For Businesses – Yousuf Raza

Towards Meaningful Work: From Platitudes to Pragmatics

This course is designed particularly with the modern workplace in mind. It aims to bring the best of psychology from the past ~ 150 years to the service of employers and employees. The rampant rise of the coaching industry has brought pop psychology to the corporate space; a welcome change to say the least. However, the lack of theoretical depth and absence of clinical experience threatens to sabotage the incredible contribution this industry stands to make. This course, standing on the shoulders of giants in the field of psychology, picks up on the gems offered by the coaching industry and buttresses them with theoretical rigor without compromising on practical needs.

The year-long course is spread over 12 monthly lectures. Each lecture is supplemented by a handbook comprising a summary of the material and a hands-on exercise.

Mastering Stress through Meaningful Work

This serves as the orientation session to set the stage for the rest of the course. It supplies the attendee with an essential understanding of stress, its significance, and an overview of how meaningful work helps in mastering stress. The various aspects of meaningful work are highlighted.

Who am I? The “anatomy” of the worker’s mind

A meaningful worker is self-aware. This essentially entails a 101 understanding of psychology and then applying that to one’s own personality. The various “players” in our own minds are highlighted and the attendees are provided with tools and guidelines to apply these concepts to their own selves.

Growth attitude

A meaningful worker conquers stress through understanding and developing a growth attitude. This session enunciates each of the components of the growth attitude, their significance, and the means of developing them. It also highlights the obstacles in the path of the growth attitude, employing the concepts developed in the previous sessions.

The habit of habituating

The most essential skill in growth, that which makes us human, is the ability to take up, and wherever necessary lose, habits. This session will walk the participants through the art and science of consciously becoming self-habituating.

Reconciling with the past

The greatest resources as well as the greatest obstacles towards habituating and growing stem from our past. Unfortunately, we undermine the importance of our own past in the people that we are today. Even if we do recognize the significance, we are ill-equipped to come to terms with it and garner its potentials towards positive growth.

Envisioning the future

Meaningful work essentially transcends the present towards a vision of a better future. This session apprises the participants with an understanding of the significance of developing a vision for the future, identifies common stumbling blocks in the process, and facilitates an exercise through which participants can articulate their personal visions.

Mastering Time

“But we don’t have enough time!”

This is a common response when we articulate the various dimensions of meaningful work. This session helps participants with concepts and tools to manage their time most effectively.

Healthy Body, Healthy Mind

Every experience and work is embodied; and so we need to know how to take care of our bodies most effectively and efficiently. This session does just that.

Sleep Management

With an erratic sleep routine our time management is detrimentally affected, our work suffers, and our stress levels go out of control. This session brings in physiology and psychology to help the participants control their sleep rather than being controlled by their sleep.

Developing Empathy

An individual can not live meaningfully in isolation; it has to be in the community. This entails looking out for subordinates and colleagues. The best therapeutic experience is brought to the service of being more empathic towards the community.

Work-Life Balance

To work meaningfully one has to live meaningfully. What are the components of a holistically meaningful life? How to tread the tightrope of work and the rest of our life? This session empowers participants with an essential understanding of the subject and an exercise to weigh themselves on the balance.

Nourishing the basecamp—family life 101

A dysfunctional family results in a dysfunctional employee. This session covers the basics of developing meaningful relations in order to become holistic persons capable of giving their best in every domain of life.

On completing this course the attendees will be able to

– develop a better understanding of themselves,

– develop a growth attitude,

– learn time and sleep management

– become team players,

– develop a healthy work-life balance