How Self-Improvement Can Be Gauged

Self-improvement is the art of making sure that you are doing better that you are currently doing. As a human being, you will always find that there is room for improvement. There is no such thing as a perfect person. Human beings are prone to mistakes and downfalls. However, these mistakes and downfalls can be regulated in order to reduce the levels they occur. You can be able to gauge your improvements on your own by looking at the difference after some certain period. For starters, if you are thinking of improving your physical appearance, you can go about it in several ways. 

 

The first thing will be to note the areas that you need to improve. By noting the areas you need to improve, you will have marked you self-improvement process. Noting such areas should be done keenly as there are some areas that cannot be changed. For example, you cannot be able to change your height. Nevertheless, you change your appearance such that you look taller. You can lose some weight if you are big or you can use some clothes that make you look taller. 

 

Knowing the areas that you can change in, and how to change them, is very important. As this is the case, you should be careful how you go about it. Once you have known the areas that you need to change, look at the options that can give you change. If you are looking to change your physical attributes, most of the time, it is exercise that will be the best way to do this. Many types of exercise are done in the world today. These exercises will be the determinant of the outcome of your improvement. 

 

However, you should choose these exercises carefully. There are exercises that will have the necessary effects but will also need you to work hard. There are others will not consume a lot of your time and energy but they will take longer. Finding the right combination of exercises will give you the best results with the minimum effort. With this in mind, you will find that there are many solutions that a person can use for self-improvement. The best way to go about it would be to have thorough research on the remedies that are available in the world. Knowledge of the various remedies will give a person a chance to make an informed decision. 

A Few Tips to Overcome Your Stage Fright

If standing on a stage and performing intimidates you, then these are some things that can help.

 

1.  Make sure your preparation is perfect. Rehearse your stuff several times. Do a mock show in front of your family and friends and get their feedback. They may tell you what you are lacking in, and they will also compliment you on the things you did well. Having a fair idea of these things will help you do better when you are on stage.

 

2.  If you are on stage, facing the public and doing something static, like speaking to them, then this trick could be employed. Look around in the audience for people who are interacting with you in some way. There are always such responsive people in the audience. They might be holding a direct eye contact with you, or they might be shaking their heads in approval of what you are saying. Bond with these people. Even when you are speaking in public, you can create such personal bonds. Speak as if you are speaking to them directly. Look at them often. Even they will get the feeling that you are performing directly for them and they will become more responsive. This boosts your confidence further.

 

3.  At the same time, do not alienate people in the audience. When you are up on stage, take a moment first to glance through the entire crowd. When you know what you are up against, you can certainly do a better job! Look for people you know—the familiar faces who you know will root for you—and cast a look around in general.

 

4.  Be confident. These people are looking forward to listening to you or watching you perform. They will enjoy what you say or do. Keep such a positive attitude in your mind. You will find that when you think positively, you automatically begin performing in a much better manner.

 

5.  Everybody fumbles. Do not worry much about those gaffes and goofs that might happen when you are on stage. Think about it this way—how many of the people in the audience will have the courage to do what you are doing? That itself propels you to perform better. You get the trust within yourself that you are doing what few people in the audience would dare to do.

 

These are the tips that can help you put up a better show on stage. Most importantly, be yourself and you will find that you falter much less when you are up there. 

An Extremely Effective Way to Reduce the Pressure in Your Life

If you think about all the stressful situations in your life so far… the situations in which you felt the great, unbearable amount of pressure that was sapped you from within… you will find out that there was one common element in all of them. This was the element that acted as the causative factor in building the pressure.

 

That element was time.

 

Every time that you were stressed, you will probably have noticed that the pressure was built because you had to do something in a particular amount of time. Maybe it was an examination, or an impending interview, or some huge and very important occasion. In all these cases, the most important thing is time. You need to accomplish something in a particular timeframe.

 

If you give it a thought, if everyone had unlimited time on their hands, they would probably achieve a lot more than they have already. In this world, it is not just doing things that matters; the important thing is to do things in a particular limitation of time.

 

Hence, if you have to deal with the pressure in your life, a very effective way to do it is by speeding things up! By not procrastinating when you still have time! By improving your skill in such a way that you can accomplish your tasks within a short timeframe!

 

This may sound like a simplistic solution to everything, but it really works. And it works every time. Suppose you learn how to attempt your examination papers faster. This will be of great help to you because you will be able to quickly breeze through the questions that you are confident of answering, which will help you to spend more time on the questions that you need to think about. If your pressure is because of a huge event in your family, you could handle a lot of it by doing things in time, which also gives you time to implement backup options if your initial arrangements do not work for some reason or the other.

 

There are many ways in which you can save on the time and thus, effectively, make more time available to you. You need to learn that. This is an important trait that all successful people have already used, whether it is an Olympic gold medalist who has tried consistently to beat the stopwatch, or a multinational industrialist who has learnt to be always quicker than the competition.

 

On a lesser note, you will be able to effectively remove a lot of pressure that is built up in your life. Consequently, you will be able to keep a clearer mind about things and you will be able to achieve more as well.

Are You a Good Leader?—8 Questions to Ask Yourself

If you are in a leadership position, then self-assessment becomes a very important thing. At every step of your leadership, you need to see how efficient and effective you are. Are your people responding to you in a positive manner? This kind of assessment is needed on a continuous basis, because only then can you bring about improvements in your game.

 

The following are some questions that you can ask yourself to assess your leadership. The answers to these questions should be evident to you, but they are provided all the same!

 

Question 1: Does your team trust you? 

Answer = Yes. It is important that your team relies on your decisions and looks forward to your guidance. 

 

Question 2: Does your team feel intimidated of you?

Answer = No. A team that is frightened of opening out to its leader is indicative of a negative environment. As a leader, you have to provide everything you can to allow the progress of your team. 

 

Question 3: Does your team come forward to you with questions/suggestions?

Answer = Yes. A team that opens out to their leaders with their own suggestions is a reflection on the creative and positive environment that the company provides. If you want to unleash the true potential of your team, then you need to provide them with this kind of atmosphere.

 

Question 4: Do you find people getting promoted in your team frequently?

Answer = Yes. If your team members are promoted, it means you are a good leader! A leader is a guide, a mentor. If people under you are climbing up, it means you are doing a great job as well.

 

Question 5: Are more people moving into your team?

Answer = Yes. Again, this is a reflection on the positive atmosphere that your company provides.

 

Question 6: Do people stay at home often?

Answer = No. If people are bunking their duties often, it means there is something amiss. They should look forward to coming to the job, not staying at home.

 

Question 7: Are you happy with the incentives you are giving?

Answer = Yes. If you are satisfied with the incentives you are providing to your team, then it is likely that your team likes it too. This means you are providing enough motivation for your team to work, even do more than their best at times.

 

Question 8: Do you feel energized about coming to work every day?

Answer = Yes. The biggest response for your team’s improvement comes from you yourself. If you look forward to come to work daily, then it means everything is going on right at work. 

Are You Realizing Your Full Potential?

 

Sometimes, you may be getting the feeling that you are not realizing your best potential. You feel that there is so much more you can do… you should do… but it is just not happening. You get the feeling that life has cheated you, that you haven’t got the opportunities that others have got, that luck hasn’t favored you the way it has favored others, and it is because of all these reasons that you think that your life isn’t going the way it should.

 

One of the main reasons why you feel that you aren’t realizing your full potential is because you feel you are in the wrong place. Are you thinking that this job is lower than what you are capable of doing? Is there something out there that’s much bigger, and you are confident of doing? If there is something like that, then what’s stopping you? Maybe you should muster enough courage to make the shift. Go on and bring about the change… there is no one besides you who can create the shift.

 

There are some people who think in terms of education. They think that they could have studied more, improved their credentials a bit more, but there is something in their path that is stopping them. But, if you are confident that you can study for a particular thing that can turn your life for the better, do not let anything stop you. You should go ahead and try to enhance your qualifications in any way possible. That is the most important thing you should strive for.

 

When you improve your qualifications, you will find more opportunities knocking your way. And, when something comes your way, you should learn to be steadfast about it. Remember that a rolling stone gathers no moss. You have to make a firm resolve and then chase it through if you want to get where you want to go.

 

There is no one who realizes your potential as much as you do. It is, therefore, your responsibility to bring about any changes that you should. No one will give you opportunities on a platter. You have to make efforts for attaining them.

 

Think about it… what would have happened if the great scientists of today had just stayed in regular day jobs? Or if the great musicians we know of hadn’t mustered the courage to come out and be seen? Every great person has made the effort to become visible at some time or the other. And, these opportunities haven’t always come to them easily. Just like them, you too need to recognize them and chase them if you want your full potential to be realized.

Can You Increase the Time that Is Available to You?

A significant amount of the pressure in our lives can be reduced if we are just able to make more time available for the various activities that we have to do. Just think about a salesperson who has to sell 40 units of the product within a month. This is a pressure-inducing situation, definitely. Now, probably the salesperson is confident of selling those 40 units. However, the pressure is built up on account of the time factor. If more time was available to that person, wouldn’t they be more confident of fulfilling the task? That itself would remove the pressure.

 

As students, we always felt elated whenever any examination was postponed. Remember that feeling of extreme relief? Just a day’s extension would mean a lot. What would change in that day? We would still have to give the examination, but now we were confident that we would perform better because we would get more time to practice.

 

Time, certainly, means a lot to us. It helps you us get a better facility to practice, to use the resources that we have on hand.

 

But the question is—can we increase this time that is available to us?

 

The truth is that we can. We can, if we put in some efforts, do a better job. We can improve the time that is available to us and move on with our life in a better way.

 

One of the things we can do is to do everything on a timely basis. Procrastination is the thief of time. There are numerous times when we delay doing things just because we feel we can still do it later. However, unforeseen events may put a spanner in the works and we may not be able to accomplish what we set out to do.

 

This is quite a difficult situation to be in, as many of us who have not done our jobs on time may already be quite aware of.

 

There is another thing that can improve the time that is available to us. That is through prioritizing our work. All of us have several things to do at any instant… things relating to our personal lives, our professional lives, our social lives and so on. We need to learn to prioritize these tasks, putting those that are more important to be accomplished on top of the heap, followed by the lesser important ones.

 

We cannot change the quantity of time that we have. But we can certainly put more quality into the hours that we have. If we learn how to diligently use this resource, which has been equitably distributed to everyone on this planet, we will certainly be able to become more productive in our lives. 

Creating a Culture of Trust as a New Leader

It is usual for a new leader to take some time to create a unique leadership style, and to build trust in your leadership. Here are a few simple steps that will be useful in helping all staff with the inevitable new team dynamics that result from leadership changes.

 

When you first take on a leadership role, particularly if it is your first role, the emotions can range from excitement to dread and everything in between. You have prepared for the role and you have worked hard to achieve this success in your chosen career, but with responsibility comes accountability. 

 

As a new leader, you may feel like everyone is watching and judging your every action and commenting on your every decision. It is normal to feel vulnerable and to prefer to discover your own unique distinctive leadership style. Over time, you like your predecessors, can and will feel comfortable leadership role you find yourself in. There are steps you can take to assist this process. 

 

1.  Have a strong personal vision that is in harmony with the mission and strategic plan of the organization. The vision should be inspiring enough that it drives you even in the down times, to have a clear view of what you want your leadership to achieve for the good of the organization. 

 

2.  Proactively encourage a communication system within the organization that will ensure that dialogue happens from the top down as well as from the bottom up. Open communication is essential to the development of trust and transparency among all team members.

 

3.  Surround yourself with people who can be a support network, both within the organization and external to it. This network will provide you with advice and be a sounding board for the difficult decisions. 

 

4.  Prioritize the achievement of loyalty and trust with influential colleagues and other stakeholders to ensure their support as you evolve into your new role.

 

5.  Ensure you focus on small successes to increase staff confidence. Staff will potentially have their own uncertainties about the effect of changes in leadership. Strong and successful team dynamics that are rewarded will help bond the new long team together.

 

These things will take time to implement. You will not be able to change your company’s culture just like that, but at the same time, you have to remember that dedicated work and effort will always pay out as well. 

Creating a Positive Work Atmosphere for Your Employees

If you are a leader who handles a team of people, then it is your responsibility to build a positive work atmosphere for them. In today’s times, everyone has great expectations from the workplace that they are associated with. There is a lot of competition out there, and considering that, if you give your employees a better atmosphere to work in, you can definitely enhance the prospects of your business.

 

This works in more ways than you think. When your people are happier about working for you, then they will work better too. Your company’s productivity will increase and you will even improve in the customer service department because your employees will handle your customers in a better way. In fact, a positive work atmosphere permeates into every department of your organization and that can definitely bolster the chances of success of your business.

 

There are many things you can do to create a positive work atmosphere for your employees.

 

1.       Provide an atmosphere in which everyone can think creatively. You should always strive for this. When your employees are given the freedom to think, better ideas emerge and they could lead your business in the right direction. If you stifle them, then you will find a lowering of the potential of your business as well.

 

2.       Remove the element of fear. Your employees must not fear speaking out their minds, even to their superiors if needed. If such feedback is not provided or accepted, it can lead to stagnation within the company and that could be highly detrimental for the business.

 

3.       Improve communication lines. It is vital that the messages are passed on clearly from one department to the other in your company, and across different levels. There should be very less ambiguity about the intentions of the company—everything should be spelled out as clearly as it can.

 

4.       Give them the right incentives. These incentives need not be monetary all the time; sometimes a good word for a job well done is more than sufficient. A company in which appreciation is deservedly given out is a company that always moves in a progressive direction.

 

5.      Deal with your employees in a humane manner. If there is a problem, think of the human side of it as well. Do not impose on your employees like a boss all the time; there are various things that you might need to take into consideration.

 

These are some of the things that you have to think about when you try to provide your employees with a positive work environment. As a leader, that is your utmost responsibility; its accomplishment decides how good you are in your leadership pursuit. 

3 Skills You Must Learn!

We are all gifted with different kinds of skills. Some of these skills are needed for our basic survival, while others are meant to enhance our personalities in some way or the other. For instance, if you are skilled at singing and you are a professional singer, then this skill is necessary for your livelihood, your survival. However, we are not going to talk about these basic survival skills here. Life is so much more than just survival. If you want to improve your personality and your persona itself, then these are the skills you must try to be good at…

 

Remembering People’s Names, Place Names, Etc.

 

A good memory is a great gift, but if you don’t have that gift already, you need not despair. There are several ways in which you can enhance your memory. You can take the help of mnemonics or other memory aids or you can even take up a course to improve your memory. But, mark my words, this is a wonderful skill to have. If you are able to remember people’s names, then it can do so much for your reputation! When you suddenly meet someone on the street and you are able to recall who they are, it could mean a lot to them. They will take warmly to you, and who knows what opportunities that might lead to!

 

Reading People’s Minds

 

It is very important that you can read people’s minds. This is a great skill because when you know what’s going on in someone’s mind, you can react accordingly and you can actually plan things that can be helpful to you. For example, if a business prospect is on the verge of getting bored, and you read that on their face, then you can immediately do something—like give them an incentive—so that their interest is piqued up. You may save your business by being able to read people’s minds. It can help you save your relationship. There’s no telling how this habit can help you.

 

Ability to Recognize Talent

 

This is a skill that very few people are blessed with, but it can certainly be developed through experience. When you come across someone, this skill can help you assess their potential. You can ‘see’ what they will be capable of achieving, and that can help you immensely.

 

These three skills are vital for your personality. They won’t pay you directly, and you can survive without them, but if you have these skills, you will be able to do better in life in many respects. Work on them and see the difference!