Do you regret saying or doing something in an impulse? If yes, then you lack the two greatest determining powers a must have for a professional of a modern world. Self discipline and will power are the life shaping powers that help us to choose our behaviour and reactions.
By developing these two powers, one becomes conscious of the inner, subconscious impulses, and gains the ability to reject them when they are not of benefit.
Self-discipline and will power is a very useful and needed power that is essential in everyone's life, and though most people acknowledge its importance, yet very few do anything to develop and strengthen it.
By definition, will power is the ability to overcome laziness and procrastination. It is the ability to arrive at a decision and follow it with perseverance until its successful accomplishment. Self-discipline is the companion of will power. It bestows the ability to withstand hardships and difficulties, whether physical, emotional or mental.
Self-discipline and will power together also means self-control, the ability to avoid unhealthy excess of anything that could lead to negative consequences. Self-discipline appears in various forms, such as perseverance, restraint, endurance, thinking before acting, finishing what you start doing, and as the ability to carry out one's decisions and plans, in spite of inconvenience, hardships or obstacles.
One of the main characteristics of will power and self-discipline is the ability to forgo instant and immediate gratification and pleasure, in favor of some greater gain or more satisfying results, even if this requires effort and time. Possessing strong will power and self discipline gives you the power to stick to your decisions and follow them through, without changing your mind, and is therefore one of the important requirements for achieving goals.
Will power and self discipline enables you to choose, and then persevere with actions, thoughts and behavior, which lead to improvement and success. It also gives you the power and inner strength to overcome procrastination and laziness and to follow through whatever you do.
Developing these two powers may seem to cause some discomfort and resistance, due to the notion that it is something unpleasant, difficult to attain, and which requires a lot of effort and sacrifice. Actually, exercising and attaining strong will power and self discipline can be fun, does not require strenuous efforts, and the benefits are great.
An effective method for developing and improving these abilities is to perform certain actions or activities, which you would rather avoid doing due to laziness, procrastination, weakness, and shyness. This would help you overcome your subconscious resistance, train your mind to obey you, strengthen your inner powers and gain inner strength.
You too can gain inner strength, initiative and the ability to make decisions and follow them. It is not difficult to develop these will power and self discipline. If you are earnest and are willing to become stronger, you will certainly succeed.
Try accepting what is favourable and rejecting what is unfavourable for ultimate goal. Try these few exercises.
- When you want to say something that is not important, decide not to say it.
- Don't read some unimportant gossip in the newspaper, even if you want to.
- You have a desire to eat something not too healthy then refuse the desire.
Perseverance is the key to success and to hone these ultimate powers!
Global ACT undertakes following training programmes- corporate training, leadership training, motivational training, behavioural training, teambuilding training, stress management training, soft skills training, time management training, presentation training, attitude building training, train the trainer, sales training, management training, etc. For more information please see our Inbound and Outbound Training sections.
Self Management & People's skills
We often claim that we know ourselves too well and knowing oneself may appear to be easy; however, there are subtle natures to us that we have overseen. To know ourselves isn't a one moment or one day activity; we need to give considerate time on daily basis on reflecting our gross and subtle nature- action & reactions.
Same way, interpersonal skills are honed and polished with every interaction. Interpersonal skills are on constant check always with every decision you take, every move you make and every word you say.
We will take your through things you could include in practice to your daily lives and begin to know the rare skill of self management. During self management Global ACT would take you through the real life situations and the most viable solutions.
Self Management Skills
- Self awareness - Self Awareness is the ability to perceive aspects of our personality, behaviour, emotions, motivations, and thought process. It is knowing what drives, angers, motivates, embarrasses, frustrates, inspires you
- Emotion management - Emotion management refers to the ways in which people influence their own feelings and expressions and the ways in which they influence other people. It about being able to control unexpected emotions like anger and frustration so you can think clearly and at your optimum.
- Self-confidence - The socio-psychological concept of self-confidence relates to self-assuredness in one's personal judgment, ability, power, etc. Those who believe in themselves have access to "unlimited power".
- Stress management - Stress management involves controlling and reducing the tension that occurs in stressful situations by making emotional and physical changes. Being able to stay calm and balanced in stressful, overwhelming situations
- Resilience - Resilience is the opposite of self-pity, of being fussy. Wealth is no protection against the shocks life can hand you. Improve coping skills so that you can better handle life's hardships. Ability to bounce back from a misstep in your job or career
- Ownership and Responsibility- step-up to uphold the accountability for your actions.
- Persistence and Perseverance - Persistence means sticking to a course of action and perseverance involves sticking to a belief or idea; that is being steadfast or loyal. Ability to overcome challenging situations and obstacles and maintain the same energy
- Patience - Patience is indeed a skill. Many people never seem to learn patience, but everyone can learn it if they try. It is an ability to step back in an emergency to think clearly or the ability to pause and wait when you are in a rush or want to rush others.
Interpersonal skills also popularly known as people's skill for it involves sharing of thoughts for a given objectives.
People Skills:
- Communication skills - Communication skills simply do not refer to the way in which we communicate with another person. It includes many other things - listening, the way in which we respond to the person we are speaking, body gestures including the facial ones, pitch and tone of our voice, and how you articulate your ideas in writing and verbally to any audience.
- Presentation skills/ Public speaking- Effective presentations and public speaking skills are important in business, sales and selling, training, teaching, lecturing and generally entertaining an audience. It is an ability to maintain attention and achieve your desired outcome from presenting to an audience
- Interviewing skills - Interviewing skills helps you understand what you can expect during the interview, how you can impress the job employer by stating your strong points and brushing aside your weak points during the interview, or accurately assess other's ability or extract the needed information as an interviewer
- Selling skills - It's not just enough to know what selling skills are, they need to be practiced and honed: until they become a habit. This is the ability to build buy-in to an idea, a decision, an action, a product, or a service.
- Meeting management skills - Meetings can be very productive. They can also be a waste of time. This is the skill to efficiently and effectively reach productive results from leading a meeting.
- Persuasion, Negotiation, Influence skills - Persuasion involves being able to convince others to take appropriate action. Negotiating involves being able to discuss and reach a mutually satisfactory agreement. Influencing encompasses both of these. The ability to influence perspective or decision making but still have the people you influence think they made up their own mind. Ability to understand the other side and reach a win-win resolution that you find favourably, satisfy both sides, and maintains relationships for future dealings.
- Team work skills - Teamwork has become an important part of the working culture and many businesses now look at teamwork skills when evaluating a person for employment. This is an ability to work effectively with anyone with different skill sets, personalities, work styles, or motivation level
- Management skills - the skills a manager must master to be successful and these management skills build on each other toward success. It is an ability to motivate and create a high performing team with people of varied skills, personalities, motivations, and work styles.
- Leadership skills - Leadership skills turn ordinary employees into highly motivated and committed Superstars. It is an ability to create and communicate vision and ideas that inspires others to follow with commitment and dedication.
- Skills in dealing with difficult personalities - Ability to work well or manage someone whom you find difficult. When dealing with difficult people, stay out of it emotionally and concentrate on listening non-defensively and actively. People may make disparaging and emotional remarks - don't rise to the bait!
- Skills in dealing with difficult situations - Can you remain calm in a difficult situation? Do you try to achieve a positive outcome when you are faced with negativity or confrontation? Ability to stay calm and still be effective when faced with an unexpected difficult situation.
- Ability to think / communicate on your feet (under pressure) - Many times we are put into situations where we are asked a question and need to give an answer on the spot, or "think on your feet." It could be a sale or customer service situation, your manager asking you for a progress report, a request for your ideas on a new community project, or a job interview. Ability to articulate thoughts in an organized manner even when you are not prepared for the question or situation you are in
- Networking skills - A lot of people think business networking is all about 'selling yourself' networking isn't about that at all. It's about relationship building and making yourself and your company attractive to people in a way they hadn't realised before. Ability to be interesting and interested in business conversations that motivates people to want to be in your network.
- Interpersonal relationship skills - Interpersonal relationship skills help us to relate in positive ways with our family members and others. Ability to build trust, find common ground, have empathy, and ultimately build good relationships with people you like or in positions of power/influence.
- Mentoring / coaching skills - ability to provide constructive wisdom, guidance, and/or feedback that can help others further their career development. Why coaching and mentoring? You will recognise that to survive and prosper in tough times, the organisation has to be performing at the highest level of effectiveness so this where mentoring and coaching comes useful.
- Organizing skills - Organization skills are fundamental to life. Without good organizing skills you will stumble through life never achieving satisfaction or success. It is an ability to organize business gatherings to facilitate learning, networking, or business transactions.
- Self-promotion skills - Doing your job well isn't going to get you anywhere if no one is aware of your accomplishments. Market yourself effectively to the right people. It is an ability to subtly promote your skills and work results to people of power or influence in your organization. This will build your reputation and influence.
To know on how to learn these skill sets effectively and how to apply them at hand then Global ACT could help you. We have various courses to choose from- corporate training, leadership training, motivational training, behavioural training, teambuilding training, stress management training, soft skills training, time management training, presentation training, attitude building training, train the trainer, sales training, management training, etc. For more information please see our Inbound and Outbound Training sections.
