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Written by Ron Tustin Friday, 22 January 2010 00:58
Greetings and the very best to you for 2010.
How many times has someone asked you how you were, but doesn't take the time to listen to your reply? They may cut you off, start talking about themselves, or walk away. If you're like most of us, this behaviour probably leaves a sour taste in your mouth. People want to be heard and listened to; they want to feel like someone cares.
At the start of a new decade we may want to look at ourselves to see if we exhibit some of those same behaviours we dislike. Do we make every attempt to hear and listen to those around you? If you find that your listening skills are poor or need some tweaking, here are a few tips on how to be a better listener.
1. Make a commitment to improve your listening skills. We should remember that listening is not a skill with which we were born. We have to learn how to develop good listening skills, and continuously practice what we learn.
2. Talk less and listen more. Is that why we have 2 ears and one mouth? Most people like to talk, especially about themselves. When listening to someone, we might want to jump in and offer an opinion or suggestion. However, make every effort not to do so. Let them be fully heard. In your mind, repeat every word he or she says, immediately after it has been said. This will help you keep your own thoughts from surfacing, as you will be listening only to the speaker's words.
3. Whether you are listening to a friend or someone you work with give them your undivided attention. Make sure there are no distractions such as phones, computers or TV that would interfere with your giving full attention to the speaker. If the distractions are unavoidable, try to separate yourself from them to the best of your ability.
4. Display objectivity when listening to others. Set aside your own thoughts, judgments, and experiences. Act as if you don't have any attachment to what is being said.
5. When listening to people with different viewpoints, put yourself in their shoes. Although you may not agree with them, it might help you to better understand their perspective. Try to find a common ground; areas in which you both agree.
6. Wait until a person has finished speaking before you respond. If you are deciding how to respond while the person is speaking, you are not truly listening to him.
7. In order to communicate that the individual has been heard, summarize or paraphrase what was just said to confirm that you heard it correctly.
8. When listening to someone, takes notes, if needed, to remember important points.
9. As you listen to people, pay attention to how they are conveying their message. Are they loud? Are they speaking quickly? Which words do they use to express what they are feeling? What is the tone of their voice? Their tone generally reflects how they are feeling about the issue. You may speak louder and the tone may change when you are angry, upset, or passionate about something. You may talk faster when you are excited. When you are unhappy, you may talk more slowly, and the tone of your voice may be sad or flat.
10. When listening to others, also observe their body language, as sometimes the individual's words and non-verbal behaviors will be saying different things. Are their arms and/or legs crossed? Are they looking directly at you or avoiding eye contact? Is their body turned away from you? Typically, these are signs that the person is "closed" from having a conversation; he may be embarrassed, or trying to avoid a confrontation, or simply doesn't want to talk. Conversely, if they are smiling, looking directly at you, and look relaxed, they may be open to dialogue.
Listening is one of the greatest gifts we can give to another person. By honing our listening skills, we will be a better friend, partner or colleague. People will naturally gravitate towards us, and appreciate us. "
A good listener is not someone with nothing to say. A good listener is a good talker with a sore throat." Katherine Whitehorn.
Written by Ron Tustin Friday, 22 January 2010 00:54
Over the Christmas and New Year holidays no doubt some of your thoughts will have been about making 2010 a fantastic year, and invariably, many of us will have made New Year's resolutions.
The people that profit the most from New Years resolutions are the gyms, producers of weight loss products, those people who have schemes how to make money quickly etc. And consequently, the people that make the resolutions don't tend to benefit as much from their resolutions. When did you last hear someone say something like, "I started my successful business as a result of a New Year's resolution?"
I've never heard anyone say that and I suspect you haven't either. That's because resolutions are mostly based on feelings. It's the beginning of a new year and we want it to be a new beginning for ourselves as well.
I've talked before about how we all have that desire for change, and how important that is for our own well being. The momentum that comes from change helps propel us forward. But instead of expecting a resolution to give you this momentum here is another suggestion.
Write a Letter to Yourself
During this month make an appointment with yourself. Grab a notebook or a laptop and go to a quiet place--a café, a park or a room in your house --and write a letter to yourself as if you were writing from the future, one year from now.
In this letter, you should be as audacious as possible. Describe what you are doing a year from now and make sure what you're describing -work, house, holidays etc. --is as bold as possible. Remember we are getting older and bolder! Don't make it totally outside the realm of possibility but do make it audacious.
Remember, you are writing the letter to yourself from the future. Address the letter to yourself and sign it with your name. Remember you are the only person who will read this letter so don't worry about grammar and writing style. The whole purpose is to get you thinking beyond mere resolutions and thinking much bigger and longer term than you normally would.
Don't restrict yourself to things like work, family life and holidays. Feel free to talk about things like new things you may need for your home and other small goals you might have. Those are important too. For example, maybe there's an expensive appliance you've wanted for some time but couldn't afford. Things like this have a place in the letter too.
After writing the letter, read it very carefully and meditate upon it. In your mind's eye visualize the things in your letter coming to pass. Then put the letter away until the next year. Resist the temptation to pull it out and read it during the year. Wait and reread it a year from now and before writing your next letter. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised at how close you've come to achieving the goals of the previous year--maybe you will have even surpassed some of them!
Accomplishing Goals Becomes Automatic
You certainly will have accomplished more than you would have if you had set mere resolutions that fade away by the end of January. For when you write a letter like this, you'll find yourself automatically making decisions throughout the year that will make your goals possible. This will happen without you even realizing it. For example, if I had set the goal of a trip to Queensland, throughout the year I will automatically notice ads for Queensland and would find myself making decisions to put aside money so that I can pay for the trip. It has a snowball effect!
So here's to a very fulfilling 2010!
Written by Ron Tustin Wednesday, 30 September 2009 02:56
Self sabotage
"Procrastination is, hands down, our favourite form of self-sabotage."
"Sprouting potatoes"
For the gardeners amongst us this is the time in the Southern Hemisphere when we are spending more time in our gardens, cleaning up, planting the summer vegetables and flowers. It is a time when many people get an enormous amount of pleasure and satisfaction from this simple activity.
If we are growing potatoes we may have kept seed potatoes in a dark place and the shoots have found their way to the light. What a great analogy this is for us when we are grappling with some of the 'big stuff' in our lives.
Sometimes we will go to extraordinary lengths to not face up to what we want or to not achieve our goals - to keep ourselves in the dark. We are expert at sabotaging ourselves, about making all the excuses not to do what we have decided we want to do. However there is also an unstoppable force in us to grow and develop. Just like the potato shoots, if we can get enough light and space we will naturally grow and blossom and achieve what we really want.
So why is it that although we spend a lot of time and energy setting our goals that we often sabotage ourselves to stop achieving them?
Here are some possible reasons:
Limiting Beliefs
One reason is our limiting beliefs - ideas that keep us in the dark or hold us back, that keep us from becoming the person we want to be or doing the things we want to do. Most of the time, they're not even true; they're myths that we let control our lives.
If we have ever found ourselves saying "I can't" or "There's nothing I can do" or even if we catch ourselves using words like never, always, all, and none then we probably have some limiting-beliefs.
Examples of limiting beliefs include:
- I have always been poor, and I'll always be poor, so there's no point in trying to earn more money.
- If I didn't earn it, then I don't deserve it, even if it was a gift, so I always try to find a way to earn what I get, such as by doing favours for receiving gifts.
- If I share what I have, I won't have anything left, so I don't like to share things or donate money.
- My parents (grandparents) never did that so now I'm a parent (grandparent) I can't do that either.
- Bosses are power-hungry and hated by other employees, so I never want to be a boss.
- When things are going well, something very bad will happen to ruin it, so I won't let myself enjoy anything too much.
Stepping out of our Comfort Zone
Most people find talking to a friend or a few friends at once to be no challenge at all. However, the thought of standing up in a room of twenty or thirty people to give a 5 minute speech, even if it is on a familiar topic, is enough to cause goose bumps at the very least for most of us. Giving a 45 minute speech in front of a live audience of hundreds or a live TV audience is unthinkable for all but a tiny fraction of a percent of the human population.
Fear causes most of us to hesitate to step outside of our comfort zone- fear of failure. And we all know, but rarely admit to ourselves, that the real "consequences" of failure are truly inconsequential and usually short-lived. Nevertheless given the choice we often decide not to act and to 'stay in our comfort bubble'.
Soon enough, though, order, regularity, predictability, and structure turn into routine, sameness, rigidity and a sense of constriction and under-stimulation. The very bubble that we ourselves constructed begins to choke us, but often we don't realize the reason why we feel so stifled in our lives. This is when our comfort zone is no longer working for us. This is when we need to step out of it and create new experiences for ourselves.
Toxic Relationships
If we know that a family member, friend or colleague is especially unsupportive of our business, or our life goals, don't discuss it with them. Instead, create a circle of people to provide you with the support and nurturing you need to lift you up. It is aid that we become the average of the 5 people we spend most time with!
Fear of making mistakes
"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new." Albert Einstein
One of the reasons we want to 'keep ourselves in the dark' is our fear of making mistakes. However mistakes are an essential part of learning and discovery. There is no end to the new things we can learn from our own mistakes.
My movie pick of the month
And finally here is a short (5 minute video) from the well known author Wayne Dyer with some simple messages on how to get what we wish for. http://www.selfgrowth.com/video/you_are_what_you_wish_for.html
In good health
Ron
