Like billions of people worldwide, Madhusmita’s well-oiled daily routine was brought to a screeching halt by the ongoing pandemic. Her domain of specialty, like every other field out there, requires copious amounts of both man power and materials for its smooth functioning. But the flow of both disrupted due to lockdown. Read this post of SURFACES REPORTER (SR) to know how Madhusmita Sahoo- a Project Management professional- cope up with the turbulent times and discover a way to rebound from setbacks. This story is a part of SR's campaign in association with WADE ASIA where we invited women in Design to share their inspiring stories from 2020. 

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Meet Madhusmita Sahoo

Madhusmita Sahoo is a Project Management professional who has considerable experience in managing construction projects through all the phases of their life cycles, right from conception of an idea to the implementation of the final product. She specializes in project management with exclusive emphasis on cost, scope, project construction oversight and schedule management.

She is currently employed with Spacematrix and has an education background in Civil Engineering and Project Management. Her primary objective through these years has been to isolate and eliminate potential risk factors. She’s also adept at handling project challenges that might arise over the course of the duration of any particular project.

Lockdown 2020, a spanner in her works

Like billions of people worldwide, Madhusmita’s well-oiled daily routine was brought to a screeching halt by the ongoing pandemic. Her domain of specialty, like every other field out there, requires copious amounts of both man power and materials for its smooth functioning.

Also Read: This Woman Proved How Staying Positive Through Difficult Times Makes You Shine

The state-imposed lockdown curtailed the flow of both severely. And it was even more difficult to keep up with the mounting pressure of delivering the promised outputs and fulfill insatiable client expectations. So much so, that her mental health began to take a serious toll from the amount of stress being generated due to the excess workload.

Step 1: Identification and isolation of the root cause of the problem

Soon enough, Madhusmita realized that the continual follow up and tracking that her profession demanded was piling on her plate. She was beginning to consider whether she had bitten off more than she could chew. However, giving up was not on her plan. She embraced her responsibilities fully and started devising solutions to her problems.

She treated her own deteriorating mental health like another project of hers. She went on identifying and consequently isolating the root cause of her stress – her increased workload. Once that was done, she started formulating viable solutions to the problem. That enabled her to keep on be more efficient without hampering her mental health which, in turn, allowed her to keep operating at an optimal level on a regular basis.

Step 2: Implementing her self-devised solution to the problem

Once she had identified the problem and started resolving it, it was only a matter of time for her to come up with alternate solutions that allowed her to take everything in her stride and succeed beyond her expectations. Further, what helped her stay on track was being focused on a regimented and rigorous daily routine aimed at improving her deteriorating mental health.

Also Read: Reach Everyone, Teach Everyone: The Professor Who Forged Futures Through the Lockdown

She tweaked her daily schedule to implement the age-old principle of ‘Early to bed and early to rise’.

Every beautiful morning that came her way was greeted with the most heartfelt ‘Hello’. She also took up the habit of meditating and doing yoga on a daily basis. In turn, she was rewarded with an increased growth in her concentration span and she felt more confident in her life and living.

Step 3: Making a few key changes in her general outlook and mentality

After she had fixed the problem siphoning her mental health away, she turned her attention to improve her mentality and approach towards life.

In her words, “If we can remove ‘I can’t’ from our mindset and replace it with ‘I can’, it is remarkable how things fall in place.”

To emulate this ethos into her professional life, the first step that she took was doing away with procrastination. She realized that once we successfully remove the debilitating effect of constant procrastination from our lives, we can be more disciplined and consistent in the pursuit of our goals and easily attain the targets that we have set for ourselves.

If not anything, doing away with procrastination gives us ample time to work towards our targets.

Final realization and takeaway from the lockdown and 2020 in general

In spite of all the hardships that came her way over the course of the year 2020, she maintains a very respectful attitude to the year of hardships. Regardless of all the initial difficulties and setbacks, the year had taught her that no matter what comes her way, she would find a way to prevail and work her way out through seemingly impossible situations.

She is grateful to the year 2020 for giving her an opportunity to view life from an entirely new perspective altogether.

Also Read: The Urban Future: The Inspiring Story of Leena Kumar

No matter how harsh the year was on everyone, Madhusmita firmly believes that all of us who came through the year have gained invaluable lessons over the course of this apparently disastrous year, lessons which are going to be of immense help to us in the future while we tackle situations which seem extremely unfavorable to us.

Madhusmita’s message in a nutshell

If we strive hard enough towards our goals and make the necessary sacrifices along the way, things are bound to look up eventually. Sometimes it would take time, and on other times it would take immense efforts on our parts, but we shall surely reap the benefits if we persevere.

Keep reading SURFACES REPORTER for more such articles and stories.

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