How Social Styles Affect Assertive Behaviors - Research Paper Example

PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT PLANNING Personal Development is an endeavor that is made by an individual throughout his life, trying various approaches right from going through books on Personal development written by famous writers to attending seminars on the very topic. For some these conventional approaches prove to be the tremendous criteria in developing their traits, but it is seen that even going through conventional methods some people suffer to deliver when it matters most. What could be the reasons that for some people developing personality becomes so challenging "Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time." Thomas A. Edison One of the most important aspects in personal Development is perseverance. One may have the required qualities but to really implement those qualities in the real situation he need to persevere. Hence the old saying "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again". And recent psychological research has backed this up. Studies of successful entrepreneurs show that the millionaires in this world possess a tremendous level of perseverance - they stick at it not just when the going gets tough, but even when others tell them to stop. Single mindedness, determination, dedication, self-belief are some of the qualities what distinguish people who do great things with their lives from those whose dreams die with them. When you have great perseverance you take into account what others say but you don't let it rule you. You remain true to your vision. Personal development takes many forms, from improving personal performance, to changing emotional states in particular situations such as public speaking, interviews and presentations. Even after working for weeks, preparing the presentation to the best of one's ability, ignoring the nerves building up he doesn't get the response he desire for. For one reason or another, his brain has learnt to provide him with the wrong unconscious response when he speaks in public. Instead of appropriate levels of adrenalin and excitement to optimize his performance, he gets a fear response as if he is being attacked by a wild animal. Everything in his body and mind is saying "run away!" But he can't, he has to ignore his 'fight or flight' response and stay put and what's more, he has to sound eloquent and informed at the same time. Public Speaking demands lots of experience and knowledge. One needs to get rid off the Public Speaking fear that could only happen when one enjoy speaking in public and giving presentations. Personal Growth plays an important role in Personal Development. All of nature from the acorn that becomes the Great Oak to the microscopic cell that becomes a Sperm whale experiences personal growth. What makes we humans different is that we are in the unique position of being able to do it consciously. Personal growth means different things to different people. It may be that one is potentially infinitely perfect! However he will be aware that there are areas of life where he would like to perform better. When we look around we will notice there are people who have particular skills, traits that we would like to absorb into our own character. In fact many of our limiting traits may not have been ours originally but merely 'accidentally' picked up from people around us - so why not start to consciously choose traits from others. Life is ultimately all that any of us have; time is the fabric of life. Time is the stuff from which our life is made. People say: 'time is money' but time is also achievement, success, progress and satisfaction. Successful people know exactly how to manage their time. The more successful one gets, the more he has to organize his time and vice versa. To make most of every minute, one needs to manage his time. People who manage time with great efficiency turn out to be winners in their endeavor. Certainly Time Management is the key to one's success. People may face problems in managing their time since different people have different schedules so one rigid time management skill may not help, one needs to be flexible. May be one's time management problems arise because he doesn't prioritize properly: perhaps he procrastinates or feels that he never seem to progress towards realizing his ambitions. Anxiety, indecision, deadline pressure, habits of laziness, excess emotion, feeling overwhelmed, lack of organization and planning, being easily distracted and even perfectionism can all prevent the best possible use of one's time. As can tiredness. Time management is all about acquiring habits of excellence. Time wasting should be the thing of the past and one should become more productive and work towards the fulfillment of his ambitions. If we further look into the factors which really contribute in developing one's personality, competition plays an important role. Competitiveness is like a motor which powers you on. You want to be better than others and do better than others because you have self respect and take satisfaction in doing absolutely the best job you can do. Being competitive doesn't have to mean treading all over others or putting other people down - it just means you working hard to get ahead of others in the field. What the rest of the 'field' does is down to them. Some people feel it's bad to be competitive. They have learnt from others that it is somehow unkind to forge ahead of others. They feel that we should all be mutually supportive as competition leads to inequality, but these very same people will happily reap the rewards of years of fierce competition when they take medicines, drive their car, watch a movie, eat at a particular restaurant and enjoy sports. None of these necessities and pleasures is possible without the instinctive drive to perform at your best and be the best. Medicinal knowledge and life saving surgical innovation came about because of prolonged and intense competition. What one needs to be is competitive without being combative. Again assertiveness is what could be considered as the driving force in developing one's persona. To deal with conflict at all levels in the organization one has to be an assertive communicator. To achieve this he has to assess his areas of strength and growth in this critical skill and understand how social styles affect assertive behaviors. From the above discussion it is clear that to develop personality one has to generate boundless energy, unstoppable persistence and optimal execution. "Patience and tenacity of purpose are worth more than twice their weight of cleverness." Thomas Henry Huxley Reference: TRAINING MODULE ON PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT Sponsored by: DEPARTMENT OF PERSONNEL & TRAINING GOVERNMENT OF INDIA & U.N.D.P PREPARED BY DR.CHANDRA PRASAD SREEDHAR & MR.OOMMEN MATHEW INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT IN GOVERNMENT (THIRUVANANTHAPURA) INDIA Read More