Fun Exercises for Personal Growth and Development

Personal growth and development may sound like pretty serious business, and while you do have to take it very seriously, that doesn’t mean that you can’t have a lot of fun on your journey.There are quite a number of great ways to make growing as a person a total blast!

Here are just five of the many methods that you and your friends can try out:

1. Reading comics and graphic novels

Comics and graphic novels would seem like the most unlikely places from which to gain a little personal growth and development, but you would be surprised how many of these colorful tomes talk about growing as a person.

A lot of these titles, from popular superhero stories to more subdued independent tales, revolve around coming-of-age themes, and narratives that involve the protagonist facing a great many challenges in their life and coming out victorious and more knowledgeable of the world. This definitely isn’t just kids’ stuff!

2. Taking up an extreme sport

Personal growth and development is not just about doing one mental exercise after another. Growing as a person can actually involve activities that are pretty physical! And while you can learn a thing or two about self-improvement through the usual sports, why not go the extra mile and get into more extreme sports instead?

From skateboarding to rock climbing, these adrenalin-pumping activities take quite a bit of guts to pull off, and if you dare yourself to do these things, growth as a person is sure to be had! Take that risk and come out a better person!

3. Backpacking in a foreign country

A lot of people decide to travel to a place they’ve never been as a means for personal growth and development, and that certainly is a wise idea. But considering how common it is now for tourists to actually sign up for soul-searching trips in exotic locales, complete with hotel rooms and tour guides, will growing as a person really become your goal, or will having a grand vacation?

The better bet, then, is to do things with a more bare-bones approach. Backpacking is not only cheaper, but it is far more exciting, and will be packed with experiences that will help you become a better and more learned individual.

4. Doing amateur stand-up comedy

A lot of people fear public speaking, and many will themselves to undergo such an experience in the name of personal growth and development. And while doing speeches is all well and good, wouldn’t it be more fun to mix things up and do stand-up comedy instead? There are a lot of amateur nights that you can join, and you can invite friends and family over to share in the fun.

It may be nerve-wracking, but you will get out of it alive, and you will become a better person for doing it. Why not do a skit about growing as a person and kill two birds with one stone?

5. Directing a short film

The art of filmmaking allows for a whole lot of personal growth and development, as there are many aspects to it that really encourage growing as a person. From dealing with a considerably large crew, to imparting your vision into every single detail of your piece, whether it be the look on your actor’s face or the way the set was designed, the challenges of filmmaking will be a refreshing one.

Once you see the finished product, not only will you feel a surge of warranted pride, but you will also feel that you have truly grown as a person, that you have left behind an old version of yourself to become someone better.

Personal growth and development need not be a stodgy affair. Every single thing that needs to be performed in life can actually be injected with a lot of fun-it just takes a little imagination! The above examples have surely inspired you to think up of other ways to grow and have a blast at the same time.

Go for them! These actions will definitely be something you won’t regret.

Business Communication Skills Training Tip #1

A TRUE Story how emotional intelligence and empathy works

I was at a meeting located at a 5 star hotel. During the break I heard yelling at the front desk. A customer and employee were having an intense discussion. I walked over and said 3 questions to both the customer and employee. I used powerful empathy skills to connect with both of them.

In one minute both were calm and discussing the problem. Wouldn’t you enjoy these skills to bring calm to your employees discussions? Wouldn’t it be amazing if all your employees could communicate functionally to increase efficiency, effectiveness and employee/customer retention.

Emotional Intelligence and Empathy Skills

Emotional Intelligence using business communication skills can be very lucrative for your business. These tips will be centered around the Empathy principal of Emotional Intelligence. Empathy skills can build trust with customers quickly and easily. What might take weeks or months to build a relationship with your customer may take seconds and minutes with empathy skills.

The other side of empathy skills is the relationship and connection empathy can build with management and employees. Without empathy skills your company can stay in the stone age of sales and customer service. With empathy skills your company can run smoother and with much less stress.

Several Types of Empathy

In these tips you will learn how to use the different types of empathy. Empathy is a deep understanding what someone may be experiencing. The types of empathy are self, silent and verbal empathy. There are several components of empathy discussed in this series of articles.

What some people use as empathy is not authentic empathy and can ruin a business relationship. The next tip will center around self empathy, which is the root of all proactive communication. Hopefully it is accomplished before any interaction takes place.

One of the two principals of empathy is FOCUS.

When we are listening to another, the focus stays on them. Focusing is important to build the business relationship as it demonstrates to the speaker that the person listening is authentic and cares about what is being said. The focus stays on that person during the initial conversation. Stay away from offering advice or your stories to continue the relationship and. trust building.

You may contribute stories and advice later, only after you ask if they want to hear it. If you don’t ask and then tell the suggestion, you may lose the connection. Only after the customer has been really understood, do you want to start expressing your thoughts.

Intention, the 2ND principal

Setting the intention of your conversation is simple, yet so powerful for successful communications. It helps you to stay focused even if the speaker is irate or very intense. You want to set your intention not to manipulate to get your needs met but to want to understand the speaker. Setting your intention before the conversation will help you enjoy the interaction.

Empathy Skills are the most Powerful Business Skills

Knowing and practicing “real” empathy skills will help your business life become more profitable and easier. Customer service and Sales is always easier when there is trust. Again empathy skills build the trust that you need. Empathy may also be used for other business challenges, such as in business meetings, manager-employee problems, customer service and/or employee mediation.

You may choose not to use the empathic communication model and continue to have communication situations or learn empathy skills and watch your business soar, employee satisfaction develop and have happier customers.

Effective Stress Management Increases Productivity At Work

What is “Stress?”

Stress is anything and everything with which we exert a pressure on ourselves. Basically, this pressure could be a mental tension or physical worry which comes out of us in various other sub forms.

We do need a limited stress which motivates us to react to intense situations. This is positive stress and anything which is under limits, is good for health. Maintaining a balance in every walk of our life and using our common sense could relieve stress to a lot of extent.

Example: For a cup of coffee, one spoon of sugar is good for health, 3 spoons of sugar are heavy & anything above that could be dangerous. An organized life style with realistic time frames and metrics could easily overcome unwanted stress at work.

What is “Stress Management?”

Until & unless we can analyze ourselves and stay under calm (especially while dealing with stressful situations), chances are high that our stress gets multiplied.

Surprising reason here is for a particular situation, its hard to measure or check the stress levels which will get multiply unless ready to nullify. So, stress management forms the list of actions and the level of determination we impose ourselves for a safer and healthier life.

What is “Stress Management @ WORK?”

Stress could be more at work place. On an average, we spend around one-third of our time at work in a day. So, the more relaxed and calm we are the better our stress management and a safer health.

Steps to find and control Stress

FIRST STEP-

Once we find the negative aspects of stress, it is our responsibility to make determination that we will be overcoming stress for a healthy life

SECOND STEP-

There will be lot of changes in terms of body language, chemical reactions within the body etc between a person who is calm and a person who is undergoing stress. The difference increases based on the degree of stress that particular person is facing at that time.

Our wisdom lies in identifying whether we are NORMAL or STRESSED. As soon as the stress is observed within, we have to make every attempt first to control our stress and nothing else, no matter what in front of us

THIRD STEP

Analyze the situations which are causing stress. Find out what is the real intention behind the stress

FOURTH STEP

Judge whether the goal is genuine and if genuine and then find out the alternates of achieving the same

FIFTH STEP

By this step, no matter how stressful the situation was, 90% of the stress will be automatically controlled

How Stress Management can improve Productivity at work?

If we continue working with stress, unknowingly our focus gets deviated from real work and hence the unnecessary issues crop up. This is simply a waste of time which needs controlling

A person under (limited) stress can handle more works than a person under more stress. This reason also helps in effective use of time, which invariably increased productivity at work

A person under stress is bound to make more mistakes compared to a person who is calm and relaxed. So, effective work results with less stress
A person with less stress has certainly a proper mindset which influences his or her relationship with co workers. This helps in building an ambient work atmosphere. Basically, deviations and unnecessary actions gets resolved

Result of an effective “Stress Management”

A relaxed, safe and productive work environment results with effective stress management techniques. It’s top management’s responsibility to make every attempt in creating a stress free atmosphere