“An excessively ambitious man and an overly aggressive woman never live in peace and prosperity.” – Prof. M.S.Rao
What is Self-Control?
Self-control is all about altering one’s own attitudes, behaviors, personality in tune with expectations and standards of the society in order to achieve one’s goals and objectives. Failing so, it results into rejection and ostracisation by the society. It requires great mental energies and efforts to possess self-control.
Self-control is like self-mastery. It is absence of anger, intolerance and impulsiveness. You may compare your body with a chariot, your mind with reigns and your intellect with driver. Self-control means controlling your mind and body. You can make anything and everything through self-control. You need to control all your five senses such as sight sound, smell, taste and touch to have total control on yourself.
Merits of Self-control:
Self control gives you peace of mind, ensures better relations with others thereby giving you competitive edge over others. Better self-control leads to higher self-esteem, better interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence. It will earn you respect and goodwill in the society. It makes you simple and humble. Overall, self-control enhances the personality of individuals thus taking them through the righteous path. People reached from nowhere to number one position though sheer self-control.
Demerits Due to Dearth of Self-control:
It is difficult to raise high in life. And it is very easy to fall free in life. Lack of self-control has several demerits. People resort to drugs, cigarettes, alcohol, crimes and violence, impulsive behavior and unwanted pregnancy due to lack of self-control. Individuals lose self-respect and dignity in the society. They may be subjected to humiliation and insults among their peers. People may get into wrong path. Those who do not have self-control don’t enjoy reputation. A few celebrities involve into controversies. Although it may be good to get instant publicity to promote themselves, it demonstrates their lack of self-control and it will harm them in the long run. History reveals several great leaders getting into abyss due to lack of self-control.
Tips for Better Self-Control:
• We are human beings with emotions. When emotions cloud reasoning, you will be driven over the edge. Don’t be impulsive. Hold back yourself. Lack of self-control result into a moment of madness and lifetime regret. Don’t be unduly emotional. Learn to utilize your emotions effectively.
• Do meditation regularly to have better control over your mind.
• Feed your subconscious mind with positive thoughts.
• Hypnotize your mind that you have adequate self-control.
• Control your behavior as per the expected standards and benchmarks.
• Take intrapersonal and interpersonal feedback regularly for building self-control.
Susan’s Anger and Ron’s Self-Control:
"Friends are made by many acts...and lost by only one." -- Harvey Mackay
In an office two colleagues by name Susan and Ron worked amicably. Susan was senior in the office while Ron was junior although the latter was elder to the former in age. Besides, Ron was more experienced when clubbed with his past experience in other areas when compared with Susan. Both Ron and Susan were good by nature, but Susan was a stubborn and dominant woman. She always dictated others as she was the senior most in the department. However, both maintained good friendship.
Once there was a task assigned by Susan where in Ron was asked to collect the documents of other departments and were to be handed over to HR department. Under the instructions of Susan, Ron collected and handed over to Tony in the HR department. But what Susan meant was to hand over the same to a specific person John in HR department. In fact, Susan and Tony did not gel with each other.
On hearing that the documents were handed over to Tony, Susan burst into anger and shouted at Ron. Ron tried to remind Susan that the documents were handed over as instructed. Susan lost her self-control and took Ron to task about the issue. Ron repeatedly tried to persuade Susan that it was not an issue to blow up in proportions. He went on further by telling her that Susan would have specifically communicated to hand over the same to John. Ron was a cool and mature man and somehow managed to control the temper of Susan about the improper communication. From thereafter, both Ron and Susan had strained relations and departed forever. From this example it becomes very clear about the importance of self-control.
Conclusion:
Acquire knowledge as knowledge is power. It will help in strengthening your self-control. Those who are highly focused and task oriented have better self-control than others. Leaders demonstrate their self-control during success and defeat Self-control is a skill. It is not a trait or talent that one is born with. It is possible by changing your behavior through practice. Everything is in your mind. Therefore, control your mind so that you can control everything within and around you for achieving all-round success.
The End
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Friday, June 26, 2009
Success Through Self -Improvement
“There's only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self.” - Aldous Huxley
There are several ingredients for improving yourself. A few of them are; life long continuous learning, passion towards chosen areas of interest, thinking round the clock with positive affirmations, coming out of comfort zone, attitude of gratitude, helping others, networking, etc., Before we look at the ways and means of self-improvement, let us know what is all about self-improvement succinctly.
What is Self-improvement?
“Perfection does not exist - you can always do better and you can always grow.” - Les Brown
Self-improvement is also known as self-help where in individuals are keen to bring out behavioral changes for their betterment. It may be physically, economically, intellectually and ethically. Everybody desires to achieve success in chosen areas. Success is possible though sustained self-improvement.
There are several thinkers and writers who pioneered self-improvement through their books. The author, Dale Carnegie (1888-1955) published the book titled ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’ in 1936. He had several failures in his career and wrote the book which is a run away hit. Another author, James Allen published a book titled ‘As a Man Thinketh’ in 1902 which depicts that whatever the way individuals think they become be it positive or negative. Napoleon Hill is yet another author who published a book captioned ‘Think and Grow Rich’ in 1937 which mentions that thinking rich will make individuals wealthy and prosperous. Besides, several authors and thinkers contributed in the domain of self-improvement thereby rising a ray of hope for others especially for those who are under depression.
Tools for Self-improvement:
“Unless you try to do something beyond what you have mastered, you will never grow.” - C.R. Lawton
• Open up your mind and heart. Always be flexible and receptive to learning.
• Develop positive affirmations. Inking rather than thinking positive affirmations will deliver better results. Lee Iacocca aptly quoted, “The discipline of writing something down is the first step toward making it happen.”
• Set realistic goals and objectives.
• Manage your time effectively.
• Take continuous feedback.
• Explore your strengths and overcome your weaknesses.
• Find and list out the negative traits that hinder your progress. And discard the same gradually.
• Always love changes and challenges.
• Be free from ‘fear of failure’ or ‘fear of criticism’.
• Don’t envelope in desperation and develop insecurities.
• Never strive for perfection but only for excellence.
• Never compare yourself with others. You are what you are and God created you with a specific mission in this world.
• Avoid negative environment.
• Never brood over past failures. Always think of what next
• Avoid rumormongers, naggers, backstabbers, sluffers, snipers and whiners,
• Always be positive and confident.
• Forgive and forget.
• Stay away from procrastination.
• Finally, find out your talents and tap them. Develop your skills and abilities and leverage your inborn talents with cultivated skills and abilities for achieving all-round success.
Roadmap to Your Self-improvement Plan:
“The biggest room in the world is the room for improvement.” – Author Unknown
Daily get up early at a fixed time and start your day. It is possible through self-discipline. Plan what you intend to do for the rest of the day. It makes things less complex as you have already planned. Many successful entrepreneurs and personalities get up early at a fixed time. Go for a brisk walk or hit gym or do meditation as it fills you with energy and enthusiasm. It is the main key to their self improvement.
Go ahead the day with the to-do list by setting priorities. Sometimes there will be external disturbances which sidetrack your plans. Don’t get disheartened. Address the disturbances and get back to your track with renewed energy and enthusiasm.
Manage your time judiciously by addressing the tasks based on priority of importance. Never hold grudges against others as it kills your time in thinking about them as well as ruining your healthy mind. Cultivate the attitude of ‘forgive and forget’ which is possible only when you shed the past negative events and experiences about others. Research reveals that people waste 30 percent of their precious time by thinking about their bitter past which cannot be altered. Charles F. Kettering rightly quotes, “You can't have a better tomorrow if you are thinking about yesterday all the time.” Therefore, the wisdom lies in looking and living at the present and proceeding further without any regrets.
Conclusion:
“Become addicted to constant and never ending self improvement.” - Anthony J. D'Angelo
You need to have right strategy, practical action and consistency in approach in achieving success. While executing the tasks for a long time and if you miss in reaching your goals then it is time to take stock of the situation and strategy and follow a different course of action. Possess right tools and techniques in achieving your goals and objectives.
You cannot have success in overnight. Even if success comes in overnight, it would fade away within no time. Always be prepared. You don’t know when you will get opportunity. You will regret if you don’t rise to the occasion when opportunity knocks your door. Therefore, invest every moment through continuous self-improvement for achieving success.
The End
There are several ingredients for improving yourself. A few of them are; life long continuous learning, passion towards chosen areas of interest, thinking round the clock with positive affirmations, coming out of comfort zone, attitude of gratitude, helping others, networking, etc., Before we look at the ways and means of self-improvement, let us know what is all about self-improvement succinctly.
What is Self-improvement?
“Perfection does not exist - you can always do better and you can always grow.” - Les Brown
Self-improvement is also known as self-help where in individuals are keen to bring out behavioral changes for their betterment. It may be physically, economically, intellectually and ethically. Everybody desires to achieve success in chosen areas. Success is possible though sustained self-improvement.
There are several thinkers and writers who pioneered self-improvement through their books. The author, Dale Carnegie (1888-1955) published the book titled ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’ in 1936. He had several failures in his career and wrote the book which is a run away hit. Another author, James Allen published a book titled ‘As a Man Thinketh’ in 1902 which depicts that whatever the way individuals think they become be it positive or negative. Napoleon Hill is yet another author who published a book captioned ‘Think and Grow Rich’ in 1937 which mentions that thinking rich will make individuals wealthy and prosperous. Besides, several authors and thinkers contributed in the domain of self-improvement thereby rising a ray of hope for others especially for those who are under depression.
Tools for Self-improvement:
“Unless you try to do something beyond what you have mastered, you will never grow.” - C.R. Lawton
• Open up your mind and heart. Always be flexible and receptive to learning.
• Develop positive affirmations. Inking rather than thinking positive affirmations will deliver better results. Lee Iacocca aptly quoted, “The discipline of writing something down is the first step toward making it happen.”
• Set realistic goals and objectives.
• Manage your time effectively.
• Take continuous feedback.
• Explore your strengths and overcome your weaknesses.
• Find and list out the negative traits that hinder your progress. And discard the same gradually.
• Always love changes and challenges.
• Be free from ‘fear of failure’ or ‘fear of criticism’.
• Don’t envelope in desperation and develop insecurities.
• Never strive for perfection but only for excellence.
• Never compare yourself with others. You are what you are and God created you with a specific mission in this world.
• Avoid negative environment.
• Never brood over past failures. Always think of what next
• Avoid rumormongers, naggers, backstabbers, sluffers, snipers and whiners,
• Always be positive and confident.
• Forgive and forget.
• Stay away from procrastination.
• Finally, find out your talents and tap them. Develop your skills and abilities and leverage your inborn talents with cultivated skills and abilities for achieving all-round success.
Roadmap to Your Self-improvement Plan:
“The biggest room in the world is the room for improvement.” – Author Unknown
Daily get up early at a fixed time and start your day. It is possible through self-discipline. Plan what you intend to do for the rest of the day. It makes things less complex as you have already planned. Many successful entrepreneurs and personalities get up early at a fixed time. Go for a brisk walk or hit gym or do meditation as it fills you with energy and enthusiasm. It is the main key to their self improvement.
Go ahead the day with the to-do list by setting priorities. Sometimes there will be external disturbances which sidetrack your plans. Don’t get disheartened. Address the disturbances and get back to your track with renewed energy and enthusiasm.
Manage your time judiciously by addressing the tasks based on priority of importance. Never hold grudges against others as it kills your time in thinking about them as well as ruining your healthy mind. Cultivate the attitude of ‘forgive and forget’ which is possible only when you shed the past negative events and experiences about others. Research reveals that people waste 30 percent of their precious time by thinking about their bitter past which cannot be altered. Charles F. Kettering rightly quotes, “You can't have a better tomorrow if you are thinking about yesterday all the time.” Therefore, the wisdom lies in looking and living at the present and proceeding further without any regrets.
Conclusion:
“Become addicted to constant and never ending self improvement.” - Anthony J. D'Angelo
You need to have right strategy, practical action and consistency in approach in achieving success. While executing the tasks for a long time and if you miss in reaching your goals then it is time to take stock of the situation and strategy and follow a different course of action. Possess right tools and techniques in achieving your goals and objectives.
You cannot have success in overnight. Even if success comes in overnight, it would fade away within no time. Always be prepared. You don’t know when you will get opportunity. You will regret if you don’t rise to the occasion when opportunity knocks your door. Therefore, invest every moment through continuous self-improvement for achieving success.
The End
Thursday, June 25, 2009
How to Write and Visualize Your Affirmations for Achieving Success?
“You become what you think about most of the time.” - Brian Tracy
For achieving success at any age or stage of life, it is necessary to build a strong base. It can be built by parents, social environment, educational institutions and the persons themselves. The parents need to instill positive statements among their children to influence them at their subconscious level. The educational institutions should provide conducive climate to inculcate these qualities. The individuals have to tune their thought process through positive affirmations as they spend entire day either talking with others or through monologue. In this context, let us briefly know about affirmations.
What are affirmations?
“Any idea, plan, or purpose may be placed in the mind through repetition of thought.” - Napoleon Hill
Affirmations are statements of self-talk and inner monologue that take place within the individuals from the moment they awake to going to sleep. If everything is positive then you have positive affirmations. In contrast, if you have negative thoughts then you have negative affirmations. You can become the way you want through right affirmations.
Although you feed your subconscious mind regularly from your conscious mind, it is your subconscious mind which is far superior to the conscious mind. However, both your conscious and subconscious mind helps you in arriving at right affirmations.
Tools for Writing Your Affirmations:
People may find it silly to write down affirmations. There is a lot of meaning in inking rather than thinking about them. Therefore, don’t think but ink your affirmations. It is rightly said that a short pencil is better than a long memory. There is knack in writing affirmations. Ink them in present tense and in positive manner. Make them short, simple, straight and specific adding an emotional touch. Write your affirmations in present continuous tense rather in future tense for better results. When you do so, your faith in affirmations will be stronger as you are adding emotional and inspiring elements. You may ink like ‘I am becoming great’ ‘I am going good’, ‘I am achieving big’. Once you write your affirmations, read them daily twice - once in the morning when you wake up from sleep and again before you go to sleep.
1. Make your affirmations realistic and don’t frame them on fantasy. Your affirmations should be based on dreams not daydreams.
2. Your affirmations must be credible and inspiring.
3. Connect with your affirmations to have profound impact.
4. Make your affirmations like cue cards and make them visible in your bed room and in your office place. Whenever you read you get excited and energized thus helping in getting focused on your goals and objectives.
5. Revise and rewrite your affirmations to get new excitement, if needed.
6. For effective results, make your affirmations with an emphasis on emotions, intensity, direction, motivation, persistence, repetition, self-belief, self-esteem and self-confidence.
7. As we find ‘I am possible’ from ‘impossible’, we can also find ‘energy in motion’ from ‘emotion’ where in the emotions fuels your energies and efforts and drives you towards success.
It is rightly said that a battle is won twice – first in mind and then in real life. Similarly, affirmations have to be firmly affirmed in mind first and then you will find amazing results in real life.
Advantages of Affirmations:
“The difference between success and mediocrity is all in the way you think.” - Dean Francis
Affirmations build inner strength; develop inner motivation, will power, self-confidence and self-esteem. These provide emotional inputs to put best of efforts and energies to reach your goals. All successful people create their affirmations mentally while reaching their goals. Politicians, businesspersons, actors, sportspersons, teachers and students strengthen their inner beliefs and acquire knowledge through repeated self-talk about themselves. People think constantly and consciously and subconsciously when they are awake and they think subconsciously when go to sleep. Levering both conscious and subconscious mind helps in affirmations leading to success. Finally, positive affirmations provide peace, progress and prosperity for people.
Affirmations among Children:
“All men who have achieved great things have been great dreamers.” - Orison Swett Marden
Parents should instill positive thoughts and inputs to their children. It helps them to think positively about themselves thereby becoming healthy and successful citizens in later part of their lives. Parents should be careful while feeding to their children. Children have more capacity to observation and hearing and they watch their parents closely and keenly at home. Encouraging their children to think and dream big right from childhood will help them to become successful. It cultivates more internal locus of control where in they start thinking firmly that their destiny is in their hands. Parents should inculcate good character and develop confidence and optimism among their children which is possible by positive affirmations.
Children are the major chunk who uses affirmations effectively. They listen to their teachers and study a lot throughout the day through constant monologue. Whatever is taught to them is reinforced through their self-talk i.e. monologue. By this, they memorize the educational content and enhance their knowledge base.
How to Visualize Your Affirmations?
“It’s the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen.” - Claude M. Bristol
The secret behind all successful people is visualization. This results into effective action.
It is rightly said that a picture is worth a hundred words. When you visualize your affirmations pictorially with an emotional touch, you will have better results. Repeat your affirmations in a calm and cool manner preferably in a serene place. Stand in front of the mirror daily twice and start shouting at yourself ‘I am the winner’ repeatedly for a few minutes. When you hear that you are the winner you strengthen your will power as you are feeding encouraging and inspiring inputs to your mind after hearing from your sweet voice. When it is practiced regularly, no amount of cynicism and pessimism creeps in your mind. You get charged up and excited instantly. Here are a few techniques for effective visualization.
Techniques for Effective Visualization:
“Practice rather than preach. Make of your life an affirmation, defined by your ideals, not the negation of others. Dare to the level of your capability then go beyond to a higher level.” - Alexander Haig
• Build a strong internal monologue. The moment we awake in the morning we all think till we go to sleep. This is the best way to practice our affirmations through internal monologue.
• Always thank God for what you have and similarly thank others for their help.
• Develop the attitude of gratitude. It generates positive vibes and positive thought process.
• Never doubt your affirmations. Have firm faith in your affirmations.
• During alpha state of your mind, your brain will be at its most creative and receptive state. Effectively utilize this state for better visualization.
• You can find out the attitude of the persons the way they talk. If they talk positively, they have optimism and if they talk negatively, they have pessimism. It is all due to their internal thought process. Therefore, developing positive thought process is the key to effective visualization.
• Whenever you program your mind with affirmations at the conscious level, they will get reinforced at the subconscious level resulting into effective results. Florence Scovel Shinn rightly quotes, “You will be a failure, until you impress the subconscious with the conviction you are a success. This is done by making an affirmation which ''clicks.''”
• Finally, make use of all your senses such as sight, smell, sound, taste and touch and integrate them for visualizing success.
Conclusion:
“Success is a process, a quality of mind and way of being, an outgoing affirmation of life.” - Alex Noble
Firmly affirm your affirmations for effective execution. Know the power of inner dialogue. Don’t think but ink your affirmations. Follow the techniques of writing and always think and visualize the same for achieving all-round success. Affirmations minimize negative thoughts and maximize thoughts. Life is a battle and to win the battle, affirmations would serve as a wonderful tool. To conclude in the words of John Addison, “You’ve got to win in your mind before you win in your life.”
The End
For achieving success at any age or stage of life, it is necessary to build a strong base. It can be built by parents, social environment, educational institutions and the persons themselves. The parents need to instill positive statements among their children to influence them at their subconscious level. The educational institutions should provide conducive climate to inculcate these qualities. The individuals have to tune their thought process through positive affirmations as they spend entire day either talking with others or through monologue. In this context, let us briefly know about affirmations.
What are affirmations?
“Any idea, plan, or purpose may be placed in the mind through repetition of thought.” - Napoleon Hill
Affirmations are statements of self-talk and inner monologue that take place within the individuals from the moment they awake to going to sleep. If everything is positive then you have positive affirmations. In contrast, if you have negative thoughts then you have negative affirmations. You can become the way you want through right affirmations.
Although you feed your subconscious mind regularly from your conscious mind, it is your subconscious mind which is far superior to the conscious mind. However, both your conscious and subconscious mind helps you in arriving at right affirmations.
Tools for Writing Your Affirmations:
People may find it silly to write down affirmations. There is a lot of meaning in inking rather than thinking about them. Therefore, don’t think but ink your affirmations. It is rightly said that a short pencil is better than a long memory. There is knack in writing affirmations. Ink them in present tense and in positive manner. Make them short, simple, straight and specific adding an emotional touch. Write your affirmations in present continuous tense rather in future tense for better results. When you do so, your faith in affirmations will be stronger as you are adding emotional and inspiring elements. You may ink like ‘I am becoming great’ ‘I am going good’, ‘I am achieving big’. Once you write your affirmations, read them daily twice - once in the morning when you wake up from sleep and again before you go to sleep.
1. Make your affirmations realistic and don’t frame them on fantasy. Your affirmations should be based on dreams not daydreams.
2. Your affirmations must be credible and inspiring.
3. Connect with your affirmations to have profound impact.
4. Make your affirmations like cue cards and make them visible in your bed room and in your office place. Whenever you read you get excited and energized thus helping in getting focused on your goals and objectives.
5. Revise and rewrite your affirmations to get new excitement, if needed.
6. For effective results, make your affirmations with an emphasis on emotions, intensity, direction, motivation, persistence, repetition, self-belief, self-esteem and self-confidence.
7. As we find ‘I am possible’ from ‘impossible’, we can also find ‘energy in motion’ from ‘emotion’ where in the emotions fuels your energies and efforts and drives you towards success.
It is rightly said that a battle is won twice – first in mind and then in real life. Similarly, affirmations have to be firmly affirmed in mind first and then you will find amazing results in real life.
Advantages of Affirmations:
“The difference between success and mediocrity is all in the way you think.” - Dean Francis
Affirmations build inner strength; develop inner motivation, will power, self-confidence and self-esteem. These provide emotional inputs to put best of efforts and energies to reach your goals. All successful people create their affirmations mentally while reaching their goals. Politicians, businesspersons, actors, sportspersons, teachers and students strengthen their inner beliefs and acquire knowledge through repeated self-talk about themselves. People think constantly and consciously and subconsciously when they are awake and they think subconsciously when go to sleep. Levering both conscious and subconscious mind helps in affirmations leading to success. Finally, positive affirmations provide peace, progress and prosperity for people.
Affirmations among Children:
“All men who have achieved great things have been great dreamers.” - Orison Swett Marden
Parents should instill positive thoughts and inputs to their children. It helps them to think positively about themselves thereby becoming healthy and successful citizens in later part of their lives. Parents should be careful while feeding to their children. Children have more capacity to observation and hearing and they watch their parents closely and keenly at home. Encouraging their children to think and dream big right from childhood will help them to become successful. It cultivates more internal locus of control where in they start thinking firmly that their destiny is in their hands. Parents should inculcate good character and develop confidence and optimism among their children which is possible by positive affirmations.
Children are the major chunk who uses affirmations effectively. They listen to their teachers and study a lot throughout the day through constant monologue. Whatever is taught to them is reinforced through their self-talk i.e. monologue. By this, they memorize the educational content and enhance their knowledge base.
How to Visualize Your Affirmations?
“It’s the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen.” - Claude M. Bristol
The secret behind all successful people is visualization. This results into effective action.
It is rightly said that a picture is worth a hundred words. When you visualize your affirmations pictorially with an emotional touch, you will have better results. Repeat your affirmations in a calm and cool manner preferably in a serene place. Stand in front of the mirror daily twice and start shouting at yourself ‘I am the winner’ repeatedly for a few minutes. When you hear that you are the winner you strengthen your will power as you are feeding encouraging and inspiring inputs to your mind after hearing from your sweet voice. When it is practiced regularly, no amount of cynicism and pessimism creeps in your mind. You get charged up and excited instantly. Here are a few techniques for effective visualization.
Techniques for Effective Visualization:
“Practice rather than preach. Make of your life an affirmation, defined by your ideals, not the negation of others. Dare to the level of your capability then go beyond to a higher level.” - Alexander Haig
• Build a strong internal monologue. The moment we awake in the morning we all think till we go to sleep. This is the best way to practice our affirmations through internal monologue.
• Always thank God for what you have and similarly thank others for their help.
• Develop the attitude of gratitude. It generates positive vibes and positive thought process.
• Never doubt your affirmations. Have firm faith in your affirmations.
• During alpha state of your mind, your brain will be at its most creative and receptive state. Effectively utilize this state for better visualization.
• You can find out the attitude of the persons the way they talk. If they talk positively, they have optimism and if they talk negatively, they have pessimism. It is all due to their internal thought process. Therefore, developing positive thought process is the key to effective visualization.
• Whenever you program your mind with affirmations at the conscious level, they will get reinforced at the subconscious level resulting into effective results. Florence Scovel Shinn rightly quotes, “You will be a failure, until you impress the subconscious with the conviction you are a success. This is done by making an affirmation which ''clicks.''”
• Finally, make use of all your senses such as sight, smell, sound, taste and touch and integrate them for visualizing success.
Conclusion:
“Success is a process, a quality of mind and way of being, an outgoing affirmation of life.” - Alex Noble
Firmly affirm your affirmations for effective execution. Know the power of inner dialogue. Don’t think but ink your affirmations. Follow the techniques of writing and always think and visualize the same for achieving all-round success. Affirmations minimize negative thoughts and maximize thoughts. Life is a battle and to win the battle, affirmations would serve as a wonderful tool. To conclude in the words of John Addison, “You’ve got to win in your mind before you win in your life.”
The End
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
What Should an Ideal B-School Student Possess?
"The function of the university is not simply to teach bread winning, or to furnish teachers for the public schools or to be a centre of polite society; it is, above all, to be the organ of that fine adjustment between life and the growing knowledge of life, an adjustment which forms the secret of civilization. "-- W.E.B. Du Bois
With the current global meltdown, many doubts have been raised about the falling ethical and moral standards within the management educational system. We cannot claim that the business schools and the students alone are responsible for the present economic crisis. However, we need to set certain standards and benchmarks for the students so that they could become role models for others and also they can avert such economic crises in future.
What Should an Ideal B-school Student Possess?
Management students should be equipped with knowledge about management in general with special emphasis on a particular functional skill. It is vital to know the basic jargon about management, how a company is run and what it takes a company successful. They should know about various skills such as soft skills apart from hard skills. They should learn to live with uncertainty and complexity which are the hallmarks in this century.
An ideal B-school student should possess several skills such as hard skills, soft skills like communication skills, interpersonal skills, entrepreneurial skills, leadership skills, team building skills, presentation skills, conceptual, critical and analytical thinking skills, business skills, conflict management skills, decision making skills, visioning skills, risk taking skills, right attitude and aptitude, ethical and moral values, and learn to live with uncertainty and complexity.
How Should The Teaching Process Be?
Explain the concept clearly from book as knowledge about the managerial jargon is necessary. Follow the concept with a relevant case study based on real life events and experiences. Ask the students how can they handle such problems through interactions? Generate multiple ideas and insights though interaction and participation and select the best and justify the same by focusing the pros and cons. Then take the students to the corporate houses and encourage them to apply what was learnt in the class to build confidence.
Brainstorming sessions among students and also between faculties and students excites the teaching process resulting into generation multiples ideas and insights. The gap between the faculties and students should be minimized to make the learning process more comfortable and meaningful. Assimilation of others’ approaches makes the teaching more meaningful and effective.
Faculties should come out with their own philosophies and principles besides the established and proven ones. They should equip their students with tools and techniques so that they could employ the same in their organizations. The curriculum should help in thinking differently. It should encourage to think globally but to act locally. There should be right mechanism and quality controls in the method of teaching.
Evaluating Students:
The present examination system is outdated and needs to be reviewed and changed with the changing times. Give practical problems to students and encourage them to think and come out with their solutions. Students should be encouraged to prepare their own case studies based on their imagination after referring several books and industry interface. This method unlocks their creativity and originality which in turn helps them when they face the real challenges.
What B-Schools Don’t Teach?
There is vast gap between the campus and the industry. The business schools don’t teach skills like risk taking, entrepreneurial skills, facing failures, managing uncertainty and complexity. There are number of areas where the business schools should focus and teach to students. The main challenge for business schools is to teach how to cope up with failures and how to pick up threads again and bounce back from failures.
Conclusion:
An ideal B-school student should be jack of all trades and master of a specific specialization. Mere having domain expertise is not adequate. There has to be focus on ethical and moral values to be inculcated among the students to eliminate white collar crimes. S/he should be person with impeccable character and integrity so that the subordinates can take as a role model. S/he should not sell soul for the sake of money.
An ideal B-school student should think globally and act locally and should be blend of both managerial and leadership qualities. To sum up, the faculties, the business schools and parents have a crucial role in shaping ideal B-school students.
The End
With the current global meltdown, many doubts have been raised about the falling ethical and moral standards within the management educational system. We cannot claim that the business schools and the students alone are responsible for the present economic crisis. However, we need to set certain standards and benchmarks for the students so that they could become role models for others and also they can avert such economic crises in future.
What Should an Ideal B-school Student Possess?
Management students should be equipped with knowledge about management in general with special emphasis on a particular functional skill. It is vital to know the basic jargon about management, how a company is run and what it takes a company successful. They should know about various skills such as soft skills apart from hard skills. They should learn to live with uncertainty and complexity which are the hallmarks in this century.
An ideal B-school student should possess several skills such as hard skills, soft skills like communication skills, interpersonal skills, entrepreneurial skills, leadership skills, team building skills, presentation skills, conceptual, critical and analytical thinking skills, business skills, conflict management skills, decision making skills, visioning skills, risk taking skills, right attitude and aptitude, ethical and moral values, and learn to live with uncertainty and complexity.
How Should The Teaching Process Be?
Explain the concept clearly from book as knowledge about the managerial jargon is necessary. Follow the concept with a relevant case study based on real life events and experiences. Ask the students how can they handle such problems through interactions? Generate multiple ideas and insights though interaction and participation and select the best and justify the same by focusing the pros and cons. Then take the students to the corporate houses and encourage them to apply what was learnt in the class to build confidence.
Brainstorming sessions among students and also between faculties and students excites the teaching process resulting into generation multiples ideas and insights. The gap between the faculties and students should be minimized to make the learning process more comfortable and meaningful. Assimilation of others’ approaches makes the teaching more meaningful and effective.
Faculties should come out with their own philosophies and principles besides the established and proven ones. They should equip their students with tools and techniques so that they could employ the same in their organizations. The curriculum should help in thinking differently. It should encourage to think globally but to act locally. There should be right mechanism and quality controls in the method of teaching.
Evaluating Students:
The present examination system is outdated and needs to be reviewed and changed with the changing times. Give practical problems to students and encourage them to think and come out with their solutions. Students should be encouraged to prepare their own case studies based on their imagination after referring several books and industry interface. This method unlocks their creativity and originality which in turn helps them when they face the real challenges.
What B-Schools Don’t Teach?
There is vast gap between the campus and the industry. The business schools don’t teach skills like risk taking, entrepreneurial skills, facing failures, managing uncertainty and complexity. There are number of areas where the business schools should focus and teach to students. The main challenge for business schools is to teach how to cope up with failures and how to pick up threads again and bounce back from failures.
Conclusion:
An ideal B-school student should be jack of all trades and master of a specific specialization. Mere having domain expertise is not adequate. There has to be focus on ethical and moral values to be inculcated among the students to eliminate white collar crimes. S/he should be person with impeccable character and integrity so that the subordinates can take as a role model. S/he should not sell soul for the sake of money.
An ideal B-school student should think globally and act locally and should be blend of both managerial and leadership qualities. To sum up, the faculties, the business schools and parents have a crucial role in shaping ideal B-school students.
The End
What is Executive MBA (EMBA)?
"The things taught in schools and colleges are not an education, but the means of education.”-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
People often confuse between MBA (Master of Business Administration) and EMBA (Executive MBA). MBA is basically meant for the freshers who do not have any business or working experience. In contrast, EMBA is mostly meant for the experienced and the working professionals to upgrade and update their skills and abilities for better career prospects. However, the admission to MBA and EMBA differs from institution to institution and from country to country. In some cases, students who have worked in industry for sometime with engineering background or other domain backgrounds also take admission into MBA. For admission into EMBA, the individuals must have already worked in the industry with managerial or business experience without any formal professional management degrees. In this context, let us briefly know about EMBA.
What is Executive MBA?
It is basically meant for aspiring managers in senior positions and also for the senior level leaders to hone their skills. It helps the working managers and leaders who do not have formal business and management training.
The first EMBA program was started by University of Chicago way back in 1943. The objective of the program was to impart managerial education to the working executives who had no formal management training. EMBA has undergone several changes since then.
In most of the cases, the companies send their loyal and experienced executives for these courses for taking up challenging roles and responsibilities at senior levels. Those who have ambition to become entrepreneurs also take up this course with their own money to become successful businesspersons.
Merits of EMBA:
• EMBA enhances corporate performance and productivity.
• It helps the companies to be creative, competitive and innovative.
• The participants of EMBA gain lot of ideas and insights from the faculties, colleagues and from the professional ambience.
• It also helps in exposing to cross industry experience and promoting cross functional skills, cross cultural skills and networking skills.
• It brings out behavioral changes among the participants professionally.
• It helps the executives to think differently from others.
• There will be several invaluable takeaways from this course.
Conclusion:
Graduation is not the end; it's the beginning."-- Orrin Hatch
As education is a life long learning process, those who pass out of business schools with MBA degrees and those who don’t have formal MBA degree should pursue EMBA for reaching senior leadership positions quickly.
The End
People often confuse between MBA (Master of Business Administration) and EMBA (Executive MBA). MBA is basically meant for the freshers who do not have any business or working experience. In contrast, EMBA is mostly meant for the experienced and the working professionals to upgrade and update their skills and abilities for better career prospects. However, the admission to MBA and EMBA differs from institution to institution and from country to country. In some cases, students who have worked in industry for sometime with engineering background or other domain backgrounds also take admission into MBA. For admission into EMBA, the individuals must have already worked in the industry with managerial or business experience without any formal professional management degrees. In this context, let us briefly know about EMBA.
What is Executive MBA?
It is basically meant for aspiring managers in senior positions and also for the senior level leaders to hone their skills. It helps the working managers and leaders who do not have formal business and management training.
The first EMBA program was started by University of Chicago way back in 1943. The objective of the program was to impart managerial education to the working executives who had no formal management training. EMBA has undergone several changes since then.
In most of the cases, the companies send their loyal and experienced executives for these courses for taking up challenging roles and responsibilities at senior levels. Those who have ambition to become entrepreneurs also take up this course with their own money to become successful businesspersons.
Merits of EMBA:
• EMBA enhances corporate performance and productivity.
• It helps the companies to be creative, competitive and innovative.
• The participants of EMBA gain lot of ideas and insights from the faculties, colleagues and from the professional ambience.
• It also helps in exposing to cross industry experience and promoting cross functional skills, cross cultural skills and networking skills.
• It brings out behavioral changes among the participants professionally.
• It helps the executives to think differently from others.
• There will be several invaluable takeaways from this course.
Conclusion:
Graduation is not the end; it's the beginning."-- Orrin Hatch
As education is a life long learning process, those who pass out of business schools with MBA degrees and those who don’t have formal MBA degree should pursue EMBA for reaching senior leadership positions quickly.
The End
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
How to Overcome Challenges in Management Education (MBA) in India?
"The foundation of wealth is humanity and moral. If the wealth is not based on true reasons, the wealth will never sustain" Eiichi Shibusawa (The father of Japanese capitalism)
The present economic meltdown has thrown several challenges to business managers and leaders across the world. Everyone started blaming business schools for the present mess. Is it justified to blame them? If not, then who is responsible for the current global mess? Is it the business schools or faculties or students or parents or all to be blamed?
Challenges in Management Education:
The current curriculum in management education does not teach students in facing the challenges in business environment. How to manage uncertainty and complexity are not taught in business schools. It merely teaches the concepts with case studies. It does not focus on the challenges arising out of rapid growing technology and the challenges involved in running an enterprise.
Unfortunately, the best talent is going to industry where salaries are lucrative. Those who come to academic area are the ones who could not be absorbed in the industry or those who come to this profession by chance or those who chose this career out of passion. However, we can count very few professors joining out of passion towards teaching profession.
The inability of AICTE to act tough with unauthorized business schools is a cause for concern. The management of business schools looks for loopholes in the existing laws and exploits the same. They believe in growing their budget rather improving the quality of business education which is very sad to note.
Most of the students pass out successfully from business schools due to their self-preparation. Students fear to give negative feedback to their teaching faculties as they fear for their internal marks which are in the hands of faculties. Everyone knows the problems but nobody is ready to address the same.
Engineering vs. Management Education:
Engineering students have the advantage of checking the theoretical concepts at laboratories through experiments. However to have the feel of the same for the management students, they have case studies where in the students get exposed to the practical problems through simulation. Academicians transfer the case studies from books to classroom which may not have the desired results. On the contrary, when academicians with industry background transfer the knowledge of case studies there will be more effect as it is based on their real life corporate experiences.
Overcoming Challenges:
Provide decent salaries and professional ambience to faculties. Send the faculties regularly for training programs to update their skills and abilities. Develop right mindset and attitude. Focus on quality of education not quantity. There has to be interactive sessions for the students rather than mere preaching what is mentioned in the books. You cannot become a crack shot unless you lose some ammunition. The students have to be exposed to the industry through interface so that they understand the practical problems in corporate world. This boosts more confidence among the students.
It is essential to have more visiting faculties with diversified and rich industry experience. It is like having diversified menu on a platter. It should be made mandatory for every business school to have a fulltime faculty for each functional specialization like Human Resources, Marketing, Finance, Production, etc., Besides, they can have visiting faculties who are passionate towards teaching for every specialized functional skill.
Look for the professors who are passionate in teaching rather than who pass their time in classrooms. The passionate professors would love to share their knowledge, experience, expertise with students to take on the real corporate battles. Take the professors with research, consultancy, and industry and also with teaching experience as it enriches the teaching process. Blending all these ingredients would make a faculty as outstanding.
You cannot make a successful manager in classrooms. What is needed is the industry interface which builds confidence among the students. Whatever the doubts the students posses can be clarified and verified with their exposure to corporate world. The theoretical background in the classrooms along with practical exposure in the corporate world can make successful professionals.
The project work should be contextual, relevant and should focus on the current scenarios. MBA is a professional degree and it should train and groom the students to be true professionals to take on the challenges being faced in the business environment.
Make accreditation mandatory to ensure quality of education. Take stringent action against the illegal and unauthorized MBA colleges.
Mintzberg and MBA:
Prof. Henry Mintzberg, a globally renowned management guru is a strong critic of management education. The educational institutions are damaging the management education by not focusing on action learning and practical problems. He criticizes the management programs where in students are enrolled without having any real world experience. He champions for revolutionary changes in management education. We need to take serious note of his observations and comments about MBA education to make it more meaningful and qualitative.
Conclusion:
"There is no need to reach high for the stars. They are already within you - just reach deep into yourself!"—Anonymous
There is failure in management education which is evident with the current economic downturn. The educational system failed to forecast the recession and failed to check the overheated economy.
The four pillars for effective management education are industry experience, consultancy experience, research experience and teaching experience. When faculties possess these four areas of experience and expertise, then it ensures qualitative management education.
The problem with us is to imitate the western management education blindly. By the time we take best out of them, the content and curriculum gets outdated thus resulting into obsolescence. Let us be creative and innovative in preparation of curriculum and methodology of teaching.
Educational qualification is the brick and mortar of a specific career path. Let us make Indian management education qualitative and affordable to all.
The End
The present economic meltdown has thrown several challenges to business managers and leaders across the world. Everyone started blaming business schools for the present mess. Is it justified to blame them? If not, then who is responsible for the current global mess? Is it the business schools or faculties or students or parents or all to be blamed?
Challenges in Management Education:
The current curriculum in management education does not teach students in facing the challenges in business environment. How to manage uncertainty and complexity are not taught in business schools. It merely teaches the concepts with case studies. It does not focus on the challenges arising out of rapid growing technology and the challenges involved in running an enterprise.
Unfortunately, the best talent is going to industry where salaries are lucrative. Those who come to academic area are the ones who could not be absorbed in the industry or those who come to this profession by chance or those who chose this career out of passion. However, we can count very few professors joining out of passion towards teaching profession.
The inability of AICTE to act tough with unauthorized business schools is a cause for concern. The management of business schools looks for loopholes in the existing laws and exploits the same. They believe in growing their budget rather improving the quality of business education which is very sad to note.
Most of the students pass out successfully from business schools due to their self-preparation. Students fear to give negative feedback to their teaching faculties as they fear for their internal marks which are in the hands of faculties. Everyone knows the problems but nobody is ready to address the same.
Engineering vs. Management Education:
Engineering students have the advantage of checking the theoretical concepts at laboratories through experiments. However to have the feel of the same for the management students, they have case studies where in the students get exposed to the practical problems through simulation. Academicians transfer the case studies from books to classroom which may not have the desired results. On the contrary, when academicians with industry background transfer the knowledge of case studies there will be more effect as it is based on their real life corporate experiences.
Overcoming Challenges:
Provide decent salaries and professional ambience to faculties. Send the faculties regularly for training programs to update their skills and abilities. Develop right mindset and attitude. Focus on quality of education not quantity. There has to be interactive sessions for the students rather than mere preaching what is mentioned in the books. You cannot become a crack shot unless you lose some ammunition. The students have to be exposed to the industry through interface so that they understand the practical problems in corporate world. This boosts more confidence among the students.
It is essential to have more visiting faculties with diversified and rich industry experience. It is like having diversified menu on a platter. It should be made mandatory for every business school to have a fulltime faculty for each functional specialization like Human Resources, Marketing, Finance, Production, etc., Besides, they can have visiting faculties who are passionate towards teaching for every specialized functional skill.
Look for the professors who are passionate in teaching rather than who pass their time in classrooms. The passionate professors would love to share their knowledge, experience, expertise with students to take on the real corporate battles. Take the professors with research, consultancy, and industry and also with teaching experience as it enriches the teaching process. Blending all these ingredients would make a faculty as outstanding.
You cannot make a successful manager in classrooms. What is needed is the industry interface which builds confidence among the students. Whatever the doubts the students posses can be clarified and verified with their exposure to corporate world. The theoretical background in the classrooms along with practical exposure in the corporate world can make successful professionals.
The project work should be contextual, relevant and should focus on the current scenarios. MBA is a professional degree and it should train and groom the students to be true professionals to take on the challenges being faced in the business environment.
Make accreditation mandatory to ensure quality of education. Take stringent action against the illegal and unauthorized MBA colleges.
Mintzberg and MBA:
Prof. Henry Mintzberg, a globally renowned management guru is a strong critic of management education. The educational institutions are damaging the management education by not focusing on action learning and practical problems. He criticizes the management programs where in students are enrolled without having any real world experience. He champions for revolutionary changes in management education. We need to take serious note of his observations and comments about MBA education to make it more meaningful and qualitative.
Conclusion:
"There is no need to reach high for the stars. They are already within you - just reach deep into yourself!"—Anonymous
There is failure in management education which is evident with the current economic downturn. The educational system failed to forecast the recession and failed to check the overheated economy.
The four pillars for effective management education are industry experience, consultancy experience, research experience and teaching experience. When faculties possess these four areas of experience and expertise, then it ensures qualitative management education.
The problem with us is to imitate the western management education blindly. By the time we take best out of them, the content and curriculum gets outdated thus resulting into obsolescence. Let us be creative and innovative in preparation of curriculum and methodology of teaching.
Educational qualification is the brick and mortar of a specific career path. Let us make Indian management education qualitative and affordable to all.
The End
How to Improve Management Education (MBA) in India?
"The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows."-- Sydney Harris
It is the time where students take admissions in Business schools to acquire coveted MBA qualification. There are certain things the students should take care before entering B-schools. Let us first find out the significance of management education.
Importance of Management Education:
Management education adds value to the existing qualifications. It helps students irrespective of their domains in graduation as it widens their knowledge base and encourages them to think differently. Management education enhances managerial and leadership skills by sharing of ideas, insights through healthy, meaningful and case study discussions. Having students with cross cultural backgrounds adds value to management education as there is probability of generating multiples ideas.
Apart from providing requisite skills and abilities to get going smoothly at the corporate world, it provides an opportunity to network with others and promotes cross-cultural diversities. It helps in equipping the executives with competencies and capabilities to take on the corporate challenges with confidence. Now a days, we find there is growing demand for the programs in the domain of strategy and leadership development in MBA education.
Role of B-Schools:
Mushrooming business schools is a cause for concern both for students and parents. It indicates that there is huge potential in management education and also there is a possibility for unauthorized and illegal institutions. The students should take all precautionary measure before joining business schools as selection of the right business school is the first step towards achieving right management education. They should look for accredited business schools.
Few business schools promise moon to students such as free international tours with laptops. What is needed is to provide relevant course content, case study discussion, industry interaction and proper placements. There is strong need to make them as competent mangers and successful leaders rather than believing in freebies.
The business schools should focus on nitty-gritty of general management and also about a functional specialization so that the students can become jack of all trades and master of management. The Indian Business schools should reinvent themselves with changing times and redesign their academic curriculum for facing the current challenges in the business environment.
The course curriculum should be designed to suit new perspectives for building managerial and leadership skills. The responsibility lies with business schools to do the needful in this regard. It is not the students or the faculties to be blamed for poor performance at business schools but the management involved in running business school for the drawbacks in the present management education. It is not the gun that should be blamed but the person who pulls the trigger.
B-schools hit the newspaper headlines by stating that their students getting highest pay in campus placements. Is it the yardstick to rush to conclusion that the specific B-school is bigger and better than other schools?
As parents provide right character and base to their children, similarly business schools should filter out and select the students not only with right aptitude but also with right attitude with a special emphasis on ethical and moral values. In the long run, it helps in shaping, training and grooming them as successful managers and leaders. Of course, it is easier said than done.
Role of Faculties:
The faculties should be from excellent academic background with an industry exposure. They should be a special breed of people driven by passion rather money. They need to inspire and motivate the students through right communication skills. They should preferably have industry experience in a reputed organization. It is desirable to have research experience in management along with consultancy and teaching experience. The combination of the four areas of expertise such as consultancy, teaching, research and industry would make faculties outstanding. Above all, the faculties should be strong scholars with an exposure to multiple audiences.
Role of Top Industrialists in India:
The top Indian industrialists should set up business schools the way they set up their business enterprises not with the sole intention of making money rather adding value to management education. It would revolutionize the Indian management education the day top brass is involved in this. The successful students should be encouraged to work in the companies of their choice without any strings attached. The motto must be to produce the world class managers and leaders. It should be treated as an investment rather than expense. They can charge the students with nominal fee. They should see management education as a kind of a corporate social responsibility so that the fruits of management education would reach the students of lower middle class as well.
Conclusion:
The present business education is broken and need to be reinvented with changing times. The four pillars for effective management education are industry experience, consultancy experience, research experience and teaching experience. When faculty possesses these four basic ingredients besides being passionate towards teaching profession, the day is not far away where we can produce world class management graduates.
It is unfortunate that India with a billion plus population could not produce global leaders like Jack Welch, Peter F Drucker, Bill Gates, Michel Dell; It is time India took a relook at the methodology of management education. It is also the time Indian B-schools took stock of the situation and set their houses in order. The silver lining in the dark cloud of management education in India is the Indian School of Business (ISB) which is ranked as the 15th best Business School in the world surpassing other premier management institutions like IIMs.
There is a strong need to focus management education glocally (i.e. think globally but act locally). When the course content is customized based on the market needs then students will not face unemployability problem. Let us make Indian MBA on par with global standards. We need to get out of the mindset of being copycats. We need to reinvent ourselves as leaders from being followers. To sum up, it is vital to have holistic and integrated approach towards improving management education in India.
The End
It is the time where students take admissions in Business schools to acquire coveted MBA qualification. There are certain things the students should take care before entering B-schools. Let us first find out the significance of management education.
Importance of Management Education:
Management education adds value to the existing qualifications. It helps students irrespective of their domains in graduation as it widens their knowledge base and encourages them to think differently. Management education enhances managerial and leadership skills by sharing of ideas, insights through healthy, meaningful and case study discussions. Having students with cross cultural backgrounds adds value to management education as there is probability of generating multiples ideas.
Apart from providing requisite skills and abilities to get going smoothly at the corporate world, it provides an opportunity to network with others and promotes cross-cultural diversities. It helps in equipping the executives with competencies and capabilities to take on the corporate challenges with confidence. Now a days, we find there is growing demand for the programs in the domain of strategy and leadership development in MBA education.
Role of B-Schools:
Mushrooming business schools is a cause for concern both for students and parents. It indicates that there is huge potential in management education and also there is a possibility for unauthorized and illegal institutions. The students should take all precautionary measure before joining business schools as selection of the right business school is the first step towards achieving right management education. They should look for accredited business schools.
Few business schools promise moon to students such as free international tours with laptops. What is needed is to provide relevant course content, case study discussion, industry interaction and proper placements. There is strong need to make them as competent mangers and successful leaders rather than believing in freebies.
The business schools should focus on nitty-gritty of general management and also about a functional specialization so that the students can become jack of all trades and master of management. The Indian Business schools should reinvent themselves with changing times and redesign their academic curriculum for facing the current challenges in the business environment.
The course curriculum should be designed to suit new perspectives for building managerial and leadership skills. The responsibility lies with business schools to do the needful in this regard. It is not the students or the faculties to be blamed for poor performance at business schools but the management involved in running business school for the drawbacks in the present management education. It is not the gun that should be blamed but the person who pulls the trigger.
B-schools hit the newspaper headlines by stating that their students getting highest pay in campus placements. Is it the yardstick to rush to conclusion that the specific B-school is bigger and better than other schools?
As parents provide right character and base to their children, similarly business schools should filter out and select the students not only with right aptitude but also with right attitude with a special emphasis on ethical and moral values. In the long run, it helps in shaping, training and grooming them as successful managers and leaders. Of course, it is easier said than done.
Role of Faculties:
The faculties should be from excellent academic background with an industry exposure. They should be a special breed of people driven by passion rather money. They need to inspire and motivate the students through right communication skills. They should preferably have industry experience in a reputed organization. It is desirable to have research experience in management along with consultancy and teaching experience. The combination of the four areas of expertise such as consultancy, teaching, research and industry would make faculties outstanding. Above all, the faculties should be strong scholars with an exposure to multiple audiences.
Role of Top Industrialists in India:
The top Indian industrialists should set up business schools the way they set up their business enterprises not with the sole intention of making money rather adding value to management education. It would revolutionize the Indian management education the day top brass is involved in this. The successful students should be encouraged to work in the companies of their choice without any strings attached. The motto must be to produce the world class managers and leaders. It should be treated as an investment rather than expense. They can charge the students with nominal fee. They should see management education as a kind of a corporate social responsibility so that the fruits of management education would reach the students of lower middle class as well.
Conclusion:
The present business education is broken and need to be reinvented with changing times. The four pillars for effective management education are industry experience, consultancy experience, research experience and teaching experience. When faculty possesses these four basic ingredients besides being passionate towards teaching profession, the day is not far away where we can produce world class management graduates.
It is unfortunate that India with a billion plus population could not produce global leaders like Jack Welch, Peter F Drucker, Bill Gates, Michel Dell; It is time India took a relook at the methodology of management education. It is also the time Indian B-schools took stock of the situation and set their houses in order. The silver lining in the dark cloud of management education in India is the Indian School of Business (ISB) which is ranked as the 15th best Business School in the world surpassing other premier management institutions like IIMs.
There is a strong need to focus management education glocally (i.e. think globally but act locally). When the course content is customized based on the market needs then students will not face unemployability problem. Let us make Indian MBA on par with global standards. We need to get out of the mindset of being copycats. We need to reinvent ourselves as leaders from being followers. To sum up, it is vital to have holistic and integrated approach towards improving management education in India.
The End
Thursday, June 11, 2009
How to Boost Your Self-Esteem?
“I am very special, unique, and valuable person. I deserve to feel good about myself.”
Boosting self-esteem is very easy when you know what is all about self-esteem. Having self-esteem enhances the prospects of successful personal, professional and social life. It is an essential component of success in everything right from childhood, to adolescence and to adulthood. It is rightly said by Beth Graney, guidance at Bull Run Middle School in Gainesvile, Virginia that, “Adults achieve self-esteem from their achievements, the adolescents achieve from their group and kids achieve from their peer relationships.” Before we look at boosting self-esteem let us find out what is all about self-esteem.
What is Self-Esteem?
According to Goleman author of the book titled ‘Emotional Intelligence’, “Self-esteem or self-efficacy has to do with a realistic assessment of your strengths and weaknesses”.
When you feel bad about yourself from time to time you have low self-esteem. In contrast, when you feel good about yourself constantly you have high self-esteem. Self-esteem means having pride in oneself and self-respect. It is a state of thinking where one feels good about oneself. Self-esteem is all about feeling good of oneself every time whether in success or failure.
Self-esteem should not be confused with self-confidence which is related to self-beliefs and sense of being able to do something successfully. Self-esteem should not also be confused with self-efficacy which is related to certain abilities, capabilities and competencies to move towards future performance. The concept is believed to have been coined by John Milton. Self-esteem is one of the important ingredients for success. It is our ability to value ourselves. It is the overall opinion we have about ourselves. When you think that you are competent then you have appropriate self-esteem i.e. high self-esteem and when you think that you are not competent then you have inappropriate self-esteem i.e. low self-esteem.
Self-esteem comes from a sense of our own worth. It is based on true awareness of our strengths and weaknesses, combined with acceptance that human beings are, by nature, a mixture of such qualities. We are living in a society that is continually being impacted by the symptoms and side effects of low self-esteem.
Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs:
Abraham Maslow, an American psychologist, developed hierarchy of needs where in after fulfilling one level of needs, human beings will be motivated to reach the next higher order of needs. For instance, human beings look basically for meeting physiological needs like food, cloth, shelter, sex etc. While working, employees look for rest periods, work breaks, lunch breaks etc., The second higher level of needs is the safety and security needs where human beings like to be free from fear of physical, psychological and financial needs. At workplace, the employees look for job security, pension benefits, insurance etc., to secure themselves. The third higher level of needs is the social needs where they crave for love and affection and affiliation with their communities and groups. While working in organizations, they like to work in groups by forming teams which is the right example for social needs. After fulfilling these needs they crave for esteem needs such as they expect respect and recognition from others. Hike in their pay and perks, promotions and having company car can promote their self-esteem needs. The top highest hierarchy of needs is the self-actualization needs where they want to have freedom to be creative and innovative and want to pursue their passionate areas of interest. When the employees are encouraged to take up higher roles and responsibilities they enjoy accepting the challenges as they derive immense pleasure out of it.
From the above hierarchy of needs, we find the self-esteem has place for itself which is indication of its importance in human motivation and needs.
Causes:
“Self pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything wise in the world.” - Helen Keller
Nobody is born with low self-esteem. Parents, educational institutions and society are responsible for creating low self-esteem among people. When our thoughts constantly rotate and revolve around the deficiencies, shortcomings, weaknesses and insecurities, we tend to develop low self-esteem. Besides, frequent failures and criticism by others may lead to self-doubt resulting into depression and anxiety. Inferiority among the people may give rise to low self-esteem. When people are not good looking they tend to think low of themselves resulting into low self-esteem. Parents are also responsible to some extent for low self-esteem among their children when they have unrealistic aspirations and expectations from their children.
Effects:
Low self-esteem prevents you from enjoying life, doing the thing you want to do, and working towards your personal and professional goals. It results into improper interpersonal relations with others. One can observe anxiety, depression, insomnia, substance abuse and other self-destructive behaviors. It also gives rise to self-doubt and self-criticism. When you have low self-esteem you give in yourself to negative self-talk, like “I am not smart”.
Strategies to Boost Your Self-Esteem:
“Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it's amazing what they can accomplish.” – Sam Walton
• Love yourself first. Only when you start loving yourself then you can expect others to love you.
• Develop a healthy and positive mindset for boosting self-esteem.
• Set smart, measurable, achievable, realistic and timed (SMART) goals. Right goals take you towards right direction resulting into one success after another success culminating into higher self-esteem.
• Pursue your passionate areas of interest. Carefully listen to your head and heart and synchronize the same to build self-esteem.
• Take care of your physical, mental and emotional health. Hit gym regularly or go for jogging or swimming or walking to distress yourself. Read good books which provide you enough mental diet. And balance yourself emotionally.
• Concentrate on your strengths rather than weaknesses. Prepare a list of your weaknesses and work on to improve slowly and steadily.
• Create positive circle of friends who respect you and your areas of interest so that you can boost your self-esteem.
• Always explore the ways and means to tap your inner talents and also develop skills as the combination these two will help you to look at the world with positive attitude.
• Always start from where you are strong as it builds your self-confidence.
• Attend workshops or seminars that are free or inexpensive as it widens your intellectual horizons.
• List out and recall your past achievements. Also, list out positive affirmations and read the same daily when you get up from bed in the morning and go to bed in the night. Once it is done for a period of a month, then you find amazing results.
• Substitute your negative thoughts with positive ones. Keep busy with your commitments and goals. It helps in minimizing negative thoughts and maximizing positive thoughts. It will also help you stay focused.
• Never compare yourself with others as you are unique and different. Always focus on your unique innate traits and characteristics and also the things you like.
• Always compete with yourself and raise your bar gradually.
• Take someone you like the most as a role model so that you can draw motivation and inspiration.
• Always involve yourself in positive self-talk. Everyone has an inner dialogue. Always think internally that you are born to do great things and you are sure to achieve the same. Constant inner dialogue reinforces positive self-talk resulting into feeling good about yourself.
• Learn from failures and move forward. Never underestimate nor overestimate yourself.
• Don’t hold your anger inside. Once anger is held then it would explode like volcano. Find out what angers you and let go your angry emotions by expressing as it relieves your inner burden. Express yourself to close friends what causes you anger.
• Care less about others and especially for their unhealthy criticism. Les Brown rightly said, “Someone's opinion of you does not have to become your reality.”
• Be kind and helpful to others. When you do so, people respect your positive gesture which in turn raises your self-esteem.
• Develop the attitude of forgetting any negative events or experiences in life and forgiving others.
• Children should focus on academic excellence and extra-curricular activities and achievements as these promote high self-esteem.
• Strive for excellence not perfection.
• Cultivate the hobby of gifting.
• Practice smiling as it improves your face value.
• Build your inner strengths which helps in enhancing your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual strength.
• Do what you love to do rather than loving what you do. There is a thin line separating these two. When you do what you love to do you enjoy every moment resulting into higher self-esteem.
• Be assertive – excessive high self-esteem leads to aggressiveness and low self-esteem results in submissiveness. Therefore, it is essential to maintain the average of both behaviors which is possible by assertiveness.
• Always be grateful to God for what has been given to you. Develop the attitude of gratitude.
Conclusion:
“Sooner or later, those who win are those who think they can.” - Richard Bach
Low self-esteem is not a problem by birth. It is injected by various ways and means. In some cases, it is due to parental influence. The faulty social and educational environment also aggravates this problem. The fact is that self-esteem can be learned, taught, developed and spread. Let us teach kids to feel good about themselves in their childhood itself so that they grow and live with high self-esteem in later part of their lives. To sum up, respect yourself, reward yourself, honor yourself, love yourself and feel good about yourself for boosting your self-esteem.
The End
References:
‘The Power of Self-Esteem: Build It and They Will Flourish’ by Jim Paterson.
Boosting self-esteem is very easy when you know what is all about self-esteem. Having self-esteem enhances the prospects of successful personal, professional and social life. It is an essential component of success in everything right from childhood, to adolescence and to adulthood. It is rightly said by Beth Graney, guidance at Bull Run Middle School in Gainesvile, Virginia that, “Adults achieve self-esteem from their achievements, the adolescents achieve from their group and kids achieve from their peer relationships.” Before we look at boosting self-esteem let us find out what is all about self-esteem.
What is Self-Esteem?
According to Goleman author of the book titled ‘Emotional Intelligence’, “Self-esteem or self-efficacy has to do with a realistic assessment of your strengths and weaknesses”.
When you feel bad about yourself from time to time you have low self-esteem. In contrast, when you feel good about yourself constantly you have high self-esteem. Self-esteem means having pride in oneself and self-respect. It is a state of thinking where one feels good about oneself. Self-esteem is all about feeling good of oneself every time whether in success or failure.
Self-esteem should not be confused with self-confidence which is related to self-beliefs and sense of being able to do something successfully. Self-esteem should not also be confused with self-efficacy which is related to certain abilities, capabilities and competencies to move towards future performance. The concept is believed to have been coined by John Milton. Self-esteem is one of the important ingredients for success. It is our ability to value ourselves. It is the overall opinion we have about ourselves. When you think that you are competent then you have appropriate self-esteem i.e. high self-esteem and when you think that you are not competent then you have inappropriate self-esteem i.e. low self-esteem.
Self-esteem comes from a sense of our own worth. It is based on true awareness of our strengths and weaknesses, combined with acceptance that human beings are, by nature, a mixture of such qualities. We are living in a society that is continually being impacted by the symptoms and side effects of low self-esteem.
Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs:
Abraham Maslow, an American psychologist, developed hierarchy of needs where in after fulfilling one level of needs, human beings will be motivated to reach the next higher order of needs. For instance, human beings look basically for meeting physiological needs like food, cloth, shelter, sex etc. While working, employees look for rest periods, work breaks, lunch breaks etc., The second higher level of needs is the safety and security needs where human beings like to be free from fear of physical, psychological and financial needs. At workplace, the employees look for job security, pension benefits, insurance etc., to secure themselves. The third higher level of needs is the social needs where they crave for love and affection and affiliation with their communities and groups. While working in organizations, they like to work in groups by forming teams which is the right example for social needs. After fulfilling these needs they crave for esteem needs such as they expect respect and recognition from others. Hike in their pay and perks, promotions and having company car can promote their self-esteem needs. The top highest hierarchy of needs is the self-actualization needs where they want to have freedom to be creative and innovative and want to pursue their passionate areas of interest. When the employees are encouraged to take up higher roles and responsibilities they enjoy accepting the challenges as they derive immense pleasure out of it.
From the above hierarchy of needs, we find the self-esteem has place for itself which is indication of its importance in human motivation and needs.
Causes:
“Self pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything wise in the world.” - Helen Keller
Nobody is born with low self-esteem. Parents, educational institutions and society are responsible for creating low self-esteem among people. When our thoughts constantly rotate and revolve around the deficiencies, shortcomings, weaknesses and insecurities, we tend to develop low self-esteem. Besides, frequent failures and criticism by others may lead to self-doubt resulting into depression and anxiety. Inferiority among the people may give rise to low self-esteem. When people are not good looking they tend to think low of themselves resulting into low self-esteem. Parents are also responsible to some extent for low self-esteem among their children when they have unrealistic aspirations and expectations from their children.
Effects:
Low self-esteem prevents you from enjoying life, doing the thing you want to do, and working towards your personal and professional goals. It results into improper interpersonal relations with others. One can observe anxiety, depression, insomnia, substance abuse and other self-destructive behaviors. It also gives rise to self-doubt and self-criticism. When you have low self-esteem you give in yourself to negative self-talk, like “I am not smart”.
Strategies to Boost Your Self-Esteem:
“Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it's amazing what they can accomplish.” – Sam Walton
• Love yourself first. Only when you start loving yourself then you can expect others to love you.
• Develop a healthy and positive mindset for boosting self-esteem.
• Set smart, measurable, achievable, realistic and timed (SMART) goals. Right goals take you towards right direction resulting into one success after another success culminating into higher self-esteem.
• Pursue your passionate areas of interest. Carefully listen to your head and heart and synchronize the same to build self-esteem.
• Take care of your physical, mental and emotional health. Hit gym regularly or go for jogging or swimming or walking to distress yourself. Read good books which provide you enough mental diet. And balance yourself emotionally.
• Concentrate on your strengths rather than weaknesses. Prepare a list of your weaknesses and work on to improve slowly and steadily.
• Create positive circle of friends who respect you and your areas of interest so that you can boost your self-esteem.
• Always explore the ways and means to tap your inner talents and also develop skills as the combination these two will help you to look at the world with positive attitude.
• Always start from where you are strong as it builds your self-confidence.
• Attend workshops or seminars that are free or inexpensive as it widens your intellectual horizons.
• List out and recall your past achievements. Also, list out positive affirmations and read the same daily when you get up from bed in the morning and go to bed in the night. Once it is done for a period of a month, then you find amazing results.
• Substitute your negative thoughts with positive ones. Keep busy with your commitments and goals. It helps in minimizing negative thoughts and maximizing positive thoughts. It will also help you stay focused.
• Never compare yourself with others as you are unique and different. Always focus on your unique innate traits and characteristics and also the things you like.
• Always compete with yourself and raise your bar gradually.
• Take someone you like the most as a role model so that you can draw motivation and inspiration.
• Always involve yourself in positive self-talk. Everyone has an inner dialogue. Always think internally that you are born to do great things and you are sure to achieve the same. Constant inner dialogue reinforces positive self-talk resulting into feeling good about yourself.
• Learn from failures and move forward. Never underestimate nor overestimate yourself.
• Don’t hold your anger inside. Once anger is held then it would explode like volcano. Find out what angers you and let go your angry emotions by expressing as it relieves your inner burden. Express yourself to close friends what causes you anger.
• Care less about others and especially for their unhealthy criticism. Les Brown rightly said, “Someone's opinion of you does not have to become your reality.”
• Be kind and helpful to others. When you do so, people respect your positive gesture which in turn raises your self-esteem.
• Develop the attitude of forgetting any negative events or experiences in life and forgiving others.
• Children should focus on academic excellence and extra-curricular activities and achievements as these promote high self-esteem.
• Strive for excellence not perfection.
• Cultivate the hobby of gifting.
• Practice smiling as it improves your face value.
• Build your inner strengths which helps in enhancing your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual strength.
• Do what you love to do rather than loving what you do. There is a thin line separating these two. When you do what you love to do you enjoy every moment resulting into higher self-esteem.
• Be assertive – excessive high self-esteem leads to aggressiveness and low self-esteem results in submissiveness. Therefore, it is essential to maintain the average of both behaviors which is possible by assertiveness.
• Always be grateful to God for what has been given to you. Develop the attitude of gratitude.
Conclusion:
“Sooner or later, those who win are those who think they can.” - Richard Bach
Low self-esteem is not a problem by birth. It is injected by various ways and means. In some cases, it is due to parental influence. The faulty social and educational environment also aggravates this problem. The fact is that self-esteem can be learned, taught, developed and spread. Let us teach kids to feel good about themselves in their childhood itself so that they grow and live with high self-esteem in later part of their lives. To sum up, respect yourself, reward yourself, honor yourself, love yourself and feel good about yourself for boosting your self-esteem.
The End
References:
‘The Power of Self-Esteem: Build It and They Will Flourish’ by Jim Paterson.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Self-Confidence Leads to Success
If you think that you can do it then it is confidence, if you think that you can alone do it then it is overconfidence. There is a thin line separating self-confidence from over-confidence.
Confidence is the key to overcome trials and tribulations in life. It is one of the most important aspects which help in moving forward in life. Confidence is the ability to have full faith in oneself to face the fight and to take it forward to its logical end. Confidence comes when you make the things happen not when you let the things happen. It helps in touching upper limits. It brings inner satisfaction, happiness and joy.
Confidence is an inner voice which tells us what we can do. Confidence does not mean overrating or overestimating than that of others. It is neither feeling superior or great but feeling comfortable with convictions. Confidence is the ability to assess and judge yourself properly. It is also the ability not to underestimate your rivals or competitors. Confidence is essential everywhere. For instance, a leader needs confidence to lead the team, a student needs confidence to score higher marks and a teacher needs confidence to speak in front of students.
What is Self-Confidence?
"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss
Self-confidence comes from competence, competence comes from experience and experience comes from hard work, expertise, practice, knowledge, skills and abilities.
It is a mental attitude where in individuals has to believe in themselves, respect themselves, rely on their abilities, capabilities, competencies, and intuition.
Confidence and optimism are two sides of the same coin. For achieving success in any sphere, it is necessary to equip with these two traits. Self-confident people take risks and accept roles and responsibilities voluntarily. They take on the battle to its logical end without any fear or self-doubt. They would face the fight and would fight to the finish.
When we look at all successful people, it transpires that they all have great self-confidence. We tend to think that their success led them to have self-confidence. We can say that prior to success it was their self-confidence that led to success and not the other way round.
There are number of people who started from nowhere and reached to number one status just because they have confidence. There are people who rose like phoenix despite failures just because of their self-confidence.
John’s Overconfidence:
"If you don’t make mistakes then you are a perfect human and if you make mistakes then you are a human" - Farouk
John was highly educated and was good at his job. Due to recession the entire department was closed. Finally the axe fell on John also to leave the organization. Before being axed, the employer provided outplacement to John to join in one of their affiliates where his services could be utilized. John was overconfident and said the employer that he had couple of offers and would shortlist the same and get back to them. On hearing this, the employer provided the opportunity to one of his colleagues.
After closure of establishment John had to struggle for a suitable employment for a month as the job market was weak due to recession. John had ability and capability to get better employment and finally settled down for an employment as per his passion. Only regret he had was to remain unemployed for a month and he lost a salary for that period. Had John accepted the previous employer’s offer he would have worked there and would have tried for better opportunities by working in an affiliate organization. John’s over-confidence led to losing salary for a period of one month and undergoing mental trauma without job. Let us accept the fact that over-confidence is the worst enemy.
Signs of Self-Confident People:
A self-confident person grabs the opportunities whereas an over-confident person rejects the available opportunities. Let us look at the signs and signals of self-confident people.
1. Never doubt their competencies, capabilities, abilities and skills.
2. Have total command and control over themselves.
3. Are risk takers and love to live on edge.
4. Humility is their hallmark.
5. Have neither superiority nor inferiority complex. They possess the right complex desired for success.
6. Are open to new areas of interests, challenges and changes in life.
7. Are ready to test new waters by assuming challenging roles and responsibilities.
8. Have clarity of mind and approach towards problem solving.
9. Are ready to take constructive criticism in their stride and strives for continuous feedback.
10. Have tenacity and resilience to overcome from failures.
11. Have an attitude to strive for excellence, not perfection.
Tips for Building Self-Confidence:
Will power is essential to build confidence as it enables people to do anything and everything which lead to success.
• Believing in yourself is the first and foremost things towards building self-confidence.
• Take up the tasks which are little more difficult and start executing them. Over a period of time, you will develop self-confidence.
• Learning is the key to self-confidence. If you learn swimming, then you develop self-confidence gradually to get into water next time. Similarly, learn any new skills and abilities so that you will develop competencies and capabilities which lead to developing self-confidence.
• Always radiate positive energy and enthusiasm.
• Always have positive self-affirmations everyday such as ‘I am great’, ‘I will succeed’, ‘I was born to achieve big in this world’ and so on
• List out your achievement in your life and keep adding fresh successes along with the existing like updating resume while applying for employment. It will enhance confidence levels as it generates positive vibes.
• Substitute your negative thoughts with positive ones. Always think that you are winner and you would achieve everything in life. When your mind is filled with positive ideas, thoughts and information then you develop confidence and it leads to success.
• Everyone is blessed with unique talents and traits. Find out where you are strong at, tap and explore the same for achieving success.
• Take timely food. Hit gym or do meditation regularly. Positive mind in a healthy body will enhance confidence levels.
• Always involve in positive self-talk. But don’t make it excess as it leads to blowing your own trumpet. Therefore, keep your positive self-talk within the healthy limits.
• Be cool and composed as it decreases anxiety and stress.
• Don’t get unduly concerned about others how they think about you. You are what you are and you are unique and incomparable with others. Therefore, care less about others. Don’t focus on unhealthy criticism.
• Don’t worry too much about your past failures. Failures are common in life. It indicates that you have attempted to achieve something in life. Learn lessons from failures and just move on towards success.
• Always be faithful to your conscience and possess strong character. There is an age-old proverb and it goes, “Confession is good for the soul”. If you did wrong it is better to own up and confess as it relieves your burden to your conscience. Conscience reflects the ethical values while character demonstrates both the emotional and ethical values. These two are the driving forces towards building better self-confidence.
Conclusion:
"You are what you think about all day long." - Dr. Robert Schuller
Self-confidence is not a born quality. It is a cultivated trait by external environment. It is inculcated by parents and educational institutions during upbringing. Besides, social environment always plays a vital role in building this trait. To sum up, let us admit the fact that everyone is born with the ability to instinctively achieve something in life and it is the self-confidence that finally helps in achieving success.
The End
Confidence is the key to overcome trials and tribulations in life. It is one of the most important aspects which help in moving forward in life. Confidence is the ability to have full faith in oneself to face the fight and to take it forward to its logical end. Confidence comes when you make the things happen not when you let the things happen. It helps in touching upper limits. It brings inner satisfaction, happiness and joy.
Confidence is an inner voice which tells us what we can do. Confidence does not mean overrating or overestimating than that of others. It is neither feeling superior or great but feeling comfortable with convictions. Confidence is the ability to assess and judge yourself properly. It is also the ability not to underestimate your rivals or competitors. Confidence is essential everywhere. For instance, a leader needs confidence to lead the team, a student needs confidence to score higher marks and a teacher needs confidence to speak in front of students.
What is Self-Confidence?
"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss
Self-confidence comes from competence, competence comes from experience and experience comes from hard work, expertise, practice, knowledge, skills and abilities.
It is a mental attitude where in individuals has to believe in themselves, respect themselves, rely on their abilities, capabilities, competencies, and intuition.
Confidence and optimism are two sides of the same coin. For achieving success in any sphere, it is necessary to equip with these two traits. Self-confident people take risks and accept roles and responsibilities voluntarily. They take on the battle to its logical end without any fear or self-doubt. They would face the fight and would fight to the finish.
When we look at all successful people, it transpires that they all have great self-confidence. We tend to think that their success led them to have self-confidence. We can say that prior to success it was their self-confidence that led to success and not the other way round.
There are number of people who started from nowhere and reached to number one status just because they have confidence. There are people who rose like phoenix despite failures just because of their self-confidence.
John’s Overconfidence:
"If you don’t make mistakes then you are a perfect human and if you make mistakes then you are a human" - Farouk
John was highly educated and was good at his job. Due to recession the entire department was closed. Finally the axe fell on John also to leave the organization. Before being axed, the employer provided outplacement to John to join in one of their affiliates where his services could be utilized. John was overconfident and said the employer that he had couple of offers and would shortlist the same and get back to them. On hearing this, the employer provided the opportunity to one of his colleagues.
After closure of establishment John had to struggle for a suitable employment for a month as the job market was weak due to recession. John had ability and capability to get better employment and finally settled down for an employment as per his passion. Only regret he had was to remain unemployed for a month and he lost a salary for that period. Had John accepted the previous employer’s offer he would have worked there and would have tried for better opportunities by working in an affiliate organization. John’s over-confidence led to losing salary for a period of one month and undergoing mental trauma without job. Let us accept the fact that over-confidence is the worst enemy.
Signs of Self-Confident People:
A self-confident person grabs the opportunities whereas an over-confident person rejects the available opportunities. Let us look at the signs and signals of self-confident people.
1. Never doubt their competencies, capabilities, abilities and skills.
2. Have total command and control over themselves.
3. Are risk takers and love to live on edge.
4. Humility is their hallmark.
5. Have neither superiority nor inferiority complex. They possess the right complex desired for success.
6. Are open to new areas of interests, challenges and changes in life.
7. Are ready to test new waters by assuming challenging roles and responsibilities.
8. Have clarity of mind and approach towards problem solving.
9. Are ready to take constructive criticism in their stride and strives for continuous feedback.
10. Have tenacity and resilience to overcome from failures.
11. Have an attitude to strive for excellence, not perfection.
Tips for Building Self-Confidence:
Will power is essential to build confidence as it enables people to do anything and everything which lead to success.
• Believing in yourself is the first and foremost things towards building self-confidence.
• Take up the tasks which are little more difficult and start executing them. Over a period of time, you will develop self-confidence.
• Learning is the key to self-confidence. If you learn swimming, then you develop self-confidence gradually to get into water next time. Similarly, learn any new skills and abilities so that you will develop competencies and capabilities which lead to developing self-confidence.
• Always radiate positive energy and enthusiasm.
• Always have positive self-affirmations everyday such as ‘I am great’, ‘I will succeed’, ‘I was born to achieve big in this world’ and so on
• List out your achievement in your life and keep adding fresh successes along with the existing like updating resume while applying for employment. It will enhance confidence levels as it generates positive vibes.
• Substitute your negative thoughts with positive ones. Always think that you are winner and you would achieve everything in life. When your mind is filled with positive ideas, thoughts and information then you develop confidence and it leads to success.
• Everyone is blessed with unique talents and traits. Find out where you are strong at, tap and explore the same for achieving success.
• Take timely food. Hit gym or do meditation regularly. Positive mind in a healthy body will enhance confidence levels.
• Always involve in positive self-talk. But don’t make it excess as it leads to blowing your own trumpet. Therefore, keep your positive self-talk within the healthy limits.
• Be cool and composed as it decreases anxiety and stress.
• Don’t get unduly concerned about others how they think about you. You are what you are and you are unique and incomparable with others. Therefore, care less about others. Don’t focus on unhealthy criticism.
• Don’t worry too much about your past failures. Failures are common in life. It indicates that you have attempted to achieve something in life. Learn lessons from failures and just move on towards success.
• Always be faithful to your conscience and possess strong character. There is an age-old proverb and it goes, “Confession is good for the soul”. If you did wrong it is better to own up and confess as it relieves your burden to your conscience. Conscience reflects the ethical values while character demonstrates both the emotional and ethical values. These two are the driving forces towards building better self-confidence.
Conclusion:
"You are what you think about all day long." - Dr. Robert Schuller
Self-confidence is not a born quality. It is a cultivated trait by external environment. It is inculcated by parents and educational institutions during upbringing. Besides, social environment always plays a vital role in building this trait. To sum up, let us admit the fact that everyone is born with the ability to instinctively achieve something in life and it is the self-confidence that finally helps in achieving success.
The End
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Self-Discipline is Key to Success
“If you do not conquer self, you will be conquered by self.” - Napoleon Hill
Everyone wants to achieve success. But very few people achieve the success. What makes them tick towards success? There are number of secrets and strategies towards success. The first and foremost among them is self-discipline which is the secret towards achieving success. In this context, let us find out the meaning of self-discipline.
What is Self-Discipline?
Self-discipline means training oneself to stick to code of conduct or behavior although the person is willing to do something else at heart but he does as he is expected to do it. Self-discipline is a trait, habit and a skill. It requires consistent efforts to remain self-disciplined. In fact, consistency is the key to self-discipline. Self-discipline needs struggles and sacrifices. Success springs from such strenuous efforts and energies.
Self-discipline is a voluntary and conscious effort to discipline oneself without any external influence. For instance, being punctual to work rather than being reminded by others to be on time, to be focused on work voluntarily rather than being prompted by superiors, getting up early in the morning regularly without anybody’s coercion and getting the tasks executed without procrastination can be considered as self-discipline.
Self-discipline is sticking to tight schedules, rules and regulations without anybody’s influence, coercion. In a nut shell, being duty-conscious, being punctual, being conscious of others, being organized and being initiative are the bedrock for self-discipline. It must go deep within the subconscious mind. It is like minding one’s own work without being reminded by others.
Self-discipline is combination of self-control, self-command, self-regulation and self-feedback. Hitting gym regularly, taking timely food and leading a systematic life become the bedrock of self-discipline.
If you want to decrease your weight, you need to hit the gym. You need to have will power to pursue hitting gym relentlessly for shedding the excess flab. If you are a diabetic and the doctor instructs you to avoid taking sugar then you need to display self-discipline to stick to his instructions.
Will power and Self-Discipline:
Will power and self-discipline are two sides of the same coin. While will power helps in overcoming laziness and procrastination self-discipline helps in developing stamina, endurance, resilience and tenacity, perseverance and motivation. When you are equipped with these two traits you will be confident of taking the things forward. Both are investments for future success.
Merits of Self-Discipline:
“Self-discipline is an act of cultivation. It requires you to connect today's actions to tomorrow's results. There's a season for sowing a season for reaping. Self-discipline helps you know which is which.” - Gary Ryan Blair
Self-discipline empowers your personality. It equips you with several tools and techniques that help in achieving success. It makes you stand out of the crowd. It makes you rise from the rest. It will project you as a leader who stands different from others. There are many merits associated with self-discipline. Let us look at few of them.
It helps in organizing people better as it makes them to get up from sleep at regular times and do things in systematic and focused manner.
It enhances the personality of the individuals thereby projecting in a positive manner.
It is stepping stone towards success.
It helps in achieving your goals much faster and smarter.
Inculcating Self-Discipline:
“In reading the lives of great men, I found that the first victory they won was over themselves... self-discipline with all of them came first.” - Harry S. Truman
Maintain good friends who fuel you with positive thoughts and ideas. Positive company of friends keeps you healthy thus making you self-disciplined.
Cultivate the habit of maintaining diary. Jot down the ideas that surface from your mind. Don’t rely on your memory. It is rightly said that a short pencil is better than a long memory. Jotting down the key ideas enhances perseverance as well.
Take up one task at a time and do it. Don’t mix up several tasks as you end up no where. It will stay you focused and make you task oriented.
Break big tasks into small ones and execute. When you find a big task you may feel like giving up assuming as the difficult one. But when you break it down then work slowly and steadily by addressing small pieces then you will be able to achieve your goal easily however big it might be. When you follow this strategy you will find amazing results. Henry Ford rightly said, “Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs”.
Face the problems rather than avoiding them. Face the fight and take the battle of life to its logical end. It is the secret of self-discipline.
You have the potential for self-discipline. Only thing you should know is when to use and not use it
It is always better to do than to do well in life. Never focus on perfection but on excellence.
Always put work before pleasure. Once the work is over then you can concentrate on pleasure. Or else, you would not enjoy the pleasure as your mind is concerned about work.
Always push yourself harder beyond your limits so that the best within you will come out.
Set small goals and try to achieve. Once you achieve small goals, then you develop a flow that will encourage you to become self-disciplined.
Set your own standards and never compare with others. Realize the fact that everyone is unique.
Active participation in sports and games will develop self-discipline.
Learn to associate with positive activities and experiences as these encourage people to be self-disciplined.
Conclusion:
“It is not fair to ask of others what you are not willing to do yourself.” -
Eleanor Roosevelt
The poor self-discipline makes you weak and unsuccessful and over discipline makes you sacrifice your personal happiness and joy. Therefore, learn to strike the right balance between the both for reaching greater heights in your life.
You can do anything and everything through self-discipline. People with self-discipline rarely give up. They place work before pleasure. After completion of the work they enjoy the pleasure without any guilt feeling.
Self-discipline is a skill not a talent. Talents are inborn and skills are cultivated. Therefore, it is easy to cultivate the skill of self-discipline. It requires will power, stamina and endurance to acquire this skill. The educational institutions can play a crucial role in shaping the students through self-discipline. Similarly, the role of parents is also appreciated to inculcate the skill among their children.
Self-discipline determines the destiny of the individuals. It holds the key to success.
Successful people cultivate this quality at their childhood itself. To sum up, life without self-discipline is like a ship sailing without navigation.
The End
Everyone wants to achieve success. But very few people achieve the success. What makes them tick towards success? There are number of secrets and strategies towards success. The first and foremost among them is self-discipline which is the secret towards achieving success. In this context, let us find out the meaning of self-discipline.
What is Self-Discipline?
Self-discipline means training oneself to stick to code of conduct or behavior although the person is willing to do something else at heart but he does as he is expected to do it. Self-discipline is a trait, habit and a skill. It requires consistent efforts to remain self-disciplined. In fact, consistency is the key to self-discipline. Self-discipline needs struggles and sacrifices. Success springs from such strenuous efforts and energies.
Self-discipline is a voluntary and conscious effort to discipline oneself without any external influence. For instance, being punctual to work rather than being reminded by others to be on time, to be focused on work voluntarily rather than being prompted by superiors, getting up early in the morning regularly without anybody’s coercion and getting the tasks executed without procrastination can be considered as self-discipline.
Self-discipline is sticking to tight schedules, rules and regulations without anybody’s influence, coercion. In a nut shell, being duty-conscious, being punctual, being conscious of others, being organized and being initiative are the bedrock for self-discipline. It must go deep within the subconscious mind. It is like minding one’s own work without being reminded by others.
Self-discipline is combination of self-control, self-command, self-regulation and self-feedback. Hitting gym regularly, taking timely food and leading a systematic life become the bedrock of self-discipline.
If you want to decrease your weight, you need to hit the gym. You need to have will power to pursue hitting gym relentlessly for shedding the excess flab. If you are a diabetic and the doctor instructs you to avoid taking sugar then you need to display self-discipline to stick to his instructions.
Will power and Self-Discipline:
Will power and self-discipline are two sides of the same coin. While will power helps in overcoming laziness and procrastination self-discipline helps in developing stamina, endurance, resilience and tenacity, perseverance and motivation. When you are equipped with these two traits you will be confident of taking the things forward. Both are investments for future success.
Merits of Self-Discipline:
“Self-discipline is an act of cultivation. It requires you to connect today's actions to tomorrow's results. There's a season for sowing a season for reaping. Self-discipline helps you know which is which.” - Gary Ryan Blair
Self-discipline empowers your personality. It equips you with several tools and techniques that help in achieving success. It makes you stand out of the crowd. It makes you rise from the rest. It will project you as a leader who stands different from others. There are many merits associated with self-discipline. Let us look at few of them.
It helps in organizing people better as it makes them to get up from sleep at regular times and do things in systematic and focused manner.
It enhances the personality of the individuals thereby projecting in a positive manner.
It is stepping stone towards success.
It helps in achieving your goals much faster and smarter.
Inculcating Self-Discipline:
“In reading the lives of great men, I found that the first victory they won was over themselves... self-discipline with all of them came first.” - Harry S. Truman
Maintain good friends who fuel you with positive thoughts and ideas. Positive company of friends keeps you healthy thus making you self-disciplined.
Cultivate the habit of maintaining diary. Jot down the ideas that surface from your mind. Don’t rely on your memory. It is rightly said that a short pencil is better than a long memory. Jotting down the key ideas enhances perseverance as well.
Take up one task at a time and do it. Don’t mix up several tasks as you end up no where. It will stay you focused and make you task oriented.
Break big tasks into small ones and execute. When you find a big task you may feel like giving up assuming as the difficult one. But when you break it down then work slowly and steadily by addressing small pieces then you will be able to achieve your goal easily however big it might be. When you follow this strategy you will find amazing results. Henry Ford rightly said, “Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs”.
Face the problems rather than avoiding them. Face the fight and take the battle of life to its logical end. It is the secret of self-discipline.
You have the potential for self-discipline. Only thing you should know is when to use and not use it
It is always better to do than to do well in life. Never focus on perfection but on excellence.
Always put work before pleasure. Once the work is over then you can concentrate on pleasure. Or else, you would not enjoy the pleasure as your mind is concerned about work.
Always push yourself harder beyond your limits so that the best within you will come out.
Set small goals and try to achieve. Once you achieve small goals, then you develop a flow that will encourage you to become self-disciplined.
Set your own standards and never compare with others. Realize the fact that everyone is unique.
Active participation in sports and games will develop self-discipline.
Learn to associate with positive activities and experiences as these encourage people to be self-disciplined.
Conclusion:
“It is not fair to ask of others what you are not willing to do yourself.” -
Eleanor Roosevelt
The poor self-discipline makes you weak and unsuccessful and over discipline makes you sacrifice your personal happiness and joy. Therefore, learn to strike the right balance between the both for reaching greater heights in your life.
You can do anything and everything through self-discipline. People with self-discipline rarely give up. They place work before pleasure. After completion of the work they enjoy the pleasure without any guilt feeling.
Self-discipline is a skill not a talent. Talents are inborn and skills are cultivated. Therefore, it is easy to cultivate the skill of self-discipline. It requires will power, stamina and endurance to acquire this skill. The educational institutions can play a crucial role in shaping the students through self-discipline. Similarly, the role of parents is also appreciated to inculcate the skill among their children.
Self-discipline determines the destiny of the individuals. It holds the key to success.
Successful people cultivate this quality at their childhood itself. To sum up, life without self-discipline is like a ship sailing without navigation.
The End
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
