The Ultimate Guide To Making The Most Of Your Spare Time

The first principle of my blog is Creating Ecosystems of success. A major key to success is the smart use of your time. Many people waster their valuable spare time. Others use to build and propel them forward. The following contributed post is entitled, The Ultimate Guide To Making The Most Of Your Spare Time.

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If you are finding that your days are full of work, followed by watching mind numbing TV, eating the same old meals, and sleeping, the chances are that you aren’t making the most of your spare time. Sure, you might be working for eight hours a day five days a week, but that still leaves a lot of free time that you can fill with worthwhile activities. Switching off in front of the big screen once in a while is great to unwind, but you shouldn’t be filling your evenings by being a couch potato. It’s time to utilize your evenings and weekends for more worthwhile pursuits. Take a look at how you can make the most of your spare time.

Volunteer

The thought of giving up your free time to help others will either make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, or fill you with dread. The key to making the most out of any volunteering experience is to do something that you have a genuine interest in. If you hate the thought of global deforestation and you like the idea of spending your time outdoors, you could volunteer with a local conservation project. If you are keen on playing guitar in your spare time, why not volunteer a Saturday morning to give some free lessons to the kids in your local community who can’t afford music tuition. By doing something that you love and combining it with volunteering you can help others, brush up your resume, and do something worthwhile all at the same time.

Learn Something New

Lifelong learning is something that many people aspire to achieve but most fail. Take baby steps into the world of learning by doing something new that you’ve always wanted to experience. If you want to learn Japanese, book a free taster session. If you want to try archery, enrol on a beginners course. Or if you fancy trying bowling for the first time, head down to your local bowling alley. Doing something new can give you something to look forward to when it’s raining outside or your boss is becoming unreasonable.

Alternatively, you could choose to upskill in a more formal way. People like Philip McTigue combine their careers with masters degrees or other qualifications to enhance their skill set and become more employable. If you’re hunting for a promotion, this might be worth your while.

Get Active

Rather than watching another episode of Judge Judy, whip on your sneakers and head outdoors. You might fancy taking a brisk walk to the local park, trying your hand at jogging again, or simply popping into the back garden to start a barbeque. Invite friends over, become more sociable and relearn that life is more than a Facebook feed or TV screen. By being willing to take a bit of a technology detox, you can enjoy real life once again.

Your spare time is precious so don’t squander it playing video games all hours God sends. Make a change and do something worthwhile with your free time.

Let’s Talk: Ways To Communicate Better

A key focus of my blog is Creating Ecosystems of Success and a key focus is Career Discussions. In any office setting communication is key, especially with use of the technologies we have at our disposal. Good communication comes in several different forms. The following contributed post is entitled, Let’s Talk: Ways To Communicate Better.

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It becomes apparent very quickly when in an office setting that communication is key. If the smallest pieces of information aren’t passed on to the right person, productivity is going to be slowed down and vital data could be missed, causing all sorts of trouble. That’s why when you work in an office environment, that you should be doing your part to ensure that everyone is communicating effectively. Check out these tips on how to improve your communication in the office.

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Actually listen

We’ve all been there before, where we’re being spoken to and our mind goes elsewhere thinking about our own tasks or even personal matters at home. However, this isn’t going to help productivity in the office. Learn how to listen properly and if it helps, take down notes or make reminders so that you don’t forget vital information.

Cloud voice

Sometimes communication lacks in other places than the office. Perhaps your team are in and out of the office all of the time, yet you’re struggling to communicate effectively? There are easy and effective solutions like Cloud Voice available that will allow you to move email, VoIP, video conferencing and even fax your colleagues with ease. Visit https://forsythes.technology/communications-collaboration/cloud-voice-unified-communications/ to find out more about how it can help your office communicate better.

Use notes to remind yourself and others

We’re all busy and it’s easy to become tied up in other tasks. However, this can lead to forgetfulness and of course, that’s not good for productivity. Use sticky pads to leave notes for yourself and your colleagues so that if you can’t help them out straight away, at least you’ve set yourself (or them) a reminder for later. This can be especially useful when you have to remember specific details.

Schedule meetings

If you’re in and out of the office, or you’re concentrating on your own tasks, then sometimes scheduling a meeting can be more effective because it allows everyone to voice their thoughts and help improve the way the team works together. Give everyone plenty of time to think of questions and topics to discuss and that way, you’ll bond as a team and communication levels will be at an all time high.

Work on your body language and tone of voice

Finally, your body language and the tone of voice you’re using can have a big impact on how people listen, understand, and also feel about you. If the whole team is struggling to communicate well, then it might be worth looking at ways in which you should address each other in the office to ensure that things remain professional and more importantly, everything gets done on time.

What It Takes To Be A Great Business Leader

The first principle of my blog is Creating Ecosystems of Success, and two key focuses are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. Many people want to start businesses know much about becoming great leaders of business. There are a couple of keys to it, and the following contributed post is entitled, What It Takes To Be A Great Business Leader.

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Leadership is a funny thing. Many people compare themselves to a lion, and there are many memes that talk about how to be fierce and forceful. But perhaps a real leader looks more, a wolf. One single leader, with a pack underneath them that includes workers, managers, and the weak and elderly.

But what does it take to be a great business leader? To have the acumen of people like Kheng Ly, to take things and turn them into success stories?

Photo by Eva Blue on Unsplash

Work With Your Strengths

Not everyone is good at everything, and personality matters. Being ‘strong’ looks different is pretty much any situation. But working with your personality, knowing what makes you tick can help you as you then put that to use and learn how to get the best out of other people. Being open and knowing where your personal weaknesses are is a great asset. You don’t have to label them as a weakness either, acknowledge their existence and work with them. Your personality will be a big part of your brand, and it should be celebrated rather than broken down and rebuilt.

Flexibility

Business changes so quickly it can make your head spin. Being able to roll and adapt is going to make a real difference in how you run your empire. Seeing when things are going to disrupt your company and making the necessary changes will mean that your staff and support won’t feel a significant impact, but instead, they will be able to adjust too. Following the example, you have set.

Care

While you do need to keep a keen eye on your bottom line, you also need to be aware of your staff, production line, and the people all the way down to the office cleaners. Showing that you care about their job and them as a person. Learning names, building an office ecosystem that rewards your staff and being available when you are needed will make a huge impact. Remember in Happyness, when the 5 dollars was returned? It can be something as simple as repaying kindnesses.

Focus

Focusing on your goals is going to be essential to getting things done. Avoiding distractions and not getting pulled into things that just don’t make an impact on your business is one of the best things that you can do for yourself and your business.

Authenticity

You can’t build a global brand if you are faking it. This feeds into the point about personality and your strengths too. Develop your own voice, one that staff and customers can all trust. Leaders, in most cases, can be trusted and speak honestly on any topic – no matter how difficult.

Great leadership comes in many forms, some people are said to be natural born leaders due to their confidence and curiosity, others get there in time while growing their own voice and learning. Leadership isn’t always about leading the charge, it is often about being at the back supporting others in their goals too.

Choosing Who You Want To Be In Life: The Influences

The first principle of my blog is Creating Ecosystems of Success. The people who we influence us when we’re young, and who we allow to influence us when we get older, have a lot of power. Your influences can impact your success in life. It’s therefore important to understand whose influence to follow and whose to avoid. The following contributed post is entitled, Choosing Who You Want To Be In Life: The Influences.

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You only get one life, so you have to live it. Those are the words we hear all too frequently when it comes to our actions and lives. But yet do we really take those matters into our own hands? The truth is, when it comes to life, be that our careers, our relationships and the choices we make for the things we do, we are often influenced. Sometimes we seek out the influence and the inspiration, other times we simply don’t see it happening under our very noses. There is nothing wrong with being influenced, as long as we can say at the end of the day the choice that was made was done with our own best interests at heart. With that in mind, here is a little discussion around some of the influences we can all face today.

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Influences from family

When it comes to choosing the life that you want one of the biggest influences in your life will be your family. This might be fathers or mothers wanting you to go into the family business, or it might be parents just wanting better things for you and then pushing you in a particular direction. While we don’t always want to hurt our families feelings, it can be hard to stand up to them if you have a different journey you want to take. You might also want to be aware that often conflict between families when it comes to business can happen, people like Belinda Stronach has shared some of the issues that she’s faced with her family. It happens, and while they will be a big influence in your life, they won’t be the only voice that matters.

Social media influence

So many people use social media these days, and often a big 70% of people will check their social media feeds at least once a day. So that means that you are being influenced by what you see before you even realise it. There is a lot about people sharing things online these days, and there is a lot of perfection put out there. This is where you get influenced into doing something, buying something or acting in a certain way. It’s part of lives now, and we don’t realise how much of an impact social media has on it.

Peer pressure

You will be influenced by your peers. Fact! At school you are influenced by acting in a certain way, from the phrases that you say to the things that you do. In work, you will still beindluecc by peers and work colleagues that are doing well in their field. It is there all the time, but this is when it can feel like peer pressure, so it is important to understand when it is a positive or a negative influence on your actions.

What we see on TV or in films

Finally, we are influenced by what we watch. People will watch a boxset on law, only to want to be that person or do that job. People will watch a documentary about living in a certain part of the world, only to want to live there. Holidays get shared on TV, what people wear, what people think. It is impossible to not be influenced by it.

Let’s hope this has made you more aware of the influences in your life.

Feeling Inspired? Some Of The Things That Can Help

The first principle of my blog is Creating Ecosystems of Success. To do anything of meaning in life, having a sense of inspiration is important. Individuals are in fact inspired by different things. The following contributed post discusses ways to find inspiration and is entitled, Feeling Inspired? Some Of The Things That Can Help.

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Often to do anything in life, we first need to feel inspired to do it. This might be inspired to start a business, motivated to make some changes because you have been inspired by somebody else, or generally wanting to make a difference because of somebody else’s actions. Inspiration is something that we all need throughout our lives in order to do things, but often, seeking out the inspiration to get started can often be harder than you think? So if you are actively looking to feel inspired in some way here are some suggestions.

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Attending events or seeking our past speeches

One of the biggest ways that we can often feel inspired when it comes to our business or the direction we want to take in life is attending different events and listening to their guest speakers. This can be very insightful, and often very specific information being shared. Of course, not all of us can attend, and sometimes you may need to look for past events. Especially when you are looking for a specific guest speaker, such as Burkitbayev who specialises in chemical faculty and science based exploration. Finding past speeches could even open your eyes up to other people that you find inspiring, and knowledge you never knew was available to you.

Looking online for videos and articles

Thanks to the internet, we have a wealth of information online these days. Platforms like YouTube will be full of videos of either famous talks and speeches from the past and even video footage of conferences and events you may not have been able to attend. This is when you can really start to get into the depths of things. Further to that, you could also look for articles online where specific people have shared their words and knowledge through a different creative outlet.

Using social media to feel inspired

Social media is one of the best ways to feel inspired these days. Visually you have Instagram full of amazing pictures, for news and up to date information you have Twitter, and Facebook is great for a mixture of the two. This is why social media can be a great way to feel inspired and you can follow specific people as well. Many people share what they are up to day to day, from pictures and captions, to insights and knowledge. You never know what you will be able to find out simply by following someone you admire and feel inspired by.

Surrounding yourself with positive quotes and affirmations

Finally, the last thing you can do to help you feel inspired is to consider surrounding yourself with positive quotes and affirmations. These things can really help you when it comes comes to how you feel, and remind you why you might be doing something? It could be a simply “go out and get it” style quote or something more insightful with depth. Positive affirmations that you tell yourself can also help you to be in the right mindset with a positive outlook on life.

Let’s hope this has help you to feel more isnpired.

How To Make Sure That Your Days With Friends Are Memorable

The first principle of my blog is Creating Ecosystems of Success, and a key focus is Health/Wellness. A key aspect of a happy life is spending time with friends and relatives. It’s important to consider how you can maximize your time with them. The following contributed post is entitled, How To Make Sure That Your Days With Friends Are Memorable.

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OK, so we know what you’re thinking. When you see your friends, all of the things that you do with them are memorable, right? And anyway, isn’t the most important thing that you can spend that time together, whether you’re doing the most exciting – or the most boring – things ever? Whilst this is true of friendship, you should also make sure that you can look back on your time together, and be sure that you all did some exciting things, rather than sitting in the same old seats, in the same old bar. It’s just not the same really, is it? Here’s how you can make your days with friends memorable.

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Go on a road trip

When it comes to making (and sometimes breaking) friendships, there really is nothing like a road trip. Figure out which ones of you are up for driving, and whose car you’re going to take, and get out there and experience things. The best conversations that you’ll have are in motels at 2am, or on the top of a mountain, looking out there at all of the stars. Sometimes, friendships are made a lot stronger by experiencing what the world has to offer together, and you will have to solve some problems together along the way. This is what will make you friends for life, so pick out a route, and get out there with your friends.

Join a sports team together

Another thing that undoubtedly makes your friendship stronger is joining a sports team together, and there is no level of comradery quite like those who are in the same team with each other. Perhaps you’re into baseball or basketball, or you want to try out a new sport? Why not get some golf gear from www.rockbottomgolf.com and see whether you can have some great fun out there on the course? If your friends are sporty then this is a great idea, and your successes and losses will really bring you together, and mark out some memorable days for the future. Try something new, and get your buddies on board!

Eating is important

OK, so eating is important for reasons related to staying alive, but it’s also an important part of any friendship. As Anthony Bourdain said (a little more eloquently), a meal doesn’t fix everything, but sitting across from somebody at dinner is one step of the way there. Sharing a meal together with your friends (and some drinks) is one of the best ways to catch up with one another, and to really spend your time enjoying each other’s company. No phones at this table, thanks, we’re having a good ol’ fashioned chin wag, and enough food to make us almost fall asleep in the restaurant. This is what friendship is all about.

So, if you want to make sure that your days with friends are memorable, then travel together, join a sports team, or simply just go out for dinner. You never know what’s going to happen, and that’s why it’s better to give your old haunts a miss for a while, in favor of something new!

How Do You Learn Best?

The first principle of my blog is Creating Ecosystems of Success and a key focus is General Education. We know that everyone learns and processes information differently. When looking to incorporate new information into your life, it’s important to know how to effectively do this for yourself. This also important for educators to know. The following contributed post is therefore entitled, How Do You Learn Best?

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Learning is something we all do every single day, and quite possibly, we’re learning all hours of the day. But there are some of us out there who have distinct learning styles, and that’s what we want to explore today. After all, the more you know about the way you take in and retain information, the better you’re going to be at helping yourself grow. So here’s just a couple of the main learning styles we know of, and what helps foster them.

Whether you like using an online source and all of its capabilities, or you prefer a good old text book and some highlighters, you’ve got a way to learn no one else has. (Source)

Are You a Practical Person?

Being a practical person means you like to have a hands on approach to whatever it is you’re learning, whether it be how to use a chainsaw or cooking up an eggy storm in the kitchen. You’re not just someone who can sit by and watch as someone else does it; you need to be involved, because it’s just how you learn best.

And there’s plenty of ways for you to foster a learning style like this. But one of the best ways is to invest in experience days! And this covers all sorts: things like learning how to drive a race car, or flying a plane.

Do You Need More Freedom Away From a Classroom?

A classroom can be a very strict setting. It’s one few of us actually thrive in, and as a result, there’s been quite a few ways to make a lecture hall seem a lot more interesting in the modern day and age.

We now have tablets we can take into a class with us, with all kinds of apps to keep us entertained as we learn. Or we can skip the class altogether, and still get the benefits! You can now choose to learn online, and consider the benefits between campus led and online programs at sites like Online Degrees.

Do You Need Someone Else Present?

A lot of us like to have someone around us when we’re trying to learn something, seeing as that person can help keep us on track, and we can collaborate with them when we’re not feeling too hot about the subject at hand.

So, you may be a bit of inattentive learner, but that’s perfectly OK! There’s plenty of ways someone like you can get to know the contents of a course you’re following – you can use fidget toys to keep yourself still, or you can doodle the information in your notebook, just to make the presentation a bit more creative. Or you can choose to use others to help keep you on track – making yourself beholden to someone else, whether because you promised them a presentation by the end of the week or because you’re meant to be going out tomorrow, is a great way to foster your focus.

How do you learn best? Let us know!

4 Healthy Indicators Of High Self-Respect

The first principle of my blog is Creating Ecosystems of Success, and a key focus is Health/Wellness. Self-Respect is important not just for yourself but in terms of interacting with others as well. A high level of self-respect can drive your decision making and ability to navigate life as well. The following contributed post is entitled, 4 Healthy Indicators Of High Self-Respect.

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Being able to look after yourself and respect yourself is hugely important. Not only does it make for a happier and more fulfilling life, it’s also hugely effective in terms of keeping you physically healthy too. The mind and body are essentially two sides of the same coin, and the more that you pay attention to one, the more the other benefits alongside too. But if you are feeling as though you might not allow yourself the right level of self-respect, then you are probably keen to do something about that. As it happens, there are a whole host of ways in which you can hope to improve your self-respect, and it all starts firstly by understanding it as a process as well as you can. In this article, we will look into some of the healthy indicators that you have high self-respect. If you can see these qualities, you know that there is a lot of self-respect there too.

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Good Physical Health

We have already alluded to the way in which physical and mental health work together. It works both ways, and if you happen to have good physical health which you keep up with a lot of the time, it’s highly likely that this is mostly down to having a good level of self-respect. When you respect yourself, you are much more likely to push your body and to improve it through training, as you both want it to be in the best possible shape and you feel much more able to do the necessary training to get it there. Conversely, if you are not in great shape, it will almost always indicate that you are not quite as happy with yourself as you could be.

The trouble here is that it is the kind of thing that can easily become a cyclical problem. If you allow your physical health to worsen, that will cause a decline in your emotional health, and then you will feel less keen to go out and exercise again. Before long, you are going to find that you are letting both slip, and that is not a situation that you want to be in. So make sure that you are staying on top of your physical health as well as you can, and you will find it helps to keep your self-respect up high as well.

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The Ability To Self-Regulate

This is something vital that we should all have, but which can become undeveloped or forgotten in many people at different stages of their life. Self-regulation is the term for being able to act in ways which you know are for your best future interests in the long term. This should generally trump anything else such as immediate desires which you know will cause you damage – although in practice, everyone in the world engages in some kind of damaging act at least sometimes. But the ability to self-regulate is a hugely powerful indicator that you have a high self-respect, and if you happen to notice that you don’t really have this yourself, then it’s likely you have self-esteem problems somewhere.

As with many things, this is something that usually starts in childhood. The process of teaching self-regulation to young students and children can be hard, and for many parents it doesn’t ever become a priority. Those children will then not develop a natural sense of what it means to take care of themselves for the long-term, and once you become an adult you might find that this shows up in a variety of poor behaviours which you then try to fix. Idf you find yourself in this position, don’t fret – it is still something you can work on at any point in your life, and you should never feel as though all is lost. But you will need to start actively thinking about what matters for your health and wellbeing, and to make the right steps and changes to make it happen. The more you do it, the easier it becomes, until eventually you are going to find it is a fairly natural skill which you have developed.

Confidence

Who doesn’t want to be confident? Confidence is much-admired, but mostly misunderstood, and it’s that misunderstanding which stops people actually being able to take it for themselves. A lot of people feel that confidence is somehow always being on top in social settings, or even being domineering of those around them. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Actually, confidence is much more like not caring whether or not others like you, and doing whatever you want, regardless of whether other people like it. Clearly, this kind of no-nonsense get-what-you-want attitude is a sign of a healthy self-respect, and it is for this reason that you should seek it out. Of course, as with anything, you can practice either and you will get more of the other – and if you don’t feel you have much confidence, you can do a lot to generate it in yourself.

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The best way to build confidence is to make a point of focusing primarily on yourself, and doing what you want. Pleasing number one firstly is the best thing you can do. You should then think about slowly but surely stepping outside of your comfort zone, until you are at the point where you can appreciate that you are capable of more than you thought. In this way, you will surely and slowly build up your confidence, and at the same time your self-respect will start to soar as well. Confidence is hugely addictive, so it’s exciting to get started in building it up.

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Kindness

Funnily enough, even being kind to others is a sign that you respect yourself, as long as it comes from a healthy place. If you are over-pleasing, then it’s not healthy, but if you are instead being normally kind because you want to be, then that is a very good sign indeed. It takes a strong self-awareness and understanding to be kind to others, and this is one of the first things you should think about developing if you are keen to respect yourself more. You’ll be amazed at what a difference it makes.

Employee Engagement Ideas For Remote Teams

The first principle of my blog is Creating Ecosystems of Success and two focuses are Business/Entrepreneurship and Career Discussions. A great perk for many employees is being able to work remotely. Working remotely gives a lot of flexibility and can add to productivity. There’s a downside to it too, and management must consider how to get the most of teams of employees working remotely. The following contributed post is therefore entitled, Employee Engagement Ideas For Remote Teams.

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Ensuring your employees are engaged is not always an easy task, yet it can become even more difficult when dealing with remote teams. Nonetheless, the following employment engagement ideas from Unum should give you a helping hand…

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Frequent Communication

When dealing with a remote team you should never take the ‘no news is good news’ stance. This is likely to lead to disengagement, as the team members may feel you don’t value them enough to tell them what’s going on. It is definitely a case of the more communication, the better.

Embrace Instant Messaging

A lot of managers believe it is more efficient for them to be the only point of contact. However, you risk alienating the team in question, and this is extremely damaging. Why? Well, information won’t flow effectively and work relationships won’t develop. Instead, promote healthy communication via the use of internal instant messaging.

Consider Various Communication Tools

When engaging with a remote team you need to make sure you use the right tool in relation to the message you are giving. If you merely need to rely on a simple message, an email will suffice. However, when something is more elaborate, or complex, or requires brainstorming, it will be more effective to use an advanced video tool. You can easily find these on the Internet, and some are even free to download. However, managed solutions come highly recommend, as they will be developed to suit your business.

Better Scheduling

Why should those on the other side of the world always have to take a conference call whilst they should be sound asleep? A lot of businesses schedule in relation to what is convenient for their home office. However, if you consider your remote teams and schedule for their benefit in some instances, you show that they are just as important and this keeps them engaged.

Give An Explanation

This is a simple yet effective engagement idea for remote teams. Often, everyone in the home office will know what is going on and consequently their reason for performing a particular task. However, remote teams may be asked to do something and they have no clue why. This may interrupt their current workflow and thus cause irritation. Moreover, it may lead them to feel disengaged because they are working on something without purpose. Therefore, all you need to do is explain why.

Create Personal Connections

It doesn’t hurt to ask someone how he or she is and what is going on in their life. A lot of managers neglect to do this because they feel they are wasting time. However, creating a human connection is time well spent. If you can’t spare five minutes of your time to get to know an employee, no matter where they are located, they won’t feel valued. Instead, they will feel overlooked.

So there you have it, six easy yet highly effective employee engagement ideas for your remote teams. As soon as these practices are implemented you will immediately notice a difference. Start today by making a personal connection when you next communicate with someone in a remote team.

Improving Your Confidence at Work

The first principle of my blog is Creating Ecosystems of Success and a key focus is Career Discussions. No matter which career you’re in, you want to get to a place where you exuding confidence at work. While each job title and career are different, there are some common areas you can focus on to increase your confidence. The following contributed post is thus entitled, Improving Your Confidence at Work.

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Image Credit: Unsplash

Confidence is a funny thing. You be fine in some situations and then totally lose it in others. Such is the human condition. We all have different fears and anxieties and they play into how confident we feel in different situations.

Our confidence can be fleeting in some cases and strong in others. But learning to face your flaws and feel confident in every area is still possible. You just need a strategy for each area.

Presentation Skills

One of the main fears people have is a big presentation. Often the fear stems from having everyone in the room look at you and judge you for what you are saying. Even if you feel proud of the presentation you have made, there is always that nagging doubt that you got everything wrong!

Luckily, you can improve your presentation skills with practice and a little refinement. Perfecting your presentation to make sure that it is readable and easy for you to follow is the first place to start. If a sentence isn’t flowing or you are tripping over your words, a small rewrite will make a big difference. Similarly, finding a strategy to cool your nerves is a good idea. Practice your presentation a few times to get a feel for it and take a few deep breaths before you start. Speak a little slower than you might usually and you will soon find a rhythm.

Conversation in Meetings

There is a huge difference between feeling confident in making a presentation and being able to share an idea in a meeting. For one thing, in a presentation you just have to talk whereas in a meeting, you need to listen and progress the conversation.

One of the first steps is to persuade yourself that the jitters you feel are excitement rather than anxiety. This might sound weird but actually, the positive reinforcement does help.

The next thing to do is commit to talking early on in the meeting. The longer you stay silent, the harder it is to jump in. If you like, take in some notes so that you remember the points you want to make or discuss and do take notes as people talk to help you keep up.

Talking on the Phone

The phone is becoming something of a lost art between text and email but it is still a vital office skill everyone should have. There are lots of ways to learn how to talk on the phone and taking notes as someone speaks will help you concentrate. Again, speaking a little slower than usual makes things easier.

If you are making the phone call, it’s a good idea to plan what you would like to say ahead of time. Before you even dial you can have a list of key points, words and phrases you want to say. However, do allow for some deviation from your script. Keep things relaxed and don’t worry if you need to think about a response – just say you need to think!

Over time, your confidence at work will improve in all situations. Be patient and try not to let your anxiety spiral – you’ve got this!