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

Feng Shui is quite a complicated art, and in order to understand it we first need to clarify a few principals that come into play.

First of all we need to know about Chi. Basic definition of Chi (or Ki) is that it is a universal energy (an energy that is present in all objects at all time). Some scientific explanation for such energy lies in the unified field theory of quantum physics. I am not going to try to explain that, but if you need a further info you can refer to that term in your research.

So in Feng Shui, placement of objects either impedes or promotes the flow of this energy. So in other words, if Chi flows freely in our environment, this also will mean that our life will be happier, healthier and more successful. If the Chi is blocked, we will experience all sorts of difficulties in our life.

How would any lay person benefit from this ancient art? One of the basic tenets of Feng Shui is that we need to balance our life in anyway that we can. A simple way to do that from the Feng Shui point of view would be to un-clutter your life from both objects and emotional clutter.

According to Feng Shui clutter stagnates our life. In stead of flowing smoothly and easily, the Chi that surrounds us and the objects we use in our daily life is obstructed. So when we have a lot of clutter in our life, it will feel as if we are stuck in some or all areas of the daily living. We also might have bad “luck” in our career. Our relationships might feel like they are not going anywhere. This concept can also be applied to the emotional baggage in our life. Too much of it can significantly impede the way our life flows.

What can we do about the clutter in our life? It is very simple. Do a Feng Shui cleanse! Follow these simple guide lines to free your self of clutter:

1. If you haven’t used it in a year you don’t need it.

2. When you are getting rid of clutter, you are in fact making more space to receive new objects - so learn how to let go of things (and emotions)

3. Do it. Don’t put it off. Act and don’t give it a second thought.

Once you uncluttered your self, you will gain a brand new outlook on life. Things will seem fresher. It will almost feel like a weight has been lifted from your chest. And you just might also feel the difference in other areas of your life as well.

Try it, it’s going to be well worth the effort.

It is a well known fact that we perform our best when we are passionate about what we are doing. As the matter a fact this is so important that we can not be fully fulfilled if we are not living a passionate exciting life. We feel inspired when we are passionate. It enables us to overcome obstacles and gives us an ability to see the world as a place of infinite potential.

The other characteristic of passion is that you can’t fake it. We can spot someone who is not sincere about what he is doing from a mile away. A charlatan, although a good actor at times, always lacks in the spirit that true passion brings. Anyone with even a little bit of intuitive ability can spot this shortcoming.

Passion is different for everyone. Some people like extreme sports, and others enjoy collecting stamps. To be honest it really doesn’t matter how we define passion as long as it is there.

We all know that if there is no passion in a relationship, sooner or later it will stop being relative and seize to exist. As well we can attest that if we are passionate about what we do for a living, we will be better at it and stick with it for a longer period of time. So what can we do to be more passionate?

Passion stems from deep within us. It is often something that reflects an unfulfilled desire in our selves. For example if our emotions were repressed for a long period of time, we might find our selves drawn to some extreme way of expressing our selves. People who like extreme sports or anything else that puts their life in danger might fall into that category.

So to become more passionate we have to pay close attention to what is it that evokes high level of positive emotion in us. And then do more of it.

The darker side of passion is fear. As we go through life we get hurt over and over again. These little and big hurts cause us to become hesitant about taking chances. And being truly passionate most certainly will require us to take risks. What we need to realize is that if we do not take that plunge and through caution to the wind in pursuing our dreams our life will never become the true definition of fulfillment. In order for us to rich that place of happiness, we need to live through the spirit of passion.

To be fair, we have to note that too much passion can also lead to a lot of misery. An example of that can be variations of obsessive behavior or working too much while neglecting other parts of one’s life. As with everything else in life there must be a balance.

Here is a site that examines what people are passionate about:
http://www.43things.com/

I am by no means a psychologist or a therapist of any sorts, by in my efforts of personal development I have picked up a couple of psychological “tricks” that helped me tremendously. Give them a try and see if it will make a difference for you.

1. Get your feelings out. Sit down, get a piece of paper and write about how you feel right now. If you feel sad, write “I feel sad about …” Go in as much detail as possible in describing how you feel. Get it all out on paper. Describe why you think, you feel that way, make a guess about what you can do to fix the situation. Have a conversation with your self on paper.

2. A variation on that technique can be this: - write down how you feel now. All the negatively charged feelings (anger, sadness, jealousy etc.) - now write down the way you want to feel instead. “I feel sad about …” Then “I want to feel happy and fulfilled!”

Journaling can be a great tool to get your feelings out and release them, so you can be free from those emotions. Try these techniques and let me know if they helped you to get over a difficult emotional time in your life.

When we spend time only planning or dreaming about things that didn’t happen yet, we often forget things that are extremely important right now. For example:

Let’s say that you are always thinking on how you are going on a vacation, and how wonderful it will be, and all the adventures you are going to have. In a mean while, in the present, you work 7 days a week and are extremely stressed. You are so stressed, as a matter a fact, that you do not see how you can take a vacation at all. In your head the thoughts of vacation become a dream that is fading further and further away. It becomes a sort of an escape from your grim reality. At the end the stress causes you severe health problems and you have to quit your job to recover.

Past can be just as dangerous, if we spend most of our time there instead of living in the present. Here is an example of that:

You just went through a break up of a long term relationship, but you can’t let go. It hunts you. You find your self constantly thinking of your ex., analyzing what could have been, thinking about the reasons why the relationship ended. This makes you very unhappy. You can’t start a new relationship. Friends that have successful relationships irritate you. You are miserable.

Many different spiritual practices teach us this ability to be in the now. And I would lie if said that it was an easy skill to develop. But it is so crucial that developing only that one skill that propel your life to unbelievable heights of success. In order for us to be able to do everything we need to in our day to day activities, we need to feel good. Nothing makes us feel good as not being preoccupied by the thoughts and emotions of things that passed or did not even happen yet. This skill is invaluable in the success toolbox of our self improvement