Assertiveness at work is a positive sign and should always be encouraged. The only point that needs to be taken note of is that do not end going on the overdrive. Assertiveness within limits and in a firm but mild form is welcome and beneficial for the growth of the individual and the organization per se. Now, how does assertiveness come forth?
Assertiveness stems forth from confidence in one’s ability and judgment. There is a certain degree of ethical correctness involved in it too. The fundamental point to take care of is that; do not confuse assertiveness with aggressiveness. When you are aggressive, you make people around you feel threatened or turned off. But, assertiveness can actually yield benefits or rewards in the following manner.
Be an active participant in the general meetings – First be sure that you have really worthwhile ideas. Try to pitch them in during the meetings. It may be the case that you do not consider yourself to be a great speaker. But, if you want to use your assertiveness at work and turn it into an advantage, take it up as a challenge to express your thoughts. Once you overcome this initial hitch, it will be easier to talk and be assertive in your subsequent meetings. The underlying fact here is that, if your ideas are sensible, you will surely be noticed by your superiors. You would be considered for other projects and before long; you will find your self climbing the promotional ladder pretty fast.
Develop the habit of listening – Listening cannot be a one sided process. Assertiveness is not expressed by occasionally nodding your head or murmuring certain expressions of agreement when some one is talking. Assertiveness also involves asking questions. This means that you are indeed interested in the talks of the speaker and it opens up the communication process, exchange of ideas takes place easy and fast.
Show your confidence – This is the most important factor to take note of. Self-confidence at work place is extremely vital. If you feel that you are lacking in this aspect, first try to overcome this annoying habit of second guessing yourself. Check that you don’t end up revealing that you are not sure about something. When you are talking, do not stutter, your voice should always be modulated. You can consider gesturing with your hands, if you know that other might notice your trembling fingers. Every attempt towards exerting your self confidence will take you a step forward to being assertive and you will only get better with it.
Your mother or friend can always criticize you but when it comes to workplace, it seldom becomes easy to accept or handle criticism. You need to understand and identify criticism first. Often it is confused with outright bashing. The first and the foremost thing that you need to understand is that criticism is not a personal vengeance against you. It is not a way to demean you. There are certain aspects that you need to follow or take care of, if you want to overcome criticism at your work place. Here are a few of them:
Learn to take it in stride – A crazy web of emotions is always difficult to deal with. So, try hard not to get your emotions tangled up. Emotions have little role to play in a workplace. So, the first point that you need to take note of is that when you are faced with a criticism, do not conclude that the said person is hell bent on taking some sort of a revenge on you. It is no personal vendetta. Your professional area is not a platform for a soap opera. Your performance and work undergoes regular monitoring. So it’s natural that if something is amiss or improper, there will be criticisms. You therefore, need to keep your emotions out of all this and give in your best to succeed.
Focus on improving your self - If you are in a career mode, you will find your self in the best position to handle criticism. A professional attitude will help you to do a proper dissection of the criticism. Criticisms are not intended to bring you down, the purpose of these criticisms are to help you become a better person. Though the pill is bitter, it will help you get better in the long run surely.
Learn to be thankful – Try to consider the purpose and the validity of the criticism first and then, you will find the inclination to be thankful. So, try to be grateful that someone has criticized you. Take it in a positive manner. Try to think that some one feels like caring for you and so felt that he should bring in your drawbacks to your notice. This should be apprehended as an opportunity to transform into a better person. Don’t let anger and frustration creep in.
Criticism also helps to build good and meaningful relationships with colleagues and co-workers. Once you learn to take criticism in stride, you will discover that not only your performance has improved but you are becoming more and more acceptable in your organizational culture.
The most defining feature of the internet is that it is same for all, no matter where you are or what language you speak. The internet is just like a mini world, but without any geographical or political barriers. However, this is the identity of the internet of the past. In the near future, this character of the internet is all set to change. Visibility of things online will depend on the location from which you will be accessing the internet.
The concept of location based internet has already begun in a small way. Twitter, the popular social networking website has started giving out the latest and the most interesting news to the users. However, the interesting fact is, all users of Twitter do not get to read the same news at a given point of time. The news is being altered according to the location of the user, who views the news of his area or his country and not of the whole world. This is indeed a step further in personalizing the experience in social networking websites and there will be many more such steps from other social networking websites too.
Many of you must have noticed that Yahoo has been doing the same for many months now. When you log onto your Yahoo mail, you get to see the weather forecast of your city, based on the Zip code that you have entered while filling up the personal details page in Yahoo mail.
The well known Canadian newspaper Metro has recently teamed up with Foursquare, which is a location based social networking service. The aim of this joint venture was to provide the clients with reviews of the restaurants in their vicinity according to the location of their cell phones as gathered from the GPS network. This is an unique initiative too and you will be more than happy to know the type of food that is being served in the restaurants near you, and then choose the one that suits your taste and your pocket.
This type of location based internet service will not only be beneficial for the users but will also open up new opportunities for the advertisers. This will help them advertise their products or services to the people of their locality so that they can get a share of the local market. This new system has lot of potentials. But what needs to be seen is how far it goes.
Autobiography is the story of your life in written format. Many of you might be interested in writing an autobiography, but you may not be confident enough to start writing it. The apprehension and the lack of confidence are understandable as the autobiography is supposed to be the story of a person written by him and so, he must be nervous while writing it. But there are some easy tips, which will be helpful in ensuring that you end up writing a good autobiography.
The first thing that you need to do is record the whole story of your life in your own voice, on a tape recorder or a CD. Once you have completed the recording, start hearing it everyday, bit by bit. You may discover that there are certain mis-information that you might have included in the recording. You need to get rid of them and rectify the places that needs corrections. Once you are satisfied with the recording, just keep it aside as the resource for your book.
You will also need to go through the photo albums that you have. These photos are bound to refresh your memories and will have you in your project. You must also develop the habit of writing in diaries or journals everyday so that you do not have to put stress on your mind to remember everything. You can write in the diary whenever thoughts strike your mind about your past.
There are free softwares in the internet that help you write autobiographies. These programs include many questions pertaining to the life of a person. Once you start answering them, you will notice that you have recollected many things from your past. You can also take the help of your family members in this regard. You can take their interviews and record it in a CD or a tape recorder and play these recordings to get a complete picture of your past life. A family tree will also help you as then you will be able to get a complete picture of the family to which you belong to.
Once you start writing the autobiography, do not set yourself a time limit. This will put undue pressure on your mind and you will not be able to write properly. Write when ever you feel like writing and never stress yourself. Just remain focused towards the cause of writing the autobiography. Soon you will see that you have completed writing your own autobiography.
For any online business to be successful, online networking is inevitably the most powerful way to achieve it. The concept of networking is becoming more and more important with every passing day, as the connectivity between the various parts of the world has increased with the development of the internet. To maintain a profitable online business, you need to contact people and create demands for your goods or services in order to be ahead of your competition.
There are many tools of networking available to a person at the present moment. Some of the tools are free but many others require subscriptions for a year or a few months. These tools are meant to help you stay connected with people you know as well as people who are unknown but might be your new acquaintance. These tools let you connect with your friends, family members, extended family, clients and others whom you may not know, but you want to get connected with.
The most common online networking tools are websites which are being used by millions of users all over the world. In these sites, one can connect with others with the help of e-mails or other small messages that can be posted in the common areas. Under these websites, many groups are created based on the common interest of a few of the users. Registering membership of a group also increases the reach of a person in the field of online networking. There are many such social networking sites, such as Orkut, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, etc, which are ideal for those of you running online businesses. These sites will help you to increase your reach and add new friends and customers to your list each day.
Susan Roan who penned the book “ How to work a room?” on online networking is of the opinion that it is quintessential for business owners to keep networking with the prospective client base, otherwise they will surely have a tough time to make it really popular. You have options galore if you want to stay connected to people who can give a positive impetus to your business and this not only includes customers but business affiliates, business partners and suppliers.
The most famous business network in the world is perhaps LinkedIn which boasts of 1.5 million users and which includes corporate biggies like Wal-Mart, Apple and Merck.Even social networking websites like Facebook are trying updating themselves as business networks by trying to provide its customers the option of adding business profiles to their accounts. Other upcoming business networks which have grabbed people’s attention are sites like APense.com and Plaxo.
If you are still wondering how these business networks can help you, then let me elucidate things a little more. For example if you are searching for competent accountants to help you out in your business then all you need to do is to log in to a business network like LinkedIn and you will get a huge list of accountants from your area. After you have zeroed on the business profiles of a few accountants suitable for your business, you can send them messages via LinkedIn or (if allowed) contact them directly.
The best feature of joining business networks like LinkedIn is that each member gets his own URL which in turn makes him searchable in Google. Another alluring feature of these business networks are the “Answers” or “Hot or Not” page where you can ask business queries and send it to the entire network. The pertinent queries which garner maximum number of expert comments are displayed on the main home page of the network.
If you want to make your business the talk of the town, start networking with key people from your field with the help of business networks.
If you want to make a grand success of your online business at minimum cost, then you should devote some time and energy towards online networking. Email campaigns are perhaps one of the key forms of online networking. Human beings are social people and in modern times communicate with each other mainly through mails. It is of little wonder that Email campaigns are the most popular mode of direct marketing.
The basic reason behind the immense popularity of e-mail campaigns as a means of internet marketing and online networking is the fact that you need to invest minimum amount of money for conducting successful e-mail campaigns. Compared to other modes of online marketing like search engine optimization, affiliate marketing or display ads oreven offline procedures like brochures or direct means, e-mail campaigns are an economical way of getting your business noticed and start a buzz about your product or service.
E-mail campaigns are used by marketers for various reasons. Often big corporations and business houses send emails to retain their existing network of customers to enhance brand loyalty. They try to remain connected with their customer base through e-mails which in many cases include discount coupons or some kind of free gifts or service for their brand loyalty.Newly launched businesses also try to entice people to opt for their product or service by sending e-mails detailing the positive facets of their products. Some online businesses try to grasp a share of the market by sending their display advertisement along with the e-mails send by other companies.
However, if you are thinking of embarking on an email campaign to give your business the required boost, you should really tread with caution.If not undertaken with proper care and without a well researched network of prospective customers, this sort ofemail campaign can have a boomerang effect on your business.Unsolicited bulk e-mails send by online marketers are called spam and they are often dumped into the trash folder of the email accounts of customers. The only antidote to this is to use an opt-in e-mail campaign where you use a network of clients who voluntarily consent to receive your emails. Opt-in e-mail campaigns are growing popular by the day.
Give your online business a breath of fresh air with opt-in email campaigns and bask in the glory as it grows from success to success.
The manner in which personal relationships are nurtured, one can steer through the corporate relationships as well, by employing similar means. There are certain attributes of a corporate atmosphere – communication mechanism, personality issues and power stratification. Basically, these are the ingredients of every relationship for that matter. Once the goals are acknowledged, the ensuing problems can be easily dealt with.
Another important factor that can render a huge impact on the primary condition of the corporate atmosphere is the willingness to compromise at the right place and right situation. The world comprises of a motley group of people who also form a part of the corporate world. So they get embedded in the corporate culture along with their varied cultures, personalities, backgrounds, desires and motives. The challenges of the working life comprises of the methods we employ do deal with fellow humans; it is a fundamental part of our living.
There are certain factors that facilitate a good working relationship.
The management of the organization must be clear about the job and requirements of each of the members.
There must be no ambiguity regarding the authority structure.
The lines that define accountability must be adequately defined.
There must a clear mention of the common goals or objectives that each of the members is expected to attain for the organization.
Each member must enjoy equal opportunity to contribute and participate.
Everyone must be encouraged to trust and compromise by doing away with inessential differences.
Alternative viewpoints must be met with due respect and this needs to be made clear through personal example by the relevant authorities.
As each member of the team is made to feel important, the weakest member must not feel threatened.
In corporate relationship management, it is an important truth that negligence or overlooking of elements helps them to evolve as potential trouble makers due to the generation of antagonistic feelings. This harms organizational loyalty and threatens effective operational activities.
A good and efficient leadership is a prerequisite to balance individual aspirations and corporate requirements. This can be easily attained through the sharing of experiences and encouraging inter-mingling of diverse cultural backgrounds.
A recent survey conducted by the Forbes magazine has pointed out that online networking is no longer an option for the entrepreneurs but it has become their life blood. This holds especially true for those internet marketers who use online mediums like internet display advertisements, e-mail campaigns and Search Engine Optimization to enhance the visibility and popularity of their product and service. However, online networking doesn’t always mean registering with business networking sites like Linkedin and APense.com. Thus, people who think that business networking sites like these are all and the end of online networking, need to keep themselves more updated about other latest trends in online networking.The latest trend in online networking is a phenomenon called “Twittering”. Twitter.com allows you to churn out mini blogs via emails or text message to all your twitter contacts. You must be thinking that it seems like a total waste of time and wondering at the same time “how can this help in enhancing your business networking skills?” But the fact remains that many business professionals, however, swear by the advantage of twittering.Twittering can also be done in the form of news feeds, and businessmen often can twitter on the go too, while traveling for business meeting from one city to another. Thus your mini blogs on twittter.com will allow you to stay updated with all your business contacts without sending them personal e-mails.
The arena of online networking has expanded vastly in the recent years and as a result some nifty software has also been invented which help you to maintain those online networks. One of the most popular networking software which has taken the world of online networking by storm is Plaxo. Plaxo recognizes any changes in the contact information or business information of any Plaxo member and immediately updates the data in e-mail lists on, say, Microsoft Outlook.The recently launched Pulse service of Plaxo network aims to aggregate all your online business and social networks. This Pulse service will send out special new “feeds” about any important activity amidst your online contacts too.
Stay connected to more about the latest trends in online networking.
Eating is essential in order to live. And, a healthy diet can ensure a healthy life as it counts on the right calories and nutrients that are required for a great life. The moment our body loses its fitness, it gives rise to countless health problems that affect us both physically and mentally. So, to go about with our daily business, in an effective manner, it is important that we make healthy eating a part of our life-style. This is also called dietary restriction. There are innumerable definitions to this concept but basically, it refers to the manner in which we are able to combine an effective balance of all the nutrients required by the body in order to function properly.
The composition of the diet should be such that it becomes an effective incorporation of the various essential food groups. The intake of essential vitamins and minerals must be maximized. Accordingly, the less beneficial food must be brought down to the minimum level. These are basically comfort foods that contain high amount of transfats or saturated fats, caffeine or salt.
There are certain benefits of having a restricted diet. The food we take in renders a direct impact on every aspect of our health. Once you monitor your dietary habits, you will be able to:
Have a healthy and active lifestyle
Perk up your immune system and ensure a better performance of your bodily functions
Enhance your energy levels
Improve your mood
Have your body weight under control.
Through dietary restrictions, one can also reduce the risk factors related to some of the deadliest diseases like:
Different heart ailments
Development of osteoporosis
Diabetes
The occurrence of various types of cancers
There are certain factors that one needs to remember in regard to the regular intake of the essential nutrients. They are actually an indelible part of a healthy diet. Their requirement is a must to ensure the proper functioning of our system. There are forty different kinds of nutrients that the body needs to work suitably. A few of them are:
Water – Over half of our body weight comprises of water. It is essential to ensure the energy of our cells and remove the waste from the system.
Electrolytes – They ensure the correct functioning of our cells. They help in the maintenance of the desired cell pressure and prevent dehydration.
Vitamins – They help in the proper regulation of the body’s chemical reactions. These vitamins cannot be manufactured by the body by itself. Therefore, you need to get them from the food you intake.
The 12 essential types of minerals – Minerals are required for the effective regulation of various processes in our body, like the maintenance of different bodily structures.
Carbohydrates – They are the primary energy source of the body. This makes it an essential ingredient of the diet as without it the basic functions will be stalled.
Fats – Although, it is popularly perceived as an avoidable part of the diet, fat is indeed essential part of our regular diet. The muscles receive the fuel from these fats and during rigorous exercise sessions, they act as our primary energy source.
Proteins - They are of fine essential types. They not only help in the building and repair of the muscles and tissues but also play a vital role in regulation of the hormones and subsequent production of the red blood cells.
The components of a healthy or restricted diet as explained above are an effective combination of all the essential nutrients. They are commonly found in grains, vegetables and fruits, meat and alternatives and milk products.
