Defining Assertiveness.....?????

You need to consider the following four ways of behavior when it comes to assertiveness −

Four Ways of Behavior

THE PASSIVE WAY

People exhibiting passive behavior tend to the needs of others more than their own, as they think they are inferior to others. Passive people may not agree to what others say, but they usually follow others' decisions to avoid confrontation, blame, or responsibility. However, passive people suffer from self-esteem-related issues such as depression, as their needs are always overlooked.

THE AGGRESSIVE WAY

Aggressive people believe in standing up for their rights, even if it comes at the cost of jeopardizing the rights and hurting the feelings of other people. They believe in exerting their own rights, but not in equal rights. They usually get their own way by bullying, intimidating, or being pushy with others. Over a period of time, they suffer from isolation issues, as people are unlikely to stay affectionate with aggressive people for long.

PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVE WAY

People who exhibit this behavior do it to retain some order of freedom and independence in a strongly imposed-upon environment. This is an indirect way to express hostility by being irrational, unreasonable, and sullen. These people avoid speaking out their real feelings but reveal them in far more sarcastic and hurtful ways.

THE ASSERTIVE WAY

People who are assertive respect their rights, and those of others. They present their viewpoints firmly and confidently, but carefully choose their words to avoid hurting people's feelings and emotions. They know to control their anger and exhibit the most appropriate behavior in any given situation.

     “The secret to successful hiring is this: look for the people who want to change the world.”            

                                                –Marc Benioff, Salesforce CEO

SYMPTOMS OF ANGER..

SYMPTOMS OF ANGER..

External factors such as personal issues with others, debts, frustration, unfavorable situations or lack of time for self and family leads to negative thoughts. The Mental Symptoms of Anger are −

Discomfort

Irritation

Restlessness

At the same time, our body also starts responding uncontrollably to these situations by exhibiting the Physical Symptoms of Anger such as −

Heart beating rapidly

Muscles getting tense

Sweat buds forming on forehead

These mental and physical discomforts combine and lead us to exhibit aggressive behavior such as −

Shouting and arguing

Throwing objects

Kicking walls, punching pillows, or slamming doors

Crying

But the worst way to deal with anger is to do nothing, i.e., bottle it up. This suppressing of anger leads to getting drunk frequently, excessive smoking, and even taking drugs. In extreme cases, people also hurt themselves.

In situations like these, the most important thing to tell yourself is that people, situations, or the surroundings do not make you angry. It is the way we react to them that makes us angry.

In short, anybody or anything that angers you − controls you.

COMMUNICATION AND ANGER...

COMMUNICATION AND ANGER...

Angry people tend to interpret things personally and jump to irrational conclusions. Improving communication skills reduces misunderstandings that lead to anger.

Tips to Improve Communication Skills

Here are a few tips that you can apply to improve your communication skills.

Listening to Others − Listen to what others are saying rather than speaking first.

Not Jumping to Conclusions − Avoid mind-reading. Give a chance to the other person to put his point-of-view clearly and comprehensively.

Not Fighting Back Immediately − Keep calm and find out what the other person’s real feelings are behind his saying what he has said.

Expressing Your Real Feelings − You need to be clear about what is the driving emotion behind your anger. The most common emotions behind anger are fear, shame, guilt, or frustration.

Long-term Beliefs

Sometimes people hold extremely negative views about themselves that they arrive at on their own or have been drilled into them, for example − "I’m not very smart.", or "I’m dull at studies."

You need to remind yourself that everyone has lived through unhappy times in their past. It’s best to let go of any negative self-critical analyses.

ANGER MANAGEMENT TIPS...

ANGER MANAGEMENT TIPS...

Here are a few time-tested tips of anger management −

Thinking before Speaking − Collect your thoughts before saying anything.

Expressing Anger Calmly − State thoughts clearly without hurting others.

Exercising − Spend some time doing other enjoyable physical activities.

Timeouts − Some moments of silence can help you focus your thoughts.

Identifying Solutions − Instead of thinking what makes you angry, try to find a resolution to the issue.

Use 'I' statements − Say, "I’ve been waiting to check your presentation," instead of, "You never finish your work within deadlines."

Don't grudge − It's unrealistic to expect everyone to perform by your guidelines. Forgiving and forgetting can take a lot of negative emotion out of your system.

Use humor − Use humor to dissipate the situation without turning it hostile.

Practice relaxation skills − Practice deep-breathing, listening to music.

Seek help − Consider seeking professional help if your anger is absolutely uncontrollable.

Try it Yourself

Recall a situation that made you angry, and another one that caused you to turn violent in anger. Now compare both the situations and fill in the form.

What makes you angry? How would you react to this situation?

What behavior you want to avoid the most when you experience anger?

What will be your alternative line of action?

How will you deal with the early warning signs of anger?

How will you behave when you are very angry?

Download Try-it yourself sheet.

ANGER MYTHS AND FACTS....

ANGER MYTHS AND FACTS....

There are many widespread beliefs and myths regarding anger. Let’s deconstruct these myths and know what the facts are.

Myth 1 − Venting my anger out relaxes me. Holding it in isn't healthy.

Fact − There is a saying that holding on to anger is like holding on to red-hot coals in your palms. Anger should be drained out, but not by being aggressive. That will only lead to further confrontations.

Myth 2 − My aggressive behavior gets me attention, respect, and obedience.

Fact − Power to influence comes from understanding someone and not by intimidating him. You may bully people into submission, but they won’t respect you and will eventually desert you if you can't tolerate opposing viewpoints.

Myth 3 − I cannot control my anger.

Fact − Just like any other emotion, anger also is a result of the situation you are in. Analyzing the situation from multiple possible viewpoints avoids misjudgment and prevents anger.

Myth 4 − Anger management is about learning to suppress your anger.

Fact − Anger should neither be suppressed nor vented out, rather it should be expressed in a non-violent manner and in constructive ways. This is what Anger Management teaches people to do.

EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION..

EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION..

Communication is a way to make interaction between people. Entrepreneurs always try to improve their communication skills because it will assist them in sharing their ideas and presenting them clearly and to constantly work in a better way with their staff, team members, clients and colleagues. They understand the role of communication in entrepreneurship and they furnish themselves with some best tips to make their regular interactions effective.

Having good communication skills will also help an entrepreneur at the time of project explanation, elevator pitches, presentation, training as well as many other areas where a person has face-a-face talk with people. An effective communicable person can build his career easily.

The basic steps of communication are −

The forming of communicative intent to make a healthy relationship.

Message composition to make a healthy dialogue between two participants.

Message encoding to hide your personal or confidential thoughts in a message.

Transmit encoded messages in a sequence of signals using specific channels.

Checking reception of signals to ensure the that they are active in communication.

Reconstruction of the original message and acknowledge on a particular chat.

Interpretation of previous messages and making a sensible reconstruction.

Presentation Skills for Entrepreneurs

Presentation is a way to represent your idea through pictures, but it needs excellent communication skills too. Effective presentation can help your business in growth. Once you explain everything digitally in a conference hall, everyone likes your product.

A few steps which you should follow for convincing your target audiences are as follows −

Step 1 − Before proceeding to the presentation, you should clear your objective in advance. During a presentation, you can try to focus to a specific topic, so the users are impressed with it and understand your key motive and take a decision.

Step 2 − Practice your point of view in advance, so that you can be prepared for the target audience at the time of the presentation. It is a big challenge to impress everyone, but when you know the people, then you can give presentation as per their guidelines.

Step 3 − Self-confidence is the key to getting success; it means you must know your positive points and limitations so that while presenting, you should use your qualities and try to hide your weaknesses, so they don’t affect your presentation.

Before going for any idea, an entrepreneur must now how to properly create a time schedule under which you can present everything with your effective communication skills. If he learns how to deliver knowledge, guidance and performance all at the same time, then he becomes someone to watch out for.

Previously, people used to create a script as per which they would present their ideas to people. Nowadays, businesses have started opening over a cup of tea. Ideas can come from anywhere. A real entrepreneur knows the target audience even before the idea has been germinated properly.

HOW TO BE A TRUE ENTREPRENEUR....

HOW TO BE A TRUE ENTREPRENEUR....

A careful decision must be made to move on to a position involving leadership. This means that, entrepreneurs should begin to inherit attributes of great leaders from now onwards. This can boost entrepreneurs to be capable of thriving in their varied roles in the organization.

Set a Role Model

Choose leaders whom entrepreneurs idolize most. They may be leaders of modern world or may be legendary leaders from history or maybe both. Start working by combining styles that entrepreneurs think are most suitable for them. They might include personally known mentors as well.

Maintain Discipline and Decorum

To become an entrepreneur, you need to change some habits that you inherited when you were a follower. A good control over the working process and a consistent rate of implementing ideas are necessary qualities of an entrepreneur. As entrepreneurs, who we have seen before, basic building blocks of a great leader is based on being sincere; have some patience and wait to strike the right note.

Be Determined

Embrace responsibilities of entrepreneurs to understand the role of one. Be persistent in the role of an entrepreneur as it is one of the toughest things to do.

Learn to Study

Be a student of the qualities in a good leader. Conduct various researches with respect to subject, listen to records, lectures and debates about entrepreneurship and take classes based on it. There are many learning options available in the market. Study the greatest ideas out of each of them and start to implement them in everyday activities and thinking.

Practice

Know the basics of entrepreneurship and then try to master them, while integrating some newer attributes or consciousness level all time. With course of time, not only will entrepreneurs become the masters at the art of harnessing their skills, but also will become capable enough to mentor others towards becoming better leaders as well.

This brings us to the statement that entrepreneurs are made, not born. The path of an entrepreneur will not necessarily always seem to be easy nor it may look fun, but they need to keep in mind that their goals are always within reach. Some people like to say that journey itself contains all the rewards. With this positive attitude, entrepreneurs are already nurturing their winning habits.

Risk Takers

If an entrepreneur intends to grow, it is important to sportively accept failures as different possibilities. A great entrepreneur has to do this and tell others they need not worry about failures. In fact, the best of entrepreneurs follow their idea at the cost of repeated failures, as every misstep gets them closer to success.

Entrepreneurs must be willing to take certain risks, so that they learn from their mistakes and become capable enough to answer questions correctly to make investors feel comfortable with their idea. That is why if someone approaches an entrepreneur with an idea, they don’t immediately reject it as ineffective.

They permit him/her to think around the idea and determine if it really makes sense. If something goes wrong, they do not discourage that person, instead they are grateful for learning something new. Entrepreneurs gain experience and learn from such meetings, which encourages them to take more risks by analyzing every aspect of that risk.

Ethical Behavior

Entrepreneurs set the bar very high when it comes to maintaining their integrity and accountability towards the organization, irrespective of any circumstances that may, at times, look detrimental to the company’s cause. Still, in the longer run, the organization will come out much stronger and better because of this.

Entrepreneurs will be held liable for some of their toughest decisions. They need to keep in mind that it is never possible to satisfy everyone to their heart’s content all the time. But the least entrepreneurs can do is to be fair to all their team members. When the nature of business is a bit too competitive, entrepreneurs will have to take tough decisions, which may initially be unsavory, but will benefit the company later.

Positive Attitude

The significance of a positive attitude is great in the professional lives of entrepreneurs. Great entrepreneurs tend to harness a strong, positive attitude that leaves a mark on others and tends to spread throughout the team. They inject their team members’ minds with confidence, which makes them capable enough to bounce back in in case of any adverse circumstances.

Even if entrepreneurs have a greater number of odds against them, greater also are the chances for a true entrepreneur to rise from a tough situation. As a matter of fact, a large number of entrepreneurs have earned fame for themselves by standing strongly against the toughest of times.

People at times perceive them as being unshakable and calm during crisis situations. This does not mean that they are just acting likewise and are being untrue to themselves. A great leader, most of the times, needs help when something does not go right. However, the most important quality is not to panic and lose focus

Eat that Gerbil

Imagine one morning you wake up and you eat a Gerbil for breakfast. This may sound disgusting but the best part is nothing worse than this could happen to you all day. So, the entire day, you will have a satisfaction that nothing worse than this could happen.

Here, Gerbil is the work that has the greatest impact on achieving your goals and the work that you are most likely to procrastinate starting. There is a different story which says, "If you have to eat two gerbils, eat the ugliest one first!". Let us put it this way, say you have two important tasks to complete, then start with the biggest, toughest and the most important task first.

Always discipline yourself to start immediately and then to stop when you complete that task. Do not let your mind wander in any other task. Always try to stop yourself from starting with the easier task. Remember, a small decision you take today affects your present and your future as well.

Now, if you plan to eat a living Gerbil, it will not sit quiet waiting for you to come and eat it. You must work hard to catch it first; so, the key to complete your task is by learning how to handle different situations and planning what is the most important thing you have to complete, and then start working on it.

CREATING A PRODUCTIVITY JOURNAL...

CREATING A PRODUCTIVITY JOURNAL...

It is always a good idea to keep a track of how much money you have spent and the time spent towards your goal, as this will help you analyze how productive you are. This will also help you examine and adjust your priorities and have a clear mindset towards your goals.

Having a productivity journal is just like having a time log, you can also use a spreadsheet to create one. Your journal should include three things, which are −

Activities,

Time spent on each activity, and

The progress or the outcome of the activity.

You must maintain all the three sections honestly.

The Urgent Vs Important Matrix

Sometimes we are busy handling things which tend to be important, but are not actually that important. The best example of this situation is the distracted zone. These tasks may seem important for people around, but they don’t help you to meet your goals.

Urgent and Important − As the name suggests the tasks in this section demand urgent attention, it includes handling critical issues as soon as they arise in the first place.

Important, but Not Urgent − This section includes success-oriented tasks which are important for achieving your goal, but they do not demand immediate attention.

Urgent, but Not Important − This section includes tasks which needs to be done urgently, but are not that important. These tasks don’t help you to take your goals forward. You can try delaying them or postponing them for some time or even finish them in your leisure time.

Not Urgent and Not Important − The tasks which are neither urgent nor important and are not even related to your goals are composed in this section. These can be considered as just some distractions you get in your way. None of your family and friends are labeled in this category. The things which are not important like playing games for hours are labeled in this section.

The 80/20 Rule

The 80/20 rule states that 80 percent of our success comes from only 20 percent of our actions. In simple words, it is important to focus more on the 20 percent which demands the actions to de-bone for the 80% success. Plan, prioritize and start working on the 20%.

The Glass Jar: Rocks, Pebbles, Sand and Water

This method of “rocks in a glass jar demonstration” is like the time management techniques which are used to demonstrate the importance of having all your priorities set. In this method, a glass jar is first filled with large rocks and then with pebbles.

After pebbles, the jar is filled with sand and water. The main objective of this exercise is to teach the participants that they have to put large rocks first, else it won’t fit later. The large rocks represent different goals which we need to prioritize in our lives to achieve.