What sort of image do you want to project when you are presenting? Who does the audience see? How will they remember you after this presentation? Are you professional, poised, articulate? Are you warm, folksy, creative, nurturing? Maybe you want to be seen as ballistic, confronting, no-nonsense, boot camp material. This is what the audience will remember of you and this image must work to add power to the impact of your presentation, not undermine it. Image and message must work together. Whatever you may be trying to achieve, don’t let the impact you create with your image be an accident. In this article, we look at how to make body language work towards creating that image.

The first step is to articulate the image you want to project before you start. This is vital, and I have covered it in another article. Everything the audience sees needs to reinforce that image - clothes, facial expression, stance and gesture. At its most basic this means projecting confidence and sincerity. Unless you decide otherwise, the audience needs to know that you are comfortable with your message and believe in it.

If you are also using this presentation to showcase yourself as the face of your business, or as a candidate for a position, then take that into account as well. You need to be seen as trustworthy, competent, at ease with your material.

Projecting confidence begins way before you stand up to speak. If you need more information about techniques to overcome nerves, visit my web pages on the subject or you can enroll in my free Minicourse on overcoming nerves.

When you do stand, then, there is confidence in your walk and in your stance. Your head would be up and your back straight.

A smile conveys confidence.

Standing with feet firmly flat on the floor is a good way to start.

Confidence is comfortable and relaxed.

A person who is confident and sincere has open body language. Be aware of your arms crossing your body and crossing your legs. Nonchalance has its place but slouching does not, if you want to project enthusiasm.

Making eye contact with the audience is also vital in projecting confidence and sincerity. Looking people in the eye in any form of face to face contact means you are not afraid of being caught out. You are not lying or deceiving. So use it as much as you can in your public speaking.

Gestures need to be relaxed not forced.

Think about your clothes and how they will contribute to your image. Generally, it is best to dress a level above your audience. Colour will contribute to your image. Blue will support sincerity. And depending on the situation and your audience, red will communicate energy and passion, grey - security, reliability, intelligence; orange - warmth, energy, balance. You can research this further, but the main point is to be aware of colour and what it is communicating about you.

Beyond all of that, though, you need to be comfortable. Try the clothes on beforehand and make sure they will support what you need to do. Stilettos may be inappropriate if you are presenting on a stage with cracks between floor boards, for example. If you are presenting outside, make sure your tie or scarf will not flap in the breeze. If you are wearing a jacket, make sure it allows any grandiose gestures or reaching for a high spot on a white board.

Everything about you must work with your message to convey the image that you have chosen.

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Just about everyone in the world can think of something they want to improve about themselves. With some people they may want to achieve more than one improvement. The best way to approach this is to make a list of what is most important to you. It could be something as simple as reading a book to help you improve the work you do or making time for yourself to indulge in reading of your favorite pastime. Once you commit your deepest desires about improving yourself to paper, it seems more attainable.

Start off with a plan. This means setting a goal for yourself. If you wish, you can even set a time limit, such as “I want to be able to walk five km. a day at the end of the summer.” When you start out knowing what it is you want to achieve, then it makes it easier on you to get what you want. There is no point in trying to do everything at once. If you take small steps and reach stages in your self-improvement process in increments, it makes the end result more worthwhile. If you could do it all at once, then it would be too easy and you won’t have the same sense of accomplishment as if it were something that you had to work really hard to get.

In some cases, the type of improvement that you want will necessitate spending money. If you want to become more confident at public speaking, for example, you may have to take classes in this. If you admire a friend of yours that can sew or paint really well and you would like to do this as well, there are many opportunities to take classes at night or on weekends. One thing that you do have to keep in mind is the amount of talent that you have for such a project. It is also something in which you have an interest. If you don’t like it, then you won’t master it.

Of course, self-improvement always involves health, whether it is health of the body or health of the mind. Once you achieve what you set out to do, it improves all of you - your body, mind and soul.

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Understanding how to manage your time is essential in all business relations, school, home, and everyday life. But understanding where to get started in managing your time and getting a handle on the chaos that is your life can be hard to do when you can’t even find two socks that match in the mornings. There are many strategies and techniques you can use to master time, but the best you thing you can do before experimenting with different tactics is to build a solid mental and physical foundation.

Within your mental, physical and emotional energies, lie the raw material for personal performance and productivity. Guarding and nurturing your energy levels at all times can be one of the most important requirements to find happiness and being productive. Just like a machine your body uses fuel in the form of food, water and rest to create energy for everyday tasks of life and work. Fully rested, your body can get up to five times as much done as when you’re tired.

After eight or nine hours of straight work, people’s productivity levels begin to decline. Although sometimes necessary, working long hours usually means you are producing less and less as more time goes by. The more fatigued you are, the better chance that the quality of work becomes worse as more mistakes creep in. Just like a battery your body will reach the wall and will simply not be able to continue. Everyone has specific times of the day where they are at their best, peak form. It is up to you to find these times and used discipline to coordinate your most important tasks with in these times.

The averages American, according to research are not getting enough sleep relative to the amount of work they are doing. c. One of the smartest things you can do is to take one full day off every single week. During this personal holiday, whether it is Saturday or Sunday, you should not read, write, do any work related tasks or any other activity that will tax your brain. Instead, use this time for relaxation type of exercise such as walking in the park or spending time watching TV with the family. Any activity that recharges your brain should be added to your regimen.

Also important are the foods you decide to eat. Start your day with a high-protein, low fat and low carb breakfast. Eat plenty of salads, fish and chicken for lunch and dinner. By eating lean and healthy, exercising regularly and resting a lot, you will guarantee that you will get more done with a high degree of quality

http://www.timemanagementsuccess.com

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“After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.”
Nelson Mandela

Why do employees feel neglected by managers? Several years ago, I was a member of Toastmasters, International (TM). My organization had a company TM club; it was dominated by seasoned women. I was impressed by their zeal and professionalism during these TM meetings. These ladies had progressed in TM to become senior TM officials. I was impressed but also disappointed. What was my problem? In my professional working environment, these seasoned TM leaders were our organizational secretaries. Working in a technical organization, I found the corporate culture unappreciative of secretaries and other non-technical support. One Toastmaster leader expressed to me her sadness and frustration in this technical organization. She was a victim of being “underused and over abused.”

Leaders should not neglect developing and respecting each employee. Calvin Miller, a leadership guru, argues that every leader leads by team building. Take my example. If a child sees his father routinely slap his mother, do you think that child feels that his father loves his mother or even him? Likewise, some managers attempt to apply a similar logic in managing people. Kouzes and Posner, leadership experts, even suggest that exemplary leaders gain the support of all of the individuals involved in a task. Kouzes and Posner state, “Titles are granted, but it’s your behavior that wins you respect.”

Therefore, leaders should respect each employee regardless of their level and perceived value in the organization. Start today!

References:

Miller, C. (1995). The Empowered Leader. Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

Kouzes, J. & Posner, Posner, B. (1995). The evolution of management thought. San Francisco: The Jossey-Bass Management Series.

© 2006 by Daryl D. Green

Daryl D. Green has published over 100 articles in the field of decision-making (personal and organizational), leadership, and organizational behavior. Mr. Green is also the author of two acclaimed books, Awakening the Talents Within and My Cup Runneth Over. He is a columnist, lecturer, professor, and management consultant. Mr. Green has a BS in engineering and a MA in organizational management. Currently, he is a doctoral degree in strategic leadership. For more information,visit his website at http://www.darylgreen.org

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How do you measure success? Is it by financial security, career growth, community involvement, quality of relationships, spiritual centeredness or the legacy you leave? Whichever measure you choose, your attitude is the single most important factor in achieving success.

The topic of attitude can be conceptual and confusing. In fact, as we go through life we often hear phrases like: “keep your chin up,” “look on the bright side” or “you need a winning attitude.” Unfortunately, we seldom know how to convert these soft sayings into hard results.

This book translates the incomprehensible into the actionable. It is intended to provide you with inspiration and application so you can orchestrate your attitude….. and your success.

The great news is that even in the worst situations - a victim of a natural disaster, prisoner of war, target of abuse or when hit by a string of unfortunate circumstances - your attitude is something you can always control!

When we control our attitude we influence how our body responds and performs. Where our thoughts and attitudes go, our bodies follow. For example, blushing is a physical reaction to a mere thought. If we have this kind of reaction to a thought, is it such a leap of faith to believe that we can orchestrate our attitudes to affect our bodies in beneficial ways?

In fact, a positive attitude can buffer us against some adverse health effects and depression. Researchers who studied 839 patients over a 30-year period found a link between optimism and lower risk of early death. Specifically, optimism early in life predicts good health later in life.

Additionally, a landmark study shed light on the ultimate benefit of a positive attitude. In this particular study, participants who were more positive lived an average of 10 years longer than the other participants. Considering that smoking has been shown to reduce life expectancy by 5.5 years for men and 7 years for women, your attitude might be a health risk factor worth paying real attention to.

The choice of attitude is yours. Tomorrow you will become what you choose today.

Attitude: Concept or Concrete?

Have you ever thought about what makes you say things like: “that guy has a great attitude,” or “boy, her attitude is really killing the team?” How do you know if someone’s attitude is great or crummy? When most of us hear the word “attitude” we think of a fuzzy concept that somehow makes us happy, sad, content or frustrated.

It is difficult to measure and manage a concept. However, it’s easier to manage and measure behavior. That’s why I will use a broad definition of attitude: a relatively stable and enduring way to behave. This definition and the following explanation are designed to help you get your mind around the concept of attitude. If we can translate a concept like attitude into concrete behaviors, then we can more easily manage and measure - orchestrate - our attitudes.

How Do Attitudes Develop?

Our attitudes develop from repeatedly thinking, speaking and acting the same way, over and over, until it becomes a stable and enduring way we behave - a habit. Although we can hear and see our attitudes in the words and actions we choose, attitudes start developing with our thoughts.

Our minds are our ultimate personal computers! What we program into them determines how they will function. The most powerful computer ever made, programmed with the wrong software or with bad data, will never function to its capacity. For instance, just as we have viruses (bad data) in today’s cyber world that cause computer malfunctions, our mental computers are also susceptible to the data we put into them. If we choose to load them with bad data, it will limit how effective or successful we will be.

Our attitude is our personal boomerang to the world - whatever we throw out will come back to us. Express enthusiasm and it comes back. Offer a smile and it is returned. Start to gossip and that’s what we will hear. Get frustrated about a team member and that’s what we will see. Help a colleague and we will find a helping hand. This boomerang effect holds true for our thoughts about money, relationships, self-worth, a performance goal, team building, a problem colleague or customer, a new project or career.

So, once we develop a habit of choosing a positive or negative attitude, that is exactly what we will send to and receive from the world.

Choice: Reaction or Response?

The power of choice is one of the greatest gifts we are given. In fact, it is so important that the privilege of choice is removed from prison inmates as a form of punishment. Although we make many choices every hour of the day, we rarely make neutral choices. Each choice has a positive or negative consequence for us at some level.

Our attitude toward life is the most important choice we make! Let’s look at why such a simple choice - embracing a positive or negative attitude - is more challenging than it appears for many people. The bottom line is that we often forget that we have the power to choose. We relinquish it subconsciously, because we make thousands of decisions daily - about 95% of them are subconscious.

Just think of the last time you were in deep thought about your plans for the evening while driving home from work. As you pull into your driveway you wonder to yourself, “How did I get home?” The car seemed to practically drive itself home. Driving is a relatively complex task, requiring many choices along the way - turn right, turn left, slow down, stop and change lanes. Still, driving home can be successfully performed almost subconsciously. So, consider the multitude of much smaller choices we make each day that we don’t really think about: waking up, brushing our teeth, saying “good morning” to a colleague, eating our lunch, performing a repetitive job duty and so on. Subconscious actions are useful most of the time, but we must also consciously choose our attitude in order to control our results.

Our ability to choose is a gift, but it is also a huge responsibility. No matter what today’s ‘it’s not my fault’ culture encourages, we are all ultimately responsible for our own choices. In fact, I like to write the word “responsibility” as response - ability. As humans, we have the unique ability to respond. It is a choice we make, although many times an instantaneous or subconscious choice.

Here’s a scenario repeated daily. Family dinners are important at the Smith house. Jim and Jane Smith and their two children (Jonnie, age 3 and Janie, age 4) have just seated themselves at the table. Before the first bite of dinner is enjoyed, Jonnie spills his milk and it goes everywhere.

A reaction to this event: “Not again, Jonnie! Every time we eat, this happens. Think, son, think! Do you want to eat in your room from now on?”

A response to this event: “Uh Oh, Jonnie. Let’s get a sponge and clean this up so you can eat your dinner.”

When you react, you make a purely emotional and subconscious decision. Often, because of how your experiences and prior choices have programmed your subconscious mind, your reactions do not help you achieve the best results.

On the other hand, when you respond to a situation, you make a constructive and conscious decision. That’s why there are Emergency Response Teams not Emergency Reaction Teams:

- When you simply react, your emotional instinct is in control, with little thought of the long-range consequences.

- When you respond, your brain is fully engaged and your self-awareness is high. You have the long-term consequences in mind.

We all experience plenty of negative situations and people. The key is to be prepared to consciously respond to these negative inputs. Choosing to respond instead of react helps us to positively orchestrate our attitudes….and our lives.

A Script for Orchestrating Attitude

There are three aspects of the script that work in concert: thoughts, words and actions. By orchestrating each aspect with conscious responses, we positively influence our beliefs, commitments and results.

Orchestrate your THOUGHTS to nfluence BELIEFS…..

Orchestrate your WORDS to influence your COMMITMENTS

Orchestrate your ACTIONS to influence your RESULTS

The script plays out like this:

- Thoughts, the way we choose to interpret our world, directly influence our beliefs.

- Beliefs directly influence the words we choose to peak to others, and more importantly, to ourselves.

- Words reflect our commitments to ourselves and others.

- Commitments influence our choice of actions.

- Finally, our actions directly influence the results we achieve.

This script is self-reinforcing, for better or for worse. The results we achieve reinforce our thoughts and the same script is played out again. So, it all starts with our thoughts. Our thoughts today influence our results tomorrow.

The left side of the script is the side of choice. Each of us chooses our thoughts, words and actions either consciously or subconsciously. Therefore, we influence the right side of the script - the side of responsibility. We must take responsibility for our beliefs, commitments and results. We are each responsible for the choices we make and the results we ultimately achieve. The ultimate choice is ours - victim or victor?

To illustrate how this script plays out, let’s say I am given a new project to lead. I am confident that the prospects for this project are positive. Therefore, I start thinking about how to ensure its success and how I can measure the benefits of the project deliverables. I also think about my talented project team, knowing they will need to go above and beyond to achieve success on this project. My kick-off e-mail contains words like “excited,” “opportunity,” “talented team,” “creative solutions” and “positive impact.” My team members speak and react in kind, “boomeranging” my winning attitude back to me. Meetings are crisp, roles are clearly defined and decisions are made collaboratively, yet quickly.

The expected challenges, even the seemingly big ones, are handled professionally and swiftly because the team knows that failure is not an option, and there are many pathways to success. My thoughts and words have already predisposed the team to acting in alignment with my expectation of success. And our eventual success predisposes me to the same thoughts, words and actions on the next project. This is when the powerful, self-reinforcing script will be played again.

Orchestrating attitude creates a beautiful human symphony. The result is a person of integrity who gets the best from himself and others!

Author Lee J. Colan is a highly sought-after executive advisor and a captivating speaker.

He has published six books including the best sellers Sticking to It: The Art of Adherence and Passionate Performance.

Learn more by visiting http://www.theLgroup.com or calling 972-250-9989.

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The key to self-motivation is setting goals. Without goals, it really doesn’t matter how self motivated a person tries to be. They have to know what it is that they are motivated for.

There must be a reward or benefit for it to be motivation. That is what drives us as humans. Without this factor, there will not likely be success in self-motivation.

That is the reason why it is very important to make a list of goals. This first step will get you started in the right direction to achieving self-motivation.

Now, let’s talk about goals. The goals we set for ourselves sometimes tend to be way out of our reach. When we do this, we our basically setting ourselves up for failure. When this happens, it is like taking a giant step backwards in the motivation process.

A person`s goals need to be both realistic and possible. For instance, if winning the lottery is your goal, you need to rethink that goal. Yes, it is possible but it is not realistic to win the lottery. It is very important to make sure that person’s goals fit into both of these categories.

Another piece of advice in achieving self-motivation is to never look back on past failures. This is just not a productive thing to do. We tend to get hung up on our mistakes and then they become major obstacles on the way to our goals.

We can learn from our mistakes that we have made in the past, but be careful not to dwell on them. So, remembering that we are just human and we are not perfect can help us become more self-motivated.

Once you have figured out what motivates you personally, and you have set your goals, you’re about one third of the way through the process.

The next step is to find your objectives. They are very specific objectives. They need to be measurable, for instance, by the week, day or month. When questioned about these objectives, the answer should be a yes or no answer. They are basically directives that will tell you what needs to be done and when.

Next comes the part where our human nature tries to step in and stop this self-motivation process. It is called the commitment step. This phase of the process is difficult more so for some than others.

Some people just have a real hard time committing to jobs, relationships, and personal gains. Some of this lack of commitment comes from low self-esteem or low self-confidence.

In order to be successful at self-motivation, one must be confident in them selves and know their own worth. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. Identifying your personal weaknesses and strengths is a giant step in the right direction.

Whether you are searching for self motivation for the purpose of losing weight, exercising more, starting a new career, or putting an end to bad habits, there are many self help websites out on the internet that can help a person with these issues.

There are also online classes that can be taken to help improve some of these areas and issues. Books on self-help can be purchased at many bookstores nationwide, as well.

The resources out there are great in number and they pretty much say the same things. But the bottom line is that it is up to you and your attitude and your mindset.

If you want to be self motivated, then all it will take is searching for what motivates you. Getting a reachable goal will also help you get started on the right path to self motivation.

Peter Murphy is a peak performance expert. He recently produced a very popular free report that reveals how to crush procrastination and sustain lasting motivation. Apply now because it is available for a limited time only at: motivation techniques

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