Personal Productivity Tips : Fixed Mindset

Personal Productivity Tips #13

One of the best ways to assess our time management habit is to perform an audit of how we use our time. By assessing say, a 5-minute or longer, block by block of our activities for a day or week, we will get a clearer picture of our priorities and can make the necessary adjustments to use our time better. As they say, we cannot manage time because it will pass anyway. What we can manage is ourselves and our activities over time. Have a productive week ahead.

Conquering Public Speaking Fear

I am sure many of us have heard that speaking in front of an audience is among the number one fear for many people. It is not only endemic in new speakers but among the professional ones as well. The difference is that, professional speakers learn how to master the fear and use it to their advantage.

The tips below will help you to feel the fear, embrace it and channel the energy to your advantage in your next public speaking assignment;

Embrace it – Fear it good. It signals our body to be alert. The next time you feel the fear grows inside you, embrace it and say “This fear tells me that I need to prepare well”. Take action and do your preparation well.

Prepare , prepare, prepare – As mentioned previously, detailed preparation will help you to master your fear better. Know your material and prepare early. Write your speech and rehearse it many times. Record yourself on video. Ask for feedback from trusted friends and colleagues.

Breathing technique – Before taking the stage, breathe in deeply through your nose and exhale through your mouth. Do this a few times until you feel calm and relaxed. Loosen your muscles by doing some light stretching as well.

Visualize – Close your eyes and imagine yourself giving the speech. See in your mind’s eye, the faces of your audience and their positive responses towards your speech. See yourself delivering it with confidence, enthusiasm and perfection. Feel the feeling and hear the sounds. Make the picture big, bright and colorful in your mind. Do this several times until you feel calm and ready to take the stage.      

Positive affirmation – Fear is fed with plenty of negative self-talk. To counter this, you need to rewrite your internal script. Use positive phrases such as “I am a great public speaker”,”My audience loves me”, “I prepare well”, “I love public speaking”, etc. If possible, say it out loud in front of a mirror and with full conviction.  

Smile – When you are on stage, the first thing that you need to do is smile your biggest smile. Many professional speakers say that smiling relaxes them. I believe it relaxes the audience too and make them more receptive towards your speech.  

Know Your Audience – Before you deliver your speech, do a background check on your audience. What is their average age? What language do they speak? What interests them? Remember that your audience is there to support you. They want you to succeed in your speech as much as you.

Personal Productivity Tips #12

The late W. Clement Stone, insurance giant and mentor to success gurus such as Jack Canfield (Chicken Soup for the Soul fame) and many others had his staff shouted "Do it NOW" several times every morning before starting their work day. The idea is to do what ever that is needed to do that particular day without delaying it to the next day. Procrastination is the mother of poor productivity. We need to constantly remind ourselves like what Stone did to his employees to beat this disease. Have a productive week ahead.

Achieving Career Goals

Fail to plan, plan to fail. I am sure most of us heard this maxim before. As with anything worth achieving in life, we need a good plan to advance our career and move up the corporate ladder.

From my reading and personal experience, there are several steps that we can take to plan our career (and personal life).

Know where we are - In this step, we do a self-audit, analyzing our own knowledge, skills and attitude (KSA) that help us to perform our current jobs. We can ask the opinion of our trusted colleagues or friends and be open to their feedback.

Know where we want to go - The next step is to ‘peek’ into the future and ask ourselves what we want to achieve in our career. An increased in salary? A promotion? A career change? Another important questions to ask are “When do I want to achieve it?” and “What set of KSA do I need?”

Identify the gap - At this step, we look back at our current set of KSA and compare them with the ones needed to achieve our objective. For example, to be promoted from a sales executive to say, a sales manager, we need strategic marketing skills.

Identify resources - In order for us to upgrade our KSA as identified in step 3 above, we need resources. Money, time and people (contacts) are examples of resources that can help us. We also need other tools such as books, audio tapes, seminars and training.

Write an action plan - Next, grab a pen and a piece of paper and write an action plan on how to upgrade our KSA. Remember to make it as specific and objective as possible (ex ; I will attend two sales training per year beginning next year; I will read one sales book per month starting next week). As you can see, we need to include time frame as well in our plan.

Take action daily – Lastly, we need to take action daily based on our written action plan to move us closer to our desired career and personal growth (ex ; reading books on sales one hour every day; saving 5% of monthly salary for personal development).

One important point to remember is that our plan is not carved in stone. As we go long, we may need to re-adjust our plan as we find new resources or discover new opportunities.