NIMBLE FOUNDATION BLOG – STAY SAFE!

Before talking about the secret to sensational success or even outlining a formula, it’s important to define success and just what it means to you. Everyone has their own individual definition of success. But there’s absolutely no way we can talk about the secret to success without first creating some definition of what success actually means to us.

Success in life has nothing to do with where you start. Sure, people who start advantageously in one area or another might have a leg up, but it has almost nothing to do with where they end up in life. Sensational success transcends circumstances.

Many people talk about success. They say they want to be successful at something. But, when prodded, they don’t provide specifics because they haven’t really created those specifics in their minds. Sure, they might want to earn more money, drive a nicer car, get a better job, or travel to some far-off destination, but they haven’t set specific and measurable goals that are written down on paper.

Secret No.1

How to break bad habits and build ones?

Habits become hard to break to because they are deeply wired by constant repetition into our brains. Bad habits interrupt your life and prevent you from accomplishing your goals. They jeopardize your health — both mentally and physically. And they waste your time and energy. But habits are also patterns of behavior and it is the breaking of patterns that are the key to breaking the habits themselves. Usually there is a clear trigger to starts the pattern. Sometimes the triggers are emotional — the wanting a drink or cigarette or nail-biting driven by stress. Other times the trigger is more simply situational and environmental: You see the TV and couch as soon as you hit the front door, and now your brain connects the dots, and eating dinner in front of the TV on the couch is not far behind. More often it is a combination of both — the mix of social anxiety and the party environment leads to your heavier drinking.

Choose a habit you care about doing regularly. Don’t worry about whether other people think it’s important. For instance, don’t try to exercise every day because you think you should. It won’t be long before your motivation for doing that habit will wane and you’ll be relying on willpower alone to get you through (not a great idea—we only have so much willpower, so you want to find a way to build habits without relying on it too much).

If you choose, on the other hand, to walk your dog every day or to play outside with your kids, those habits might come with a lot more motivation for your personally than going to the gym. And yet, they happen to include some exercise. See how that works?

Find something you’re motivated to do. You’ll need that motivation to keep you going, since habits can be an uphill battle until they become ingrained.

The more often you do your habit, the stronger it will become. Each repetition enforces it as a behavior and strengthens the pathways in your brain related to it. Eventually, all that repetition makes the behavior automatic, something you do without thinking about it, which is when we call it a habit.

If you’re only doing something once or twice a week, it’s going to take a long time for that behavior to develop into a habit. You’re spending more of your week not doing it.

Try to find a habit you can track every day, or every weekday at least. The more you do it, the faster you’ll develop it into a real habit.

If you aim to run 5km every day after not exercising for the past two years, you probably won’t keep that up for long. To keep on track with your new habit you need to choose something achievable so you’ll always feel that if you make the effort you can do it.

The last thing you want is ability getting in the way when you’re already battling with your willpower.

If you need to choose something tiny to start with, go for it. Better a tiny habit that you do every day than a huge one you hardly ever complete.

Secret No.2

How to identify which are Wasteful Habits?

Habits can be difficult to change, but it is possible to replace them with new behaviors. When you replace bad habits with activities that focus on that worthwhile 20 percent, you’ll find yourself much more successful in the same amount of–or perhaps even less–time per week.

People will always want to schedule meetings. It makes them feel more productive, but if there is nothing to gain, it ends up being just a big fat waste of time. Know what you’re getting into before stepping foot into a meeting before you just waste time talking about what could be or what could have been.

Getting rid of bad people is probably even more crucial than bringing in great people. If you don’t get the wrong people out quickly, you’re only doing half your job. It might sound like a rationalization, but it is quite likely that you’re doing a favor to this employee if you make that decision sooner, and let them go. It can be beneficial to everyone involved, with no hard feelings.

Cut those customers who always want something but don’t pay. The ones that don’t value what you have to offer, and constantly question your prices. If they don’t value you now, they never will, and you’ll constantly be justifying the work you do, no matter how cheap.

Cut them loose. Give them the heave-ho. tell them goodbye and never look back. Only work with clients who appreciate your value.

We have been trained to look for shortcuts. Copy-pasting, plagiarizing, repurposing, skimming, the list goes on and on. But in my experience, shortcuts always lead to failed projects and unhappy clients. 

Hopefully, someone will catch the mistakes inherent in shortcuts and make you fix it, or start over from scratch. You spend more time fixing the mistake than you saved by taking the shortcut; if it’s the who client catches these mistakes, not only will it cost you time and money, but also their respect and confidence. 

Do you come into the office with a plan? Do you have an agenda for that day or week? Do you know what items you need to tackle today and in what order

If not, then congratulations: you’re “winging it”.

To “wing” something means to enter any situation without a plan of action. When you “wing” your day, you get pulled into every meeting, and you usually respond to every call. 

By starting your day with a plan of your priorities, you don’t waste time, and you know what items take priority; not only do the most important tasks get accomplished first, but you are able to finish more tasks overall because you waste less time leaving items half-finished and coming back to them later.

Secret No.3

How to value your time & leverage it to make its best use?

Sure, tactics like maintaining “to-do” lists (or “done” lists), setting goals, and decreasing the amount and time of meetings can all help. But really, these are all tactics that fall into a strategical category of leveraging our time.

Leverage is an awesome force–it allows us to multiply our abilities by applying a little pressure to something.

What a sharp contrast from our modern day! Now, words are cheap: they are everywhere, constantly bombarding us with useless information and trivial tweets. Heartfelt letters to a lover are rare. More often, we see texts sent with emoticons and mutilated misspellings.

The sad truth is, few of us place value in the words we speak. We open our mouths to hear the music of our own voices, rarely considering the worth of what we are saying.

A man’s reputation can be ruined by loose lips. Just look at politics. The more we say, the more likely we are to say something stupid. The sheer volume of words issuing from our mouths statistically invites idiocy. We all have had moments when we’ve made everyone laugh a few times, but it all stops when we say something off-putting. The humor quickly evaporates, leaving us with reddened faces.

Especially when dealing with our bosses or members of the opposite sex, we can be tempted to avoid awkward silence by filling it with even more awkward chatter. This can inevitably lead to saying something regrettable and possibly offensive.

The less we talk, the more we observe! Our idle words that flow from our mouths with little consequence, are often the outpouring of our minds chattering away. When we stop talking, restraining our words, we will find that that the voice inside also grows silent. This allows us to get out of the world in our heads, and look at the world around us, seeing things that we might not have noticed before.

On the range, inattention to the world around you was dangerous. The very land itself was ready to kill you at any moment. If you were idly talking about nothing with your guard down, you wouldn’t have noticed a hostile enemy creeping up behind you with knife in hand.

While we don’t necessarily need to be worried about being scalped at the office, being absorbed in our world is still dangerous. It can range from not seeing the car pulling out in front of you or failing to observe a girl is interested in you. When we pull ourselves from the constant flow of words in our minds and out of our mouths, it frees us to really see what is going on in our lives.

When speaking to others, it is good to keep what you are saying in the right tone. Telling jokes while attending a funeral isn’t often a great idea.

Is there impact to what you are about to say? When you speak, you should have a better reason for what you say than, “I wanted to.” Ideally, everything you say should have a purpose or reason. Maybe your friend is feeling down and you know that he loves a good joke. Your girlfriend has had a bad day, so you tell her something encouraging that you love about her. The goal is to reduce the amount of unnecessary things you say, because it’s usually the unnecessary words we later regret.

No doubt, at times a cowboy would give someone a piece of his mind, regardless of whether or not it hurt the other’s feelings. This was done with courage because it could easily provoke a gunfight and had more behind it than mere spite. Today, we don’t often come to blows or gunfire over insults, but that doesn’t mean we should weigh the consequences less. Speaking the truth hurts at times. Saying off-handedly to your wife or girlfriend that the dinner she made was OK may not seem harmful; but the comment may hurt them more than you realize.

 At the end of the day, we don’t have much more than our reputations. A Cowboy certainly didn’t. We should take care that our words don’t reflect badly on ourselves. The easiest way for a powerful man to seem foolish is to run his mouth off, revealing to all how little control he actually has over himself. What we choose to say often reveals our character.

Secret No.4

How Time Log should be used to maintain your focus?

The problem with working harder is that it simply doesn’t work. The human brain isn’t designed to operate at full power all day long. Rather than helping you get closer to your goals, trying to focus for extended periods of time can fry your mental circuits, making it impossible to think clearly. As a result, your decision-making and creativity suffer, and your work slows to a crawl. Focus also involves an understanding of what is worthy of your distraction.

Many people wish they had more time to do all they want to do, but they’re ‘just so busy’.

Keeping a time log is a simple and surprisingly effective way to boost your productivity, get what needs to be done actually done, and realize just how ‘busy’ you’ve really been.

In many respects, it’s the first step you need to take because it makes you aware of just how you’re spending your time — the key to managing yourself more effectively.

Just by making the effort to record and analyze how you spend your day will itself raise awareness of your time and how you’re using it.

The time you invest to do it will almost certainly be paid back to you many times over as you become more conscious of how much your time matters?

Keeping a personal time management log helps you identify what you’re spending too long on… or not doing enough!

It’s surprising just how disruptive and destructive a break in focus can be for your productivity.

Often, it’s only when you look back that you can see just how much time was wasted on low value activities that you could easily outsource to others, or not get involved in at all.

Spot patterns that highlight what times of day you’re most likely to be productive, and also when you’re less so. Knowing your patterns of productivity is useful for planning.

Secret No.5

How to watch your perspective of life and keep updating it?

Perspective has many definitions, such as the ability to understand what is important and what isn’t, and the capacity to view things in their true relationship or relative importance. If you are only thinking about problems and sorrows, that’s exactly what are you going to attract in your life. If you change your perspective and start thinking about solutions and opportunities, you are sending vibrations to attract an abundance of them.

Are you having trouble looking for the silver lining? Feeling burned out can negatively affect your life as well as your career.

Try writing a page or two on what you would like to do with the rest of your life. Don’t worry about grammar, practicalities or priorities. Just create that dream list.

Record your thoughts, feelings and hopes, or tell them to a trusted friend. With someone to witness them, you’ll feel responsible for making some changes.

Secret No.6

How to align your actions with your goals?

It’s nice to have goals. The act of setting goals along makes you much more likely to achieve them.

But having goals isn’t enough. It’s far too easy to jot down some goals that make you feel good about yourself, only to then get distracted and forget about them altogether.

The key to achieving your goals is really simple. It comes down to aligning your actions with your goals — every single day.

If you want to lose weight, you need to eat better. If you want to build muscle, you need to lift weights. If you want to write a book, you need to start writing.

And if you want to grow your business, you need to start doing some marketing.

Goals are helpful to direct your steps. But more important than goals is the strong reason “why” you work for those goals.

When you know the deep reason why you seek for them, you’ll be more motivated to push through.

You’ll intentionally seek for opportunities that align with your “why”. You’ll filter your actions that do not support it. You’ll start your day with clarity. It’s never impossible for you to enjoy life and make a living at the same time. You can work hard or do more and still feel fulfilled.

You lose your journey to a fulfilling life when you settle your eyes on the metrics of others.

When you examine yourself, you slowly find out why you do certain actions.

When employees don’t know their company’s mission, vision or core values, they are left with a lack of direction. Instead, they need to be aware of how their projects fit into the overall organizational framework and how their specific contributions impact company strategy.

The key here is alignment. Employees at all levels need to be aligned on their companies’ larger goals, and those goals need to be broken down to a smaller scale to ensure that people remain engaged in day-to-day operations.

Managers who consistently provide feedback can help keep employees focused on their performance. Feedback acts as a reminder. Without it, employees get too caught up in their daily tasks and lose sight of the bigger picture.

Employees see the value in feedback, as well. Work board found that 72 percent of employees surveyed thought their performance would improve with more feedback. Job feedback should focus on growth and forward thinking by and how employees can learn from their mistakes.  

Additionally, employers should seek feedback from their staff. If employees feel that they aren’t informed properly or are missing information, they should be able to speak up.

If, for example, a tenured employee finds new directives to be off track, he or she should be able to express concerns and ask how a particular project contributes to the overall organizational goals.

Employees should know their role in each of their projects. To help them do this, you can use visuals to explain the company’s overall strategy and how each role advances toward its goals. Some project-management platforms provide real-time goal-tracking and present it in charts and graphs to demonstrate individual and group progress.

It’s also important to assign the right tasks to the right people. Use feedback and performance reviews to understand each employee’s level of competency and what his or her strengths are, to maintain and even improve productivity. If particular employees excel at closing sales deals, put them on the front line on client presentations.

Tasks, further, should challenge an employee to grow. Consistent feedback lets employers know their employees’ plan to evolve, which in turn informs the assignment of projects. If, for example, a tenured employee wants to expand his or her skill set and learn more about research and development, the employer can integrate that individual’s role with that department.

Engagement is essential to keep a company growing and reaching for its vision. When employees aren’t recognized, they lose track of their purpose. But in contrast, when wins are celebrated, employees want to win more.  

A simple expression of gratitude, such as a thank-you note or gift, shows employees that management is paying attention and notices that they are consistently working hard and succeeding at their individual goals.

When recognizing top talent, explain how employees’ efforts are pushing the company toward large-scale goals. Show how their performance is meeting and exceeding expectations to encourage more hard work and dedication.

Secret No.7

How to keep in mind that your first duty is to yourself for bringing Sensation Success in your life?

It’s the easiest thing in the world to give up from a failure. The only way to push on is if you have the true burning desire to succeed, to not be moved or dissuaded from your goals.

What is success to you? How to be successful in life?

To some, when they think of success, they imagine wealth; others want power; some just want to make a positive impact on the world.

All of these are perfectly valid, indeed success is a concept that means different things to different people. Though no matter what success is to you, it almost certainly isn’t something will come easily.

There are countless guides and books to being successful, however, as success is personal and unique to each individual. The advice contained in these books can often not be relevant. Therefore following the advice of a single individual can often be unhelpful.

With this in mind, considering the advice of a great many people, people whose ideas of success were different both to each other, and quite possibly, to you can be a good alternative.

Understand that life is the ultimate video game: It keeps leveling up, and you have to level up with it.

Do something well enough that you make it look easy. Even if it takes 10,000 hours to get there, it’ll be worth it in the end. Figure out what your values are and stick with them. Kindness is a scarce and valuable resource. Cherish it.

Fear is the number one thing holding you back from what you want to do. Be brave enough to follow your heart. Not enough people will be.

Perspective comes when you’re not in the middle of the situation. The best view of the NYC skyline is in New Jersey, not on Fifth Avenue.

Trust your gut. When your spidery sense is tingling, pay close attention. Somehow it knows better than you do when something is right or wrong.

You will never know how much space you take up in someone else’s world.

Wounding people binds them to you more deeply than kindness. Just look at the Joker and Harley Quinn.

With that said, try to leave people better off than you found them. Leaving them worse off will have repercussions for them far beyond just you, touching everyone they interact with in the future (i.e., if you’re the first ex-boyfriend who broke her heart, she will be guarded around every man she meets after you. If you’re that first terrible boss at work, he will be jaded for the rest of his career. Just something to think about.)

Try not to use people as a means to an end. They can tell. So can you.

Most of the time, people are not trying to hurt you on purpose. Usually their actions are driven by self-interest, not malice.

Give people a second chance, if they deserve one.

Insecurity is a bitch; it bleeds into everything and can come out in unexpected ways. Be careful with your insecurities and especially careful with those of others.

The easiest way to be happy is to not be outcome-dependent.

The best relationships are like fine wine: They get better and better over time.

Whenever you can, pay it forward.

You have to have a reason for being. If your why is strong enough, then your how will fall into place. You will figure out a way.

If you’re wondering why it’s so important to do what you love, it’s because work takes up so much of your life. The vast majority of your most productive waking hours will be spent at work, so in order to love your life, you have to love what you do for a living.

Habits are routine behaviors done on a regular basis. They are recurrent and often unconscious patterns of behavior and are acquired through frequent repetition. Many of these are unconscious as we don’t even realize we are doing them. It is a settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up. Habit, from the standpoint of psychology, [as] a more or less fixed way of thinking, willing, or feeling acquired through previous repetition of a mental experience. Habitual behavior often goes unnoticed in persons exhibiting it. Habitual behavior often goes unnoticed in persons exhibiting it, because a person does not need to engage in self-analysis when undertaking routine tasks. Habits are sometimes compulsory. When behaviors are repeated in a consistent context, there is an incremental increase in the link between the context and the action. This increases the automatically of the behavior in that context

Bad habits interrupt your life and prevent you from accomplishing your goals. They jeopardize your health — both mentally and physically. And they waste your time and energy.

So why do we still do them? And most importantly, is there anything you can do about it?

We all have a bad habit or two we could stand to lose, but habits are hard to break. Whether your bad habit is procrastinating, overspending, swearing, or any other one you want to change.

Features of an automatic behavior are all or some of:

•        Efficiency

•        Lack of awareness

•        Unintentionality

•        Uncontrollability

How habits are formed?

Habit formation is the process by which a behavior, through regular repetition, becomes automatic or habitual. This is modelled as an increase in automaticity with number of repetitions up to an asymptote. This process of habit formation can be slow.

As the habit is forming, it can be analyzed in three parts: the cue, the behavior, and the reward. The cue is the thing that causes the habit to come about, the trigger of the habitual behavior. This could be anything that one’s mind associates with that habit and one will automatically let a habit come to the surface.

Take complete responsibility for your actions. You are the king or queen of your actions — no one is responsible for them but you. When you get behind the driver’s seat after three too many drinks that is your decision. In some ways, it may be more practical than getting on a bus or hailing a taxi, but it’s still your decision. Whether you want to or not, you own up to your decisions at some point.

• Realizing that you are completely responsible for your actions can leave you feeling overwhelmed or even paralyzed at first. You begin to realize that each of your actions has repercussions, and that those repercussions are wildly different than the ones you may have imagined when you acted in the first place. It’s a scary thought.
• But ultimately, being completely responsible for your actions is empowering. You are the maker of your own destiny. Within certain norms, no one else can tell you what to do. Taking full responsibility for your actions gives you freedom. You begin to understand how habits can be metaphorical chains, and how breaking them can set you free.

Shopping habits are particularly vulnerable to change at “major life moments” like graduation, marriage, birth of first child, moving to a new home, and divorce. Some stores use purchase data to try to detect these events and take advantage of the marketing opportunity.

Some habits are known as “keystone habits”, and these influence the formation of other habits. For example, identifying as the type of person who takes care of their body and is in the habit of exercising regularly, can also influence eating better and using credit cards less.

A recent study by Adriaanse et al. (2014) found that habits mediate the relationship between self-control and unhealthy snack consumption. The results of the study empirically demonstrate that high-self-control may influence the formation of habits and in turn affect behavior.

Importance of habits

The habit–goal interface or interaction is constrained by the particular manner in which habits are learned and represented in memory. Specifically, the associative learning underlying habits is characterized by the slow, incremental accrual of information over time in procedural memory. Habits can either benefit or hurt the goals a person sets for themselves.

Goals guide habits by providing the initial outcome-oriented motivation for response repetition. In this sense, habits are often a trace of past goal pursuit. Although, when a habit forces one action, but a conscious goal pushes for another action, an oppositional context occurs. When the habit prevails over the conscious goal, a capture error has taken place.

Behavior prediction is also derived from goals. Behavior prediction is to acknowledge the likelihood that a habit will form, but in order to form that habit, a goal must have been initially present. The influence of goals on habits is what makes a habit different from other automatic processes in the mind.

There are a number of habits possessed by individuals that can be classified as nervous habits. These include nail-biting, stammering, sniffling, and banging the head. They are known as symptoms of an emotional state and are generally based upon conditions of anxiety, insecurity, inferiority and tension. These habits are often formed at a young age and may be because of a need for attention. When trying to overcome a nervous habit it is important to resolve the cause of the nervous feeling rather than the symptom which is a habit itself or as a result one could experience anxiety. Anxiety is a disorder known for excessive and unexpected worry that negatively impacts an individual’s daily life, and routines.

Behavior modification refers to behavior-change procedures that were employed during the 1970s and early 1980s. Based on methodological behaviorism, overt behavior was modified with presumed consequences, including artificial positive and negative reinforcement contingencies to increase desirable behavior, or administering positive and negative punishment and/or extinction to reduce problematic behavior. For the treatment of phobias, habituation and punishment were the basic principles used in flooding, a subcategory of desensitization.

Behavior modification relies on the following:

•        Reinforcement (positive and negative)

•        Punishment (positive and negative)

•        Extinction

•        Shaping

•        Fading

•        Chaining

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a psycho-social intervention that aims to improve mental health. CBT focuses on challenging and changing unhelpful cognitive distortions (e.g. thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes) and behaviors, improving emotional regulation, and the development of personal coping strategies that target solving current problems. Originally, it was designed to treat depression, but its use has been expanded to include treatment of a number of mental health conditions, including anxiety.

3 ways to form a good habit

Forming a new good habit can be a struggle, but it is well worth the effort. Having more good habits can help to achieve better overall health or accomplish a larger goal. Some things that you can do to form a new habit include identifying your motivation, creating a cue, and tracking your progress. If you have a bad habit you want to get rid of, just keep in mind that you may need to take steps before trying to replace it with a new good habit.

1. Making a Plan

Before you can begin to work on your new habit, it is worthwhile to consider your goal. Figure out exactly what you hope to accomplish. Make sure that your goal is specific, measurable, action oriented, realistic, and time bound (SMART) to increase your chances of success. Consider what you want to achieve and get as detailed as you can.

2. Identify the habit you want to form. 

Having good habits that are in line with the goals you want to achieve can improve your chances of attaining your goals. After you have set your goal and worked out all of the specifics of achieving that goal, identify a habit that is part of achieving that goal. Consider your goal and ask yourself, what good habit would help me accomplish this goal?

• Consider your motivation. 

Once you have identified your goal and the new habit you need to form to accomplish this goal, take some time to consider your motivation. Your motivation is the reason you want to form this new habit. Good motivation can be the difference between succeeding and failing at forming a new habit, so take your time to consider your motivation.

If your habit is to hike regularly, you’re not going to climb Everest this weekend. If you have a big goal, like getting a new job, running a marathon or going to the gym five days a week, you need to break your goal down into increments. For example, if you want to run a marathon and you’re not much of a runner, try running two miles a day three days a week and build on that. If you try and do too much, you will most likely fail and destroy your morale. Have patience, start small and build on your progress.

Set yourself up for success. If you do not go to the gym because you forget your gym clothes, start packing them the night before. If you are forgetting to pack your lunch, pack it the night before. Too tired to go to the gym? Schedule a time and treat it like an appointment. Enable your habits by addressing your usual excuses and obstacles and preparing for success.

What gets measured gets managed. If you are trying to get a new job, keep track of how many applications you send and how many network connections you make and build on it. Measuring your progress also helps keep you motivated as you work towards your goal.

Everyone fails, and at some point you will as well and that is just fine. Whether you cheat on a diet, skip a work out, fail to send a job application that day or whatever it is, just get back in the saddle tomorrow. Success is often about not giving up in spite of rejection and failure, so do not lose heart when you experience a setback, keep working.

It’s no use beating yourself up when you don’t meet all of your goals. This is only going to make you angry with yourself. It’s easy to walk away from something when we are mad or disappointed in ourselves. So try to take the frustration out of by rewarding yourself for sticking to it for five days, ten days, etc.

Sticking to a new habit doesn’t have to cause you stress, and it shouldn’t feel like a burden that keeps you from living the life you want. If you are working towards the right goals, you should feel happy with yourself for making progress. You should feel good about yourself and the future.

Do your daily activities make it easy to perform your new habit? Perhaps integrating the new habit into something you already do will help put this new activity into regular practice.

Self Development:

Self Development is a very important aspect of the human being.
In today’s life the modern man finds himself trapped in a concrete jungle, living a rat race. This is a life full of stress, tensions and anxieties to be the star performer at the workplace, and to be perceived as an ideal son, husband and father at home.
In this continuing madness, he tends to loose his sense of self and finds himself loosing control over his live, powerless as he is to take corrective and remedial action. Such inability to do what is right and bring things back on track is largely caused by the lack of realization of what is wrong and what needs to be done.
The answer to this problem is Self Development.
But what is self development? As the term suggested it is bringing about all round improvement in one’s own self. A plain dictionary meaning of the term by itself would bring cold comfort to someone who really needs self development.
We therefore need to understand what self-development is by understanding what it implies. Self development can be best understood by examining its components. These are enumerated one by one:

• Self awareness
• Self knowledge
• Communication
• Career
• Self potential
• Health – physical and psychological
• Social status
• Social relations
• Personality

1. Self awareness: What is self awareness?

Self awareness is the understanding of where one finds himself. What does he considers as his duty every moment of the day? How is he supposed to utilize each waking moment of his time? What should he say? How and to whom? A high sense of self awareness is seen in person who is proactive in thought, alert in mind and body and energetic in action. Such is person stays ahead in every situation.

2. Self knowledge:

Self knowledge flows from self awareness. Self knowledge enables a person to truly understand himself – his role and contribution to society. Self knowledge is also a self appraisal of the strengths and weaknesses of the personality and character on an ongoing basis. Self knowledge is also the knowledge of the inner universe of an individual – the knowledge of which is vital to successfully navigate the outer universe.

3. Communication:

Communication is the vehicle for building social relations. This was true in the days when technology and internet did not exist; but is has become even more true today when we are living in a deeply interconnected world. Communication has various aspects these are:

1. Thoughts and Ideas:Communication originates in the mind in the form of a thought which is translated into an idea to be expressed. A creative mind is fertile ground for positive expression, whereas a negative mind is minefield of hate filled negative communication.
2. Voice & Speech:The voice represents the emotion and the level of self confidence of the individual.  The speech represents the spoken words manifested by the eloquence or lack of it in expressing the ideas of the mind.

4. Morale, Self-confidence & Self Esteem:

What is morale? A high morale refers to a very positive state of mind of a person which is ever challenged into seeking increasing difficult tasks to achieve. Low morale represents the opposite  where all round pessimism pervades; and where procrastination and dreariness are the norm.
An individual’s morale depends upon his self-confidence. The self-confidence in turn depends upon the self-esteem of the individual. A person with low sense of self esteem has little self-confidence to do the simplest of tasks, while claiming both ownership and responsibility for the same. On the other hand a person with a high sense of self esteem always lunges forward, taking bold and calculated risks. Such a person always stretches himself in a quest to continuously improve his productivity, and sense of self fulfillment in his life and in his work.

5. Career:

Gone are the days when a person could take up a secure career in a government job and work until his retirement doing pretty much the same work. Today, career development has become very important in today’s very fast changing and dynamic world. This implies staying relevant with the changing times by adapting one’s skills and abilities to meet the changing requirements of society and the work place.

6. Potential:

Each one of us has a latent, immense and untapped potential which sadly few of us achieve. The main reason for remaining underachievers is equally to lack of self belief in our potential as also the knowledge that such a potential even exists. Self development really starts where we become aware of our immense potential and start taking positive steps to tap it and creatively utilize it.

7. Health:

Health has two aspects – physical and psychological. Good health commonly is commonly understood only as a state where the body remain free from ailments. There is general ignorance about the impact of an healthy mind (free of negative thoughts and emotions) on the physical health of an individual. It is often said a fit mind in a fit body. However, the reverse is equally true – a fit mind ensures that the body remains fit and free from many ‘lifestyle’ diseases.

8. Social Status:

Development of the social status refers to the upward move of individual on the social ladder. The craving for a high social status is considered the highest of the famous Manslow’s personal self actualization hierarchy. A high social status represents his desire for self actualization. Maslow describes this level as the desire to accomplish everything that one can, to become the most that one can be.

9. Social Relations:

Social relations determine the social status of a person. At the same time the person’s social status also determines his social relations. Development of the ability to develop social relations gives an individual the power to increase his ever widening circle of social contacts. This in turn enhances his power, his prestige, sense of self worth and most importantly his social status.
Personality : 
Personality Development seems to be the buzz word these days. While everyone likes to talk about it, few seem to truly understand. Development of one’s personality is more than adherence to a mere set of guidelines to be followed in terms of dos and don’ts. Personality has several important components that need to be understood and developed. These include:

1. Posture: An erect posture signifies confidence, a positive forthright attitude, and a fit body that consciously receives large amount s of life giving oxygen into the lungs.
2. Body Language: This represents the non verbal communication that translates and conveys more than 80% of the message and is often more important than the spoken words.
3. Thoughts and self belief: Each individual creates his own universe through self-belief about himself and thoughts about others. Such thoughts and self beliefs either fashion a mind full of prejudice, hate and envy at the negative level or love, empathy and positivity on the other.
4. Attitude: It is said our attitude determines our altitude. Development of the attitude involves moving away from being negative about persons, and events and seeing some good in everything perceived as bad.

The above stated aspects of self development are by no means an exhaustive list of what one must do for oneself. At the same, these are not water tight compartments that need to be looked in isolation. Often development of a single area can have greater than proportionate effect in other areas. So what one essentially needs to do it to focus and try to better understand each and consciously inculcate the habit to bring about self improvements howsoever small for the overall objective of self development.

Implementing your goals

1. Why do you set your goals? Let’s consider this basic question. The simple answer is that you are not happy with your present status and you want to improve. Now let’s consider who is responsible for your present status? Your circumstances, influence of your parents, teachers, friends, relatives, neighbor and all those who have been interacting with you. They have influenced you mind which in turn has influenced your actions and behavior. Over the years you have formed some habits. Triggered by your habits, you continue to do the same things over and over again. Your relationships with others remain the same. Nothing changes. Therefore you don’t own what you want; you don’t garner respect from others. Life is drudgery. Nothing to look forward to. You accept that this reality and you have to live with it. And then, you write down your goals. These could be about health, career, finance, family, hobby and even spirituality.
2. Once we understand that you background and habits have brought you to a situation which you are not happy with, you need to do whatever it takes to change these influences and most importantly change your habits. You may not be able to change company of everyone around you, but you can choose to divide your time according to your choice.

10. Self-Belief

To be connected with earlier chapter.
In life it is necessary to have some beliefs. That does not mean that you need to follow any dogma or belief forced on you. You can pick your own beliefs with discretion. First, let us understand what is self-belief. What are the qualities that it inherits? Self belief is an invaluable virtue which brings great possibilities in your life. Its indications are that you:

• Stop making any excuses for any reason what-so-ever.
• Do not indulge in any negative thought.
• Stop thinking that difficulties surround you alone. You do not jump to conclusion and take hasty actions. You express your fears to others without any hesitation, because you keep in mind that everyone has some fears.
• You stop procrastinating because that is indicative of your lack of confidence.
• Stop pursing perfection. Perfection is never achieved. It only stops you from moving ahead.

Once you develop self belief and you observe that you confirm to all what has been said above, you will find the following eight advantages coming to you smoothly and seamlessly.

1. Self-belief enables you to hold strong conviction. All things do not happen the way you have planned or the way you expect. But strong conviction will help you to move ahead without fear of failure.
2. Self belief also helps you develop optimistic attitude which is necessary today in the wake of fast changing world. Life is becoming extremely competitive. Any opportunity missed once may never come back again. But if you have a negative attitude you will not be able to catch the fleeting possibilities.
3. Your self-belief also makes you more reliable to others.Thus you tend to build up better relations with others. Your credibility is not question. Since people can trust you they vie for good relations with you. Needless to say that for any significant project you need help from others.
4. Self-belief also helps you to be focused and self motivated. You no longer take life as it comes. You don’t depend on unknown sources to bring you luck. You carve your own destiny. Self motivation helps you to maintain enthusiasm and interest in life.
5. Your risk taking ability improves if you start relying on yourself. It is said that there are no gains if there are no risks. Your conviction helps you to take calculated risks in meeting the challenges of life. The tendency to avoid and escape facing challenging situation reduces substantially. You start realizing that difficulties form a necessary part of life.
6. Further, self-belief enables you to give and receive constructive criticism with an open mind. In the current scenario exchange of ideas and views are extremely important. The autocratic leader is not acceptable any more. So if you want to progress you have to collaborate with others from your own organization or outside outfits.
7. Self-belief helps you to be more assertive. You start caring for yourself more than pleasing others. Someone said that he doesn’t know any formula of how to succeed. The sure short formula for success has never been discovered. But there is a firm unbeatable formula for failure and that is trying to please everyone. Your self-belief will not allow you to embark on the journey of securing approvals where these are not mandatory.
8. Last but not the least, you start working on improving your self respect.You realize that if you do not respect yourself, others will follow suit. When you’re in need to raise self esteem, you become more effective and you become more productive. Now, you start managing your time very effectively as any improper or inadequate use of your time will hurt your self-esteem.

Personal Productivity

Personal Productivity and its review constitute are essential ingriedients in the implementation and achievement of personal goals. But what is personal productivity? Does it mean how we manage our time? The answer is yes and no. Yes, time is an important aspect of personal productivity. Rather, it could be so provided your activities are aligned with your goals. And yet it is a lot more. Does it mean one’s achievement towards realization of personal goals? Not just that! Personal goals may change. Personal vision may change. And if one may say so personal mission statement if one ever cares to establish that – that also may change.
When we talk of mission statement or vision or an organization, that hardly ever changes. But when we are talking of an individual, the factors that affect a person’s likes and dislikes, desires, drastically change with changing circumstances, or even without these.
The most important factor for a person’s success is his/her personal productivity. As we growwe realize that it is not just money, not just health, not just family, or your social status, hobbies etc., that bring you happiness, but it is a combination of all these in varying proportions.  So what we need to do is to align all our activities to achieve whatever we want in the aforesaid different fields.
Therefore a daily review of what you do becomes very important. In the highly competitive world we have today, the targets that the organizations set for you are hard ones. These sap your energy and rob you of the power and ability to think what you must do. You only start following sometimes even unachievable targets. In the process, you totally destroy you concept of personal productivity.
Hence, what is really needed is to have the right balance and proper perspective towards life. It is only such a healthy attitude that strikes a right balance between family and friends, home and work, health and money that will lead to a truly happy and successful life.