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New Year’s Resolutions
Here are a few elements worth considering when it comes to making New Year’s Resolutions:
At the simplest level, it is important to write your goals down as writing and commitment go hand in hand for most people in addition to imprinting the goals in your mind.
Have you enough reasons to want to achieve your goals? After each goal people should write down why they want to achieve a particular goal. Obviously the more reasons, the more motivated and the reverse is also true.
Are your goals a reflection of your values? If you are pursuing something that is important to you, motivation is more likely.
Ask yourself what would you do if you had 48 hours to live? You would most likely engage in value driven activities so why not do it now?
Have you set a date for the achievement of your goals? This is absolutely essential otherwise you will be forever going nowhere!
Have you taken the first step? This is always critical. If people are willing to take the first step they will definitely end up in a place they will recognise as better than before they set goals.
The Bigger Reason
At a deeper level one of the reasons people stop pursuing goals, even though they would argue they really want them, is the annoying inner voice that says, "You are not good enough." This is a result of their personal conditioning to date. If they work on building their self-esteem, this voice will begin to disappear and they will get closer to achieving their dreams.
Indeed you could argue that failing to reach your New Year’s Resolution is a great reason for people to get involved in personal development.
Motivation
Most importantly take the first step. Action precedes excellence.
Take out two pieces of paper.
A person should write their goal on the top of each piece.
On the first piece write down in detail what will happen in all aspects of your life in 12 months time if you fail to meet your goals. What will happen to your relationships, finance and self-respect?
On the second piece of paper write down all the positive aspects of achieving their goal. This will intensify the positive feelings attached to achieving their goal.
This should get you motivated, as people are invariably either motivated away from pain (first model) or towards pleasure (second model).
Goals
What type of goals should you be looking at?
Discover your mission - the key to a life less limiting.
The most important thing is to look for balance and goals should be set for all aspects of life. Most people’s experience shows that happiness is not derived from one source but from all sources including work, relationships, sports, personal development, community etc.
More and more people should be putting daily timeouts as one of their goals for 2004 as more people are working harder and are becoming more stressed. Sleep only delivers rest to the physical body not to the mind thus people should take at least twenty minutes a day to relax an overactive mind. The benefits are many.
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 10:52 AM
Psychologists have calculated that the best time to say sorry is between ten minutes and two hours after the hurt has been inflicted.
Say it too soon and people are annoyed and believe you don't understand the extent of their hurt.
Leave it too long - it may become difficult to reverse the long term damage caused by the hurt.
Christmas is a great time to stretch yourself outside your comfort zone and rebuild old relationships and heal past wounds.
Remembering that life is a journey in forgiveness, say sorry today!
Happy Christmas and an abundance filled 2005 to you all.
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 04:14 PM
All men dream,but not equally. Those who dream by night, in the dusty recesses of thier minds,awake in the day to find it was all vanity. But the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes to make it reality. - T.E. Lawrence.
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 01:45 PM
Time for Giving and Receiving.
Time for family and community.
Time for timeout and reflection.
Time for celebration.
Time for prayer.
Time for Gratitude.
Enjoy and exercise many of the above elements all year round.
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 09:24 AM
" No tattoos, no ear rings and no scratches on the car. This was my wife's positive first impressions of our future son in law," said the Bride's father at a wedding I attended at the weekend.
Brilliant!
BTW Good luck Liam and Connie.
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 10:52 AM
Epictetus, a philosopher who lived circa 50-138 A.D., was born a slave in the Greek-speaking Roman province of Phrygiaa.
One day, when Epictetus was working in the fields chained to an iron stake, his master who worked for Nero, decided to tighten the shackle on Epictetus's leg. Now Epictetus told the cruel master that making the shackle tighter was not needed. In fact, if the master tightened the shackle ... well, the leg would break.
The master was not persuaded; he proceeded to tighten the leg shackle and sure enough he broke Epictetus' leg. Did he protest? Not in any way, nor did he give any sign of distress. His master asked him why. Epictetus said that since the leg was already irreversibly broken, there was really no point in getting upset about it.
Well, his master was so impressed that he eventually set Epictetus free, gave him money and sent him away to become an itinerant philosopher.
Epictetus taught that happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle: Some things are within our control, and some things are not. It is only after we have accepted this fundamental rule and learned to distinguish between what we can and cannot control that inner tranquility and outer effectiveness become possible.
We can not change what happens to us, but we can control our reaction to same.
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 09:33 AM
A completely blind British man has been shown to possess an apparent "sixth sense" which lets him recognise emotions on people's faces, British scientists said in research released on Sunday.
The 52-year-old was able to react to pictures of human faces showing emotions such as anger, happiness or fear, the researchers said.
The man, identified only as "patient X", has suffered two strokes which damaged the brain areas that process visual signals, leaving him completely blind.
However his eyes and optic nerves are intact, and brain scans showed that he appeared to somehow use a part of the brain not usually used for sight to process visual signals linked to some emotions.
When researchers from the University of Wales showed the man images of shapes such as circles and squares, he could only guess what they were, and had a similar lack of success determining the gender of emotionless male and female faces.
But when presented with angry or happy human faces, his accuracy improved to 59 per cent, significantly better than what would be expected by random chance, with similar results for distinguishing between sad and happy or fearful and happy faces.
He was unable, however, to tell apart images of animals which appeared either threatening or non-threatening.
Believe it or not!
One thing for sure is that we all have access to the compass in life - our intuition.
As we approach the New Year set a goal of using your intuition more - I promise it will dramatically change all aspects of your life. You will find the more you use it, the more powerful it becomes.
Warning: Intuition does not come with a pension plan but does deliver you a better result every time. Meanwhile knowledge will always give you enough reasons not to follow your dreams.
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 11:26 AM
"This world demands the qualities of youth; not a time of life but a state of mind; a temper of the will; a quality of the imagination; a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease. It is a revolutionary world we live in, and thus, it (...) is young people who must take the lead."
Robert Kennedy
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 08:49 AM
The arguement rages - do video games have an effect on our children?
Are the new babysitters of the 21st century influencing their short term and/ or long term behavior or can a child just walk away from the expereince and appreciate it for what it was - a game?
That is the focus of Grant Carlson, a 2004 Drury University graduate with a master’s degree in criminology, who is currently conducting research for his doctorate in social psychology at Iowa State University. He’s studying under Dr. Craig Anderson, one of the world’s leading authorities on the psychological effects of the media.
"The research we’re doing right now is in short-term effects, 10-15 minutes after play," Carlson said. "We see a spike in aggressive behavior, thoughts and feelings."
Symptoms are "very consistent," he said, and include an increased heart rate and blood pressure. Other research has pointed to a possible spike in the stress hormone cortisol, though hormone research is still relatively new.
Tests show symptoms also seem to cross gender lines, regardless of whether the player is used to playing such games.
A few months back we reviewed new research which showed how desensitised we are becoming to violence as a result of surround sound tv's in the home.
Adding the two findings together one now realises that some of the new technologies should come with a age rating.
It is obvious that allowing either your children or yourself to be baby sitted by a tv or videogame may have serious negative consequences.
Be aware.
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 09:45 AM
Trust, the key intangible in any successful organization is on the wane in UK organizations according to the latest survey into employee attitudes from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD).
Trust in senior management is declining, particularly in the private sector, with only 25% of all employees willing to place a lot of trust in senior management to look after their interests and 41% placing little or no trust in them to do so.
The survey, Employee Well-being and the Psychological Contract, launched at the CIPD’s Psychology at Work Conference on the 8 December is based on responses from over 1,000 UK employees drawn from both private and public sectors. The survey explores trends in employee attitudes to work and relationships with managers and colleagues and provides a consistent baseline against which UK organisations can benchmark their own employment relationships.
Mike Emmott, CIPD Employee Relations Adviser,
"The survey shows that employers need to work a lot harder in order to get the best from their staff. Good communication is key -consulting people about change and ensuring they feel involved in the decision making process - is basic good management. But too many firms are not getting the basics right"
It is not only top management who have problems - trust in employees’ immediate line manager has also declined, dropping in the private sector by over 10% over the past two years. Also, fewer than half of respondents say their supervisor motivates them and only 37% say their line manager actually helps them improve performance.
Working towards building a high trust culture should be the aim of every organization. Not only is a persons life a trip towards Trust, so also is the life of an organization.
In high trust cultures, people feel free to express themselves, people cooperate as opposed to compete, coworkers are friends and are thus more motivated to get results for themselves and others, and finally the organizations mission statement embraces the philosophy of all workers not just of the script writer.
Based on the above research, it is time for UK MD’s to rewrite the script.
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 09:31 AM
How did you feel when you heard the song "Do they know its Christmas?" again?
Immediately like many other people I started to remember the images from Ethiopia that hit our screens at that time and revisited the same sad feeling at that time. Then I get a sense of joy and pride at how people cared enough to take action on a large scale and make a real difference.
What did you feel?
Do you have a particular song that when you play it, you revisit a time in your life when you felt fantastic?
Accepting that your true goal in life is to be happy, would it be useful to play this song a little more regularly and experience the related positive feeling?
What about playing the music before you engage in any potential stressful event in your life - would it help? I think so.
Before most conferences I play "What a wonderful world" a song hardwired into my system that helps get me in the required state.
The process we are describing here is called anchoring - when you are experiencing a peak emotional moment, anything in the environment can become anchored into your system as almost a symbol of that moment. "What a wonderful world" was playing in the background when I was experiencing a peak emotional time in Australia. It then became associated with the event.
Create your own Pavlov moment today!
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 09:49 AM
A good Sales Person infects their customer with his/her enthusiasm for the product.
A Sales Person's presense will be the determining factor in whether or not he/ she gets the deal. Knowing this good sales people develop their "presense" on an ongoing basis.
Good sales people are led by their customer - not by their script.
Good sales people use complaints as unique opportunities to strenghten the relationship with the client.
Good sales people dont ask for the deal, they know they have it, indeed beforehand they entertain no other reality in their conscious mind.
Good sales people leave before it is too late.
Good sales people build on existing relationships and go outside the nine dots to convert their customers into friends.
Are you a good sales person?
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 01:04 PM
Researching my new book, I came across the following fascinating research which I believe highlights the way to a more creative work environment.
In an interview with the magazine Fast Company, Teresa Amabile who heads the Entrepreneurial Management Unit at Harvard Business School undertook a groundbreaking study that allowed her to “crawl inside people's heads and understand the features of their work environment as well as the experiences and thought processes that lead to creative breakthroughs."
Eight years ago, working with a team of PhDs, graduate students, and managers from various companies, she collected nearly 12,000 daily journal entries from 238 people working on creative projects in seven companies in the consumer products, high-tech, and chemical industries. She didn't tell the study participants that she was focusing on creativity. She simply asked them, in a daily email, about their work and their work environment as they experienced it that day.
Her research busted six cherished myths about creativity. Here they are, in her own words.
"1. Creativity Comes From Creative Types
The fact is, almost all of the research in this field shows that anyone with normal intelligence is capable of doing some degree of creative work. Creativity depends on a number of things: experience, including knowledge and technical skills; talent; an ability to think in new ways; and the capacity to push through uncreative dry spells. Intrinsic motivation -- people who are turned on by their work often work creatively -- is especially critical.
2. Money Is a Creativity Motivator
Our research shows that people put far more value on a work environment where creativity is supported, valued, and recognized. People want the opportunity to deeply engage in their work and make real progress. So it's critical for leaders to match people to projects not only on the basis of their experience but also in terms of where their interests lie. People are most creative when they care about their work and they're stretching their skills.
3. Time Pressure Fuels Creativity
People were the least creative when they were fighting the clock. In fact, we found a kind of time-pressure hangover -- when people were working under great pressure, their creativity went down not only on that day but the next two days as well. Time pressure stifles creativity because people can't deeply engage with the problem. Creativity requires an incubation period; people need time to soak in a problem and let the ideas bubble up.
4. Fear Forces Breakthroughs
We coded all 12,000 journal entries for the degree of fear, anxiety, sadness, anger, joy, and love that people were experiencing on a given day. And we found that creativity is positively associated with joy and love and negatively associated with anger, fear, and anxiety. The entries show that people are happiest when they come up with a creative idea, but they're more likely to have a breakthrough if they were happy the day before. When people are excited about their work, there's a better chance that they'll make a cognitive association that incubates overnight and shows up as a creative idea the next day. One day's happiness often predicts the next day's creativity.
5. Competition Beats Collaboration
We found that creativity takes a hit when people in a work group compete instead of collaborate. The most creative teams are those that have the confidence to share and debate ideas. But when people compete for recognition, they stop sharing information. And that's destructive because nobody in an organization has all of the information required to put all the pieces of the puzzle together.
6. A Streamlined Organization Is a Creative Organization
Creativity suffers greatly during a downsizing. But it's even worse than many of us realized. We studied a 6,000-person division in a global electronics company during the entire course of a 25% downsizing, which took an incredibly agonizing 18 months. Every single one of the stimulants to creativity in the work environment went down significantly. Anticipation of the downsizing was even worse than the downsizing itself -- people's fear of the unknown led them to basically disengage from the work. More troubling was the fact that even five months after the downsizing, creativity was still down significantly.
Taken together, these operating principles for fostering creativity in the workplace might lead you to think that I'm advocating a soft management style. Not true. I'm pushing for a smart management style. My 30 years of research and these 12,000 journal entries suggest that when people are doing work that they love and they're allowed to deeply engage in it -- and when the <b>work itself is valued and recognized -- then creativity will flourish. Even in tough times."
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 10:05 AM