Personal effectiveness

Personal effectiveness as defined by our text books is “a branch of the self-help movement dealing with success, goals, and related concepts. Personal effectiveness integrates some ideas from “the power of positive thinking” and positive psychology but in general it is distinct from the New Thought Movement”. 

Everyone talk about Personal Effectiveness! But what does it really mean for everyone? 

For me: Personal effectiveness means making use of all the personal resources at your disposal - talents, skills, energy and time to enable you to achieve both work and life goals. How I manage yourself impacts directly on my personal effectiveness. Being self-aware, making the most of my strengths, learning new skills and techniques and developing behavioral flexibility are all key to improving my personal performance. 

What Does Personal Effectiveness Mean for you? 

Let YOU start by asking yourself…
- Getting your work done to high quality standards
- Taking care of your family and making them happy
- Career advancement
- Influencing people
- Making and keeping new friends
- Earning a lot of money
- Earning the respect of your colleagues
- Becoming an expert in your field
- Or maybe something else ? 

Please allow me to provide further perspectives on How you can enhance personal effectiveness:

1. Trust in your abilities: 

Do trust your abilities, and once you learn to trust them, it will lead to self-confidence which is the key to success. Once you are self-confident, nothing can stop you to be successful. Have confidence to accept the change, and to face the challenges. The psychological effect of trusting yourself has unending effects, no matter how much people pull you back. Negative and discouraging comments from people around you can have long lasting effects if you let them change you. However the only way to overcome is to trust your abilities

2. Take charge of your life before it’s too late: 

Many things aren’t equal but everyone gets the same 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We need to make time for what we truly want for ourselves. 

3. Set personal & professional goals: 

Top-level athletes, successful business-people and achievers in all fields all set goals. Setting goals gives you long-term vision and short-term motivation. It focuses your acquisition of knowledge, and helps you to organize your time and your resources so that you can make the very most of your life.

4. Transform your goals into reality: 

Planning is central to the attainment of all goals. It’s true for short-term, medium-term, and long-term goals, as well as those of either a personal or professional development nature. And, needless to say, an individual’s effectiveness at planning often has great impact on that individual’s effectiveness at achieving goals.

5. Self-discipline & perseverance: 

Stick with what you are doing, no matter what”, because if you need to be told this, it means you lack self-discipline and perseverance. I like the words that Michael Jordan the famous American basketball player used to describe this fact – “I can accept failure, but I can’t accept not trying. 

6. There is always room for improvement: 

Your communication skills are key to demonstrating personal effectiveness. There should always be an equal focus to constantly evaluate & improve your oral (presentation, audience awareness, critical listening, body language), written (academic writing, critical reading, presentation of data) and non-verbal (personal presentation, body language) communication skills.  

7. Managing your time successfully: 

To successfully manage your time you have to get organized both in your professional and personal life. Getting organized in an efficient way is a skill that not all people have. To manage your life and work you need to first manage your time. Here is an example - consider the case to check your e-mail only certain times of the day and let the answering machine respond to your calls so as not to interrupt your work for a couple of hours. If possible, avoid dealing with the same job or the same e-mail again. Never open e-mail address if you do not have time to read and edit, that is, to answer it, send, or delete it. Another means is to include an estimated time frame for each action and the date by which each task must be completed. If the order that each task must be completed does not matter it may be possible to complete something during an unexpected free time. 

8. Make a good first impression: 

First impressions matter when you want to build a lasting trust. If you get off on the wrong foot, the relationship may never be completely right again. It’s easier to build trust after a breach if you already have a strong relationship. One way to ensure a positive first impression is by focusing on managing your image. You might think that making a good first impression is really about using common sense -- and you would be correct

9. Interact with subordinates very affectionately: 

Here is the golden rule. You should treat others as you wish to be treated. If workers know that their bosses are treating them with the same respect and dignity then they feel less of a condescending subordinate relationship. How managers and leaders interact with subordinates and associates can influence how employees treat customers. Behaviors are often unconscious and subtle, raising our awareness of these little things can go a long way towards building or damaging customer relationships. 

10. Redefine and expand your responsibilities: 

To expand your experience and value as an employee, job redefinition is a strategic variation on changing jobs that can help with managing change. It also is a route to increased job satisfaction while staying in place. Broadening your experience across job functions will enhance your worth. 

11. Perform your duties as you would play a musical instrument: 

Playing an instrument comes with its responsibilities. Maintenance and care are very important in keeping an instrument in working condition, very similar to developing & practicing your skills on a regular basis to ensure you perfect them over time. 

12. Accepting mediocrity is the biggest injustice to yourself: 

Don’t be afraid of being different, be afraid of being the same as everyone else. 

13. Lack of concentration makes you emotionally vulnerable: 

Emotional vulnerability makes you reactive and defensive: When you will be able to concentrate on one goal and do whatever it takes to attain it you will be successful. 

14. Reflect: 

Re-run your day in your mind. Make a resolve to make your day better every day and sharpen your skills. 

These are tips that have helped me become personally effective. Get started with knowing that the first belief is very important, work harder to get luckier, start by changing your habits & finally raise your standard. Here is also an expert view on this topic, I encourage you to read from Stephen R Covey and in his most popular book was The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Or if you prefer, here is the short video where Covey introduces his ideas.

I hope this article will be useful to you and let me end with this quote that inspires me to keep going – 

Practice doesn’t make perfect, practice makes better.