Effectively run meetings enable managers to accomplish more in a shorter amount of time, with the added benefit of group involvement and buy-in.
This article highlights a few things to consider as you prepare to confidently run your meeting.
Running meetings can be time-consuming if they lack focus, the right members, or effective facilitation tools.
On the other hand, they can also be an extremely efficient way to get things done quickly, to support building a team environment, and to enable collaboration among key people to produce a better outcome than possible working independently.
If you are responsible for running meetings, and aren’t quite sure how best to go about creating an effective meeting experience, you’ll be glad you found this article.
Following are a few key steps to successful meeting management.
Attending to each of these steps will enable you to repeatedly create a well-organised productive experience, and therefore build your confidence that you can run effective meetings.
1. Meet with a purpose
If you ask most people, they have been to one too many meetings that seemed (whether or not accurately so) to have no purpose.
Be sure to call a meeting only if you have a clear reason for doing so.
It doesn’t matter what your reason might be.
If you need information from the group, set a clear agenda with key questions ahead of time.
If you want to share information, draft an outline of your key points. If you just want to get the team together to allow for bonding time, then organize it so that an interactive environment will be facilitated (order pizza, etc.)
2. Communicate your purpose/agenda
So, you know why you’re meeting. Great!
Now, tell everyone else why you are. Be sure to let all attendees know how long the meeting will be, where it will be, and what information is to be covered.
Be sure to let them also know what the goal of the meeting is—what deliverables, outcomes, etc. are expected so they can come prepared.
Just because you’ve called the meeting doesn’t mean you’re the only one who has to do the talking.
Enable them to participate — sharing relevant information ahead of time will ensure they come prepared to contribute, and take the spotlight off of you at the same time.
3. Supporting materials
Come prepared with the appropriate supporting materials.
If this is an information gathering session, bring forms or tools for completion. Presentation? Bring slides/handouts, etc.
Whatever will support communication of your key points, gathering of the required information, or structuring of the discussion should be included to create a stronger sense that everyone’s time is being well spent.
4. Everyone present for a purpose
Please ensure that every single individual invited to the meeting is there for a reason and more importantly, that each attendee clearly understands his/her specific role.
When planning your meeting consider team members’ roles.
How can they contribute?
Do they have key information, skills, experience that you can leverage in the meeting?
Help them feel useful by letting them know the important role you’d like them to play.
Also helpful in running effective meetings, is to assign meeting management roles before you begin the meetings. Some specific meeting facilitation roles might include:
Scribe: to record key information, and meeting minutes
Flipchart recorder: to capture key points, questions visually on flipcharts
Timekeeper: to help keep to the agenda
“Devil’s advocate”: should the group tend to always passively agree to all suggestions, it might be helpful (and fun) to assign someone to play devil’s advocate purely for the purpose of creating creative debate and discussion.
5. Outcomes/agreements captured and reviewed
Before you end the meeting, review the agreed upon action items, along with the responsible parties for each item as discussed during the meeting.
If you’ve assigned meeting scribes or flipchart recorders, then this step should be relatively simple.
6. Next steps defined
Discuss roundabout timeframes for completion of action items, and also make sure to review next steps.
Set expectations now for a follow-up meeting, should one be required.
Let everyone know what you anticipate will need to be covered in the next meeting.
7. Show your appreciation
Every single person’s time is precious.
So, be sure to thank them for their participation and contributions. Motivate key participants by letting them know after the meeting just how helpful their contributions were during the meeting.
This will help to ensure that next time you need to have a meeting; you’ll find willing participants ready to go.
8. Reflect on your process
Identify what went well, and what didn’t.
Learn from your experience and find ways to improve as you move forward. Don’t forget to seek support from your Human Resources Department should you be interested in building your facilitation skills.
Following these 8 steps will ensure that with practice, you will be effectively and smoothly running meetings — with confidence!
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Energy sapping friends & colleagues (known as Oxygen Thieves)
The people whom you have the most contact with and hang around will have either a positive or negative affect on your levels of energy and self-esteem.
We all know those people who are positive, happy and joyful to be around.
Yes, they make you feel the same! They can bring zest into a boring atmosphere and can fill the room with positive, can do vibes that has a knock on effect onto everyone else.
We also know of those people who moan about things being unfair are rarely willing to help themselves, let alone others!
They never had the opportunities, they are always putting people down, they don’t like others to be successful, they are jealous and are negative thinkers - need I go on!
These people drain your energy and bring you down to their level, a million miles away from the level that YOU want to be operating on.
Family members can be a lot like this also but you can always choose your friends and relationship, you can never choose your family!
So what should you do to make sure that the people who you hang around with empower and support what you stand for rather than bring you down all of the time?
We all know those people who are positive, happy and joyful to be around.
How do they make you feel?
Yes, they make you feel the same! They can bring zest into a boring atmosphere and can fill the room with positive, can do vibes that has a knock on effect onto everyone else.
We also know of those people who moan about things being unfair are rarely willing to help themselves, let alone others!
They never had the opportunities, they are always putting people down, they don’t like others to be successful, they are jealous and are negative thinkers - need I go on!
These people drain your energy and bring you down to their level, a million miles away from the level that YOU want to be operating on.
Family members can be a lot like this also but you can always choose your friends and relationship, you can never choose your family!
So what should you do to make sure that the people who you hang around with empower and support what you stand for rather than bring you down all of the time?
- You have the power to choose who you hang around with. Ideally you want happy, vibrant and positive people.
- If you have good friends who are negative and yet you still want to hang around them, make a point of letting them know how you feel – if they are a true friend they will respect you for this. If they are negative from time to time just acknowledge that this is what they are like and block out the negativity.
- The same can be said with family. Your more mature family members have behaviours that have been conditioned for years and years and from different eras. Appreciate where they have come from and as in number 2 above, elicit and select the information that filters through to your brain.
- Remember, that nothing has meaning in life except the meaning that you give it.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Time management
Do you always seem strapped for time?
Do feel that you can never fit everything you want to do in a day?
Does your brain take a battering because you feel overwhelmed?
If so, then this blog is for you!
Having more time is one of the most precious and sought after resources we have.
When you feel in control over your time you have more direction.
Everyone has the same amount of time. However, some have more than others!
When you think about it – what is time? In it’s basic form it is that part of existence which is measured in seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years.
Everyone has the same amount of time to do their “stuff”.
Yet the real winners in life are those that know what they have to do and when and they also don’t get stressed out about those things that happen that have an affect on the amount of time we have between tasks, yet we have no control over.
So, how can you get more time!
The approach
The first thing that you should do is to perform a self assessment of how you are currently spending your time.
Note: This is an actual client's results.
Time Task
08:00 Got out of bed
08:30 Left for work no breakfast
09:00 Got to work, had coffee – chatted to colleagues
09:30 Started reading emails
10:30 Meeting
11:45 Emails
13:00 Lunch
14:00 Meeting
15:30 Coffee break – chat
16:00 General Admin
17:00 Left for home
17:30 Arrived home – changed, coffee, put dinner on – watched tv
18:30 Dinner
19:00 Watched TV
23:00 Went to bed
This could be a typical day.
You may feel as though there were not enough hours in the day and also feel uncomfortable being under pressure with time.
After a weeks worth (5 working days) of time data, collate all of the hours spent on the various tasks and put them into one master table under specific headings.
An example of the output is below:
Activity Hours spent
Now I don’t say that he couldn’t spend time chatting etc because that would not be realistic or the right thing to do.
But I set the client a goal to cut down on the amount of emails/coffee/chatting time to 12 hours per week instead of 18.
Hence, he would be gaining an extra day worth of work!
Also, the client was waking up and rushing to work each morning often getting stuck in traffic of what was a 10 minute journey normally.
However, leave for work at 08:30 especially when the kids are at school and you’re asking for trouble!
Then having arrived at work all hot and bothered the client would take 30 minutes to chill out, get a coffee and have a chat to prepare himself for the day.
By the time this was completed it was 9:30!
I asked the client to wake up just 30 minutes earlier than normal, take a leisurely breakfast and a coffee and then set off to work all relaxed and ready.
That way he could ACTUALLY start work at 9:00!
Also, the difference in travelling time with regards to leaving at say 08:15 and leaving at 08:30 would decrease the amount of travelling time by 15 minutes each day and would account for another hour or so each week.
I also posed the question about the amount of TV the client watched!
A staggering 23.5 hours over a 5 day period!
No wonder he didn’t have a lot of time!
I asked him whether he was enjoying watching the TV or whether he had nothing better to do.
“I just put it on and watch whatever is on” the client replied.
Now I am not one to say that you shouldn’t watch TV, far from it.
What I am saying however is that unless you are getting something out of it, like enjoyment or knowledge from a documentary etc you are literally wasting your time by passing your time by watching TV.
I asked my client to make a list of the alternative things he could do with the time, included a sensible amount of time for the TV programs he just had to watch!
Alternative Activity Why? Benefit?
And all this from saying he didn’t have enough time!
The next step was to ask the client to put an action plan together of what he was going to do and when.
Time is just a feeling really. It is a feeling of pressure that you cannot fit something in.
By analysing his time, he found out that he was wasting a great deal of it and that he could be doing some more productive tasks.
Also, by the way he was managing his time and rushing to work and then having a coffee because he was stressed out because of the rush – it all had a knock on effect to make him feel under pressure and hence “I haven’t got enough time!”
The subject of time management could take up a whole series of manuals to fully explain.
I also described some of the most important elements of time management and some of the techniques that would enable him to organise, schedule and help him to get the most out of his time.
What I would like you to do is to look at some of the vital factors that you must consider when allocating your time.
There are 4 of these factors in total - lets have a look at them.
The first thing that you have to do is to identify how you are spending your time at the present - both at home and at work.
What I would like you to do is write out the tasks or activities that you must do in order for you to achieve the objectives of your job or at home.
These could include work tasks such as meetings, appraisals,e-mails, documentation and the like. Home activities could include cleaning, cooking, shopping, time with the children, watching television. Write all of them down.
After you have identified what you have to do, the next step is to schedule your work and activities.
In order for you to schedule your work there is a need to know two things.
Firstly - You will need to know how long you will want to spend on a particular task - this is determined by how important the task is.
Secondly - you will have to know how soon you have to get the task completed - this is determined by how urgent the task is.
Now, important and urgent are not the same. An urgent task is not necessarily important. It may be urgent but trivial.
A good rule of thumb is to remember that the tasks and activities that you have written will nearly always be important ones.
The unimportant tasks are usually known as reactive tasks.
These are the everyday running problems that have to be dealt with to keep things ticking over - for example, answering the telephone and responding to e-mails.
For successful time management, you must have in your possession a diary. Once you have worked out the tasks that you have to do and their relative importance - the next step that you have to do is to schedule these activities into your diary.
In your diary, block out time for certain tasks. Also allow time for reactive tasks and regular duties - let people know when you are available, also allow time for reviewing and planning at the end of each day.
Scheduling out time for planning is essential on a daily basis. This should be done at the end of the working day or at night for your home duties.
Within this time for planning you should draw up your schedule and also a TO DO list for the next day using the techniques that I have already mentioned.
Using a diary with a day to view facility has advantages.
Firstly, you will have more space to write, so that you will be able to schedule your activities in greater detail.
The day is also broken down more comprehensively into 15 minute blocks of time, giving you better control.
Also, more often than not, on day to view pages, there is usually space for you to write your to-do list next to the actual schedule planner.
Cross out each activity as you complete them and make sure that you complete them all.
I actually use and find that visual work planners are an excellent tool to use.
They illustrate, at a glance, the days that you are off, and any events that you have got planned on particular dates - I would strongly recommend that you purchase one.
The last area that we can look at is time saving techniques.
These are the things that you can do to give yourself more time.
Firstly, by doing less, you can increase more of your available time.
I see so many people who are snowed under with their workload and agenda, these people never seem to have a minute to spare and just take on more and more work.
Let’s have a look at some of the things that you can do. The first and most important question you can ask yourself is this:
Can I delegate certain activities?
You can reduce your workload by getting other people to do it for you.
You can also discourage unnecessary meetings, don’t take work home, don’t take responsibility for other people's problems and don’t become bogged down with detail.
These are some of the things that you can do to free up some of your time, but one of the most important things that you can do is just by saying NO to certain requirements and requests that are asked of you.
It is such an easy word to say in theory, but too many people don’t use it in practise.
Secondly, another excellent time saving technique is by working faster, and by reducing the time for particular tasks.
Ensure deadlines are set and adhered to, keep your communications concise, take the most important tasks when you are alert - it is more time efficient and productive. Learn how to conclude meetings and conversations, ensure meetings are run promptly and on time - there are many others.
Another technique to reduce time is by working more effectively. Make sure that you plan your work, establish clear objectives, set priorities, be realistic, draw up TO DO lists daily and weekly, make efficient use of a diary, plan meetings and plan agendas.
The time management techniques that I have just described will start you off in your quest to control every aspect of your life and, once you have control over your time, you will perform more effectively and have greater enjoyment in your life.
Do feel that you can never fit everything you want to do in a day?
Does your brain take a battering because you feel overwhelmed?
If so, then this blog is for you!
Having more time is one of the most precious and sought after resources we have.
When you feel in control over your time you have more direction.
Everyone has the same amount of time. However, some have more than others!
When you think about it – what is time? In it’s basic form it is that part of existence which is measured in seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years.
Everyone has the same amount of time to do their “stuff”.
Yet the real winners in life are those that know what they have to do and when and they also don’t get stressed out about those things that happen that have an affect on the amount of time we have between tasks, yet we have no control over.
So, how can you get more time!
The approach
The first thing that you should do is to perform a self assessment of how you are currently spending your time.
- Complete a diary for 1 typical week
- Write down how you are spending your time
Note: This is an actual client's results.
Time Task
08:00 Got out of bed
08:30 Left for work no breakfast
09:00 Got to work, had coffee – chatted to colleagues
09:30 Started reading emails
10:30 Meeting
11:45 Emails
13:00 Lunch
14:00 Meeting
15:30 Coffee break – chat
16:00 General Admin
17:00 Left for home
17:30 Arrived home – changed, coffee, put dinner on – watched tv
18:30 Dinner
19:00 Watched TV
23:00 Went to bed
This could be a typical day.
You may feel as though there were not enough hours in the day and also feel uncomfortable being under pressure with time.
After a weeks worth (5 working days) of time data, collate all of the hours spent on the various tasks and put them into one master table under specific headings.
An example of the output is below:
Activity Hours spent
- Sleep 47 hours
- Travelling to work 3 hours
- Arrive at work/coffee/chat 2 hours
- Emails 14 hours
- Meetings 9 hours
- Lunch 4 hours
- Afternoon break/chats 2.5 hours
- Admin 3 hours
- Travelling home 4 hours
- Prepare dinner/chilling out 6 hours
- Dinner 2 hours
- Watching TV 23.5 hours
Now I don’t say that he couldn’t spend time chatting etc because that would not be realistic or the right thing to do.
But I set the client a goal to cut down on the amount of emails/coffee/chatting time to 12 hours per week instead of 18.
Hence, he would be gaining an extra day worth of work!
Also, the client was waking up and rushing to work each morning often getting stuck in traffic of what was a 10 minute journey normally.
However, leave for work at 08:30 especially when the kids are at school and you’re asking for trouble!
Then having arrived at work all hot and bothered the client would take 30 minutes to chill out, get a coffee and have a chat to prepare himself for the day.
By the time this was completed it was 9:30!
I asked the client to wake up just 30 minutes earlier than normal, take a leisurely breakfast and a coffee and then set off to work all relaxed and ready.
That way he could ACTUALLY start work at 9:00!
Also, the difference in travelling time with regards to leaving at say 08:15 and leaving at 08:30 would decrease the amount of travelling time by 15 minutes each day and would account for another hour or so each week.
I also posed the question about the amount of TV the client watched!
A staggering 23.5 hours over a 5 day period!
No wonder he didn’t have a lot of time!
I asked him whether he was enjoying watching the TV or whether he had nothing better to do.
“I just put it on and watch whatever is on” the client replied.
Now I am not one to say that you shouldn’t watch TV, far from it.
What I am saying however is that unless you are getting something out of it, like enjoyment or knowledge from a documentary etc you are literally wasting your time by passing your time by watching TV.
I asked my client to make a list of the alternative things he could do with the time, included a sensible amount of time for the TV programs he just had to watch!
Alternative Activity Why? Benefit?
- Gym/Workout - Lose weight, have more energy
- Read more – newspapers/books Gain knowledge/keep up to date
- Work an 30 mins at work - Miss out on 5:00pm rush, cut travelling time by 15 mins, get more work done
- Go out in the week - Get out of the habit of staying in during work days. Enjoyment etc
- Night School - Get that post graduate qualification I’ve always wanted
- Start a part time business - Earn extra money!
And all this from saying he didn’t have enough time!
The next step was to ask the client to put an action plan together of what he was going to do and when.
Time is just a feeling really. It is a feeling of pressure that you cannot fit something in.
By analysing his time, he found out that he was wasting a great deal of it and that he could be doing some more productive tasks.
Also, by the way he was managing his time and rushing to work and then having a coffee because he was stressed out because of the rush – it all had a knock on effect to make him feel under pressure and hence “I haven’t got enough time!”
The subject of time management could take up a whole series of manuals to fully explain.
I also described some of the most important elements of time management and some of the techniques that would enable him to organise, schedule and help him to get the most out of his time.
What I would like you to do is to look at some of the vital factors that you must consider when allocating your time.
There are 4 of these factors in total - lets have a look at them.
The first thing that you have to do is to identify how you are spending your time at the present - both at home and at work.
What I would like you to do is write out the tasks or activities that you must do in order for you to achieve the objectives of your job or at home.
These could include work tasks such as meetings, appraisals,e-mails, documentation and the like. Home activities could include cleaning, cooking, shopping, time with the children, watching television. Write all of them down.
After you have identified what you have to do, the next step is to schedule your work and activities.
In order for you to schedule your work there is a need to know two things.
Firstly - You will need to know how long you will want to spend on a particular task - this is determined by how important the task is.
Secondly - you will have to know how soon you have to get the task completed - this is determined by how urgent the task is.
Now, important and urgent are not the same. An urgent task is not necessarily important. It may be urgent but trivial.
A good rule of thumb is to remember that the tasks and activities that you have written will nearly always be important ones.
The unimportant tasks are usually known as reactive tasks.
These are the everyday running problems that have to be dealt with to keep things ticking over - for example, answering the telephone and responding to e-mails.
For successful time management, you must have in your possession a diary. Once you have worked out the tasks that you have to do and their relative importance - the next step that you have to do is to schedule these activities into your diary.
In your diary, block out time for certain tasks. Also allow time for reactive tasks and regular duties - let people know when you are available, also allow time for reviewing and planning at the end of each day.
Scheduling out time for planning is essential on a daily basis. This should be done at the end of the working day or at night for your home duties.
Within this time for planning you should draw up your schedule and also a TO DO list for the next day using the techniques that I have already mentioned.
Using a diary with a day to view facility has advantages.
Firstly, you will have more space to write, so that you will be able to schedule your activities in greater detail.
The day is also broken down more comprehensively into 15 minute blocks of time, giving you better control.
Also, more often than not, on day to view pages, there is usually space for you to write your to-do list next to the actual schedule planner.
Cross out each activity as you complete them and make sure that you complete them all.
I actually use and find that visual work planners are an excellent tool to use.
They illustrate, at a glance, the days that you are off, and any events that you have got planned on particular dates - I would strongly recommend that you purchase one.
The last area that we can look at is time saving techniques.
These are the things that you can do to give yourself more time.
Firstly, by doing less, you can increase more of your available time.
I see so many people who are snowed under with their workload and agenda, these people never seem to have a minute to spare and just take on more and more work.
Let’s have a look at some of the things that you can do. The first and most important question you can ask yourself is this:
Can I delegate certain activities?
You can reduce your workload by getting other people to do it for you.
You can also discourage unnecessary meetings, don’t take work home, don’t take responsibility for other people's problems and don’t become bogged down with detail.
These are some of the things that you can do to free up some of your time, but one of the most important things that you can do is just by saying NO to certain requirements and requests that are asked of you.
It is such an easy word to say in theory, but too many people don’t use it in practise.
Secondly, another excellent time saving technique is by working faster, and by reducing the time for particular tasks.
Ensure deadlines are set and adhered to, keep your communications concise, take the most important tasks when you are alert - it is more time efficient and productive. Learn how to conclude meetings and conversations, ensure meetings are run promptly and on time - there are many others.
Another technique to reduce time is by working more effectively. Make sure that you plan your work, establish clear objectives, set priorities, be realistic, draw up TO DO lists daily and weekly, make efficient use of a diary, plan meetings and plan agendas.
The time management techniques that I have just described will start you off in your quest to control every aspect of your life and, once you have control over your time, you will perform more effectively and have greater enjoyment in your life.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Unstoppable Confidence
20 quick and practical methods to increase your confidence, here we go:
1. Think about someone who is confident and act, talk and walk like him or her. Model their mannerisms and behaviour. It works for them; it will work for you.
2. Smile a lot more. That doesn’t mean putting a silly grin on your face! But smile when you walk down the street, when you meet people and generally be happier even if you’re not feeling that way.
3. Learn from the past; don’t beat yourself up about it. It’s gone; it’s never coming back. Instead learn from it for next time.
4. Buy yourself some new clothes, get your hair done, treat yourself to something new. It will make you feel better and will give your ego a boost.
5. Are you prepared for situations? Are you prepared enough to meet any challenge that may come up? Are you prepared for that meeting, that presentation, that job interview, when you meet someone for the first time? If not, get to it.
6. Play to your strengths. Know what you are good at and expose yourself to these opportunities at every opportunity – because you’re good at it, you’ll enjoy it and have more confidence.
7. Improve your weaknesses. Know and appreciate what these are and put a plan in place to improve them over time.
8. Learn how to say no to people. Don’t be afraid, you’ve got nothing to be afraid of. Just watch the reaction on their face after you’ve said it the first time and there will be no going back.
9. Be positive. Look on the “can do” side of things rather than the “can’t do”. You’ve accomplished lots in your life and you will accomplish lots more in the future.
10. Be in charge of your thoughts at all times. What is a thought? It’s just a question that you’ve asked yourself and the thought is you’re answer. If you’re thinking negative thoughts, you’re probably asking a negative question. Change the questions to be more positive.
11. Whenever you feel a negative thought coming, STOP, THINK, and say is this really important in the grand scheme of things. A lot of the time it isn’t. Many people in life major in minor things!
12. Do you let the words of others affect you? Do you mind what they think of you? Remember that no one can make you feel inferior without your consent. It’s not what they say to you that’s the problem it’s what you say to yourself after they have stopped talking that’s the problem. Change the way you think.
13. List the words that you use on a consistent basis when you feel let down or annoyed. People use different words to mean the same thing and depending upon the intensity of the word – this will have an effect on your confidence. Instead of saying “I’m enraged about this” say, “I’m a little annoyed”. Make a substitute list for the words that you use. Make sure they are lower in intensity and then use them. You’ll be surprised with the results.
14. At the end of each day list your achievements and successes throughout that day.
15. Be appreciative of what you have to be thankful for in your life right now. Who do you love? Who loves you? Who do you help out?
16. Every morning when you’re in the shower, play over in your head the events in the day as though they have already happened and they were a success. Visualise all of the meetings that you had, the people you talked to, the outcomes you had. Visualise success and confidence and it will be so.
17. Improve your body language. The way that you move your body has a massive impact on your confidence levels. Move your body assertively and walk with your head up, shoulders back and as though you’ve got somewhere very important to go. Feeling low in confidence? Change your body language.
18. Emotion is created by motion. Make sure you move around consistently. This creates energy and gets the blood pumping around your body – it makes you feel better and more confident.
19. Learn to brag about yourself. Yes, you heard me! Talk about your achievements and successes more than you currently are.
20. And finally – You only live once, so any time that you are down just ask yourself in 10 or 20 years time – will what I am worrying about really matter?
1. Think about someone who is confident and act, talk and walk like him or her. Model their mannerisms and behaviour. It works for them; it will work for you.
2. Smile a lot more. That doesn’t mean putting a silly grin on your face! But smile when you walk down the street, when you meet people and generally be happier even if you’re not feeling that way.
3. Learn from the past; don’t beat yourself up about it. It’s gone; it’s never coming back. Instead learn from it for next time.
4. Buy yourself some new clothes, get your hair done, treat yourself to something new. It will make you feel better and will give your ego a boost.
5. Are you prepared for situations? Are you prepared enough to meet any challenge that may come up? Are you prepared for that meeting, that presentation, that job interview, when you meet someone for the first time? If not, get to it.
6. Play to your strengths. Know what you are good at and expose yourself to these opportunities at every opportunity – because you’re good at it, you’ll enjoy it and have more confidence.
7. Improve your weaknesses. Know and appreciate what these are and put a plan in place to improve them over time.
8. Learn how to say no to people. Don’t be afraid, you’ve got nothing to be afraid of. Just watch the reaction on their face after you’ve said it the first time and there will be no going back.
9. Be positive. Look on the “can do” side of things rather than the “can’t do”. You’ve accomplished lots in your life and you will accomplish lots more in the future.
10. Be in charge of your thoughts at all times. What is a thought? It’s just a question that you’ve asked yourself and the thought is you’re answer. If you’re thinking negative thoughts, you’re probably asking a negative question. Change the questions to be more positive.
11. Whenever you feel a negative thought coming, STOP, THINK, and say is this really important in the grand scheme of things. A lot of the time it isn’t. Many people in life major in minor things!
12. Do you let the words of others affect you? Do you mind what they think of you? Remember that no one can make you feel inferior without your consent. It’s not what they say to you that’s the problem it’s what you say to yourself after they have stopped talking that’s the problem. Change the way you think.
13. List the words that you use on a consistent basis when you feel let down or annoyed. People use different words to mean the same thing and depending upon the intensity of the word – this will have an effect on your confidence. Instead of saying “I’m enraged about this” say, “I’m a little annoyed”. Make a substitute list for the words that you use. Make sure they are lower in intensity and then use them. You’ll be surprised with the results.
14. At the end of each day list your achievements and successes throughout that day.
15. Be appreciative of what you have to be thankful for in your life right now. Who do you love? Who loves you? Who do you help out?
16. Every morning when you’re in the shower, play over in your head the events in the day as though they have already happened and they were a success. Visualise all of the meetings that you had, the people you talked to, the outcomes you had. Visualise success and confidence and it will be so.
17. Improve your body language. The way that you move your body has a massive impact on your confidence levels. Move your body assertively and walk with your head up, shoulders back and as though you’ve got somewhere very important to go. Feeling low in confidence? Change your body language.
18. Emotion is created by motion. Make sure you move around consistently. This creates energy and gets the blood pumping around your body – it makes you feel better and more confident.
19. Learn to brag about yourself. Yes, you heard me! Talk about your achievements and successes more than you currently are.
20. And finally – You only live once, so any time that you are down just ask yourself in 10 or 20 years time – will what I am worrying about really matter?
Saturday, April 3, 2010
How to Set Goals
When you are trying to stay in shape, goal setting can be a very powerful means of keeping on track. It allows you to visualize what physical and mental improvements you hope to achieve by exercising, and enables you to determine the best means of doing so.
Setting goals can be an exhilarating process because it assists you in deciding what direction you wish life to move next. By setting the right goals, you might find that you develop your body and mind in like never before.
For a goal to be powerful, it needs to perform three key functions:
1. It must motivate you;
2. It must be something realistic that you can believe in; and
3. It must be something that you are able to take actual steps to accomplish.
When your goals motivate you and you actually consider them something that you can achieve, you will find yourself driven to undertake the actions necessary to bring them to fruition.
In addition to its immediate benefits, the goal setting process can also help you in the long term. The goals you set should take into consideration what you want to accomplish once your initial goals have been met. Your long term goals should be complimentary to those you have set yourself in the short term – for instance, you might aim to improve your aerobic fitness steadily each month so that you can compete in an end-of-year marathon. This will keep your enthusiasm levels up as you develop healthy lifestyle habits, preventing training fatigue.
Goal setting is made up of four key parts:
1. Evaluation – Before you can move forward and realize your goals, you have to work out where you are now in relation to them.
2. Goals – It is important for you to decide what your actual goals are. This should not be based on what you feel you will be able to achieve or on what society tells you that you should want. These are your own personal catalysts for action; they are what you imagine yourself having when you dream about the future.
3. S.M.A.R.T. Goals - S.M.A.R.T. stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-sensitive.
• Specific: You should be able to easily express your goal in one or two sentences. If you can’t, it probably isn’t specific enough.
• Measurable: Your goal should have an aspect that is able to be measured (e.g. the waistband on a pair of pants), otherwise you will be unable to ascertain how successful your efforts have been.
• Attainable: Your goal must be something that you genuinely believe you will be capable of achieving given your current circumstances.
• Realistic: If your goal is not something that you can undertake practically, then it is not realistic.
• Time: Every goal you have should have an allotted timeframe. This way you can ensure that you have not given yourself too little (or too much) time to accomplish it.
4. Accountability - When you have well-defined goals, it is easy to be honest with yourself when trying to measure your success in reaching them.
Setting goals can be an exhilarating process because it assists you in deciding what direction you wish life to move next. By setting the right goals, you might find that you develop your body and mind in like never before.
For a goal to be powerful, it needs to perform three key functions:
1. It must motivate you;
2. It must be something realistic that you can believe in; and
3. It must be something that you are able to take actual steps to accomplish.
When your goals motivate you and you actually consider them something that you can achieve, you will find yourself driven to undertake the actions necessary to bring them to fruition.
In addition to its immediate benefits, the goal setting process can also help you in the long term. The goals you set should take into consideration what you want to accomplish once your initial goals have been met. Your long term goals should be complimentary to those you have set yourself in the short term – for instance, you might aim to improve your aerobic fitness steadily each month so that you can compete in an end-of-year marathon. This will keep your enthusiasm levels up as you develop healthy lifestyle habits, preventing training fatigue.
Goal setting is made up of four key parts:
1. Evaluation – Before you can move forward and realize your goals, you have to work out where you are now in relation to them.
2. Goals – It is important for you to decide what your actual goals are. This should not be based on what you feel you will be able to achieve or on what society tells you that you should want. These are your own personal catalysts for action; they are what you imagine yourself having when you dream about the future.
3. S.M.A.R.T. Goals - S.M.A.R.T. stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-sensitive.
• Specific: You should be able to easily express your goal in one or two sentences. If you can’t, it probably isn’t specific enough.
• Measurable: Your goal should have an aspect that is able to be measured (e.g. the waistband on a pair of pants), otherwise you will be unable to ascertain how successful your efforts have been.
• Attainable: Your goal must be something that you genuinely believe you will be capable of achieving given your current circumstances.
• Realistic: If your goal is not something that you can undertake practically, then it is not realistic.
• Time: Every goal you have should have an allotted timeframe. This way you can ensure that you have not given yourself too little (or too much) time to accomplish it.
4. Accountability - When you have well-defined goals, it is easy to be honest with yourself when trying to measure your success in reaching them.
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