Category: Personality development

Ethos, Pathos & Logos

3 Prime Parameters of Public Speaking.
Public Speaking has been considered very important ever since society started its cultural journey, hundreds of years ago. But Public Speaking is difficult and the public speaker faces many problems, real and assumed ones.
Today, I will talk about three chief parameters of an effective speech. These three form the litmus test of a good speech.
We need just to remember three words- Ethos Pathos and Logos. These Latin words are easy to remember. It was Greek philopber and speaker Cicero who gave the speaking fraternity these 3 dictums which hold ground even after hundreds of years.
What is Ethos? It is your credibility. Ethos tells the audience that you are chosen to speak to them on a particular subject because you are the most deserving candidate at that moment. Unless you are a celebrity and unless the host has adequately introduces you, it falls upon your shoulders to inform and convince the audience that you are a great choice. You can do this by talking about your experience, about your being fully conversant with the subject and by quoting reference of positive feedbacks that you might have received.

Pathos is the need of your audience. What are they looking for from the presentation you have promised to make? You may also like to know the number of people and their profile. Besides, you can understand from your research what will interest those most? The host is equally interested in making the event worth its while. So having a chat about what you are going to speak and what the audience expects from you will be time well spent. Acquire such information sooner than later. It will help you to prepare your speech well in advance. Even a highly rated public speaker need to give orientation to his speech after defining the audience. Until you become such a speaker that whatever you speak is happily accepted.

Logos: Lastly I will explain about meaning of Logos. It implies how well you construct your arguments. Whatever you speak has to be supported by some examples and by some logical arguments. These have to be convincing and interesting. But you have to look at these from the point of view of your audience. You have to step into their shoes to understand it well. More importantly, the audience or the majority people in the audience should be able to connect with your statements.
And of course you have to speak clearly in a well modulated voice.
Thanks for reading.

3 Tips on Developing a Good Presentation

We all have to make presentations these days. Presentations, when we have to speak in Public. Undoubtedly, it is difficult and often avoided slyly. There could be various reasons, but the foremost among them is ‘Stage Fright’. Primarily stage fright occurs because of inadequate preparation and/or because of faulty preparation.
Today, I will give you 3 important tips which will help you to prepare a good presentation.

Be clear about Objective:

The first tip is that you must be clear about your objective. Why you have been asked to speak on the subject and why you have accepted the invitation? Both must be understood and realized. The best thing is to write it down. What is the expectation of your audience is something of cardinal importance. So, contemplate on it and note down the main points. It may require you to define the group, the profile, age group, gender mix, no of people, likes and dislikes or whatever other information you can gather.

Content is the King:

The next and critical step is the content. Even when you know the subject very well, you have to modify it every time you speak regarding the same subject. Redesign it, keeping in view your new audience and their objectives. Content is the king. It you don’t have anything significant to say, anything which will improve then knowledge or something they can use in their daily life; then keep your mouth shut. In short, there must be good amount of takeaway from your speech for your audience.

Express Effectively:

The third but most important part of your speech is your ability to express yourself effectively. Never think of impressing anyone. But you just have to express yourself. You should be able to communicate exactly what you have in mind. You are already clear about your objective and the objective of your audience. You have already gather information which will interest them. You already know what you are going to give them as takeaways. But if you lose out in holding their attention, if your audience is not hooked by you on the subject, all knowledge might get wasted.
So, the third and the vital tip is master your verbal skills.
Thanks for reading.

4 Main Reasons for Saddening Stress and Why we must have Literary Break!

The mind that is anxious about the future is miserable. There are more things to alarm us than to harm us, and we suffer more often in apprehension than reality.
-Seneca 4 B.C.? 65 A.D.
Anxiety is the worst habit of human personality. In fact one only needs to be concerned about any untoward situation, but that should never lead us to worry about anything that may happen. It is said that the fear of death is worse than death. Often, many fatal mistakes may also be made because of fear of uncertainty.
Anxiety is also called the parent of many sins. In spite of the fact that we all know that negative thinking, worry or anxiety never help, yet we fall prey to these atrocious daemons. In a world where everything is doubtful, and where we may be disappointed, and yet at times be blessed in the very disappointment, why this restless stir and commotion of mind? Can it alter the cause? No. Can it unravel the mystery? No. Can these negative habits resolve any of our woes? No. Then why do we become the cause of our own sufferings?
The reason is not far to seek. The idiotic rat race that we are run like marathon runners is the main culprit.
So we are all stressed. We don’t like anything. Further even we may start thinking that the life doesn’t have any significance and therefore it’s an unnecessary burden.
That makes stress management a critical subject of personal management and business management. Due to the ever pervading stress, we lose touch with literature arts and all other finer things of life which act as the stress busters or which may even change our negative attitude which makes anybody’s life miserable.
Other reasons of stress are as below:
  1. Because of the impossible targets the company you are working for; you are expected to achieve. In turn, you lose perspective and don’t care fore the work life balance. You only slog for achieving your sales or other such performance targets.
  2. Thus the professional, today, has only one goal for which he has to slog day and night and that is keeping the job secure which is necessary to run your family, to make both ends meet somehow.
  3. Due to no break from the rut, efficiency drastically suffers and the pressure on poor man increases. The business owner doesn’t realize this. There is a stark competition out there and the CEO has to produce numbers to satisfy his hungry business owners who are always concerned with the valuation of the company.
  4. After day’s hard work, when he returns home the only entertainment, he turns to is television. Unfortunately instead of receiving any solace, he is bombarded with only negative news. Negative news about rapes, murders, scams, fatal accidents and the like. These are all delivered in high voltage manner where reporters compete with one another to use high pitch mind disturbing voice. After all they only concerned with the TRPs.
With a view to bring some relief to the sad situation of those who suffer from the above ills, I offer a break from the mundane routine. I give below a famous poem of William Wordsworth. The words chosen by the poet create music just as imagery used creates a beautiful enlightening theme. You may enjoy reading it aloud.

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
By William Wordsworth
I wandered lonely, as a cloud
That floats on high, o’er vales and hills,
When all at once, I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing, in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched, in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I, at a glance,
Tossing their heads, in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not, but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth, the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
Thanks for reading.

Women is no less!

By Invitation. Author Abdul Kalam.

 

Women are an important element of our Society. The modern society has started recognizing the individual identity of women. She is believed to have her aspiration, abilities and qualities as a man does have and it is also agreed that she should have the opportunities to develop her faculties and to express them according to her own choice.
Women can help the society in various ways. They can engage in social activities and work for the betterment of the society.
Young educated girls can get engaged in a profession of her choice. We need more doctors, engineers, software developers, and social workers. The world cannot grow at good pace unless women come forward and take initiative for the development works.

They can contribute enormously in the field of health care. Women education will also improve the level of sanitation and hygiene.
As a mother, her role in the development of the emotional psychological aspect of the new born child has been also very significant. She was not only the creator and maintainer of her child but an educator and disciplinarian as well.
One of the major problems of India society is the inferior position accorded to women. The do not enjoy equal status and their condition is far from satisfactory. Women Empowerment refers to strengthening the social, economic and educational powers of women. It refers to an environment where there is no gender bias and have equal rights in community, society and workplaces.

Women population is around 50% of the total population of the world. They have every right to be treated equally with men in every spheres of life and society. The empowerment of women would result in overall development of society both at micro and macro level. Active participation of women in economic activities and decisions, would contribute towards overall economic development.

The challenges/ barriers of women empowerment are the following:

  • Because of the inherent superiority complex among the males, they often doesn’t allow their female counter-part to rise as high as them.
  • High level of domestic responsibilities.
  • Restrictions to participate in social, economic and religious activities.
  • In our society, the boy-child often gets preference for education and healthy diet over the girl child.
  • Preference for male-child still exist among many families in the society.

The solutions for empowerment of women includes the following:

  • Education through mass communication is very important. Both women and men should be made aware of their responsibilities to promote and practice gender-equality.
  • Gather national data and identify the areas where instances of violence and gender-inequality is the most. This data can be used by the Government, NGOs and field workers to raise the status of women.
  • The society should be made aware that both boy-child and girl-child are equal, and they both should have equal access to resources.Thanks for reading.

Social media

By Invitation. Author Abdul Kalam.

Social media is a phrase that we throw around a lot these days, often to describe what we post on sites and apps like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and others.
But if we use the term to describe a site like Facebook, and also a site like Digg, plus a site like Wikipedia, and even a site like I Can Has Cheezburger, then it starts to get more confusing. Just what is social media anyway?
The term is used so vague that it can basically be used to describe almost any website on the internet today.
Or maybe not. Some people have more of a restricted view of social media, often equating it to mean the same as social networking (a.k.a. Facebook, Twitter, etc.). Other people don’t consider blogs to fall under the social media category.

  1. So, What Is Social Media?

Rather than define the term using a bunch of boring jargon that would probably only complicate things further, perhaps the best way to get a clearer understanding of it is to break it down into simpler terms. To start, let’s look at each word individually.

  • The “social” part:

     refers to interacting with other people by sharing information with them and receiving information from them.

  • The “media” part:

     refers to an instrument of communication, like the internet (while TV, radio, and newspapers are examples of more traditional forms of media).

  • Okay, so from these two separate terms, we can pull a basic definition together:

    Social media are web-based communication tools that enable people to interact with each other by both sharing and consuming information.
Yes, it’s a broad definition – but keep in mind that social media is a very broad term. This is likely as specific as we can get without zeroing in too much on a more specific subcategory of social media.

2. Common Social Media Features

The following list of common features are dead giveaways of a social media site.
If you’re questioning whether a particular site could be classified as social or not, try looking for at least one of these features.

  • User accounts:

     If a site allows visitors to create their own accounts that they can log into, then that’s a good sign there’s going to be social interaction. You can’t really share information or interact with others online without doing it through a user account.

  • Profile pages:

     Since social media is all about communication, a profile page is often necessary to represent an individual. It often includes information about the individual user, like a profile photo, bio, website, feed of recent posts, recommendations, recent activity and more.

  • Friends, followers, groups, hashtags and so on:

     Individuals use their accounts to connect with other users. They can also use them to subscribe to certain forms of information.

  • News feeds:

     When users connect with other users on social media, they’re basically saying, “I want to get information from these people.” That information is updated for them in real-time via their news feed.

  • Personalization:

     Social media sites usually give users the flexibility to configure their user settings, customize their profiles to look a specific way, organize their friends or followers, manage the information they see in their news feeds and even give feedback on what they do or don’t want to see.

  • Notifications:

     Any site or app that notifies users about specific information is definitely playing the social media game. Users have total control over these notifications and can choose to receive the types of notifications that they want.

  • Information updating, saving or posting:

     If a site or an app allows you to post absolutely anything, with or without a user account, then it’s social! It could be a simple text-based message, a photo upload, a YouTube video, a link to an article or anything else.

  • Like buttons and comment sections:

     Two of the most common ways we interact on social media are via buttons that represent a “like” plus comment sections where we can share our thoughts.

  • Review, rating or voting systems:

     Besides liking and commenting, lots of social media sites and apps rely on the collective effort of the community to review, rate and vote on information that they know about or have used. Think of your favorite shopping sites or movie review sites that use this social media feature.

3.   What’s the Difference Between Social Media and Social Networking?

As mentioned earlier, a lot of people user the terms social media and social networking interchangeably as if they mean the exact same thing. Although the difference is subtle, they’re not the same. Social networking is really a subcategory of social media.
The easiest way to understand the difference between social media and social networking is by thinking about the terms “media” and “networking” separately. Media refers to the information you’re actually sharing–whether it’s a link to an article, a video, an animated GIF, a PDF document, a simple status update or anything else.
Networking, on the other hand, has to do with who your audience is and the relationships you have with them. Your network can include people like friends, relatives, colleagues, anyone from your past, current customers, mentors and even complete strangers.
They certainly overlap, which is why it gets confusing. For example, you can share media with your social network to gather likes and comments–a form of social networking. But you can also just upvote a link on Reddit, which is a social media platform, to help out the community and give your say in the matter without any intention of building relationships with other users.
Still confused? Try to think of social media like fruit. Apples, bananas, oranges, grapes, berries, melons and pineapples are all part of the broader fruit category the same way that social networking, social news, social bookmarking, wikis, blogs and private web messaging are part of the broader social media category.

4.   Are Traditional Media Also Social Media?

Traditional media was mentioned earlier on in this article just to demonstrate broader examples of media, but don’t be fooled into thinking that TV, radio, and newspapers are a part of social media. At least not quite yet entirely. The line drawn between the two is slowly thinning as each continues to evolve.
Social media doesn’t just give you information but interacts with you while giving you that information. This interaction can be as simple as asking for your comments or letting you vote on an article, or it can be as complex as Flixster recommending movies to you based on the ratings of other people with similar interests.
Think of regular media as a one-way street where you can read a newspaper or listen to a report on television, but you have very limited ability to give your thoughts on the matter. Social media, on the other hand, is a two-way street that gives you the ability to communicate too.

5.   What Are Some of the Known Issues With Social Media?

Social media isn’t all just fun and games with your friends, celebrities you admire, and brands you follow. There are lots of common problems that most major social media platforms haven’t totally solved, despite their effort to do so.

  • Spam: 

    Social media makes it easy for spammers – both real people and bots – to bombard other people with content. If you have a Twitter account, you’ve probably experienced a few spambot follows or interactions. Likewise, if you run a WordPress blog, you may have gotten a spam comment or two caught by your spam filter.

  • Cyberbullying/Cyberstalking:

    Children and teenagers are especially susceptible to cyberbullying because they take more risks when it comes to posting on social media. And now that we all interact on social media via our mobile devices, most major platforms make it possible to share our locations, opening up the doors for cyberstalkers to target us.

  • Self-image manipulation:

     What a user posts about themselves on social media only represents a small portion of their life. While followers may see someone who’s happy and living it up via their posts on social media in such a way that makes them feel boring or inadequate by comparison, the truth is that users have the power to completely control what parts they do and don’t want to broadcast on social media to manipulate their own self-image.

  • Information overload:

     It’s not unusual to have over 200 Facebook friends or follow over 1,000 Twitter accounts. With so many accounts to follow and so many people posting new content, it’s almost impossible to keep up.

  • Fake news:

     Fakes new websites promote links to their own totally false news stories on social media in order to drive traffic to them. Many users have no idea that they’re fake in the first place.

  • Privacy/Security:

     Many social media platforms still get hacked from time to time despite having good security measures in place. Some also don’t offer all the privacy options that users need to keep their information as private as they want them to be.

6.   What Does the Future Hold for Social Media?

It’s difficult to predict anything exactly, but if one thing can be said about the future of social media, it will probably be more personalized and less noisy. Over-sharing will be less of a problem and filtering out irrelevant information will become a stronger trend.
Snapchat is a social media platform that’s really at the forefront of social media evolution. Rather than blasting out updates for all our friends and followers to see, we use Snapchat more like we communicate in real life – with specific people only at specific times.
If anything, social media is probably about to move more toward ephemeral sharing for quicker, more intimate sharing without the stress of having to blast something out to hundreds or thousands of followers that stays up there unless it’s manually deleted. Instagram has already made the move toward ephemeral content sharing with its Snapchat-like stories feature, so maybe more platforms will be soon to follow.

Thank for reading,
 

Self awareness

This article on Self awareness is the second part of the series which takes you on specific aspects of self development. For those who have missed the first part you can read it here.

Self awareness is a relatively unknown facet of self development. Even though hardly talked about is importance can hardly be overemphasized. So what exactly is self-awareness?

Self awareness is a sharp realization of one’s own personality – it is a collective understanding of one’s strengths, weaknesses, thoughts, feelings, beliefs, motivations and emotions. Self awareness is very important for anyone who wishes to be in better control of his life and relationships.

Self awareness has certain overt manifestations.

Eye for detail:

A self aware person has an eye for detail. This signifies that such an individual always focuses on his priorities and does not miss out on anything important by getting distracted by what is not.

Consciousness about every moment:

Time is money. A moment lost is lost forever. A self aware person is always conscious about his time and invariably knows how to make the best use of it. High productivity and efficiency are key attributes of a person of a time conscious person.

Active, Alive and Alert:

Self awareness enables a person to be alive to any emerging situation and ensures that he is active and alert in his response. This really indicates that such a person never suffers from procrastination which is the bane of life, and which has literally destroyed many personalities.

Learning through self observation:

Among other things, self awareness also inculcates in the individual the conscious habit of self observation. A person is able to observe himself in terms of what is good in him and what is not. He also tries to assimilate the good of others again by observing what to emulate.

Being honest with self:

It is often said – one can never run away from one’s own self. Being self-aware also implies that a person is honest with his own self. This requires a person to objectively analyze on the areas of weaknesses, and focus on covering his development needs.

Three Step process for developing self awareness:

Step #1: Being aware of emotions:

Often we tend to take decisions solely using our mind – what is commonly known as rational thoughts. However, being aware of our inner feelings – our instinct which is what our inner conscience tells us to do is equally important. With awareness of our gut feelings, we can start taking better decisions and take the first step to self awareness.

Step # 2: Track your feelings:

A self aware person is able to track his feelings both positive and negative. This can be best achieved by jotting down on a daily basis these feelings and then analyzing the trend. Monitoring the feelings is a way by which a self aware person is able to define his purpose in life, and is able to enhance positive feelings and channelize his thoughts into positive action.

Step # 3: Expand the practice beyond tracking the feelings:

Once a self aware person gets used to tracking his feelings, the next step is to track the energy level. This enables him to identify the period(s) of the day when he are most energized, focused, and is able to produce highest quality work. Tracking the energy also provides insights into what motivates and what drains the energy.

Ways to Develop Self-awareness:

Certain positive activities that can be undertaken on a daily basis for developing self awareness are:

  1. Look at yourself objectively:

This signifies that a person starts accepting himself for all his strengths and weaknesses.

  1. Keep a Journal:

Maintaining a journal helps you record your day to day experiences and enables you to better understand your difficulties and 

  1. Goals / Plans / Priorities:

Start recording the goals, plans and priorities. Goals are the broad overall objectives to be achieved in life over a short/medium/long term. Plans represent the route map towards the achievement of the goals. Priorities signify the areas of focus when plans are put into implementation.

  1. Daily Self Reflection:

A process of daily self reflection ensures that an individual is never trapped in a rut. Self reflection is a key technique for generating self awareness and involves the following:

  1. Try out new experiences:The saying goes that you do the same things, the result remains the same. Trying out new experiences involves exploring new ideas, experimenting new techniques and find out new and innovate ways to solving the problem.

  2. Discover physical limits:A person only becomes aware of his true physical limits when he tests them. Pushing the limits enhances the physical capacity and also enables a person to do more

  3. Self motivate:Daily self reflection on how a person can keep himself self-motivated at all times. Self motivation is the power that enables a person to keep going.

  1. Meditation:

The process of meditation can help become self aware and focus clearing the clutter of unnecessary thoughts. Meditation helps an individual develop a unique focus that helps an individual in covering all the areas mentioned above. 

  1. Feedback from friends:

Seeking out feedback from true friends involves getting their honest opinions about areas of improvement and weaknesses that need to be developed upon. 

  1. Feedback at the work place:

Professional feedback can be sought from colleagues at work. This helps a person reach out and network and enables him to learn from the experience of others.

To sum up self awareness is not an eventual objective by itself. It is continuing process that enables a person to live a truly meaningful and fulfilled life. The process of discovering the true meaning of the term in all its facets is a truly rewarding process. The pointers mentioned above are only the starting points for you. All the best!

How to Brighten Your Personality to Realise Your Dreams?

 

Pages from my forthcoming book, ‘PowerPacked Personality’ for Your FREE reading!

 Here are some more pages continued from where we left…..
 Last week we had talked about the first step to realize your dream is to write down your specific goals. When you become very clear about your goal which will help you to realize your dreams, you have to work out a plan of action for realizing each of your specific goals. Here are some further pages which I hope you will need to understand and make suitable efforts. We have to always remember that anything significant cannot be achieved without consistent hard work. Perseverance is the key to climbing up. Leader of success is steep and difficult, but the rewards merit all.

 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.

Implement Goals Quotes:

  1. People will always have an opinion, but you have to live life the way you want to. It’s very easy to tell others what to do, but difficult to implement it on yourself.
  2. Set some goals. Stay quiet about them. Smash the hell out of them. Clap for your damn self.
  3. Success is steady progress toward one’s personal goals. (Jim Rohn)
  4. You’ll never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine.
  5. When a planner speaks of implementing goals rationally, he implies that it is possible to demonstrate logically and experimentally the relationship between the proposed means and the ends they are intended to further. (Alan A. Altshuler)
  6. In real life, strategy is actually very straightforward. You pick a general direction and implement like hell. (Jack Welch Winning)

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.

Self Development


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 himsel 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

Let us look at each of these aspects in greater detail:

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.
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.
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.


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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Each of these areas will be covered in detail in forthcoming presentations. Thanks for reading.

How to Brighten Your Personality to Realise Your Dreams?

Pages from my forthcoming book, ‘PowerPacked Personality’ for Your FREE reading!

 In your life, you alone are responsible for your success and status in society. So if you want to realize your dream, the first thing you have to is to describe it vividly. It should be so clear that you can see it closing your eyes. This is like defining where you want to go. Obviously, if you don’t know your destination, how will you reach there. That brings us to the most critical question in life which is that of Goals.

What are Goals?

Anything that we do in life, we spend our precious time and money must bring about desired results. But often it does not happen. Why? Do we always try to figure out the reasons? If not, then why not? Because our goals are not clear. Because our desire to achieve the results is not so strong.
So what should we do? Sit back and think that everything will be alright? Or, that our luck is bad? No!
We must clearly define what we want to achieve. Write these clearly on our diary/journal. Make it known to the friends, family members, peers wherever it is necessary. Particularly to our well wishers. When we make our goals known to others, we become more committed.
Then, we should create a strong desire within us to achieve our goals. We need to contemplate on these as often as possible. Further, we need to plan how to achieve our goals. Work out the plan and write it down. Spend some time, contribute something, however small, daily towards achievement of what you want to do in life. It is worth it. And, you will be surprised to find how effective this process is for achieving what you want.
Goals should be short-term, medium-term, and long-term. In other words, what you want to achieve in the current year, next five years, ten years, twenty years, etc. Never think about obscurity of the future and changing times. Instead think that I have the ‘right’ and possibility of modifying my goals as per the needs of the changing times.
Furthermore, you need to work about a practical plan to achieve each of your goals. This should be backed up with action, your genuine effort to follow the plan. Life will be a lot more meaningful when the goals are well-defined and the plan to achieve these is followed.

Types of Personal Goals:

Setting your goals defines significance of your life. Your self-esteem will go up surely if you passionately try to follow your goals. There are 7 different types of goals which need to be defined. It is not about money or career only.  Below are the 7 different types of goals which may be clearly defined and written. These are:

  1. Health Goals: Health is of prime importance, indeed. Yet many times it has been found that even common principles of maintaining good health are ignored. As per our scriptures a human is made to live about 100 years. When we look after our health properly we may live close to that age or even overstep it. But if we are not careful, life may shorten to any extent. If you love your life and want to live longer, set your health goals. Also prepare and follow the plan to lead a healthy life.
  2. Career Goals: Career goals are undoubtedly extremely important. Any educated individual would like to progress in the career he/she is pursuing. But often it is only a wish. The best thing to do is to write down specifically what you want to achieve. This may mean – define the position and also define the timeline.
  3. Financial Goals: Though finance and career are closely connected, yet it is necessary to specify separately your financial goals. Again, these should be time bound according to your needs, your family requirements and your social obligations. If necessary, consult a financial adviser and then carve out your own plan.
  4. Family Goals: We all want to lead a happy family life- within our own nuclear family, extended family and relatives. Even today there are examples of joint families living together happily. Maintaining good relations require you to be proficient in interpersonal skills. It’s necessary to use discretion in speech even with your spouse, children, parents etc. Not only the words but the way how you speak is important. When you have set your goals you have greater chances to keep on improving in this direction.
  5. Social Goals: Everyone would like to be a respected member of the society. Whether it is neighborhood or a club, or an association, you would like to build up your reputation. This can be achieved with necessary efforts provided you have stated your specific goals.
  6. Hobby Goals: It is recommended that everyone must pursue at least one hobby. It’s investing in an activity for your own self. Music, theater, dance, painting is example of common hobbies. But it could also be collecting stamps, artifacts, antiques etc. Just as per your fancy, follow a hobby.
  7. Spiritual Goals: Last but not the least; we should define the spiritual goals. We all know that we don’t have to live on this earth forever. During stay here often we may think about how we like to be remembered. Think about how we should face the eternal force of which know very little. That is why people follow their own religion, which should be a united force. Religion helps to maintain our peace of mind. So we must note down our specific spiritual goals.

All the above goals are meaningless unless we write these down, make a plan to pursue each goal and execute that plan. The goals may be reviewed and modified as per the requirements of changing times.

Setting Your Goals:

Just imagine a football playground without goals. How can anyone play the match in the absence of goals on both sides? Unless there is a target what can you shoot at? Unless the teacher explains what kind of questions he is likely to face in the examination, how can the student prepare? Likewise, it’s not possible to achieve anything worthwhile without specifying your personal goals.  If you gave the archer a target and challenged him to hit the bull’s eye, the challenge motivates the shooter and makes him/her to do their best. You have to give anyone something to aim at, something to challenge his skills. Further, there must be defined parameters to measure the progress. That motivates a person, creates an interest which can sustain action and hard work.
That’s what a goal does to a person’s life, it motivates the person to achieve something worthwhile, something he or she desires. That brings about a big change in the attitude.  Every one is endowed with a precious gift of life, it’s our duty to make best use of it. You were given a life and you’ve been told ever since to, “live it.‘
Everybody in this world has a different set of circumstances, different set of skills, and a different set of opportunities through which they can interact with the world and find their unique sense of fulfillment.  You’re mission in life should be to figure out what your unique, “sets” are and how you can take action to best capitalize on them that gives all of your effort purpose and meaning.  Goals are the guiding light that get you there.
Take your time reading through the quotes below and the notes/remarks that follow. Think about these and reflect to work out what are your objectives. The exercise will help you specify what your goals should be as per your needs and desire. Since goals must be written as clearly as possible, it will also help you to make these articulate in your mind so that you can put it on paper clearly. Unless the goals are written in detail, these remain your wishes which have little meaning. Timeline is also critical in purposeful goal setting.

  1. “A goal properly set is halfway reached.” ~ Zig Ziglar
  2. “You cannot change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction overnight.” ~ Jim Rohn
  3. “It’s better to be at the bottom of the ladder you want to climb than at the top of the one you don’t.” ~ Stephen Kellogg
  4. “If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.” ~ Jim Rohn
  5. “All who have accomplished great things have had a great aim, have fixed their gaze on a goal which was high, one which sometimes seemed impossible.” ~ Orison Swett Marden
  6. “The greater danger for most of us isn’t that our aim is too high and miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.” ~ Michelangelo
  7. “Give me a stock clerk with a goal and I’ll give you a man who will make history. Give me a man with no goals and I’ll give you a stock clerk.” ~ J.C. Penney
  8. “Intention without action is an insult to those who expect the best from you.” ~ Andy Andrews
  9. “I am here for a purpose and that purpose is to grow into a mountain, not to shrink to a grain of sand. Henceforth will I apply all my efforts to become the highest mountain of all and I will strain my potential until it cries for mercy.” ~ Og Mandino
  10. “Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success.” ~ Pablo Picasso
  11. “If you raise your standards but don’t really believe you can meet them, you’ve already sabotaged yourself. You won’t even try; you’ll be lacking the sense of certainty that allows you to tap the deepest capacity that’s within you… Our beliefs are like unquestioned commands, telling us how things are, what’s possible and impossible and what we can and can not do. They shape every action, every thought and every feeling that we experience. As a result, changing our belief systems is central to making any real and lasting change in our lives.” ~ Anthony Robbins
  12.  “My philosophy of life is that if we make up our mind what we are going to make of our lives, then work hard toward that goal, we never lose – somehow we always win out.” ~ Ronald Reagan

 Now it should be easy to specifically write down your goals. Take following steps:
Step One: Write down in clear terms what do you want to do.
 Step Two: Think many times to be sure of what you are thinking at the moment is really what you want.
 Step Three: Write down in specific terms what you have decided after thinking it over.
 Step Four: Check if your Goal are SMART where S stands for specific, M stands for measureable, A stands for achievable, R stands for ready, and T stands for time bound.
 In the following chapter you will understand how to make a plan to achieve your goals and the steps you need to take to implement the plan. At times, you may face some hurdles. What action you must take then is also explained.
 To be continued…

Voice Modulation

Voice modulation is necessary for making your speech interesting. If someone is speaking without modulating his/her voice, they will sound like people who are not concerned whither you listen to them or not Voice modulation makes your listeners listen to you.
What is voice modulation? And how do we imbibe voice modulation techniques in our personality? These and various other aspects of voice modulation form an integral part of our unique voice modulation and public speaking course.

Definition

First of all let us understand the meaning of Voice modulation. The dictionary meaning of the word ‘modulation’ when referred to voice implies, regulating the voice as per requirement of your speech. Thus, you must bring in change in pace, pause and pitch while speaking. Without modulation, your speech will be flat and monotonous. Further, you must also change the emphasis on the keyword and the tone to improve the efficacy of your speech.

Objectives of Voice Modulation:

The following 3 objectives are Critical. 1) To enable the listener to understand you fully. 2) To enable you to express your ideas effectively. 3) To ensure that you are not repetitive or verbose. There would be many more benefits of voice modulation, but these 3 must be remembered so that you will always try to bring about a well modulated speech. During one on one conversation as well as speaking to a group or even speaking in public.

Techniques of voice modulation:

Speech is a matter of habit. Habits change very hard. Therefore, unless we use highly effective techniques of voice modulation, the results will be for from satisfactory. Through various innovative modulation exercises we train our students to learn these techniques. Repetitive process enable the trainees to imbibe voice modulation practice in their day to day speech.

 Who should practice Voice Modulation?

The one word answer to the question is: ‘Everybody’. Because everyone wants to express himself/herself clearly. Everyone wants that people should be impressed by their well modulated speech. Because everybody wants views. Thus voice modulation is vital for public speakers, those who want to make presentations and all those who want to succeed in influencing people.
Thanks for reading.

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