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15 Ways To Enhance Your Self-Awareness

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As soon as you walk into the airport check in counter of the specific airline that you are flying with, you may have observed that the flight personnel approach you and ask you these questions

Which class are you flying?
Where are you flying to?
Are you flying business class?

For a seasoned traveler and a traveler who is in a hurry to check in and go through immigration and security, answering these irrelevant questions is probably a waste of time. They know where they are going, which line they need to check in and which class they are flying.

Even for relatively new travelers, answering those barrage of questions asked either loudly or as a matter of fact, may be a waste of time.

Probably a better question may be
How may I help you ?
Do you need help?
In case you need help, please ask me, my name is …..

No matter what services you are offering or what you are doing or whom you are being, self-awareness is crucial. 

#Self-awareness is crucial in every aspect of your #life. #leadership

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Often, when I am either coaching my clients or conducting workshops or facilitating, I am often asked how does one become self-aware?

Cultivating Self-awareness can vary from person to person. Hint: observe, listen and self-coach.

Self-coaching can be done by asking questions of yourself. Asking pertinent questions of yourself and others is a great way to engage in fruitful conversations with others and also with yourself (by way of self-talk).

What questions can ask yourself to cultivate self-awareness?

→1.Did I show genuine interest whilst conversing with others? If not, why not? How can I improve myself?

→2.Did I accept my mistake when I made one? If not, what was the reason for the hesitancy? How can I become better at accepting my mistakes ?

→3.Do I know what made me uncomfortable in that specific situation ? If yes, how can I get over it, if something similar happens next time?

→4.What were the reasons I hesitated to speak up ?

→5.How can I remind myself to listen actively when I am distracted? 

Observing and #listening is crucial in cultivating #self-awareness.#leadership #communication

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→6.Did I appreciate and recognize my team mates and my partner or spouse and my near and dear ones, especially when they deserved it? When I recognized them, did I express it genuinely?

→7.Did I give into my anger or did I recognize it and took steps to overcome it in a healthy way?

→8.How well am I able to manage my emotions from moment to moment, in every moment of choice? 

How am I managing my #EI in every moment of #choice? #life #leadership

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→9.We are all biased, did I give into my bias or took a step back to behave differently?

→10.

How am I making myself different in my behaviors and actions as #life teaches me her lessons?

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→11.Am I behaving and acting in a way that reflects my values? Am I giving respect to others values?

→12.Am I adding value in what I do and who I am in the situation in front of me?

→13.Do I enrich diversity in my day-to-day activities and in who I am ?

→14.Do I criticize, condemn and complain when I am frustrated ?

→15.How do I react to changes and challenges that come my way?

This is not an exhaustive list of questions but a good start to think and ask of yourself.

Self-awareness starts with being aware of the impact of your behaviors and actions in every moment of choice. Every action has a reaction and how are you being in the moment?

Courtesy, Humility, Empathy, Respect result from being #self-aware. #leadership

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. Your character is tested in moments of adversity and challenge and not when life is on a cruise.

How are you cultivating self-awareness?

To cultivate self-awareness and overcome inner fears, please consult me for either one-on-one coaching, group coaching, facilitation, workshops or as a speaker.

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5 Essential Behaviors To Be Emotionally Intelligent

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Last Friday, I went to see my doctor to get my results on the Nerve Conduction Test, that I had done several weeks back. My GP just read out the report and said I had Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and Peripheral Neuropathy. When I asked him, the further course of action, he replied with the utmost caution. Well……. , you could go to the Orthopedic surgeon or wear a splint. I was curious about the options, despite having already read about the options, which I had explored through Google.

He didn’t give me any direct answers and worse still, he started saying that even with surgery for the carpal tunnel syndrome, there is no guarantee of relief and complete cure. He also remarked that being a diabetic means that, the healing process could get complicated and for neuropathy, control of diabetes is essential.

I sat there listening to him and not giving into my emotions. First of all, no one expects a guarantee. Life is short and there are no guarantees. Secondly, he did not tell me anything new and worse still, instead of being emotionally aware about the language and tone that he uses, he was trying to put the entire blame on me being a diabetic and making judgements on the control of Type 1 diabetes.

I was sitting in his room thinking … Do you even know the life I have lived and have you walked in my shoes? Do you even know and understand how I have managed and controlled my diabetes for over 35 years ?……

→How many times have you been a victim of being judged by another, though they know nothing of your life?

→How many times have you typecast and stereotyped a person based on their gender, race, figure, and some traits that you may have observed in this person which happens to be the same as another person or group of people you know?

→How many times have you been emotionally unaware of the impact that your tone, your choice of words and indifference creates on your audience?

→Have you honestly tried to see things from the other person’s point of view?

As a doctor, a manager or a person empowered to lead a team or organization, how emotionally intelligent are you? Emotional Intelligence is about being

1.Self-Aware

Self-awareness is the capacity to introspect and the ability to recognize oneself as an individual separate from the environment and other individuals. It is being aware of what impact your behaviors have on others. Having self-awareness allows you to see where your thoughts and emotions are taking you. Knowing this, you are able to take control of your emotions, your behavior and make changes you want.

Clearly the doctor was unaware of the impact his behavior had on me.

2.Self-Regulation

Knowing when to say what and how is crucial for anyone and especially those who are in a position of impact.

Self-regulation is about being calm, knowing your values, and holding yourself accountable. #EI

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3.Motivation

#Motivation is about doing what you are doing with #passion, #care and #commitment. #EI

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. Being optimistic and realistic and knowing why you do what you do helps you to stay motivated. Doing something without being motivated not only impacts what you do and who you are but also affects the enthusiasm and morale of others.

4.Empathy

Empathy is about putting yourself in someone else’s shoes and seeing things from their perspective. A leader or anyone in a position of impact and influence, has to try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view. They cannot allow their moods or the events of their day to affect the way they communicate or behave. Yes they are human and they need to think before they speak and regulate and manage their moods and emotions before they converse with other people.

Observe, listen, pay attention to body language and the other person’s feelings. #EI

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5.Humanity

We are social animals and we live in the world of communication. It is not only what we say but how we say (tone, body language and facial expression) that has an impact on other people. People who are human are engaging and energizing communicators in that they pay attention to the words, tone of voice and also their body language. They learn to appreciate the value in another person and engage in constructive feedback.

Be direct in your communication and yet be aware that the way you communicate can create doubt, disengagement and mistrust. If you are someone who is in a position to influence others with your behaviors and actions and not able to guard your feelings, and see things from the other person’s point of view, you lack the EI. And in not being emotionally aware, you do not lead by example nor do you inspire others.

→How Emotionally Aware are you?

→How are you becoming EI in your journey of life?

Transitions in life can cause us to be emotionally challenged and overwhelmed, please consult me for one-on-one coaching, group coaching, facilitation or as a speaker on Emotional Intelligence and Transitions.

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You Will Regret, Not Reading This Right Now

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I was at yoga and as I was holding my push up, the instructor asked “have you injured your left shoulder”? Her question took me by surprise. I responded to her in the negative and then I told her that I had a surgery on my right shoulder rotator cuff, three years back. She said that I am slumping on my left shoulder and the injury and the resultant surgery could be the cause.

Push-ups is something I enjoy at yoga and at the gym and it is only on rare occasions that I would do push-ups with my knees down. I was unaware of this slump on my left shoulder whilst I was doing my push-ups. Now that I was aware of this, I was extra conscious of the same and in fact struggled with my push-ups.

And as I was wondering how I could correct it, I remembered the cycle of competence. I wouldn’t necessarily call myself unconsciously competent in doing push-ups but sudden awareness about this slump on my left shoulder made me feel I had regressed to unconscious incompetence.

→As a leader, how many times are you unconsciously incompetent or consciously incompetent and you allow that to stop you from moving forward?

What can you do as a leader to increase your awareness of your team and your own self-awareness through the cycle of competence?

1.Think about your strengths

In moving from stage 1 of unconsciously incompetent to stage 4 of unconsciously competent or stage 5 of reflective competence, rely on your strengths. When you focus on your strengths and your teams’ strengths, it will change your perspective and give you the confidence to move from stage to stage and be on the right path.

2. Think about your challenges

#Life stops when you stop learning and you take an #attitude of “always in the know” #transitions

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 Growth and development happens when you are ready to let go of your inhibitions.

When you recognize what you do well and be reflective, you are able to create opportunities for yourself and your team. When we are in a negative thinking mode, no insights or breakthroughs are possible and in fact it inhibits our brain from clear thinking.

As a leader, you need to realize that the better you become at something, the more you need to consciously think about how you can get better at that task. Those are the new benchmarks by which you judge the success or failure of who you are or what you do.

In learning a new skill or re-learning a skill, there may be moments when you feel you have regressed to previous stages especially if you fail to practice the new way of doing things or exercise the new skill.

In inspiring others to reach their potential, you need to assess where your team is currently, where is their desired outcome and find out what is creating the gap. Telling your team to fix the problem is not going to close the gap between where they are and the final outcome.

#Coaching is necessary to get members of your team to reach the desired state. #leadership

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What is necessary for coaching ?

1.Create a safe place

Do not Judge. Judgment creates defensiveness and stops people from expressing and communicating with an open mind. If you want people to feel respected, listen to them, respect their views, create a safe place and help them grow.

2.Focus on way forward

Don’t focus on what went wrong because that will be self-defeating and demotivating. #coaching

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Keeping focus on how to get to the desired outcomes will help you move forward and help your team overcome the challenges.

3.Be curious

We engage in the world we create. Ask questions instead of telling or giving orders because asking relevant questions keeps people engaged and helps them to think. Asking for your team’s suggestion helps them to be focused and be involved.

4.Get Commitment

Be# goal oriented and get your team to commit to a plan of action. #leadership

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 A plan of action which you help them to design engages them to give their commitment.

Overall, be it in your progression or your team’s progression, create awareness accompanied by a sense of awakening through coaching and coaching yourself by hiring a coach or self-coaching.

⇒Every leader and trainer and coach should be aware that if the awareness of skill and deficiency is low or non-existent – i.e. the learner is at the unconscious incompetence stage – the person will simply not see the need for learning. Thus it is essential to establish awareness of a weakness or training need (conscious incompetence) prior to attempting to impart or arrange training or skills necessary to move people from stage 2 to 3. People only respond to training and coaching when they are aware of their own need for it, and the personal benefit they will derive from achieving it.⇐

For professional executive coaching either one-on-one or group coaching or training or facilitation please contact me.

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5 Effortless Ways to Empower Your Self-Awareness

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“I am aware about that.” “Yeah, I know that.” “I have been through this before. This was Anna*, a client of mine, in her first couple of one-on-one coaching sessions with me, repeatedly told me in different always that she is a self-aware person.

Being self-aware is great and one of the first steps to your personal growth and development. And what are you doing with that awareness is even more important? What are you doing with being in “The Know”

Let’s take a closer look at the steps you can take once you are aware.

 

1. What Action Can I Take?

This is a powerful question you can ask yourself from time to time and when you are in “The know”. This helps you to put that awareness into taking some action. To motivate yourself, ask yourself what action can you take in the next 1 hour, in a day, in a week and so on.

If your goal is to participate in a triathlon in six months’ time, and you are aware that you need to train, what actions can you take, on a daily basis, to get the training kick started?

This can apply to any goal, skill or result that you need to achieve including being self-confident, authentic, able to influence and inspire others.

2. Why do I need to take the action ?

Taking action or not depends on how excited you are to achieve your goal. For example, If you are aware that your inner dialogue is stopping you from being an impactful communicator, you need to ask yourself why do you want to become an impactful communicator, what are the results you will achieve once you are an impactful communicator and how important are these results to you?

3. Why am I doing what I am doing ?

Connecting with your purpose helps you to achieve clarity in order to move forward. Your self-awareness will help you to set up structures in place so that you can take action towards the purpose you are motivated by.

4. What is your mindset?

Having a negative mindset accelerates your self-criticism without you being able to achieve the desired outcomes.

#Positive #mindset is critical to build your #resilience to keep going when the going gets tough.

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Use your self-awareness to determine what you did well when you made a shift in your perspective last time or when you overcame a challenge, what could you improve to get better results and what is stopping you from achieving your desired outcomes?

Visualize what will it be like if you achieve your desired goal. This visualization makes the goal powerful, positive and present and achievable.

Control your inner dialogue or self-talk towards accomplishing your development and growth.

5. What will happen if I don’t do anything with my awareness?

This is a great way to motivate yourself or push yourself to action. Reminding yourself of the consequences of not taking action is a great way to stop procrastinating.

Our brain is motivated to take action by perceived pain or pleasure.

Dr. Kringelbach suggests that this relationship between pain and pleasure would be evolutionarily efficient, because it was necessary to know whether or not to avoid or approach something for survival. According to Dr. Norman Doidge, the brain is limited in the sense that it tends to focus on the most used pathways.

6. What will happen if I take the action that I am aware about?

This is the pull factor and you gear your brain and drive yourself to the desired action. Use your awareness to achieve your desired goal. In all this, don’t forget to give credit to yourself in what you have accomplished.

Self-awareness includes:

↪️ recognizing our destructive thought patterns and taking action to work through them and overcome them
↪️ understanding our emotions – how we react to behaviors and events around us, what triggers the negative emotions and once you understand how can you manage the negative triggers
↪️ not only noticing our patterns of behaviors and actions but creating the necessary shift to overcome those that are disruptive
↪️ we are not in control of everything that happens around us but we are in control of our attitude and the mindset that we take to every situation.
↪️ that each of us have a choice and that we are responsible for our actions in our moment of choice.

#Self-awareness takes prolonged #focus and #effort. #EI #personaldevelopment #growth

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If you want to be self-aware and keen on making a shift in your leadership and communication style, please connect with me.

*name changed

Don’t Criticize, Condemn Or Complain

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Photo Credit : Lalita Raman

Photo Credit : Lalita Raman

I was delivering a workshop on Resolving Conflicts last week and while in conversation with one of the attendees, he mentioned about the frustrating experience, he had that morning, in arranging a brunch booking. He had a bad experience with most of the restaurants he called barring one.

He was most pleased with this particular Hotel because they treated him with care and that was evident in the way the lady who had answered his call spoke to him.

One of the Dale Carnegie Human Relation principles is Don’t Criticize, Condemn or Complain. When most people, I have met hear or read this, they laugh at it and say hey that is impossible in today’s world.

The impossibility comes from the attitude we take. Of course if something goes wrong, you cannot not criticise. What is important to remember is how the criticism or the complaint is delivered.

However, let’s take a step back. Why do we complain or criticize in the first place ? Your Attitude is one you have control on.

It is your attitude either as a receiver or as a sender in every message, written or verbal, that sets the tone of the conversation and the consequences of the choices that is made. Attitude is contagious and surely a positive attitude is one worth spreading. 

What are some of the desirable traits that we would like people to have? Aren’t these the same traits we should seek to have and strive to be on the path of excellence:

1. Be Self-aware

Your path to #grow, develop and excel starts with self-awareness. #leadfromwithin #peopleskills #leadership #selfawareness

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 You have to know who you are, what are your strengths, your challenges. Being self-aware, you are able to understand yourself, your values and how you appear in front of others.

2. Communicate with Clarity

We live in the world of communication. Our communication is affected when we are stressed, overwhelmed, or not appreciated because in such situations we aren’t able to organize our thoughts with clarity. Managing our emotions and not falling a victim to the negative vicious cycle helps us to communicate with clarity.

3. Be a Listener

Presence of mind is easily seen by a person’s body language and facial expression. 

#Listening with your body, mind and soul is the best #gift you can give your partner in any #communication.

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4. Be Generous

Almost every organization is offering some kind of service and the generosity in the care they show to you as a client speaks volumes about their attitude.

5. Keeping your word

You are forming an impression in the way you walk your talk and in the consistency you show in your actions.

Honor your word and your time. #leadfromwithin #discipline #leadbyexample #character #peopleskills

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 Be in control of time and do not allow time to control you.

If you cannot be these things yourself, it is difficult to expect of others. 

The key to finding your happiness is to be the things that you require and wish for in another. #relationships

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How can you break away from the habit to criticize, condemn or complain?

How can you deliver feedback that is developmental and the fault seem easy to correct ?

The Secret To Self-Confidence

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He is a charming person but when you meet him for the first time and several times thereafter, what you see is that his body language is one of indifference, his facial expressions is one of dis-interest and he rarely looks you in the eye whilst conversing with you. He has a sarcastic comment on almost everything mentioned by somebody else. How do you see the charm in such a person?

His name is David and I was assigned to him as his coach. I had a chemistry meeting with him and he chose me as his coach. I felt uncomfortable with My chemistry meeting with him, yet decided to accept the assignment because something in me told me that what we see in David may not be his real self. David had self-confidence issues. He was one of the seniors in his office but had missed the role of heading up the business twice because of the way people perceived him and the way he came across in his body language and tone of voice.

Self-confidence is something most of us can enhance in many areas. We may be self-confident in the way we communicate in our office amongst our colleagues, in front of clients and at home but may be lacking the self-confidence, if we have to address a crowd of 200 people extempore. David’s issue with self-confidence was one of not trusting himself and falling victim to his fears and doubts. His current boss saw the potential in David and assigned him a coach.

What contributes to your self-confidence?

Self Confidence is about self-awareness and self-respect. Your self-awareness and self-respect contributes to your self-talk.

1. Self-Awareness – this is the conscious awareness of your own character, your strengths, your traits, and your skills. What is your identity ? It comes from our ability to accept ourselves while focusing on our positive side. This is how our self-confidence is positively influenced. It is easy to give power to our negative thoughts and weakness, however they do more damage than good. It is about identifying who you are and no matter what the situation what are you capable of ?

2. Self-Respect – how do you look at yourself with dignity and respect in your down and out moments ? Make an inventory of your achievements, the way you overcame the last challenging moment in your life and about every aspect in your life that makes you who you are. It is about trusting yourself and going with your instinct and looking back at every learning you had in your adverse moments and how you reached your goal.

3. Self-Talk – self-awareness + self-respect = self-talk. Self-talk is positive, backed by the evidence from self-awareness and self-respect.

Let your self-talk be one where you can make continuous improvements in your growth areas and where you encourage yourself to get to where you want to go. Click To Tweet

It is not about giving in to your fears and doubts and having them empower you but in finding your strength in every mode of life to do what you want to do and in all that be who you are or want to be.

David had self-confidence issues and he tried to mask that by his indifference and tone. Without his realization, his mask had become his biggest inhibitor to success.

Self-confidence is not about being arrogant or aggressive. It is about enabling yourself to be your best with humility. Click To Tweet

How are you enhancing your self-confidence?

For Coaching, Speaking or Training let’s connect.

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Are You “A Wannabe” or “A Go Getter”?

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You meet your friend Jane for a coffee and in the midst of her conversation with you, she remarks, you know I love writing and am planning to write a book. I want to finish writing at least four books before the end of 2013 and publish it over the course of the first quarter in 2014.

You meet her after 3 months and ask her how she is progressing with her book. She says she has made little progress but she is going to focus and get it started with renewed vigor.

You meet Jane again after two months and she has not made any significant progress on her book. It is already July and she is still procrastinating on her first book. You wonder how she is going to make her dream of finishing four books by the end of 2013 achievable.

How often have you heard yourself and others wish similar things?

Are these just dreams or wild wishes that cannot be translated to reality?

I hear an overwhelming “no”, from you. So what makes dreams come into reality ?

We all have dreams. But in order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort – Jesse Owens

What is that creates the gap between dreams and the action required to make this dream happen?

I often ask my clients when they set goals and regret about not achieving it,the following questions

1. What are your wants and should’s?
2. How often do you tend to be driven by your wants and should’s?
3. How often do you make your wants as should’s and turn that as a focal point on any given day?
4. What have you wanted to do and haven’t?
5. What recharges your batteries?
6. What led you to achieve your wants in the past ?

What stands in your way to making your dreams come true ?

1. Passion If you wake up each day and putting efforts in getting closer to achieving your dreams feels like a death sentence, it is time to ask are you driven by that dream? Are you passionate about it and will still seek to achieve it despite the hurdles along your way?

2. Rewards our brains like rewards along the way. In the case of dreams like writing a book, you may not be able to see the immediate reward. For me writing a blog post, translating an idea to a completed blog post gives me a thrill. Every drop in an ocean counts and baby steps are a good way to start anything new. What are these rewards that will make you stay committed in your journey to achieving your dreams?

3. Priorities – each of us have a part of the day when we function our best. For some of us this may be early morning, and yet for others late night. How can you utilize this time more productively. Can you prioritize your day in a manner that you do those activities that require thinking, understanding and being creative during the best part of your day? Do you take adequate breaks to recharge and renew?

4. Communication – is often the key to success in our professional lives and this includes communicating to ourselves as well. What are you telling yourself in terms of your wants? What are you doing to focus the best part of your day to making progress towards your dreams? How are you motivating yourself? How are you shutting off distractions ? Do you take support from friends or other networks?

5. Responsibility – intention to do something and taking action to convert the want to a reality are poles apart. How responsible are you in doing everything within your control? What things if you did them would change your life?

*Every time you think or say you are procrastinating, focus on the how to rather than over analyzing and over thinking on what ifs.*
*What acknowledgement can you give yourself today?*
*In what particular ways are you results oriented in your day-to-day actions?*

Success : What does It Mean To You ?

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What does success mean to you?  I was asked this question by one of my friends last week. Definitely got me thinking and after some thought I responded to her by saying it is something that appeals to my within, an act and achievement of that act.  She looked at me with the most surprised look and remarked, “oh!, so it is not about promotions, getting compliments, having a big house, or a successful business”.
Yes, success to many of us at some point in our lives may be associated with materialistic concepts because as we are growing up in life those are the things that are given importance to.  I’ve been there, yearned for the same things but life has taught me that success at the end of the day is how well I choose to face my disappointments and change my path to achieve the vision, one that still appeals to my within.  To achieve success one requires confidence, clarity and self-awareness.Success does not mean absence of failure. In fact, I would say not trying at all is possibly the worst failure. Our thoughts guide us through our journey in life and a lot of this depends on what you believe. Self belief is an important ingredient to the path of success. “I believe I can” or “I believe I can’t”, frame our thoughts and more often than not it is these self-limiting beliefs that become hurdles in our path to success.

Let me give you an example,  one of my clients ? (Jim – not his real name) was narrating one of his experiences with his client and how he was getting very frustrated with his client’s inability to understand the nitty-gritty and the technicalities despite his efforts to explain the procedure in detail.  Jim had reached a stage of almost giving up and believed he will not achieve success with this client of his, despite his repeated attempts.  As part of Jim’s coaching sessions, I asked questions focussing on his strengths and to evaluate options not considered.  With the help of coaching, I made him realize that self belief is imperative and closely aligned with self belief is courage, commitment, patience, and flexibility to change approach to reach the final vision.
I believe that a good sales person is one who believes in their ability, the value of the product or service that they are offering and is able to convince their buyer re: the utility value of the product or the service. Real conviction comes from believing in something wholeheartedly and as a good sales person you share that belief with your clients and are able to convince them of the product or service.
Life to each of us is a sum collection of our beliefs and thoughts and translating our vision to reality. If you believe you are, you will be. Belief is translated in your audio and video.  When you have a strong belief in yourself, everything that you do will reveal this positive power of your belief.  And this, I believe is the key to success.  If you believe, you exhibit confidence and being confident matters to the success in what you seek to achieve.
Drawing an analogy, I would say, self belief is almost like an addiction – if you are addicted to your vision,  you will believe you will achieve success and be confident about it and work towards achieving your vision.
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10 Hurdles To Emotional Learning

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When dealing with people, let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bustling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity ~ Dale Carnegie

When I say Emotions, you almost immediately associate ‘Anger’ and ‘Sad’ as the synonyms.  Emotion is the mental state and this could be positive or negative.

There are seven major positive emotions : desire, faith, sex, enthusiasm, hope, love, romance.  And the seven major negative emotions are : anger, fear, jealousy, hatred, revenge, greed, superstition.

Our brains harbor a lot of emotions and it is the negative emotions that is worrying.  The amygdala  is most commonly associated with fear and anxiety.  Each of us have a chronic or habitual emotional level that determines the overall well-being or satisfaction.  If a threat is perceived,  the amygdala tends to hijack the reasoned response process.  We have certain triggers-things that cause us to have an emotional reaction and elicit our innate ‘fight of flight’ response.  This limits our capacity to think clearly and causes us to move to default behaviors that may not be skillful or effective.

Emotional intelligence (EI) is the cognitive ability involving traits and social skills that facilitate interpersonal behavior.  The four main components of EI are : Self-Awareness, Self-Management, Social Awareness, Relationship Management.

Our emotional level, thus is the manifested frequency level of everything and anything that is real (perceivable) to us in our world and actual life’s experiences.

Have you wondered as to Why are these negative emotions triggered?

1. Change  results in discomfort and stress – a lot of us expect life to be easy and when challenges and hurdles come along, it overwhelms us and may cause negative reactions.

2. Human Being rather than Human Doing – we forget many times that what really matters in each of our lives is what we are, what we build and what we share.  Living life with a passion and being your true self is the most important.

3. Relationships – many times we tend to chase people though they may have shown no interest in building and maintaining relationships. In our busy lives we ever so often forget to make time for those who matter the most.  We allow our pride and ego to be the mainstay of relationships and taking those, who have been with us through thick and thin,  for granted.  This leads to disappointments and triggers a lot of negative emotions.

4. Allowing our mind to control us – life is not perfect and sometimes we allow a bad moment, or a bad day to take control of our state of mind and the reactions to other unrelated events of the day.

5. Help – not asking for help when you need it desperately.  Each of us need help and cannot survive in isolation.

6. Know when to walk away and when not to give up – many times we hold onto things without asking ourselves the utility value in the same.

7. Surrounding ourselves with people who make us unhappy and drain our energy out – ignore those who hassle you, stalk you, embarrass you and step beyond the boundaries of decent behavior on social media and in real life.

8. Not being accountable & responsible – not walking the talk which leads to distrust and guilt. We loose our identity by not learning to say,  ‘No’ resulting in over committing and under delivery.

9. Not taking a break– many of us get into the rigmarole of  doing too much without pausing. In that we live without enjoying the simple pleasures that life has to offer. We are stressed out, irritable and a vicious circle ensues.

10. Focusing on past – allowing our past to continue to dominate us to such an extent that we become victims of it.  We focus on the negatives, loosing ourselves in the problem.  More often than not,  we repeatedly point to our unhappy circumstances to rationalize our negative feelings. This is the easy way out. It takes, after all, very little effort to feel victimized.   But the negative thinking and behavior hurts only one person the most and that is “You”.

So how do we deal with our Emotions especially those that trigger a negative response.

Adaptability is all about recovering from the anxiety  & adversity that change initially brings & then having the flexibility to move ahead vigorously.

I find that one way to practice this idea is to write or think about a good experience. Not only does this remind me that there’s life beyond bad feelings, but it also serves as an emotional anchor.   I find my memory can become a positive emotional reference point, to remind me of the range of possibilities when I am at my worst feeling down and out.

Refer my post on Twelve Ways to Inspire Yourself When You Are Feeling Down and Out

The role emotions play in shaping thinking accounts for a large part of why we see a failure of good thinking in most leaders.  You are free to choose behaviors that are truly in your own best interests.

We all have so much to give. We just need to consciously choose to access and share it.  When we give good vibes, good thoughts,  and a smile, we generally get it back.  Recognizing emotions is the basis of self-knowledge and interaction. An emotion comes up to the conscious level when we are ready to manage it.  I like to think emotions as colors, some simple, and yet others are blends.

Emotional memory management enables us to manage our emotions in a way that will produce more positive outcomes.  It is the “habits of mind” that reveal intellectual character.  Please watch my video on “Emotional Blindspots‘.

The 3 core development steps for all Leaders are:  Knowing Yourself, Choosing Yourself and Giving Yourself.  What do you think ?