Socialization
We are born without a culture or knowledge of our surroundings. It is in the family which we are born in that gives us a unique and distinct identity. Socialization is the general process of acquiring culture. Our family, traditions lend us a social identity. When socializing we learn our language, customs and more. 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.
Socialization is important in the process of personality formation. Human personality is the result of our genes; however the socialization process can mold it in a particular direction that is desirable. By encouraging specific beliefs and attitudes as well as selectively providing experiences, socializing reaches its goal post. This makes all the difference between the common personality types in one society in comparison to another.
Successful socialization results 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 has played an important role in stringing the fact that most national governments around the world try 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.
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 the most important part of communication- our 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 status and we need to learn and be in an appropriate place.
When you socialize with people, you gain abundant insight into the working of the world. You will be able to predict people’s mood, their nature after having socialized with them.
Socialized lets you adapt to a certain environment or crowd. It helps you to adjust and feel at ease.
Building Business Relationships
In today’s times building relationships is the most important thing. As the world has become more and more mechanized and business-oriented, you can’t help but have strong business relationships with your clients. Research shows that even with the best products and business practices, you still need strong relationships to succeed in this marketplace. You must have studied at various places how to improve relationships and to sustain them. It all comes from the heart which works in tandem with the brain.
At the heart of every business relationship is respect. You have to have respect for yourself, your peers, your competitors and your surroundings to engage with them. It is actually the glue that holds together the functioning of teams, partnerships and managing relationships. The relationship works on all sides- Up and down, peer-to-peer, internally and externally.
Respect leads to accepting a person for what he/she is. Then accepting a person where they are creates an environment of trust. In continuation the trust then leads to a willingness to be open to new opportunities, new collaborations, new strategies, new ideas and new products. Once this is understood, the power struggle virtually vanishes in the thin air. Identify the specific areas of difference and work towards to it to evade any such trauma. Thinking my way is right and other ways are wrong is not the right attitude.
Have a good communication style. Not all people communicate in the same style. You have to identify how they do and find a common ground. Sometimes the non-verbal communication scores a greater point than the verbal one. All forms of communication must be considered. This form of communication is more covert, but not any less important. Non-verbal communication includes your body language and tone. Also, people learn in their own different style. You can’t force them to learn something that they can’t. Be flexible enough to allow these changes to flex in.
We all have different space needs and boundary needs. We must be aware of peoples’ boundaries and then use this understanding to approach them respectfully. This new behavior often avoids conflicts and strengthens relationships. Have a company culture, respect the self, respect the culture of the country, respect the family cultures and you will build a fabulous business relationship. Never in your business ruin the balance between self and team. Taking the time to identify and then address both individual and team dynamics are at the core of this balancing act.
Presentation Skills
When presenting something in public we often feel jittery. It’s only after you have presented for several times before that you don’t feel those pangs in the public. Presentation requires some skills to be presented in the right manner.
One has to do a lot of work before presenting. The delivery of the presentation comes at a very later stage. It’s a very important area and is one that many people should consider improving on. You have to really grab on to everyone’s attention while presenting, else your presentation is a failure. A key part of this planning is to research your presentation audience, since the more you know your audience, the more you can understand them and what their preconceptions might be.
You also need to get a grip on the purpose of the presentation so that you are clear about what you are trying to achieve from it. From there you have to brainstorm on the matter of your presentation because it has to be relevant and interesting or else the viewers will not be interested in it. You have de-structure it into small bits with a beginning, a middle and an end. You must also be aware of how, where and when you are presenting so that you get a feel of the venue beforehand. This, if you are a first timer.
You also need to get a grip on the purpose of the presentation so that you are clear about what you are trying to achieve from it. From there you have to brainstorm on the matter of your presentation because it has to be relevant and interesting or else the viewers will not be interested in it. You have de-structure it into small bits with a beginning, a middle and an end. You must also be aware of how, where and when you are presenting so that you get a feel of the venue beforehand. This, if you are a first timer.
There are lots of techniques and things you can do to help you to control your nerves and build your confidence even before you actually start your presentation as well as while you’re speaking and delivering it. You must also think about how you are going to deliver your speech. You must be confident and clear while presenting. These skills are important to imbibe in. You must engage your audience with you for your presentation to be successful. Also, once you are done you must answer questions patiently. Listen to them; think of the best answer and then answer.
You will have to use the visual aids very carefully so as to not stray from the topic. What visual aids you will be using is also important to know. You must think about what needs to be done, what you want to achieve and all. People often overlook this aspect but it is of equal importance if not more. So there are the 5 key elements of presentation skills for building and delivering a successful presentation.
Time Management
We have heard so much about time management time and again. It is basically the act or process of exercising conscious control over the amount of time spent on specific activities, especially to increase efficiency or productivity. You can do time management either by a range of skills, tools, or by using techniques to manage time when accomplishing specific tasks, projects and goals.
Initially, time management referred to just business or work activities, but eventually the term broadened to include personal activities as well. A time management system is a designed combination of processes, tools, techniques, and methods. To manage any activity you need special time management. Many people can’t manage their time and thus are put on the hanging line in a work scenario.
Ask yourself how you spend your time each day? If you are a student then you can distribute your time in a manner that your study time and breaks can be co-adjusted accordingly. Jot down one best time block you can study. How long is it? What makes for a good break for you? Can you control the activity and return to your studies? Answer these questions for yourself and you will be able to manage time really well. Also dedicate a study space. Determine for yourself a place that is free from distraction where your concentration is highest.
Dedicated study spaces
The Chinese follow a certain way of time management. They first talk about launching the project. Then by starting they say that you may realize that there are some things you have not planned for in your process. Details of an assignment are not always evident until you begin the assignment. They also believe that perfection is the enemy of good, especially when it prevents you from starting.
Identify resources that will help you. Remove distractions from the foreground. Maintain your cool and be passionate about the work. Be as specific about your work as possible. Take breaks that are meaningful so that when you return to work you are fresh and upto working. Review what you have done till now.
Create a simple To Do list. This simple thing will help you identify a few items, the reason for doing them, a timeline for getting them done, and then printing this simple list and posting it for reminders. Make a planner and then write down appointments, classes, and meetings on a chronological log book or chart. Check what’s ahead for the day and always go to sleep knowing you’re prepared for tomorrow. This will help you manage time like nothing else.
Leadership Skills
There is a very old fashioned view on leadership that only if you are born as a leader can you lead others. But this so not true in today’s time. The modern view is that through patience, persistence and hard work, you can be a truly effective leader, just as long as you make the effort needed. You can become a very good leader only if you develop the underlying leadership skills. These are not tough to adopt but not easy to be followed vigorously.
Each individual participant of the group has certain needs and characteristics. A leader should understand his or her own needs and characteristics. A leader should understand the needs and characteristics of each participant of the group. This helps the leader to deal with each person as an individual, to treat that individual with respect, and to help the person grow. This understanding helps in planning the program and in getting things done. This understanding also helps in creating trust and building con?dence among group participants.
As a leader you will have to use all the resources available to you. You must have the knowledge of optimum usage of resources. Resources include all those things necessary to do a job. Resources also include people, because people have knowledge and skills. Knowledge is what a person learns through familiarity or experience. Skill is the ability to use what you know. Attitude includes the desire to do something, that is motivation and the belief that you can do it that is, con?dence. When the leader uses the knowledge and skills of group participants to get a job done, the participants gain experience and improve skills. They also develop a positive attitude toward using a skill.
As a leader you must keep the program’s inventory that you are in charge of up-to-date and use it in planning. Understand the purpose and resources of your participating organization. Survey the participants’ parents; include them in your program capability inventory. Find out your post participants’ skills, interests, and resources. All this combined will help you in the long run.
Another important factor is communicating with your people. You can’t have a high nose and do the job. To improve your skills in getting information you will have to pay attention and listen carefully. Make notes and sketches. Ask questions and repeat your understanding of what was said. Learn the tricks of leadership skills and there is no stopping you.
Self Esteem
In Psychology, Self-esteem is a term that reflects a person’s overall evaluation or appraisal of his or her own worth. Self-esteem encompasses beliefs and emotions such as triumph, despair, pride and shame. Self esteem is the positive and the negative evaluation of the self. Self-esteem can apply specifically to a particular dimension or can have a global extent. Self esteem is also an enduring part of a person’s personality.
Self-esteem is a graduated concept. Taking this into consideration, people may essentially have three main degrees of self-esteem. They can have a high self-esteem to feel confidently capable for life. They can also have a low self-esteem that corresponds to not feeling ready for life, or to feeling wrong as a person. They could also take the middle ground and instead of feeling too right as a person or too wrong as a person might feel somewhere in the middle. To have middle ground self-esteem is to waver between the two states above, that is, to feel able and useless, right and wrong as a person, and to show these incongruities in behavior, acting, at times, wisely, and rashly at others, thus reinforcing insecurity.
In practice everybody is able to develop positive self-esteem, and nobody has a totally undeveloped self-esteem. The more flexible a person is, the better he can resist everything that would otherwise make him fall into a state of failure or desperation.
No psychological health is possible unless the essential core of the person is fundamentally accepted, loved and respected by others and by her or his self. Self-esteem allows people to face life with more confidence, benevolence and optimism, and thus easily reach their goals and self-actualize. It allows oneself to be more ambitious, but not with respect to possessions or success, but with respect to what one can experience emotionally, creatively and spiritually. To develop self-esteem is to widen the capacity to be happy; self-esteem allows people to be convinced they deserve happiness.
Understanding this is fundamental, and universally beneficial, since the development of positive self-esteem increases the capacity to treat other people with respect, benevolence and goodwill, thus favoring rich interpersonal relationships and avoiding destructive ones.
Self-esteem allows creativity at the workplace, and is an especially critical condition for teaching professions. The importance of self-esteem is obvious when one realizes that the opposite of it is not the esteem of others, but self-rejection, a characteristic of that state of great unhappiness that we call depression.
Lead Yourself
Not everybody has leadership qualities. It’s important for all of us to know that before leading others, one must vigorously lead ourselves. Leading yourself is not such an easy task as you might believe. It needs practice, determination and constant efforts. Before you can lead others, you must be able to lead yourself.
Always remember that if you cannot lead yourself others won’t follow you. If you cannot lead yourself others won’t respect you. If you cannot lead yourself others won’t listen to you. If you cannot lead yourself others won’t trust you. If you cannot lead yourself others won’t understand you. Most importantly, if you cannot lead yourself how will you make a difference? Leadership is all about demanding that it be created from noble disciplines. It requires an elevated sense of mastery with practice, skills, desires and commitment. It begins with leading ourselves to understanding, acknowledging, and attending to our insides. It is the fundamental and necessary building block to greatness.
You will have to set your standards high. Do the best that you are capable of doing. Do everything to bring forth your personal best. To lead yourself successfully is a self knowing effort that you made to become the best of which you are capable of. The better you are at leading yourself the better the chance you are at having a positive impact on others.
Not only this, but you must lead from within. The truth is we need each other so as to learn from each other, to lead ourselves and to lead by example, because we are joined by a common cause. We can increase the quality and quantity of heart based leaders around the world by leading from within. Leadership is not about others. It is first and foremost about you. Are you a good leader of your mind and your sense organs? Can you direct those in the desired direction? Because once you can answer all of this, you can definitely lead others and be a good leader at that.
The journey that one takes in hope and search of leadership qualities within oneself will open quite some doors for you. For leading yourself in the true sense you have to learn about yourself. You will have to unravel yourself to be able to lead yourself. Once you have done the challenging part, the unchallenging parts like leading others will come naturally to you.
Impact of Behavior on Personality
Personality of a person is defined by several things. In those things, behavior plays an important role. Impact of behavior on personality would refer to the organized ways of thinking and acting that express the person’s beliefs, opinions, attitudes and values. When you talk about manners, then you would define them as something that reflects social norms and the demands of the social context. But when you talk of behavior it usually reflects the person’s own conscience.
Manners are on the surface consciousness but behavior is on the depth of the surface. On one hand when manners reflect conduct that the world expects or demands of us, behavior is a conduct that is expressive of our inner attitudes and beliefs. What the society demands something of us, our manners develop into genuine behaviour in the individual. Friendly manners may disguise inner anger or anguish because society frowns on their expression, whereas cheerful, warm behavior expresses genuine happy, positive attitudes towards oneself and others. This must have clearly defined the two over mixed notions- manner and behaviour.
But it is to understand that our behaviour affects our personality to quite an extent. Behaviour is superficial and comes through training. It is a channel through which a man expresses himself. The energies for behavior come from the vital emotions, whereas the energies for character come from the mind. The vital energies are short-lived responses to a situation. The ordinary person who is popular with everyone behaves well, has polite manners and does not criticize anyone. He is very presentable in society. But if this is where his growth has stopped, he cannot accomplish anything in the ordinary sense of the word. He cannot find an institution or make a mark in his profession because he is limited only till where he has stopped himself.
The vital impulses that are living in a person are very short-lived. You know what you see and you can be trained and this training is used in situations where there is no stress on the person. The habits which are formed in the phase become your behavior. All habits that are received in the vital stage and that are organized at that stage becomes your behavior. Behavior though changing influences your personality to a large plane. You might feel that you can consciously change your behavior according to the mood and need of the situation but it still shows your personality to large level.
Essence of Character in Personality Development
There are various layers in human personality. It goes through various stages of formation and layers.. We often act externally in a manner dictated by the situation that does not really reflect what we actually think and feel. At other times we feel compelled to express deeper aspects of our personality, even when we know we should not or that others may disapprove of our behaviour.
How does your character influence your personality? Does it reflect anything at all? To what extent is it important? For answering all this you need to know that your character refers to the fixed, repetitive and organized psychological formations. These are determined by the person’s values which find expression through the surface manners and behavior. Interestingly you cannot alter this even if you want to consciously because it is inbuilt in you. When honesty, ambition, generosity, selfishness, courage or cowardice is established traits at the level of character, they cannot be changed by conscious effort.
Character is behaviour that one has accepted in the very depths of his being, in the substance, and allowed to take root there. The attitudes that express outwardly as behaviour can change in an instant or over time, but the formed traits that constitute character are lasting and extremely resistant to change, regardless of the circumstance. So you can see how powerful it is in determining your personality. This is the effect of character in personality. Rather I should say this is the essence of character in your personality.
Character expresses most clearly in times of crisis or opportunity, when the surface layer of manners and superficial behavior is swept aside by an external pressure or lure. When there is absolutely nothing that you can cover yourself with in terms of expressions, your character takes the cake. This is when they you will show your true colours. Character is the essence of your personality because other things like behavior and others you cannot change the character.
Character is largely inherited from family, community and the nation. It is worthwhile examining oneself in terms of national character to see to what extent one’s own nature is representative of the collective. Character is associated with capacity. One who accomplishes at any level or in any field relies on a stable capacity for effective action that is an expression of character. To unfurl yourself truly you have to get in touch with the essence of your personality- your character.
Enrich your Personality
When you say you want to enrich your personality, by that you mean that you want to attempt towards discovering your potential and utilizing it for gaining success in life. This could be incorporated in your corporate life too where personalities play the rule of politics. You must cherish your vision dreams, as they are children of your soul. The man who actually knows what he wants in life has already gone a long way towards attaining it. Many, who were born to win, live a loser’s life only because they do not trust their potential said one of the great guys who have found meaning in life having enriched his personality over time.
Most of the times personality is only associated with physical attributes of people with the intellectual add-up, where heart and soul have no role to play. But this is not true. Personality includes your interior as well as your exterior which when combined brings you out as a person. A personality, which is spiritually empty, ethically corrupted and morally decayed, cannot be called a human personality. In fact interior is more important than exterior, yet many develop only that part of personality, which is visible. What you appear outwardly is not your true personality; your true personality is the invisible part of your body. While the physical aspect of personality is important, but one can never undermine the inner aspect. Your personality is a holistic representation of your body, mind and soul.
You strike a balance between both the things and then you see how you enrich your life by enriching your personality. In principle, every person possesses and can give expression to any of these things. Thus we can refer to their action as an expression of their thought. In one situation a person responds with the appropriate manners demanded by the occasion. In another context, the person may even violate good manners in order to express a sincere conviction or do what he thinks is right. In a third context, one’s conscious intentions or convictions may be over-ridden by deeper aspects of character. It is all but ruled by their personality.
Personality is a deeper potential beyond the fixed formations of character that lies in the unformed regions of being. It is not limited by stylized manners, acquired attitudes and beliefs or fixed psychological habits of response. You enrich your personality to enrich your life and thus the life of others who are directly or indirectly associated with you.
