Soft Skills: 60 most required softskills

Every now and then we see people or also become a victim thinking that I had the skills the MBA the degree and everything but i couldn’t get through the job WHY??????

Reason: Blame it on his soft skills.

Soft skills play a vital role for professional success; they help one to excel in the workplace and their importance cannot be denied in this age of information and knowledge. Good soft skills — which are in fact scarce — in the highly competitive corporate world will help you stand out in a milieu of routine job seekers with mediocre skills and talent.

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Presentation? Are you scared???

Ever been asked to make a presentation? Were your palms wet? Did your knees tremble? Did your stomach start doing somersaults?

Is this how the prospect of making an important presentation affects you? Well, join the club because, for most people, their biggest fear is public speaking or presenting.

If you are shortly going to make an all important presentation and are gripped by FEAR at the very thought of it, reach out and grasp these 7 lifelines to help you overcome your terror and make it a huge success.

Lifeline no. 1
Know your audience! Who are they, why are they listening to you, what do they already know, what do they want from you?

Finding out about your audience means that you can tailor your message to their needs and in a way that appeals to them.

Lifeline no. 2
What is the purpose of your presentation? What outcome do you want? Is it to sell, persuade, influence, inform, educate or inspire?

Create clarity about the reason for the presentation and work back from that. Once you know exactly what result you want you can begin to structure the content so that your goal is achieved.

Lifeline no. 3
Write your script. Just write down anything and everything that is important and relevant to the message you want to get across. Empty your mind on paper.

Now edit your script, highlight key words and phrases, select the right order for the points you want to make. Remember that you have written your script but you will deliver it verbally. Re-write your message so that it comes across well when spoken.

Lifeline no. 4
Create a good structure with a beginning, middle and end that flow logically and easily. Open with impact, grab their attention and build rapport. Ask a thought provoking question, make a bold statement, stir their interest.

Signpost each point towards the next so that you take your audience on a journey. Support each main point with sub points that are easy to follow.

At the end, summarise your key message, wind it down naturally, end on a note of importance that the audience will remember and thank them for their attention.

Lifeline no. 5
Perfect your delivery. Use tone of voice to maintain interest, and bring life into your message. Use short silences to add intrigue and arouse curiosity. Avoid monotone and use your voice harmoniously.

Build rapport and maintain eye contact with your audience, working slowly and subtly around the room, looking at small groups of 3 or 4 people at a time. Be careful of your body language and gestures, avoid fidgeting and pacing. It’s okay to move but don’t become a pacing tiger or a windmill!

Lifeline no. 6
Being nervous before a presentation is perfectly normal. Nerves help you to perform well and get adrenaline running around your body. Overcome excessive nervousness by taking deep breaths.

Stand tall and be proud of who you are and what you are about to do. Create a vision of making the perfect presentation and turn your fear into stimulation.

Lifeline no. 7
Remember the 5 Ps – Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance! Prepare well and practice, Deliver your presentation over and over again to your family, your friends, to yourself (in the mirror). Time it, perfect it, tweak it, know it well and feel confident about your ability to deliver it.

Now visualise yourself making the perfect presentation, with an engaged audience who hang onto your every word.

Picture yourself in the situation, calm, capable, convincing and presenting like you were born to do it!

Play this scene again and again in your mind and notice how your fear subsides and your confidence soars.
Go out there and make a wonderful presentation!

The Top 7 Steps to Managing Your Goals

The subject of goal setting is really important in ensuring you have a direction in life and a way to get to your destination. So having goals and being able to use them effectively is a must. But how many goals should you set? Well there is no right or wrong answer to that as each of us is different and looking to achieve different things.

We are all going to have long-term goals that set down where we will be in, say, 5 years time. (Note it should be stated as where you WILL be in 5 years not where you want to be or hope to be – always be positive.)

Equally you will have medium-term goals – you probably, like most people, set goals at the start of each year for what you are going to do that year. That’s OK as long as they are properly formulated and written goals that are SMART – Specific; Measurable; Achievable; Realistic; and Time-Constrained.

But also you will have short-term goals, such as simply the things you do each day, week, or month. When learning about time management, using a closed daily task list is recommended so that each day you simply tick off your tasks as you complete them. Your goal then is completing everything on your list.

So you may have a long-term goal, 4 or 5 medium-term ones, and several short-term but just how do you manage them and ensure that each is followed through? All of your goals require some of your resources: time, money, effort, etc and as these things are limited, your goals can sometimes appear to conflict with one another. If you work on one will it mean falling down on another?

Well no, it shouldn’t, but good management is essential and these tips will help you in managing all of your goals:

#1 Always Write Down Your Goals

If you fail to do this one simple thing you will fail to achieve your goals. It can be completing the simple daily task list as already mentioned for short-term goals, or a full statement of the goal and its outcome for your ultimate long-term goal. Just be sure to do it!

#2 Break Your Goals Down

The easiest way to achieve your goals is to break them down into smaller manageable chunks. Schedule tasks relating to each part of the goal so that each day you know exactly what steps you have to take.

#3 Be Realistic

Having a number of goals all running at the same time is OK but be realistic about what you can achieve in any given time-frame. Don’t overload yourself with tasks.

#4 Stagger Your Goals

Don’t fall into the trap of having all your goals due for completion at the same time. That’s why setting New Years Resolutions as goals, for example, is not a great idea as the deadlines will all come together. That will only increase the stress and lead to frustration causing you to become de-motivated.

#5 Mix Simple and Difficult Goals

Always work on simple and difficult goals at the same time. Just working on the challenging, long-term goals can be stressful but having simpler, short-term goals that will give you quick results will boost your enthusiasm and motivation for the harder tasks you need to do.

#6 Be Flexible

Whilst it is important to have time-frames and measurable targets for your goals, it will be counter-productive if they become unrealistic. So rather than becoming frustrated and giving up, just adjust your goals so that they become achievable again. Even if you have to put a goal on hold it is not a problem as long as you are managing it and that you write down what you plan to do.

#7 Don’t Let Your Goals Control You

The whole point of having goals in your life is to ensure that you achieve the things you want to do. They are the means to getting to where you want to be and becoming the person you desire. If doing the tasks associated with them starts to become a chore then you are getting it wrong. You must retain control and be happy doing what is required.

My #1 Goal begins, “Each day I wake up feeling happy…”

It’s a pretty good place to start!

Preparing for a presentation

Author: Terry Gault

Take the first step in preparing your presentation. Force yourself onto the chair and get ready. Preparation may not be the most exciting aspect of your project, but it can be the single most important ingredient in your presentation. You may be able to charm anyone on the spot or possess the charisma of the most dynamic person in the world, but without preparation for a speech or meeting, you can still stumble and fall. How to prepare then?

First, imagine your audience. Who they are. What their expectations are. How you will connect with them. What you want to tell them. What you hope to accomplish. The specifics: Where you will be when you give your presentation — the facilities, the lighting. You need to know specifically what type of presentation you’re going to give. Are you motivating an audience? Giving valuable and/or timely information? Trying to sell something? How are you going to do it? What are you going to say?

Ideas, ideas, ideas. You have so many. Random or specific, write all these ideas down. Even if they don’t seem to relate to each other. Take three minutes and scribble ideas for your presentation on a sheet of paper. Don’t over-think this process. Ideas that may sound ridiculous at first can spur other more sensible and/or practical ideas; they can create unusual associations that lead to unique insights. Don’t stop writing. Don’t edit or go back and cross out any words. Let your thoughts flow like a river. As in visual art, make thumbnail sketches but with words rather than pictures.

All right. Now what? Take another three minutes to review what you’ve written. With pen or pencil or felt markers, make circles and arrows to connect logical relationships between the ideas. Which ones relate to each other. Identify ideas that might surprise you and turn out to be sub-points of other ideas. Rearrange ideas that fall logically before others. Pinpoint your main ideas.

Construct a linear sequence of your ideas. Create an opening, a body and a conclusion. A natural balance of three, the main parts of your presentation, so that it will flow easily yet effectively. Make an outline of how all the ideas work together.

Once you have your presentation organized and written down, how will you open? First, you’ll need an icebreaker to warm up your audience. Choose one, depending on your style. Tell a joke or a story. Ask a question. Try an unusual move; body language speaks volumes. Change your tone of voice. Give the audience a startling fact, theory or controversial statement. Use props or audience participation. Or choose a unique way of your own to open your presentation. The main thing is to create a way to get the audience’s attention, then introduce your objective — the purpose or goal of your presentation.

Then, the next trick is to keep the audience’s attention with the body of your presentation. Add rhetorical technique. The various ways to make and support each of your points. To do this, plan to use examples, analogies or questions. Weave a personal story throughout your presentation. Use metaphors, ones which clearly illustrate your points. If it works for your particular presentation, plan a demonstration or a physical example to drive your ideas forward. To round out your presentation, create a fabulous conclusion.

There are more than just words to a presentation. You need to craft the gestures you will use. You don’t want to stand like a stick on the stage. Use gestures to activate your body’s kinesthetic awareness, how it feels to move expansively while presenting. Trying out new gestures might be uncomfortable for you, but they will increase the awareness of what your body is doing while your mind is processing the content. Create three gestures and include them in your presentation. In the beginning, forcing yourself to try some new gestures will help you see what works. After you expand your range of gestures, they will become more natural and original. Try these gestures with parts of your text while observing yourself in a mirror. Make sure your elbows extend well out from your torso.

Practice and time your presentation. If your notes are too extensive, it won’t be easy or convenient to read them while presenting. If you need notes, use word fragments (one to four words) limited to your most important points (A half dozen for most presentations.). Write these word fragments on index cards.

Finally, practice, practice, practice. Use your mirror, your friends, your dog. Record yourself, audio and visual. Study it. Time it. Cut it, edit it, smooth it out so that when you give your presentation, you will know it so well you won’t need those dog-eared index cards after all.

How To Manage Stress The Easier Way?

Stress is common in the workplaces today and these tensions can carry over into other aspects of life. A key reason for this is the pressure of our competitive, success-oriented age. There are pressures to perform, to meet deadlines, to do well, to perform better than the competition, to get a contract, to obtain a job, to be promoted, to look successful and so on. These pressures are too well known to need a explanation. They come within the territory to accomplish and succeed.

A little stress can be stimulating and encourage people to do even better. For example: When a speaker feels a twinge of anxiety before giving a talk, he or she usually does very well, because that small amount of stress triggers extra adrenalin, so the speaker has more energy and is primed for performing. But when the stress level gets too high, it interferes with performance – and may even make performance impossible. Instead of pushing the person to peak mental state, the extra energy becomes unmanageable and turns into a serious case of nerves. A good performance may be blocked.

By the same token, when a person worries a little about meeting a deadline, which can stimulate him or her to get on the stick and accomplish what needs to be done. But with too many worries, a person can get caught up in a vicious cycle in which these negative thoughts become the focus of attention and shut out the creative, productive thoughts that contribute to accomplishing the goal.

Thus, learning to relax and getting rid of unwanted tension becomes critical for working effectively in the workplace and having a satisfying, successful life. The key is to watch for signs that one is over tense or overstressed, and then work on creating an appropriate balance between slight tension needed to stimulate effective performance and need to be sufficiently relaxed to feel confident, composed, and carry out any task smoothly and efficiently.

How to beat the stress?

Simple! Just look at things as it is and don’t allow them to stress you. For example when you are with a deadlines in mind, remember this when you get stressed things are going worse. I am sure you are aware of this and I don’t need to tell you that when you are stressed your performance is also going down. Your outcomes will not be exceptionally good and will turn out to be average. When you know that stress only deteriorates your performance, how come you still make the choice to get stressed? Its like going out to touch a live electric wire. Its stupid for someone to do something which is not so good even after knowing so. Right? What would call such a person as? Look at the mirror and ask a question to the person in front of you, “Do you also do this stupid act?” Do you also get stressed in spite of knowing that getting stressed will only lead to more confusions, reduced performances and poor results. If the answer is yes, then you know what name you need to give for yourself. I am sorry if I am harsh to use these words. But that the fact. If you were to handle any situation as it is then you would not allow stress to take control of you.

Invariably, stress is work related and you magnify it. “I am stressed” is a fashion statement for today. Remember this, an external event or any other person cannot cause you stress. The files you look at cannot cause you stress, they don’t come and tell you, “Get stressed right now”. Do they? Definitely not, which means who makes the choice for getting stressed? We make the choice and interestingly most o the times we only overreact.

So remember two important points to avoid stress

1. If you get stressed, it means that its an act of stupidity and never repeat the act again.
   




2. Stress is a choice made by every single human being.

So do not make the same choice again. I am sure this makes sense for you to control stress. More importantly put this into action. You can also do a small poster in your work place saying Stress = Being Stupid!! I am sure you want yourself to behave and act like a stupid. Right!

Praveen is a peak performance Certified NLP Practioner and Director Training of Onlysuccess Learning Technologies.Praveen is the No.1 Behavioural expert and runs a website called http://lifeofexcellence.com.Download his F.R.E.E Audio Cd “7 ways to supercharge yourself”at http://lifeofexcellence.com/downloads

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