In the first part of this mini-course, we learned that listening is very important for effective communication.

Challenge 4

Translate your (and others) complaints and criticism in specific requests, and to explain your requests. To obtain more cooperation from the other, whenever possible, ask what you want from the specific, action-oriented, positive language rather than through the use of generalizations, “why , “” Don’ts “or” someone should’s. “Help your listeners explaining fulfill your requests with a” so that …”, “help me … If you want …” or “so ….” Similarly, when you receive criticism and complaints from others, translate and reformulate the request as a request for action. …. “).

Challenge 5

Ask questions more “openendedly” and more creative. “Openendedly …”:

In order to coordinate our work with life and the lives and work of others, we all need to know more about what other people are feeling and thinking, wanting and planning. But our usual “yes / no” in fact people tend to be closed rather than open. To encourage your conversation partners to share more of their thoughts and feelings, to ask “open-ended” rather than “yes / no”. Open-ended questions allow a wide range of responses. For example, by asking, “How did you get that food / cinema / speeches / doctor / etc.” Promote a more detailed response, “Did you like?” (Who could be answered with a simple “yes” or “no”). In the first part of the Challenge Five, we explore calling for a broad range of open-ended questions.

“And more creative …” When we ask questions, we use a powerful tool for language conversation to focus our attention and guide interactions with others. But many of the issues that we have learned to ask are totally sterile and self-defeating (for example, parents of a pregnant teenager, “Why ???!!! Why have you done this to us? ??!!!”). Normally, it would be more fruitful to ask “how” questions about the future rather than the “why” questions about the past, but there are many more creative possibilities that

Good. Billions of questions one might ask, all are not as successful or insightful, all are not as useful for solving problems together. In the second part of Challenge Five explore we call creative force with the questions many areas of life.

Challenge 6

Express more satisfaction.

Building more satisfying relationships with the people around you, express more satisfaction, pleasure, affirmation, encouragement and recognition. Because life compels us constantly to attend to problems and outages, it is very easy to see in life what is broken and must be fixed. But fulfilling relationships (and a happy life) require us to notice and respond to what is pleasant, excellent, pleasant to work, to food well cooked… It is the appreciation that made a relationship strong enough to accommodate differences and disagreements. Some thinkers and researchers in different fields have reached similar conclusions on this subject: healthy relationships need a basis of mutual appreciation.

Challenge 7

Adopt the “continuing education” approach to life, which makes improving communication an important part of your daily life. To get your new communication skills available in a wide variety of situations, you need to put them into practice in such a variety of situations as possible until, as driving a vehicle or bicycle, they become ” second nature. ” The seventh Challenge To practice your evolving communication skills in daily life, solving problems together, giving emotional support to important people in your life, and we appreciate the way you become a positive influence in Your World. This challenge is learning to see every conversation as an opportunity to grow in skills and awareness, every encounter as an opportunity to express more satisfaction, each argument as an opportunity to translate queries in the complaints, and so on.

Although I have a long road ahead of me to become a master of communication, I think that communication is an integral part of any relationship, be it at home, with friends, or at work. Research has always shown that a deficiency in this skills can completely ruin relationships. The foundation strong interpersonal skills is not just to make you hear, but also an understanding of where other people are coming from.

Technorati Tags: personal development, communication, relationships

Communicating with others is a critical skill in business relationships, family, and romantic relationships, and is an essential part of any development effort. Do you find yourself often scorns others? Do you find it difficult to get your point across clearly? When it comes to communication, what you say and what you do not say is equally important. Being a good listener is absolutely crucial.

I decided to note my own skills with an online test. Here’s what I discovered: “Your results show that you sometimes have difficulty interpreting other people’s words and actions and to see things from their perspective. This can sometimes lead to misunderstandings. Remember that knowledge is an essential part of good interpersonal skills, must fit in the shoes of other people and a sense of what they feel, you can better understand them. With a little insight, you will be able to find out if someone does not understand what you are saying or if they are uneasy about a certain subject, and therefore adjust your behavior accordingly. Although you can usually sense what others feel and relatively well thought out, there is some room for improvement. There may be times when you pay more attention to the message you send, rather than how it is received. With a little time and experience, you will probably be able to further improve your vision. ”

Although some of the things said to me this test were hurtful, they are true. I have a lot of work to do in the learning and practice my communication skills - most of us do. Unfortunately, it is easier said than done. As with most personal skills, communication can not be taught. The practice is essential, as you may know what to do logically, but this logic, a lot of time is very difficult. It is possible, however, with a lot of repetitions, change your habits good communication skills. Especially because our personal relations are very important for us, we must be very conscious of how we communicate.

In my quest to become a better communicator, I came across a few things that I will have to overcome before they can:

Challenge 1

Listen more carefully and answer. Listen first and recognize what you hear, even if you disagree with him, before expressing your experience or point of view. For further your conversation partner of the attention in tense situations, be careful when first listening, and give a brief restatement of what you have heard (especially feelings) before you express your own needs or position. The kind of listening here between recognizing recommended approval or acceptance.

Recognizing another person’s thoughts and feelings does not necessarily mean that you approve or agree with the actions of that person or way of life, or that you are going to do what someone asks.

Challenge 2

Explain your intention to invite conversation and consent. To help your conversation partner cooperate with you and to reduce possible misunderstandings, important conversations begin by inviting your conversation partner to join you in the exact type of conversation that you want to do. More conversation will mean for you, the more important it is for your conversation partner to understand the overall situation. Many successful communicators begin conversations with a preface that goes something like: “I would like to talk with you for a few minutes about [material]. When the right time? “The exercise of this step would encourage you to expand your list of conversations and practice from a wide range of them.

Challenge 3

You express more clearly and completely. Slow down and give your listeners more information on what you experience with a wide range of “I-statements. “One way to help them get more from listening to your empathy is to express more of the five basic dimensions of your experience: Here is an example using one of the top five” I-messages “identified by various researchers During the last half-century: What are you seeing, hearing or non-detection? / “When I saw the dishes in the sink …”

Anytime a person sincerely listen to the other, a process of creation is under way in which the listener mentally he rebuilt from the experience. Other facets and dimensions of your experience that you share with easy to understand “I” statements, the easier it is for your conversation partner to rebuild your experience and understand exactly how you feel. This is also useful if you try solve a problem with someone, or attempt to express my appreciation for them. Expressing this treatment can seem to take more time than usual fast your communication style. But if you include all the time it takes to restore the daily lives of misunderstandings, and work through the feelings that accompany them not to be understood to express themselves more fully can actually take a lot less time.

We are halfway in this mini-course. Tomorrow we will continue our mastery of Communication 101.

Technorati Tags: personal development, communication, relationships

So how do we address this situation? 

First of all I would like to say that there isn’t one thing that will allow all of us to become happy and follow our destiny with ease.  I think that the biggest thing we have to realize is that in order for us to find our real purpose in life; we first have to start looking!  I think intention, is the key element in actually achieving our goals.

Next, after we have decided that we want to find our ultimate mission in life, we have to look at what are the things that really make us happy.  I think that it could be most difficult undertaking, because in order for us to find the meaning in our life, we first have to get to know our selves.  Although this process can be difficult, it also can be very rewarding.  For example some people are very good communicators.  So good, as the matter a fact, that people always make fun of them, because they talk too much.  Their personality will work well in the activities that require them to communicate effectively with other people.  So they would probably enjoy profession such as a journalist or a sales person.  Then there are others who are more analytical in everything they do.  They might want to try something like being an engineer.  These seemingly little personality descriptions, can be very important indicators in our search to discover our destiny.

Here is what I did when I was trying to figure out what to do with my life.  First I wrote down all of the things I enjoyed doing (writing, teaching, personal development, trading on the stock market etc.).  Then I looked at that list and prioritized in order of what I would want to try and do first.  You see out of all of the things I enjoyed or wanted to do, I first and foremost wanted to have my own business.  So anything I would do would have to become a business, in order for me to be completely satisfied.  That is exactly how I started BurstCreativity.com.  This site allows me to teach, write, communicate, help people, but also it is an online business that allows me the freedom that I want - perfect compromise between my desires.  

It doesn’t mean that this is going to be the only thing I could be doing.  I could come up with some other activities that would allow me to fulfill the very same needs.  I also want to build businesses for example, so I am also involved in several other ventures. 

The most important part however is the fact that I try to choose what I do based on what I want.  My inner desires dictate what I do – and this is probably the key formula here.  Find out what you want and do it.

Technorati Tags: Career, Destiny, Path in life, Happiness

If you are wondering what it is all about read this post

This post is totaly about link love. Let’s spread it around. These are people who have contributed to my blog carnival, and hopefully will contribute in this initiative as well.

Thom Singer SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED

Jonathan Vida The Loan Clutter

Millennium Mommy Priscilla Ortiz - Journal to Prosperity, Path to Freedom Inc.

Phil B. Phil for Humanity

Michael Cavano SubSun Records . com

Praveen My Simple Trading System

Scott Young Scott H Young

Albert Foong Urban Monk

Brandon Peele GT

Alan Made to Be Great

Aaron M. Potts Today is that Day

Rebecca Newburn Information Age Education

Shamelle Enhance Life

Walt Walt Nation!

Alex Shalman Alex Shalman . com - Practical Personal Development

The Positivity Blog Henrik Edberg

D.A.N. Sights & Sounds from the Fifth Column

Moses E. Miles III Three Sticks

Arathi Success Step

Dean Mr. Cheap Stuff

Susan Velez The Secret To Life

Tupelo Kenyon Tupelo Kenyon

Zechary Zechary White

Justin Lowery blog4brains.com

Niels Hoven Niels Hoven

Restlessmind Learning the Art of English Conversation

David Richeson 360 Degree Success

Wanda Grindstaff Creating Abundant Lifestyles Begin With Abundance Mindset

Alec Alec Gullon

Kim Roach The Optimized Life

Alan Torres www.madetobegreat.com

Just imagine the following situation. You have a competitor that constantly undercuts your prices. He often forces you into bidding wars, and generally your relationship with him is adversary. Now imagine that instead of waging the usual war, you decide to approach your competition from a different point of view. You come up with an idea of a cross promotion that will funnel your clients to him and his to you. You sell that idea to him, and you join forces in promoting this venture. It is so successful, that both of you make a lot of money from it. From then on your relationship changes; and instead of competing you join forces. You do many promotions like the first one and take your business to new heights of success. Thanks to your new partner - your former competitor.

So what can we do to incorporate more of win-win philosophy in our business? Here are a few suggestions:

1. Every time you make a decision in your business, consider how it will affect people around you. Will your decision have a positive effect on your clients, employees, competitors? If not, can there be anything done to change, improve the situation?

2. Be flexible. This is key, because if you are not flexible, the creation of win-win conditions will be impossible. Usually in order for both parties to win, they both will have to sacrifice first.

3. Communication is crucial. In order for you to be able to sell your proposal of win-win conditions you will first have to educate the other party. If you can’t do it effectively, there is no way will you be able to get them to agree to it in the first place.

4. You must sell your proposal to everybody involved. This, like any other sales process will require you to show clear benefits to the opposing party. Show them how they will win before you show them how you will.

5. Treating your employees as partners and creating win-win conditions when dealing with them, will probably be the best decision you have ever made. Your employees affect your business a lot more then your clients do, because they deal with your clients and represent you business on all levels of sales process.

6. Creating incentives can be a great tool to create win-win conditions. In selling your proposal to the opposing side, your proposal will hold a lot more weight if it comes with an incentive of one form or another.

7. Extend trust to the other party. One of the biggest problems that prevents win-win deals from happening is the lack of trust among parties involved. The surest way to start building trust is to be the first to extend it to your opponent.

8. Put your self in the other person’s shoes. Understanding where the other person is coming from, is imperative to be able to craft a strategy where both parties win.

9. Have a clear understanding of what is it that you are trying to accomplish. As with any other endeavor having clear goals will help you keep things in perspective and know when the goal has been accomplished.

Following this advice surely will allow you to develop long lasting fruitful relationships with your clients, employees and competition alike.
Business, Personal development, Success

Technorati Tags: Business, Personal development, Success

I believe that the answer is yes. Not only we can change our money fate, but we can also change it for our children and their children.

Imagine a following situation. You grow up poor, but something changes and in the midst of your life and you become very wealthy. Knowing your past, you treat that money with great respect and teach your children to do the same. That legacy stays with your family for generations.

The question remains - what do we have to change in order for us to change our money “fate”?

One of the biggest things we are going to have to change about our selves is how we view money. If our attitude about money is negative (i.e. we look at it as a “necessary evil”, something that is against our nature but a must if we want to survive in this life) what do you think are chances of you being fantastically wealthy? This kind of attitude will give us exactly what we deserve – we will be able to survive on a bare minimum all our life. As a matter a fact how you view money will in large dictate you financial situation, giving you a sort of a blueprint your life follows, financially speaking. For example an attitude of lack (a constant financial shortcoming) will effectively keep you struggling for as long as you think of it as a reality. In fact it is a self fulfilling prophecy. Because you think that money is a struggle, it de-motivates you not to try to bring your self to find ways to improve your situation. So the first step is to change your attitude about finances - learn to respect and honor money.

Next we must learn how to make more of it. The truth is that there is no magic that will give us the riches we desire. Short of winning the lottery, our chances of all of a suddenly becoming wealthy are very slim. So in order to realistically improve our money situation we must first learn about making money from someone who’s done it. After all it is only logical that we go to school in order to learn a profession, why wouldn’t we do the same to learn how to make money. There are plenty of ways to help you become wealthy - be it starting your own business or learning how to invest. All of these wealth generating methods have a steep learning curve and aren’t easy to master. As a matter a fact you will probably fail the first three or four times. However with perseverance you will be successful. The only way you can really fail at it, is if you will stop trying.

Next step should in my opinion be combined with previous. Money management will be a key to your long term success. Have you heard of lottery winners who after winning millions, go broke within a few years? The only reason that happens is lack of money management knowledge. So in order for you to be able to keep your new found fortune, you must learn how to manage you money.

These tips might seem very common sense to you, and they are. The important thing is that they work. There are countless examples of people going from rags to riches. Every single one of those people followed some version of a plan I described earlier.
Money management, success, finances, personal development

Technorati Tags: Money management, success, finances, personal development

Personal Development

Jordan Shannon presents How Positive Thinking Works | Self Development Blog posted at Self Development Blog.

ananga presents Get yourself in a state! posted at Answers from Ayurveda.

Alvin Soon presents Are You Fighting Yourself? posted at Life Coaches Blog.

Think Happy Thoughts Happiness Blog presents Look for What You Want to Find posted at Miguel Trujillo, saying, “How your brain can help you find happiness.”

Self Improvement

Karen Lynch presents The Best You posted at LivethePower.

Victor Fam presents Personal Development Articles » Archive » Making Decisions with Less the Stress posted at Personal Development Articles.

Business

Charles H. Green presents I’m OK, You’re an Idiot posted at Trust Matters, saying, “I’m an idiot, you’re an idiot. So let’s get over it, let’s work together and let’s do something great.”

Susan Velez presents The Truths To Starting A Home Business posted at The Secret To Life, saying, “Change lives with a personal development business;income opportunity. The opportunity to make six figures from home.”

David Maister presents Relationships and Romance posted at Passion, People and Principles, saying, “How to improve your business and personal relationships with the Six Rules of Romance”

Self Improvement

John presents Are you happy? posted at OhCash.com, saying, “What’s the point of living if you’re not happy? All the cash in the world will not bring you happiness if you don’t know how to live.”

Talina presents The biggest lesson I have learned in 2006 posted at Harvest of Daily Life.

Kavit Haria presents How To Deal With Choice Overload posted at Kavit’s Letters, Thoughts and Musings.

Victor presents Personal Development Articles » Archive » Eliminate Procrastination, Now! posted at Personal Development Articles.

Shamelle presents Dale Carnegie Guide To A Happier YOU posted at Enhance Life.

Chris presents Social Skills And How To Improve Them posted at How to be Cooler.

Success

John presents Know Your Sacrifices posted at OhCash.com, saying, “Starting a business takes a lot of sacrifices, and everybody knows this. But what exactly are these sacrifices and how to deal with them?”

Alan presents The Likeable Factor - Do your clients like you? posted at Made to Be Great.

Alan presents Your True Inner Potential posted at Made to Be Great.

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of personal development burst using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Technorati tags: personal development burst, blog carnival. ]]> http://burstcreativity.com/word/2007/02/03/personal-development-burst-2nd-edition-2/feed/ http://burstcreativity.com/word/2007/01/09/6-secrets-of-personal-goal-setting/ http://burstcreativity.com/word/2007/01/09/6-secrets-of-personal-goal-setting/#comments Tue, 09 Jan 2007 18:57:46 +0000 almomento Self Improvement Success Business Education Personal Development Self Discipline Goal Setting http://burstcreativity.com/word/2007/01/09/6-secrets-of-personal-goal-setting/ Why do we need goals to achieve anything in our life? The answer is as simple as allowing our imagination to pave the way of our success. What do I mean by that? Simply put, our imagination needs to have an end result in order for us to be able to imagine ways to get to that result. Let’s do a simple exercise. In your mind try to trace the route of getting somewhere, but do not think of a specific destination. Imagine different streets you might take, or different roads. Having trouble? Your mind needs that destination if you are going to think of how to get there, doesn’t it? Otherwise there are simply too many options to choose from, your mind can’t sort through all of them, it needs to choose one. Goals work very similarly. In order for us to accomplish anything, first we need to envision what is it we want to accomplish, before we can commit to action.

So why is it that it is so hard for us to both set goals and stick to them until we accomplish them? A couple of the biggest reasons are the way we set goals and the way we think about them. This can fall into two categories: we might be setting goals that are unrealistic, or we start thinking of goals as set in stone. Either way, when we do not accomplish them right away we get disappointed and end up abandoning them all together.

To help us make goals that are both realistic and easy to achieve here are a few tips:

- We need to be specific about the goal that we are setting. So “I want to loose 30 pounds” is better then “I want to loose weight”.
- Second, we need to know the time frame of our goal. So if it is something like “I want to develop a successful consulting business”, and we know that this will not happen right away, we should put it in the long term goal category.
- If our goal is big like the developing a successful business example, we also need to break it down into smaller, shorter term goals that you will accomplish first before getting to the final destination. Like “I want to make a business plan for my new venture” or “I want to find partners that will help me accomplish what I set out to do”.
- We also need to know when we will achieve this goal. So if we look at the business example, it can be something like “I will have a successful business when I will be able to cover all my living expenses from the profits of the business, while working only 30 hours per week” It is something very precise that will signal to us that we have achieved a desired goal.
- Here are also other questions we should ask our selves when setting a goal. Is your goal achievable and realistic? Is the time frame for achieving your goal acceptable to you? Are the costs and consequences of achieving your goal acceptable? Do you have all the resources you need to achieve your goal and do you know where to get them if you do not?

Another very important point about goal setting is that goals are meant to be constantly adjusted! If you think of goals as a guideline that highly depends on the circumstances surrounding it, you are on the right track. Situations in our lives change all the time. This is the primary reason why we need to constantly adjust our goal to make them fit into the new situations life presents to us. All we really have to do is monitor how we are doing with our goals from time to time. Make sure that these goals still correspond to our desires, and if they no longer do, adjust them or set new ones.

Here is the recipe on how to get rich:
Find something you love to do. Find a system of making money with it. Do it until you will be successful.

Sounds over simplistic? It is. Knowing HOW to get rich is easy, it is doing everything you need to do to get rich that’s hard. There is a chapter in Donald Trumps book “How to Get Rich” where we follow Trump with his 24/7 schedule for one week. You think you work hard to earn a living? Try being “on” all the time like most business people are.

Let’s look at some of the areas where people make a lot of money.

Business

You can definitely make your self rich by developing a successful business. Relatively speaking that method can be very quick. Ultimately whatever way of getting rich you would choose, be it real estate investing or online trading or marketing, it will boil down to developing a business. All successful businesses have systems that they follow to make money, and those systems are the key behind their success.

There is two ways of developing a business system. One you can do it your self. This way is long and painful most of the time and is the reason why 3 out of 4 businesses fail in the first 3 years of operation. Two you can buy a system from someone who “cracked the code” for you. In other words get someone who is already successful to teach you what they know. This way is faster and increases you chances of success dramatically. To put it simply, you will not be able to succeed unless you educate your self.

Investing

Just like in business, in the area of investing most people loose money. The reason most investing is so risky is as simple as lack of knowledge and sophistication on the part of the investor. There is definitely a way to make it big in investing. The success just like in business depends on the systems you employ in your investment strategy. And here again you can either develop the systems your self, or find someone who is already successful and get them to teach you what they know. The difference between investing and business is that you can’t build a successful investment strategy with sweat equity like in business. You can loose a lot of money in learning how to invest, so I suggest the “leaning from someone who knows what they are doing” route.

Winning a lottery

You can. But let’s face it, what’s a bigger chance – you winning a lottery or building a successful business with hard work?

Working hard for someone else

… is not a way to become financially wealthy. People might disagree. But to become truly wealthy, where all your financial needs are met for the rest of your and your children’s life, is pretty much impossible while working for someone else. This method of saving pennies has to be combined with some form of investing or business to attain true wealth.

So should we forget about getting rich quick? No not at all, as long as we also keep in mind that becoming a millionaire is a process, unless of course, you are born a Paris Hilton. Most of us, however, do not have that privilege and have to make sacrifices on the road to success. Hard work and education are two keys that will ensure success in both finances and personal development.

We can however put some broad definitions to the term success that would apply to most people.

One of such definitions would be financial success. I define it as the ability to live a financially worry free life. For some people this might mean that they would be happy to make enough money to survive and others might want to have an extravagant life style. There isn’t really a right or wrong answer. It all depends on what is important to us.

I think that even a better definition of success would be living as close to your true destiny as possible. Here are a few tips for discovering what your true destiny is.

1. Know your dreams.
It isn’t enough to just have goals in life. We often know the direction we want to go to, but do not know where exactly that direction will bring us. Knowing exactly what you want is a key component in designing our destiny.

2. Live your dreams.
Living your dreams is a must. All our happiness depends on how close we come to living our true desires. Think about it. Do you think you would be happier if you were to experience what you truly desire in your day to day life?

3. Take responsibility for your life.

Part of being truly successful is being responsible for the way we act. We all know that things do not always workout the way we want them to. Sometimes we make mistakes. Admitting when we did make a mistake can do great things for us. This ability is crucial when learning anything. When we admit to a mistake we learn from it and are able to move on without hindering our progress. It is being stubborn that prevents us from learning the lessons we need to learn.

4. Let go of any hurt you might have experienced in the past.

If there is one thing that holds us back in life, it is when we hold on to the past. We all experience terrible injustices at one time or another. There are times when we get hurt and go through what seems like incredible difficulties. The sooner we will develop the ability to let go of anything that happened in the past, the more our life will seem successful to us. The easier it will become.
5. Make a plan and stick with it.

Goals are important, but so is action. We must have a plan and follow it to reach a desired destination. Action is of paramount importance. Without acting we will never be able to get anywhere. So make a plan, and follow it with abandon.

Success will come to those who are able to act fearlessly in the face of adversities life troughs at us every day.