People Skills – Stay Motivated!
In trying to help determine why it is we become stressed, lose motivation, and lack effort, I once asked a woman, “What is chaotic in your life”? She answered, “There is nothing in my life that causes chaos!” Then she paused for a moment and added, “Until you add people to the mix.” I laughed because she had hit the nail on the head!
The only time many of us lose our motivation is when we must deal with other people. If we didn’t have to worry about other people, there would be no stopping us, no frustration, but also no joy! The good (and bad) news is there’s no shortage of people to deal with!
Getting or not getting along with people is one of the biggest de-motivators I can think of. When someone tells us “no” it can be enough to stop all the juices flowing and kill our motivation in a moment. Without someone to care for, or share with, we lose motivation.
People are vital to our success and also a major cause of our challenges. To get past (or use to our advantage) this simple fact is how we stay motivated and engaged in life.
Following are some thoughts on this tenuous topic of motivation and how if we choose to use our noggin for something other than a place to hang a hat, we’ll be able to think past our present circumstances, we can have anything we desire!
Determine what excites you.
The dictionary defines motivation as “that which motivates; inducement; incentive.” In other words, if you don’t have a reason or an incentive, motivation is not present. If you think about what really excites you, it will help you stay motivated. This isn’t easy to do. We are bombarded in this world with images that instill discontent in us.
From the ads on television and in magazines to our peers and professional colleagues, there always seems to be something we don’t have.
The outside world can’t give us what we need. Only when asking yourself what excites you internally will you be able to develop the kind of motivation that will sustain you over time.
Second thought: Don’t pass this paragraph by and think that you know this. Knowing and doing are two entirely different things. Stop for just a minute and ask yourself right now, “What really makes me tick?” I would venture to say it has something to do with people. Watching your kids play a game, helping a customer find exactly what they need, showing a co-worker something new and watching them get it, really get it. These things quicken the spirit and bring satisfaction that can’t be described. If we put it down to the simplest form, it would be this. Most people get excited by what they can contribute that will impact and benefit others. Think about it, doesn’t that excite you?
Determine your goals and the reasons behind them.
Sometimes we set a sales goal or even a weight loss goal without really understanding why. If you want to increase your sales over last year to send your kids to school, or lose ten pounds because you have a reunion coming up, it’s a whole lot easier to maintain motivation. Note that both of these goals involve people. The goal to send your kids to school is something that can truly motivate. The goal to impress your high school classmates twenty years later can be equally motivating, but will be hollow at the end since as we mature we realize that what we think about ourselves is far more pivotal for success than what others think of us.
If we really analyzed our goals, I think we’d all find that the goals that are directly linked to making life better for others (and hence us) are the ones we accomplish. Many times we set unrealistic goals or lose track of their importance. Our motivation then suffers since we need something to get excited about.
Reminders always work.
It doesn’t take but one glance at a school photo before some parents are instantly reminded why they put in a little extra work. Sometimes it’s the financial rewards. Nothing feels better than a glance at a hefty balance in the checkbook to remind you how much fun it is to do well. I know when I have extra money I can do more gift giving, spend more time with people I love, and learn new things. What great reasons to increase that bank balance.
Leaving reminders in places where you can see them works to keep you motivated because they bring the feelings of excitement and reasons to the front of your mind. Print out a word that triggers excitement for you, place a number above the computer screen to glance at throughout the day or tape a picture to the phone so you never lose sight of why you’re living the way you are. Also, enlist another person to share the success of your goals with. By having other people involved the success is sweeter and the down times can be ways to connect even deeper. Goals can be hollow if the only person who cares if you attain them is you. When you share your life in these ways, it will be richer and more fulfilling. Plus, you will stay motivated.
People Skills: How to Assert Yourself, Listen to Others, and Resolve Conflicts Reviews
People Skills: How to Assert Yourself, Listen to Others, and Resolve Conflicts
A wall of silent resentment shuts you off from someone you love....You listen to an argument in which neither party seems to hear the other....Your mind drifts to other matters when people talk to you.... People Skills is a communication-skills handbook that can help you eliminate these and other communication problems. Author Robert Bolton describes the twelve most common communication barriers, showing how these "roadblocks" damage relationships by increasing defensiveness, aggressiveness, or dependency. He explains how to acquire the ability to listen, assert yourself, resolve conflicts, and work out problems with others. These are skills that will help you communicate calmly, even in stressful emotionally charged situations.
People Skills will show you
* How to get your needs met using simple assertion techniques
* How body language often speaks louder than words
* How to use silence as a valuable communication tool
* How to de-escalate family disputes, lovers' quarrels, and other heated arguments
Both thought-provoking and practical, People Skills is filled with workable ideas that you can use to improve your communication in meaningful ways, every day.
People Skills Tips For Technical People
Engineers, IT professionals, and other scientists hold impressive academic credentials. Sadly, most technical programs fail to include a critical success factor in their curriculum. That success factor includes people skills training.
Technically brilliant, scientists have a distinct disadvantage in an otherwise stellar career.
To be fair, nontechnical professionals do ask (and need) people skills training for their “high potentials,” emerging leaders, and current managers and executives as much as engineering firms, IT companies and other scientific industries.
However, scientists often aren’t expected to fill in this gap in their education until technical companies recognize the need for people skills in team building, succession planning, and the continued productivity and profitability of their company.
Employment reports and the Bureau of Labor Statistics clearly paint a picture of too few high-tech employees for the positions available.
As a global shortage of scientists such as engineers, health care and IT professionals ripple across the globe, savvy companies who depend upon the human capital of their technically trained staff realize that for a viable future, they must train their technical employees with high quality people skills workshops, seminars and coaching.
People skills include not only the basic ability to control one’s emotions and recognize the impact one’s behaviors have on others, but also include the ability to work well in teams, to collaborate and cooperate in teams while valuing the diversity of cultural, communication, and generational differences.
Advanced people skills must be fostered in current leadership and a technical company’s “high potentials” to ensure team building, the leveraging of diverse talent, and full employee engagement. These factors ensure the continued productivity and prosperity of a company.
Here are seven ideas to help technical professionals improve their skills:
1. Don’t be too hard on yourself. Unless your major was organizational psychology or interpersonal communication (and it likely wasn’t, or you wouldn’t be in your high tech job right now) your formal education did not include the essential elements of people skills.
2. Don’t be too easy on yourself. Everyone seeking professional career success needs to boost their people skills. People like to work with people who are easy to get along with.
3. Don’t be too proud. Sure, you got the technical job, and it comes with an impressive pay check. To really make your difference in the world, and to be heard at work, you’ll need to be a good listener. Your peers, supervisor and clients want to feel like you hear them before they are willing to listen to your ideas, no matter how great your ideas are.
4. Don’t be too modest. Look how far you’ve come already personally and professionally without formal training or coaching in people skills! Imagine how much more successful and influential you will be when you master this!
5. Don’t be too confident. If people skills came naturally, technical companies from Honolulu to Manhattan and Anchorage to Orland wouldn’t hire trainers and coaches for their technical professionals. You need a systematic, strategic approach to people skills to master them.
6. Don’t be too doubtful. These soft skills DO improve your life, both personally and professionally. Millions of dollars in research, and countless studies support this fact. Don’t sit on the sidelines while your rewards pass you by.
7. Do be intellectually curious. Technical professionals have a natural competitive advantage in being intellectually curious. Apply it to learning and applying as much as you can about people skills. Not only will you improve your professional career success, you’ll also enjoy deeper, more gratifying personal relationships.
The Three Communication Skills Required To Run A Successful Business
Across the vast landscape of needed skills, both technical and soft, where do communication skills required to run a successful business fit in?
Even in the best and strongest of economies, starting your own business can be difficult. The capitalistic free market is rife with predatory competition, fickle customers, and a consumer base that is easily affected by outside factors. When it comes to start-up small businesses, most fail, and fail quickly. However, there is hope: The entrepreneurial spirit can provide one of the most fulfilling and rewarding lifestyles available, once you have your dream idea up-and-running off the ground. One element that may greatly increase your chances of small-company success is a mastery of some of the communication skills required to run a successful business of any size.
Promotion
In this case, the term “promotion” is not referring to the act of raising an employee’s status to a new position; rather, it means the constant, relentless habit of making your business more visible, through marketing campaigns utilizing advertising, news releases, proper signage, and other means of promoting your cause to the world.
One large ingredient to the promotions mix is simple verbal communication, which means that promotion is one of the communication skills required to run a successful business because whether you are speaking to a prospective business partner or an interested customer, the ability to convey your cause in the most effective, appealing manner possible will greatly increase chances of establishing a positive reputation, appearing professional, and landing leads.
Courteous Service
Business owners will have to deal with many clients, whether pleasant or putrid. In either case, it truly helps to be able to serve them with a smile, and courteous service as one of the communication skills required to run a successful business means communicating in a manner that is positive, in a way that offers assistance, in a voice that compels action, and generally in a mastered method of customer service that will enhance client retention rates and present a pleasant overall presentation.
Vendor Relations
From enormous corporations to mom-and-pop start-up operations in a small town, business owners must deal with vendors. This is a necessary evil, considering that some companies out there genuinely are offering valuable, useful, necessary, or helpful goods and services at fair rates. In these cases, the communication skills required to run a successful business simply dictate being able to nimbly verbally navigate offers, advertisements, industry lingo, and other pathways toward potential purchases. On the other side of the financial coin, strong communication skills will come into critical importance when negotiating for a better deal or a contract alteration.
Although it may seem like common sense, there are definitely some communication skills required to run a successful business. Promotion, courteous service, and vendor relations are just a few, but even this handful alone should provide a few excellent weapons in the arsenal of holding a business afloat in a competitive business environment.
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