Factors that Bring about Self-Development

There are two main factors which affect personal development and they are environment and genetics or heredity. Over the years researchers have tried to prove whether it is our genes or our environment. The only answer that has been gotten so far is that both of them contribute greatly in shaping us. This is when we tend to weigh nature with nurture. In the real sense, it is a fact that there are forty-eight chromosomes, male has got twenty-four chromosomes whereas the female is made up of twenty-four also. When these chromosomes combine, they make up a human being and that is why you will find that some of us will have our fathers’ nose or our maters nose. 

 

These chromosomes however are the ones which carry our mothers and our fathers’ genetics and therefore passed onto us. But there are also those genetic traits which are not passed on to the children directly but go to the grandchildren or the next generation. This is what we call genetic gap. This is the reason why we tend to look more like our grandparents but not our parents. This is what we call hereditary factor. The other key factor that is very important and contributes greatly on self-improvement and personality development is capability and capacity.

 

There is a difference between aptitude and ability. Aptitude is basically a series of qualities that are important in discovering a task. Ability on the other hand is implementing whatever you have discovered or learned. Aptitude is passed on but not your skills in something like for example swimming. Moreover, it can be inherited to learn the skill. The ability however cannot be inherited but rather practiced. 

 

When it comes to environment factor, we have an example of the behavior of a child. A child will tend to learn from whatever is around him or her, be it the things around or the people around him. Other social activities that he has to learn are the likes of eating, walking and talking just like the other people. However, the people he will be spending time with are the ones who will determine his personality in due time whether positively or negatively.

 

At our tender age, our parents and any other close relative are the ones who will make us who we will be by the time we reach five years. When we reach that age of going to school then our personality development will come about from our classmates and the people we spend most our time with, The group that we hang around. 

Generating Goodwill—What Are the Various Ways?

Everyone today is looking at generating some goodwill. A little goodwill goes a long way. When people know you for what you are, they begin to respect you and they put their faith in you. In the business world, both these things—respect as well as trust—are very important. That is the reason you need to generate goodwill, because your goodwill can bring these important things into your life.

 

If you are trying to generate goodwill in your line of work, these are some things you should pay special attention to.

 

1.  Look at the quality of your business, the product that you provide. You have to ensure that you are not compromising on anything. Are you providing people good value for their money? People want to trust in businesses that are providing them great products and services. If you constantly strive for that, you will certainly generate a lot of goodwill.

 

2.  Do not go for cheap promotional tactics. There are a lot of people out there with shoddy advertisement strategies, which look completely down-market and do not do anything for improving the business in any way. Your advertising methods must be unique and creative. That is what gives you a good deal of goodwill in your industry.

 

3.  Provide great aftersales service and invest in good customer care resources. Businesses gain a reputation not by how much they sell, but by how they deal with their customers after the sales have been done.

 

4.  Most importantly, stay true to your word. Give people what you promise to give, even if it is a free incentive. If you have said that you will give them some freebie, you should give it to them. Detracting from your promises is the surest way to move towards the downfall of your reputation.

 

5.  Do not indulge in useless competitive strategies with your rivals. No one is ever the winner in such competitive fights. The market gets a bad impression of both, and the businesses of both parties take a tumble for the worse.

 

Remember these important points if you want to improve your goodwill in the market. You have to ensure that you are always striving for that noble reputation, and ironically, that reputation does not come from showing other people down. Only when you are able to stand your ground on the strength of your products and services will people start developing that all-important trust in you and the business you are associated with. 

Have You Made an Analysis of Yourself Yet?

One of the most unfortunate things that happen with most people is that they do not know what they are capable of. They do not have a full realization of their own strengths and weaknesses. They do not know what they are capable of. They live in this ignorance and they are never able to tap into the full potentials that they have.

 

We live with a particular mindset about ourselves. Quite often, even without trying anything we say that we aren’t able to do it. We resign ourselves to the statement that there are some things that aren’t meant to be. And then we begin living by those limitations and constraints that we have set for yourself. This is definitely quite a deterring factor because we are not able to realize our full potential… we aren’t able to do our best.

 

Why does this happen? Why do we have these preconceptions? The problem is, probably, in the way we have led our lives so far. Pitiably, many of us live according to the beliefs that others have created in us. Maybe our parents or teachers or siblings or friends tell us that we cannot do a particular thing and then we never try that thing at all. We remain limited and constrained, even though we might be able to do much more than what we are doing right now.

 

We should never allow other people to decide what we can and cannot do. We know our potentials the best; there is no one else who can know what we are able to do. That is the reason we should always first sit down and think what we are capable of, and then act in that manner.

 

Today, sit down and analyze your situation. What are you capable of doing? What are your strengths and weaknesses? How can you improve on those strengths? What are your passions in life? When you have a complete rational opinion of these things, you are able to go much ahead in life.

 

The important thing to realize is that you should never allow yourself to be influenced by others. People say things for a lark most of the time, without really meaning it, but they can leave indelible impressions on the minds of other people. You should not let that happen to you. You are the only person who can think about yourself in an objective manner.

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.