New Year, time to think, time to check out if  our goals were accomplished. But it is important, be prepared for the new year… So, I would like to share some ideas to be ready.

1. Set smaller goals with smaller steps

Gradual small steps motivate people toward larger change.

If you want to lose weight, for example, change small aspects of your eating pattern. Resolve to have a salad tomorrow for lunch, and then do that for a week.

Write down the steps you want to take in a datebook to make it concrete, and reward yourself for making the individual changes, she said.

Let’s say you want to work on being more optimistic this year. Nolen-Hoeksema recommends imagining what you would be like if you were optimistic. Imagine yourself going through a day at work if you were optimistic and confident, then write that down in great detail.

Now, you have specific aspects of that ideal of optimism to work toward. Pick one thing that the optimistic you is doing that you’re not, and start working in that direction, she said.

2. Frame your goals positively

Despite the proven health risks of certain habits, such as smoking, thinking about a habit in the negative will not help you nix it. Studies have shown that it’s hard to get motivated about avoiding cancer, but easier to think about smelling better and saving money as reasons to quit smoking.

So, if you want to quit doing something, think about the positive aspects of not doing it. And make sure you reward yourself for sticking to the plan along the way.

3. Look at the pros and cons

If you’re on the fence about whether you should make a change this year, make a list of the benefits and costs.

Pay attention to what’s driving you, she said. Sometimes it’s pain that motivates people to change, or a new phase of life, or new information, or a possible promotion.

4. Get a resolutions buddy

Knowing that someone else is working toward similar goals, or is supporting you in your endeavors, helps to keep motivation up. Having a new year’s resolution buddy who’s keeping track of your progress helps keep you accountable for what you’ve done.

At the end of every year, Kaslow and her friend review all of their goals from the prior year, examining what the obstacles were to change and then developing new goals for the next year.

Planning for goals with someone can guide you in the path towards change, even if you don’t don’t accomplish everything in a single year.

5. Be specific

It’s easy to get discouraged by a broad goal like “I’m going to improve my marriage,”. Figure out exactly what it is that’s not working for you, and then formulate a strategy for solving individual problems.

In the marriage example, it’s important to get realistic about what it is about your marriage that needs improvement. Then, spend some time keeping a diary and tracking what’s going right and what’s not, and come up with one thing you can do per week that would help the situation.

The process of assessing the small actions you can take in the immediate future, and savoring the positive effects, can take a lot of pressure off and help you achieve larger goals, she said.

6. Know thyself

The start of the year is as good a time as any to take inventory of yourself. What are your passions? What do you want to be doing better? Take the time think about who you are and how you want life to be.

Real change happens because you yourself want it, not because others want it for you, experts say.

7. Examine deeper issues

Sometimes there are problems that need to be addressed before people can move forward with the change they want.

In some cases there are psychological impediments to making changes. For example, some people fear failure so much that they unknowingly sabotage themselves. Self-esteem may also play a role — some people don’t feel they’re worthy of being taken care of, he said.

If you think that there are deeper issues preventing you from moving forward in your life in some way, consult a mental health professional.

8. Don’t be overanxious

Having a long list of lofty resolutions can create anxiety, so Nolen-Hoeksema recommends choosing anywhere between three and five overarching things to change.

Writing down your goals and how you plan to achieve them is a good way to beat anxiety.

9. Be flexible

Although you should be specific about what you want to do, sometimes it helps to broaden your vision of what you’re trying to accomplish. For instance, if you’ve been laid off from your job in the financial sector, it may not be immediately possible to find a similar position.

But if you are on the job market, the broader goal might be to support yourself or your family. Having a wider vision of what constitutes success can free you up to explore other options that do help with the central purpose.

10. Keep your eye on the ball

Changing behaviors is especially difficult when other people around you encourage habits you’re trying to kick, or if you are under stress. For instance, if you’re a recovering alcoholic and having a bad day, it might be hard to resist if someone says.

Kind Regards.
Alberto

Instead, think of how much time you spend commuting or driving. When you are driving, do you listen to music or the radio? Do you have an ipod you could use during your commute?

If you manage to listen to anything, you could as well, and as easily, listen to personal growth audiobooks, including time management lessons or other inspiring self improvement tapes or CDs. Just keep them on. Not only will you learn, but you will also feel energized after being in a company of those inspiring speakers.

For instance time management advice is not to difficult to comprehend. It typically does not require intense thinking or research to understand. What is much more important is how much those time management principles and techniques become a part of you, how deeply they penetrate into your mind. This is why learning in small bits over an extended period of time, with each of those bits repeated a few times, will beat the effect of any intense time management seminar.

Listening to educational audiobooks in your car seems to be a small change in your habits. Yet, those ten minute pieces will add up fast. Over a few months you will have a dozen of books deeply imprinted in your mind. The words of wisdom from the time management speaker will become a part of your inner voice. If you keep doing this over those months, even without any books or time management seminars, you will be much more ahead in your time management than 90 to 95 percent of people around you.

For optimal learning, it is generally recommended, and my personal experience support that, that you come back to the same audiobook for at least 5 times.

1.- Knowledge about yourself.
This is the capacity of identify and understand our own emotions: which are our weak or strong points, our needs, motivations, values and objectives. This characteristic is evident in trust of yourself, and your capacity of self-criticism.

2.- Auto control.
It is impossible eliminate our primary emotional impulses, but we can learn to control it. It is important have auto control to “avoid be slave of our feelings”. A Manager with auto control creates a confidence climate; he thinks before acting and concentrates his efforts in relevant things and no in emotional matters. All the times have we been in a meeting seeing like big part of the time, it consists of paying personal accounts between the presents?

3.- Motivation
Motivation is the component that goes beyond the money or other rewards. The motivation is characterized by the attainment of targets and a strong optimism. In the defeat a  motivated Manager, it doesn’t sink, but it stays firm and looks for other routes to turn it into victory.

4.- Empathy
The empathy consists to consider the feelings of those who surround us at the time of taking decisions. To put ourselves in the place of others facilitates very much the management.This quality, she has to be developed by all the managers.

5.- Social skill
The objective  to create and to develop a contacts network is to influence the others. But it isn’t a quantity question, but of quality. A good manager dedicates most of his time to make his contacts network grow, analyzes the environment and possible strategies to follow. This has to serve to him to develop, to form and to manage to his team and to negotiate to obtain what he wishes.

What do you think on this matter?

Egoist: their own interests are his principal worry. Hardly it is going to obtain the support of his team. The persons who work with him will realize immediately the risk that they run entrusting his destination to this person, therefore they will try for all the means to separate it.

Authoritarian: the chief who bases his direction on the employment of the fear can obtain sometimes very good results in the short term, but it ends up by damaging inexorably the organization. The members of his team will make use of the minimal opportunity to change work. Nobody supports a tyrant.

The conflict is a process that must clear up, not be eliminated. The conflict, it is not to “fight”, neither must it be taken as anything personal, but like an ideas exchange.

Many conflicts sources are born straight of the nature itself of the work. The important thing is to be able to identify these conflict points, to be able to intervene opportunely. The following points are the most common conflicts:

- Priorities:  project petitioners, have different points of view about the correct succession of the activities and tasks.

- Procedures: There are disagreements about how it must manage / request itself things in the company; for example, on the dependencies and responsibilities, the operative needs, the agreements of interdepartmental collaboration.

- Technical opinions: the opinion disagreements about the best way of reaching the same targets, when the work needs technical solutions.

- Endowment of personnel and allocation of responsibilities: Conflicts are caused about how distributing the personnel between several different projects

- Calendars: The eternal problem topic.  It is a permanent tension source. The difficulty appears with so much frequency because we operate with estimations about the future, and the future rarely can be predicted by certainty.

- Shocks of Personalities: The differences not always are technical; sometimes they turn about questions of style of doing the things or points of pride as the professional categories, the share-out of the power and of attributions, the self-esteem and the friends or favor.

Of course more conflict motives exist, adds yours …

• To motivate the others to change.
• To replace his wrong conducts.
• Make the things happen.

This is a starting point, but… What are the effective strategies to extend our skill to influence?