Archive for October, 2008

My friend George was trying his best to quit smoking, at the same time that I was.

While I would get de motivated rather quickly, and I often found that I was not able to resist the temptation of a quick smoke out in the garden, George continued to avoid smoking, and he finally managed to quit smoking altogether, while I struggled on still, with my now severely limited quota of a single pack of cigarettes per day.

Why did this happen? Why was George more motivated than me, and why was he able to stick to his self given guidelines? All these questions prompted me to examine the issue, and here’s what I found; maybe it will help you get motivated into doing things and remaining committed to doing them.

George confessed that he tried using motivation boosters, and it was because of these that he remained so determined until the end. He revealed the secrets to me:

• Try using music: Music is a great mood booster, and will motivate you into attaining high energy levels. You can dance away to the music, and it will definitely bring a great smile to your face. You will automatically be motivated.

There’s a lot of talk about what you should do to become successful, but it’s more about who you are that makes the biggest impact.

It’s the decisions we make on a daily basis, the habits we naturally form in our lives that determine the level of success we can achieve. Who we are determines how we react to life, even when we’re not consciously in the act of ‘being successful’.

So here are 10 traits that are essential for obtaining lasting success in any endeavor.

1. An Independent Nature

If we rely too much on those around us for assistance and/or support we will be setting ourselves up for disappointment in the future.

This is not to say that we shouldn’t look to others for help when the time is right, but crafting our pursuits in such a way that requires the intervention of another is like handing over the keys and getting in the back seat.

Our friends and colleagues may help open the doors of opportunity, but it is our own responsibility to take the wheel.

Read more at PickTheBrain

Why is a negotiation style important? Although you may profess to be an expert with people, and think that you know how to interact with different types of people, do you actually know the importance of a negotiating style?

Do you know how advantageous it can be if you were to know all about your negotiating style, and learn how to gauge and assess others’? It is a fact that different styles must be used with different people: what can garner a guaranteed ‘Yes’ from one person may well lead to a deadlock with another individual.

Possessing an excellent negotiating style will not only help you in building up your work relationships, but will help you in your personal life as well, and help you to build up more productive and fulfilling relationships at work and elsewhere.

Negotiation styles can be different for men and women: Negotiation styles can be different for men and women, and even if you have spent hours preparing your presentation and perfected it, you may not be able to garner the success that would have been yours if you had prepared your negotiation style with an awareness of the difference between a man and a woman’s negotiation styles.

The only reason people ever really do anything is due to motivation. 

It may be our work, our hobbies, our relationships or even our chores, but one way or another, there is motivation that drives us to do the things we do.

This article is about finding out where this motivation comes from and how to develop it internally.

Two types of Motivation

There are only two types of motivation. You can label them whatever you like, but one type is positive and one type is negative. EVERYTHING we do, think and believe has some kind of foundation in painand pleasure.

Each person has, of course, a completely different view of what pain and pleasure is. But the same factors exist to steer and motivate us based on what we think we can get out of it.

Most of these associations with pain and pleasure are buried in our subconscious minds and, unfortunately, most people never realize this. Instead, they go through life on autopilot.

Despite this, you can easily learn to shift the associated pains and pleasures in your favor and put more attention to the ones you want to change.  So, how you do that is important to explore.

When you work with a group of people about eight or more hours a day, everyday, you do need to know that you can count on them, or at the very least, on a few of them; it can be very disconcerting and even frightening to know that you do not enjoy that bond of trust with your colleagues.

Not only will this affect your mental and physical well being and health, but it will also impact the peaceful working environment.

How do you go about strengthening and improving that bond of trust with your co-workers? Is it difficult to achieve, or can it be done overnight?

Here are some tips to get you started:

• Always remain honest and true to your word. In other words, always say what you mean, and mean what you say. This in itself will make your co-workers believe in you and trust in you, and know that you will stick by your word.
• I know that office gossip is all prevalent, and cannot be avoided completely. You can at least try to avoid the gossip, because gossip is something that can be extremely demotivating, and will end up pitting one colleague against the other. Set high standards, so that you never become directly involved in the gossip making its rounds.

I often observe people interact with each other, and more often than not, I see that one person dominates the conversation, while the other person or group of persons look on, and even when they try to say something, they are overshadowed by the more dominating personality.

In a conversation, everyone has to have an equal chance at saying what they want, and this is one of the most flaunted rules in conversation etiquette, according to my observations.

Often, we fail to recognize these faults in our own interactions, perhaps because they are so habitual that they are no longer noticeable, but if you wish to correct your mistakes, or simply improve your conversational skills, here are some tips for you:

• Do you ever ‘listen’ to what the other person is trying to say, or do you always talk and talk, and never bother to listen to what is being said? If so, then you are making one of the most common conversation mistakes, something which can bring a standstill to what is being discussed.

The other day, there was a ruckus in the office, with one colleague shouting, no, screaming at the other, while the rest of us looked on or looked away in frank embarrassment, and apprehension.

This was when our Manager walked in. He appeared unruffled, and retained his cool through the episode, and although he did not take sides or argue for one against the other, he still managed to resolve the conflict peacefully, and restored peace. The two colleagues are almost friends today.

How did this happen? How is it that some people are capable of solving conflicts within minutes, and peacefully at that, while some others helplessly join in the fray and shout and scream like the others?

Here are some tried and tested tips offered by experts, on how exactly to handle a conflict so that peace is restored.

• Stay calm, no matter what the situation is, and let the storm run its course. Quite often, the angry person is trying to provoke you, and if you don’t react, the entire thing will fizzle out in a short while.

The number one issue voiced by most couples is “we have trouble communicating.” It’s a common complaint.

And many couples think they would benefit from communication training.

Many seem to think if they could better express themselves or if their spouse would only listen and understand what they mean then things in the marriage would dramatically improve.

While the thought may be genuine and the results of actually implementing some of these techniques may improve the marriage a bit, the improvements won’t be lasting.

When you get right down to it, communication in marriage is not about being understood by each other, communication[Communication skills] is about handling what another person thinks and feels.

You see, married couples don’t have trouble communicating. They communicate all too well. In a committed relationship, you cannot not communicate (pardon the double negative).

Communication problems happen because you don’t like what the other person has to say.

For instance, you may want your spouse to be more emotionally open and share their feelings, but you interrupt them when they say things you find unpleasant or disagree with (in your view, you may just want to keep the conversation “accurate”). You want a more expressive spouse, but want to control what they express.