December 21, 2009

Change Your Life Today, Now, Forever

Apparently, these or some of the expressions which are searched on the Internet quite a lot: “Change your life today”, “Change your life now”, “Change your life forever”. A bunch load of people are not living the lives they want to live, and they’re looking for ways to change that.

And I think that’s great. Unfortunately, for a lot of them, the search process in itself is setup for failure. Because they’re looking for quick fixes; for magic solutions to improve their lives: “Do this twice every day for 7 days and your entire life will turn around.”

In this era when things happen at great speeds, there is a fascination with fast and easy solutions which create big, lasting changes. And this fascination fuels an entire industry trying to provide them. An industry which for the most part, doesn’t even come close to fulfilling the “change your life today, now, forever” promise.

Let’s take a look at two very common examples:

1. Diets. There are hundreds of diets out there, which promise miracle results. Yet what they really provide is a relatively fast weight loss which does not last and is often very unhealthy.

Any person who lost a lot of weight and kept it that way can tell you what the solution that works is: eat less and exercise more, eat right and exercise right. Not just a couple of weeks, but as a constant part of your lifestyle. This way, you will slowly but healthy loose weight and you will keep it off you. It seems to be too hard for most people.

2. Subliminal tapes. There is a multi-million dollar industry of self-help tapes with subliminal messages on them, tapes which promise to change you life, improve your confidence, attract wealth and so on, just by listening to them. Because, we are told, the subliminal messages which you cannot hear consciously go directly to your subconscious mind and create powerful changes.

It certainly sounds great. There is just one problem: it doesn’t work! Every independent study on the effectiveness of subliminal tapes has reached the same conclusion: they are a waste of money. They only sell with the help of powerful and deceptive marketing.

As a general rule, quick fixes do not work to change your life. So why are they so popular? I think is has to do with a couple of things:

  • People are educated into believing that there are special, secret tricks which if you discover, you can use to change your life today, now, forever.
  • People don’t want to put a lot of time and effort into changing their lives, they lack the patience or the will, so they need to believe that quick fixes work.
  • People have a generally shallow understanding of the principles that generate results, especially the connection between effort, persistence and success.

What does work? The effective solutions to change your life generally follow the same one fundamental pattern: they involve continuous personal development. They involve changing the outcome by improving your skills, attitudes, knowledge and behaviors in an active, gradual, constant and strategic way.

Continuous personal development promises to change your life, starting now but not in a moment. And there is one trait it has that quick fixes do not: it really, truly works.

Although the interest in changing one’s life is a wide spread one, the interest in continuous personal development is much narrower. So if you have this interest, and you don’t allow yourself to be tempted by the promise to change your life today, now, forever – my congratulations!

Filed Under: Lifestyle, Personal Development, Psychology Tagged With: , , , , , 10 Comments
December 15, 2009

The Key to Become Charismatic and What Is CBT

I’m happy to announce that today, not one, but two of my guest articles have been posted: one is “The key to become charismatic” and it’s on Change Your Thoughts, the personal development blog of Steven Aitchison.

You can read it here.

The other is “What is CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy)?” and it’s on A Daring Adventure, the personal development blog of Tim Brownson.

You can read it here.

I was impressed by the quality both Steve and Tim have in their writing, and how they have each developed their unique, powerful communication style. Writing and expressing some of my ideas on their blogs is an important step forward for me.

I think you will find “What is CBT?” to be a short but relevant guide for understanding Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, a personal development tool I use a lot in my work as a communication coach. And I’m willing to bet the ideas in “The key to become charismatic” are going to… hit you.

Enjoy!

Filed Under: Attitude, Psychology Tagged With: , , , 4 Comments
December 8, 2009

How to Avoid the Holiday Madness and Enjoy Yourself

One big clue that we live in a strange world is for me the fact we even have expressions like “holiday madness” and articles like this one. What in the world is that? Aren’t holidays about rest, relaxation, fun? Have I missed some important lesson in school?

Left and right, I hear people talking about the upcoming holidays like they’re talking about a job they hate, about work they accepted by manipulation and actually wanna avoid.

Remember when you were a child? A holiday was simple: less school, more play, which equaled more fun. Then you grow up and something happens (other than the fact you find out Santa does not exist). You start turning a holiday into one big to do list, filled with things you must do, and you must get them right.

Here are just some of these things:

  • I must buy presents for everybody;
  • I must send emails, messages and postcards to everybody;
  • I must decorate the tree and the entire house;
  • I must prepare a big and lovely holiday dinner;
  • I must make sure all the right people are invited;
  • I must do charity and help others;
  • I must make a new year’s resolution.

And as if all of these are not pain provoking enough, you add the ultimate holidays’ expectations:

  • I must make the holidays special for me;
  • I must make the holidays special for the people around me;
  • I must enjoy the holidays;
  • I must make sure the people around me enjoy the holidays.

With all these “musts”, the concept of “holiday madness” is starting to make sense. You create it; in your head. You take holiday traditions and turn them into obligations; you take holiday wishes and turn them into desperate wants. After a holiday like this, you can’t wait to get back to work!

By this point, I’m positive you already have a good understanding of what the primary way to avoid holiday madness is: letting go of the imperative expectations about what you must do and what must happen during the holidays.

It’s a process. Like most personal development journeys, it starts in your head. This one with asking yourself what would happen if you would drop some of these tasks and expectations. What would happen if you stopped buying gifts to everybody? Would they really stop loving you? If they would, do you really want a type of love which is this fragile? What would happen if you skipped on the Christmas tree this year? Is this plant the main source of your potential holiday joy?

Once your shift in thinking is happening, you can start doing a behavior change. Do more of what you like, instead of what you used to think was required, and keep things simple. When you can avoid the holiday madness and actually enjoy yourself, you are going places.

Filed Under: Attitude, Lifestyle Tagged With: , , , , 16 Comments
December 2, 2009

Personal Development Ideas I Can Do Without

I am going to hit the next person who gives one of the following ideas as personal development advice (this is bad, considering I’m an otherwise peaceful person):

  • Just be more confident;
  • Just be yourself;
  • Just be more positive;
  • Just be calmer.

Just, just, just. It just doesn’t work that way! There is a tone of self-improvement advice out there starting with the word “just” and then suggesting some pretty dramatic personal change, as if it’s simple as going to the supermarket.

With most of these ideas, we are addressing something which is more than just a behavior. We are addressing an attitude. Being confident is not just a way you act, talk and look. It’s a habitual way of thinking and reacting emotionally to various life situations, which is ingrained in your personality. To use some big and resonating words, it’s a complex psychological structure.

What does it take to change such psychological structures? Over time, I came to believe there is no magic pill. What works is consciously, gradually and systemically replacing old thinking patterns with new thinking patterns, old associations with new associations and thus, old emotions with new emotions. Plus, using the right tools and methods to do it. Then, you can act confident cause you can are confident.

The fact these personal development ideas do not work isn’t half as bad as the treatment some of the people who talk about them will give you. I’m starting to call them personal development assholes. They have at least one of two traits:

  1. They naturally have these ways of being they give advice on. So for them, “just be confident” seems like solid advice. Because already having the right internal setup, they can do it just like that.
  2. They have a superficial understanding of how human learning happens and the qualities self-improvement ideas require to be applied effectively.

When you try to put their advice into practice but you don’t seem to be able and you don’t get results, they just start accusing you using advanced personal development jargon: of not wanting it bad enough, of having secondary gains or of lacking willpower. So now, you don’t improve and you also feel guilty about it.

Trust me: when for example, every time you go to a party you feel miserable because you’re too shy to talk to anyone and have some fun, you want nothing more on the planet than to “just be more confident”. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. I’m sure a lot of the people giving this advice mean well, but they often do more harm than good.

The answer is not out there. It’s within. Personal development ideas that work take into account not just the external, but also the internal, to create deep and lasting self growth.

Filed Under: Attitude, Inspirational, Personal Development Tagged With: , , , 33 Comments
November 27, 2009

Learn How to Have a Sense of Humor from James Bond

I’m a big fan of James Bond movies, especially the ones with Sean Connery. One thing I like about them is the witty, confident James Bond humor. Being a very analytical person, I’ve been studying it and trying to decode it.

The good news is there are patterns to the James Bond sense of humor, which you can discover and practice. In other words, you can learn how to have a sense of humor like 007. Here’s one piece of James Bond humor, in the movie Thunderball (1965):

What makes his line in this scene witty and funny? Well, the humor is created by a subtle yet powerful verbal technique: using a common expression with an uncommon meaning. When James Bond says “She’s just dead”, he’s actually using this expression with its literal meaning, not its figurative one that a person would expect. And you, the viewer, know it. That’s funny!

Take this technique to create humor and try it various situations, as part of your people skills development. You may find out it’s a great way for you to enhance your sense of humor.

Filed Under: Lifestyle, People Skills Tagged With: , , , , 11 Comments
November 19, 2009

Forget Achieving Life Balance and Try This Instead

Life balance is a weird idea for many, and especially those who want success or are into personal development will scratch their heads thinking about it. I just can’t imagine Bill Gates or Michael Jordan focusing on achieving life balance and still ending up where they are.

Yet, there seems to be something to this idea, as a lot of people with one-dimensional lives end up suffering from burnout or being unhappy. So, what’s the key to this riddle?

I think the whole concept of life balance is misguiding. It basically refers to splitting your time and your focus in a balanced way between o couple of major areas of you life: career, family and personal time usually. The premise is that ignoring one of these areas is dangerous and will end up making you feel miserable.

The big problem I have with this concept of life balance is that it treats these areas of life as ends in themselves. I see them as means to an end. And I see the end as… needs balance.

We humans, as evolved beings, have a couple of major needs. Here’s a way of splitting them up, of the top of my mind:

  • The basic needs for food, water, shelter, and adequate climate;
  • The need to be healthy and fit, psychically and mentally;
  • The need for learning and personal development;
  • The need for rest, relaxation and recreation;
  • The need to interact socially, to connect with others;
  • The need to achieve and to impact the world we live in.

The essence of a fulfilling life is in my perspective not balancing the areas of our life, but balancing taking care of these needs. And even this balance is a somewhat relative one, as the exact intensity of every one of those sets of needs will not be the same for a person.

The good news is that the world we life in offers many lifestyle options. We can create for ourselves all kinds of balanced or unbalanced combinations of activities related to career, family, hobbies, and end up achieving this relative needs balance. It’s really about fulfillment by finding those activities that allow you to make the most out of them and out of you.

Think of a person who is a book critic, and gets learning and personal development ideas by reading books, while also making money and impacting people by reviewing them. Two birds with one shot. Right now, I’m thinking of my salsa instructor whose job description involves a lot of going to salsa parties, dancing and socializing. Pretty cool, ha?

I believe you can even get needs balance without having a family, and you can get needs balance without having a job. At the same time, balancing the major life areas sometimes has a lot of chances of not creating needs balance.

This is why focusing on life balance can end up making you feel like there’s something missing in your life, and frustrated cause you don’t know why. Instead, focus on a personal needs balance rather then the development of life balance, and I think you’ll be just fine.

Filed Under: Lifestyle, Personal Development, Psychology Tagged With: , , , , 19 Comments
November 13, 2009

Q: How Do I Look? A: Like Everybody Else

As part of my people skills development and my communication coaching, I’ve also been looking a lot at personal appearance and business etiquette. There seem to be volumes of etiquette rules about the way you should dress, accessorize and look, in the business environment and beyond it.

For example, the following are 3 such rules I’ve heard or read over the last few days:

  • The only acceptable colors for men’s business suit are black, navy blue and gray;
  • Grey is the best color for a man’s business suit, as it is neutral and conventional;
  • Men should always wear a suit with a tie when meeting a client.

All I can say is: there are a lot of stuck up people out there! Some try to sell us the idea that respecting every minor etiquette rule about appearance is the way to project professionalism and make a great impression, while disregarding any of them is nothing short of a tragedy. I disagree, and I have the arguments to back it up.

You’re not fooling anyone. Sure, people still associate a well put together look with competence and professionalism. I’m not saying you should meet your clients wearing the free t-shirt from the last beer festival. But following every small etiquette rule about your appearance is taking it too far and can easily turn against you.

Why? Because people have started to get suspicious of persons with the 100% correct look. They realize it can be used as a manipulative trick, it can be planned to create a certain first impression which often has nothing to do with what’s beyond the surface.

Personally, every time I see a sales representative with the by the book sales person look (black suit, white shirt, red tie, big grim on his face), the first thought that comes into my mind is: “Watch out! He’s out to trick you out of your money!” The 100% correct look does not communicate authenticity and it’s simply not trustworthy. This leads me to me second point…

Expressiveness is the new wave in people skills. There is a new buzz word out there and it’s called “personal branding” (OK, actually 2 words). According to personal branding, in order to promote yourself and your services with great results, you need to identify what makes you unique and is relevant for the customer, then express it consistently in any context, through any communication channel. This includes your appearance.

Effective personal branding can only happen if you allow parts of your personality to shine and to reflect in your look. This means breaking some etiquette rules, dressing and accessorizing in a way that makes you stand out of the crowd, developing a personal style. And in the XXI century business world, this is becoming more and more important.

Stiff business etiquette about appearance is loosing ground. The fact of the matter is the way people dress in the business word has been changing quite a lot in the past decade. I’m no fashion expert but I think it’s gonna keep doing so for the next one. You can be a pioneer of this change and make an authentic look part of your people skills development, or… not.

Filed Under: Attitude, People Skills Tagged With: , , 19 Comments
November 8, 2009

Personal Development Readers vs. Personal Development Doers

How many people would you say are into personal development? Very few, right? Keep on reading, and you may realize they’re really fewer than you think.

I say this because I think true personal development means a lot of doing, while a lot of the people in this segment are mostly just into reading/ listening/ viewing: books, blogs, articles, DVD’s, trainings & courses, you name it.

The way I see it, personal development is not essentially about acquiring new information, but about developing new skills and attitudes. However, developing skills and attitudes requires practice. I mean a whooole lot of practice! Massive, organized, ferocious and persistent action.

Most people I know who get into the reading part, considering how much they actually need to practice to turn the knowledge into skills and attitudes, just the most valuable knowledge, they barely scratch the surface.

They read a good book, find some very valuable and practical ideas, at best they start applying them for a few days, and then they move on to the next book, seeking some new “inspiration”. They are the “readers”.

I used to do exactly this; until I discovered I was just being a personal development literature enjoyer. Some people read love novels, I read “As a man thinketh” and the likes. I still enjoy the reading part a lot, but I’m very aware that this is not what real self-improvement is mainly about, so I also focus a lot on practicing what I read; on being a “doer”.

Besides the obvious difference in applying the theory between the readers and the doers, there are 3 more important differences I notice very often, which I think go hand in hand with this one:

  • Doers focus on selecting, remembering and organizing the most valuable personal development ideas from what they read, they put them into their growth plan.
  • Doers use strategies for doing, they set practice goals and daily practice tasks, they keep track of progress and find ways to keep themselves motivated.
  • Doers sometimes consciously cut down their reading, as they understand that new information can often interfere with their practicing and defocus them from their goals. Rather, they sometimes re-read the stuff they’re already applying, to keep themselves going.

The result is the actual growing process as a person. I think you can often separate the doers from the readers because the doers are the ones you see after 2-3 years and they seem strikingly changed, improved: maybe they’re more confident, happier, more expressive, more charming or simply… richer. I don’t know about you, but I for one have the pleasure of knowing only about a hand full of people such as these.

So, after finishing this article, are you gonna take a deep breath and move on to the next one, or are you gonna get up from that chair of yours? What do you usually do? Are you a personal development reader or a personal development doer?

Filed Under: Inspirational, Personal Development Tagged With: , , , 33 Comments
November 2, 2009

Enough with the Mind Reading: Get a 360 Feedback!

I find that a whole lot of people worry about how others perceive them. They worry, and that’s it. They don’t do anything to actually get a realistic view on the matter. At best, they just try to guess it, they try to mind read it and every once in a while, they ask a person they feel comfortable with what she thinks about them.

If what others think about you is something that’s on your mind, do yourself  a favor, and do something effective about it: get a proper 360 degrees feedback (aka 360).

A 360 is an assessment of your person, from multiple sources. It is usually given by supervisors, peers and subordinates. Clients, suppliers can also chip in, and even friends or family if you wanna get a perspective beyond you professional life.

I used a 360 degrees feedback for myself repeatedly and I often use it with clients. The fact that it is structured and rich in information makes the results very meaningful. You won’t find out perfectly how everybody sees you, but it’s certainty a lot more scientific than guessing.

I think there are 3 main things you can do with the information you gain from a 360 degrees feedback, other than just wondering why people think you’re selfish when you buy everybody Christmas presents:

  1. Discover the traits you project with ease in any situation and use this for personal branding.
  2. Discover the traits you repress, you hide from others, and use this for becoming more expressive.
  3. Discover your strengths and weaknesses you may not have been aware of, and use this for personal development.

Knowing about the tool is one thing. Using it effectively is another. Here are my top tips for making the most out of a 360:

  • Use a standardized questionnaire for everyone that gives you feedback;
  • Ask specific questions and use very clear phrasing;
  • Ask for feedback from people that know you and care about you;
  • Allow the option of anonymous feedback to help people be more honest;
  • Get feedback from at least 10 people to have representative results;
  • Remember that how others see you is not necessarily how you are.
  • Remember it’s just a feedback, not a flawless evaluation tool.

Getting a 360 degrees feedback takes some effort and most importantly, some courage. Most of us are not used to asking others for clear and specific feedback about ourselves. Asking for it is a statement that we are vulnerable to their perception and it’s a request for something some find risky to give: honest evaluations. Expect this to take you and them out of your comfort zones, and embrace it.

If you’re interested in a specific 360 degrees feedback tool, I recommend 360°Reach by William Arruda. It’s an online assessment that’s well designed, easy to use for personal development or branding, and you can try it free of charge for 15 days. So, enjoy it!

Filed Under: Career, Personal Development Tagged With: , , , , , 29 Comments