a very exhausting process as developing soft skills takes time and patience, but trust me when I say, this will be one of your most coveted additions to your Life Résumé!

Ingredient 5: Travel

The French Nobel Prize winning author André Gide once said, “Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore”.

To travel is to experience new places, to eat unique food, to look at and talk to people who are different than you, to walk down shores and roads and trails that are unfamiliar and refreshing. Travelling teaches you not only about different places, but also about different people. It gives a unique insight into everyday life.

For me, walking down the cobblestone streets of Heidelberger Altstadt with its many ancient buildings and the Heidelberg castle gave me a taste of the life that was. Scuba diving in the island of Mahé, Seychelles showed me a unique kind of peace I had never experienced before. Strolling through the Dubai Miracle Garden gave me a peek into the human capacity to build something so beautiful in a land where nothing grows, the desert. Trekking through the Garhwal Himalayas humbled me like no other experience has.

I urge each and every one of you to go out there and travel. Gain experiences, make new friends, learn new languages, try out new foods and most of all gain an insight into this wonderful and glorious world of ours. This would be one of the greatest additions to your Life Résumé!

Ingredient 6: Volunteering

The last ingredient that I am going to talk to you about today is Volunteering. In simple terms, volunteering can be defined as doing something for free. It can be of any shape and form. You may volunteer to plant trees in your neighbourhood, you may choose to mentor a child from an underprivileged background, you may volunteer your time to teach children or may involve yourself in any of the professional volunteering organisations.

What is in it for me, you ask? Mahatma Gandhi once said, “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others”.

Apart from the obvious benefit that you will be donating your personal time and efforts for the betterment of the overall community, there are a lot of lessons that you could learn for yourself through volunteering. A few of these would be: learning a new skill, building a network outside of your work and family or friends, improved mental health through socializing, a higher self-esteem owing to the fact that you are selflessly helping others and most important of all, unique experiences.

I cannot stress enough on the importance of the role played by volunteering on your self confidence and happiness. There is no feeling as great as being able to help someone have a better life, while also bettering yourself.

Volunteering will play an extremely important role, not just in your Life Résumé but also in your professional résumé by adding to your skill set. We live in a world today where knowing that someone is willing to offer their time and efforts for the betterment of the community is very sought after. So guys, find a cause that you feel passionate about and go ahead and give yourself to it once in a while and you will notice a big difference to your life!

So here are my six ingredients that make up for a kickass Life Résumé! Do let me know in the comments below if you think of any other crucial ingredients that you should be working on. I do intend to dig deeper into each one of these ingredients in future posts and talk about the benefits as well as how to include them in your life. Until then, keep working, keep growing!

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