Personal Excellence

Personal Excellence Overview Personal excellence is not about being a perfectionist but rather it is about pushing yourself hard in order to surpass peoples expectations and to excel in everything that you do. Many people around the world work hard but are never able to feel fully content with their lives. However, those who do strive for personal excellence are not only able to feel happy and satisfied with themselves and what they have achieved but they are also able to make a big impact on others as well. Personal excellence is a principle, and it encompasses all good qualities, but the only difference is that if you strive for excellence, you are able to utilize such qualities at a level that is above the standards. Personal excellence training is dedicated to help people achieve personal excellence principle. It provides comprehensive self-study tutorials on the various techniques to help you go beyond what is expected of you in order to excel and standout from the rest. Although personal excellence is not really about making yourself better than everyone else, it does make sense to endeavor to improve your performance continuously so that you can improve every aspect of your liferelationships, career, finances, and others. Target Audience Personal excellence is a step-by-step process of improving yourself on every significant aspect. As difficult as it may seem, it holds a lot of benefits to those who want to live a life of success and abundance. If you are someone who wishes to become a much better person than what you are now, then this training program holds the answer for you. This personal excellence training will help you excel in everything you do.
Training Index

1. Developing a Personal Strategy for Success

One thing that most of us have in common is that we all want to succeed. In fact it can be said that the only thing that separates successful people from those who don t succeed is that the successful people are more determined to succeed than the rest. There are a number of traits that successful people share. If

2. How to Enhance Your Way of Thinking

When it comes to enhancing your way of thinking one thing that you must note is that there are two types of people in this world there are those who have a rigid manner of thinking and those who think in an adaptive manner. In a world which is full of competition and opportunity the people who are able to have full control over their thinking

3. How to Increase Your Professional Reputation

Becoming educated in a lucrative field that you enjoy and are naturally good at is just the first step towards success. Once you are actually in the field it will be necessary for you to prove yourself. By proofing yourself to be a reliable and skilled professional you will eventually build your reputation. Increasing your reputation will mean

4. How to Build Relationships Based on Trust

Trust is a very important foundation for building strong relationships. In fact trust comes first before anything else because if it is no trust problems are bound to occur. While you have the option of ordering people around in order to get them to do what you want you may get compliance but you will not get commitment or trust. Enron

5. How to Become an Active Listener

Listening is an important aspect of communication and it can assist you in building stronger relationships. While many people overlook the importance of listening to others being an active listener can give you the edge in your business relationships as well as in any career path you choose. Being an active listener can also give you the ability

6. How to Keep Control Over the Work Environment

In the past control over the work environment was a task which was often delegated to managers and supervisors. Because they are the individuals which are responsible for the implementation of specific business functions it should come as no surprise that they were often responsible for this task. Despite this many young workers today feel that

7. How to Practice Solid Leadership Principles

Leadership is defined as the ability to control human behavior in a manner which allows a specific goal to be completed one which has been established by the leader. Leadership is a very important factor in being successful in today s world. There are a number of principles which are related to effective leadership few of them are outlined in this

8. How to Work Under Pressure

If you have paid close attention to the job market one thing that you may have noticed is that the jobs that command a relatively high salary are often jobs that require you to work under pressure. The reason for this is because many jobs that offer very high salaries are those which are sensitive and subject to risk. For example if you are working

9. How to Handle Tough Situations

One thing that all of us have in common is that there are times in our lives when we will find ourselves in tough situations. How we manage these situations can mean the difference between success and failure and depending on the nature of the situation may even mean the difference between life and death. This article will depict few

10. How to Overcome Resistance

No matter what goal you want to achieve in life if it is worthwhile then you are bound to encounter resistance. This if true for anything whether it is business the military or science. The reason for this is because you will have to struggle for anything that is worthwhile in life. Think about it. How much did Michael Jordan have

What Are the Big Five Dimensions of Personality?

The "big five" are broad categories of personality traits. While there is a significant body of literature supporting this five-factor model of personality, researchers don't always agree on the exact labels for each dimension. However, these five categories are usually described as follows: 1. Extraversion: This trait includes characteristics such as excitability, sociability, talkativeness, assertiveness and high amounts of emotional expressiveness.

2. Agreeableness: This personality dimension includes attributes such as trust, altruism, kindness, affection, and other prosocial behaviors.

3. Conscientiousness: Common features of this dimension include high levels of thoughtfulness, with good impulse control and goal-directed behaviors. Those high in conscientiousness tend to be organized and mindful of details.

4. Neuroticism: Individuals high in this trait tend to experience emotional instability, anxiety, moodiness, irritability, and sadness.

5. Openness: This trait features characteristics such as imagination and insight, and those high in this trait also tend to have a broad range of interests. It is important to note that each of the five personality factors represents a range between two extremes. For example, extraversion represents a continuum between extreme extraversion and extreme introversion. In the real world, most people lie somewhere in between the two polar ends of each dimension.

Socialization
Human infants are born without any culture. They must be transformed by their parents, teachers, and others into cultural and socially adept animals. The general process of acquiring culture is referred to as socialization . During socialization, we learn the language of the culture we are born into as well as the roles we are to play in life. For instance, girls learn how to be daughters, sisters, friends, wives, and

mothers. In addition, they learn about the occupational roles that their society has in store for them. We also learn and usually adopt our culture's norms through the socialization process. Norms are the conceptions of appropriate and expected behavior that are held by most members of the society. While socialization refers to the general process of acquiring culture, anthropologists use the term enculturation for the process of being socialized to a particular culture. You were enculturated to your specific culture by your parents and the other people who raised you. Socialization is important in the process of personality formation. While much of human personality is the result of our genes, the socialization process can mold it in particular directions by encouraging specific beliefs and attitudes as well as selectively providing experiences. This very likely accounts for much of the difference between the common personality types in one society in comparison to another. For instance, the Semai tribesmen of the central Malay Peninsula of Malaysia typically are gentle people who do not like violent, aggressive individuals. In fact, they avoid them whenever possible. In contrast, the Yanomam Indians on the border area between Venezuela and Brazil usually train their boys to be tough and aggressive. The ideal Yanomam man does not shrink from violence and strong emotions. In fact, he seeks them out. Likewise, Shiite Muslim men of Iran are expected at times to publicly express their religious faith through the emotionally powerful act of self-inflicted pain.
Shiite Muslim men in Iran ritually beating themselves bloody with hands and chains as an act of religious faith commemorating the death of Imam Hussein in 680 a.d.

standard school curriculum to assure a broad acceptance of society's norms

Successful socialization can result in uniformity within a society. If all children receive the same socialization, it is likely that they will share the same beliefs and expectations. This fact has been a strong motivation for national governments around the world to standardize education and make it compulsory for all children. Deciding what things will be taught and how they are taught is a powerful political tool for controlling people. Those who internalize the norms of society are less likely to break the law or to want radical social changes. In all societies, however, there are individuals who do not conform to culturally defined standards of normalcy because they were "abnormally" socialized, which is to say that they have not internalized the norms of society. These people are usually labeled by their society as deviant or even mentally ill. Large-scale societies, such as the United States, are usually composed of many ethnic groups. As a consequence, early socialization in different families often varies in techniques, goals, and expectations. Since these complex societies are not culturally homogenous, they do not have unanimous agreement about what should be the shared norms. Not surprisingly, this national ambiguity usually results in more tolerance of social deviancy--it is more acceptable to be different in appearance, personality, and actions in such large-scale societies.

How are Children Socialized?

Socialization is a learning process that begins shortly after birth. Early childhood is the period of the most intense and the most crucial socialization. It is then that we acquire language and learn the fundamentals of our culture. It is also when much of our personality takes shape. However, we continue to be socialized throughout our lives. As we age, we enter new statuses and need to learn the appropriate roles for them. We also have experiences that teach us lessons and potentially lead us to alter our expectations, beliefs, and personality. For instance, the experience of being raped is likely to cause a woman to be distrustful of others. Looking around the world, we see that different cultures use different techniques to socialize their children. There are two broad types of teaching methods--formal and informal. Formal education is what primarily happens in a classroom. It usually is structured, controlled, and directed primarily by adult teachers who are professional "knowers." In contrast, informal education can occur anywhere. It involves imitation of what others do and say as well as experimentation and repetitive practice of basic skills. This is what happens when children role-play adult interactions in their games.

young men undergoing rigorously

older adults being informally

standardized formal education in a Buddhist monastery

socialized for their role as retired senior citizens

Most of the crucial early socialization throughout the world is done informally under the supervision of women and girls. Initially, mothers and their female relatives are primarily responsible for socialization. Later, when children enter the lower school grades, they are usually under the control of women teachers. In North America and some other industrialized nations, baby-sitters are most often teenage girls who live in the neighborhood. In other societies, they are likely to be older sisters or grandmothers.

North American mother informally socializing her daughter

baby in Bhutan under the care of an older sister

grandmother in North America helping to socialize her grandchild

Causes of stress
The sources of pressure which can lead to stress come from different areas of our lives. Some of these we can have control over, others are things which happen. The secret with these is to learn to change our response to them. You may like to look at the list below and identify which of these relate to you. The list is not intended to cover every single thing and may prompt you to identify others.

Work

Job pressures and targets Boss - their style and behaviour Employees - their attitude and behaviour Colleagues -relationships with them Communication - or lack of Lack of direction or goals Lack of control over job Work environment Lack of support or training Pressure to work long hours Culture Bullying Changes to job

Threat of losing your job

Family/relationships

Problems in key relationship - arguing or not communicating Arguments with children Arguments with parents Need to care for a family member (especially long-term) Serious illness within the family Concerns about behaviour of close family member Dealing with an ex-partner or spouse Dealing with step-children or partner?s children No personal time or space Death within the family

Environmental

Home location Neighbours Moving house Travel, especially commuting Crowded environment Noise Pollution of other sorts Crime threat Threat (eg concerns about violence)

Self - lifestyle

Ambitions and aspiration Financial pressures to maintain lifestyle Debt worries Personal relationships Keeping up with friends Peer group Social life General Lack of fitness Diet Smoking and/or drinking No time for self No relaxation time

If you want to assess yourself and the pressures you have been handling, go to the downloads section and look at the Holmes and Rahe Inventory.

Consequences:
There are consequences to individuals and to the organisation when stress starts to become a real issue. Some of these are:

Individual:

Demotivated Stops caring Hard to concentrate Relationships suffer Communication gets worse Health begins to suffer They make mistakes Decision making is hard Depression can start to deepen ..plus a wide range of other symptoms.

Organisation:

Staff turnover increases Productivity and efficiency suffer Pressure on team members because of staff shortage or newcomers starting Faulty judgements made Quality of work goes down Errors increase Communication deteriorates Commitment levels go down Customer service and response gets worse Lessening of teamworking People are less supportive Morale suffers Absenteeism increases ..to name a few!

Resistance to change is a natural reaction when employees are asked, well, to change. Change is uncomfortable and requires new ways of thinking and doing. People have trouble developing a vision of what life will look like on the other side of a change. So, they tend to cling to the known rather than embrace the unknown. Change produces anxiety and uncertainty. Employees may lose their sense of security. They may prefer the status quo. The range of reactions, when change is introduced, is immense and unpredictable. No employee is left unaffected in most changes. As a result, resistance to change often occurs when change is introduced. Resistance to change is best viewed as a normal reaction. Even the most cooperative, supportive employees may experience resistance. So, don't introduce change believing that you will experience nothing but resistance or that resistance will be severe. Instead, introduce change believing that your employees want to cooperate, make the best of each work situation, and that they will fully and enthusiastically support the changes as time goes by. By your thinking and your approach, you can affect the degree to which resistance to change bogs the change down. You can reduce natural resistance to change by the actions you take and how you involve the employees who will be asked to change.

In a best case scenario, every employee has the opportunity to talk about, provide input to, and impact the change. Rationally, this depends on how big the change is and how many people the change will affect. In a company-wide change effort, for example, the employee input will likely be about how to implement the change at a departmental level, not about whether to make the change in the first place. These recommendations are made for the millions of managers, supervisors, team leaders, and employees who are asked to change something - or everything - periodically at work. You may or may not have had input into the direction chosen by your executives or your organization. But, as the core doers at work, you are expected to make the changes and deal with any resistance to change that you may experience along the way. You can reduce employee resistance to change by taking these recommended actions.

Manage Resistance to Change

These tips will help you minimize, reduce, and make less painful, the resistance to change that you create as you introduce changes. This is not the definitive guide to managing resistance to change - but implementing these suggestions, will give you a head start.

Own the changes. No matter where the change originated - and change can show up at any point in your organization, even originating with you - you must own the change yourself. It's your responsibility to implement the change. You can only do that effectively, if you step back, take a deep breath, and plan how you will implement the change with the people you influence in your organization.

Get over it. Okay, you've had the opportunity to tell senior managers what you think. You spoke loudly in the focus group. You presented your recommended direction with data and examples to the team. The powers that be or the team leader have chosen a different direction than the one you supported. It's time for the change to move on. Once the decision is made, your agitating time is over. Whether you disagree or not, once the organization, the group, or the team decides to move on - you need to do everything in your power to make the selected direction succeed.

No biased and fractional support allowed. Even if you don't support the direction, once the direction is the direction, you owe it 100% support. Wishy-washy or partial support is undermining the change effort. If you can't buy into the fact that the chosen direction is where you are going, you can, at least, buy into the fact that it is critical that you support it. Once the direction is chosen, it is your job to make it work. Anything less is disrespectful, undermining, and destructive of the team decision.

Recognize that resistance to change is minimized if you have created a trusting, employeeoriented, supportive work environment prior to the change. If you are considered to be honest, and your employees trust you and feel loyal to you, employees are much more likely te get onboard for the change quickly. So, the efforts you have expended in building this

type of relationship will serve you well during change. (They will serve you well at work, in general, but especially during times of stress and change.)

Communicate the change. You undoubtedly have reporting staff, departmental colleagues, and employees to whom you must communicate the change. How you communicate the change to the people you influence has the single most important impact on how much resistance to change will occur. If you wholeheartedly communicate the change, you will win the hearts and minds of the employees. One of the key factors in reducing resistance to change is to implement change in an environment in which there is wide-spread belief that a change is needed. So, one of your first tasks in effective communication is to build the case for why the change was needed. (If the rationale was not communicated to you, and if you are not clear about it yourself, you will have difficulty convincing others, so consult with your manager, first.) Specifically inform the employees about what your group can and cannot affect. Spend time discussing how to implement the change and make it work. Answer questions; honestly share your earlier reservations, but state that you are onboard and going to make the change work. Ask the employees to join you in that endeavor because only the team can make the change happen. Stress that you have knowledge, skills, and strengths that will help move the team forward, and so does each of the team members. All are critical.

Help the employees identify what's in it for them to make the change. A good portion of the normal resistance to change disappears when employees are clear about the benefits the change brings to them as individuals. Benefits to the group, the department, and the organization should be stressed, too. But, nothing is more important to an individual employee than to know the positive impact on their own career or job. Additionally, employees must feel that the time, energy, commitment, and focus necessary to implement the change are compensated equally by the benefits they will attain from making the change. Happier customers, increased sales, a pay raise, saved time and steps, positive notoriety, recognition from the boss, more effective, productive employees, and an exciting new role or project are examples of ways in which you can help employees feel compensated for the time, energy, focus, change, and challenge that any change requires.

Listen deeply and empathetically to the employees. You can expect that the employees will experience the same range of emotions, thoughts, agreement, and disagreement that you experienced when the change was introduced to you or when you participated in creating the change. Never minimize an employee's response to even the most simple change. You can't know or experience the impact from an individual employee's point of view. Maybe the change seems insignificant to many employees, but the change will seriously impact another employee's favorite task. Hearing the employees out and letting them express their point of view in a non-judgmental environment will reduce resistance to change.

Empower employees to contribute. Control of their own jobs is one of the five key factors in what employees want from work. So, too, this control aspect follows when you seek to minimize resistance to change. Give the employees control over any aspect of the change that they can manage. If you have communicated transparently, you have provided the direction, the rationale, the goals, and the parameters that have been set by your organization. Within that framework, your job is to empower the employees to make the change work. Practice effective delegation and set the critical path points at which you need feedback for the change effort - and get out of the way.

Create an organization-wide feedback and improvement loop. Do these steps mean that the change that was made is the right or optimal change? Not necessarily. You must maintain an open line of communication throughout your organization to make sure that feedback reaches the ears of th employees leading the charge. Changing course or details, continuous improvement, and tweaking is a natural, and expected, part of any organizational change. Most changes are not poured in concrete but there must be a willingness to examine the improvement (plan - do - study - act).

If you implement your change in an organizational environment that is employee-oriented, with transparent communication and a high level of trust, you have a huge advantage. But, even in the most supportive environment, you must understand and respond to the range of human emotions and responses that are elicited during times of intense change.
Self-managementAbility to build a career1. Subject and profession specific abilities2. Generic skills in the workplace