My Story - Working Smarter; Not Harder! By Biswajit Falia A number of years ago I was, like many other project managers, working hard on a project that seemed to become increasingly complex, with tighter and tighter deadlines. I was stressed and overworked, and I was not leveraging my capabilities in the best possible way. I spent most of my time planning and tracking tasks and dealing with urgent issues. There was not much time left for being proactive, thinking ahead - or spending quality time with team members or stakeholders. I was under a lot of pressure and did not feel that I had anyone to delegate to. But more importantly, I was not enjoying myself, and I was not always in control of the project. A number of things made me change. The defining moment was a coaching session in which I discussed my issues with stress and managing my workload. Within just one hour, I realized that one of my core beliefs was that project management is inherently stressful (and painful), and there is nothing I can do about it. At that stage in my career I had been managing projects for well over ten years, and my experiences told me that project management was a very demanding and stressful job. Period. Recognizing that project management does not have to be stressful was a true eureka moment for me. I instantly understood that my belief was subjective, not the objective truth, and that I had the power to challenge it and change it. What a shift that was! Understanding that my belief was not necessarily true allowed me to start working with it and to slowly dissolve it and become more effective and valuable in my job. When you realize that you have the power to change your beliefs and remove a limiting factor that has been constraining you, you have an “aha!” moment. You feel relieved and empowered. My eureka moment made me pause, take a step back, and do less. I did this to regain my energy and to free up time to collect my thoughts. And then s