With the Phase 1 being the beginning point, the next 10 in the list are the ones which make this ride bumpy!
With decreasing order of number the difficulty of inculcating these in your everyday habits. But they help, trust me :)
10) Listen – Many a time we fail to listen to what is happening around us. We learn way more when we listen than when we speak. Be it a radio jockey, a professor or a friend, just listen with an open mind. You would get to learn at least one thing from each of them. You may ask why do I need to learn the tricks from such diverse people, well the answer is simple. A vibrant personality is nothing if not diverse. Once you can instill the diversity in you, people from all types of background will be able to connect with you and these connections would help you learn even more.
9) Never stop learning – Be it a restaurant, conference room or the roads, never stop learning from anyone and everyone you find. Learn from the office boy to balance 3 files, a napkin, a newspaper and 4 cups of tea together, learn from a child to paint the grass blue and think out of the box, learn from a teacher to remember the complete roll list of her class. Knowledge knows no barrier of degree, specialization, age or occupation. If you keep learning from everything that you see, you would sub consciously gain skills without putting your time in them.
8) Be kind – The best way to build an affable personality is to be kind and polite to everyone that you meet. Generally people ignore or ill-treat the people around them like the watchman, the lift man, the newspaper boy etc. If you make it a habit to wish them a good morning/evening, smile at them, recognize them, it would become a part of your personality and you would be nice to everyone you meet. Sorry and thank you are 2 words which are free to use and yet pave the path to the best relationships. Make sure you compliment people enough and be clean at heart. Undoubtedly you would then have glistening eyes!
7) Be energetic – Who likes a dull, drab, tired person? Right, no one. Be energetic and full of life wherever you go. Make sure you can light up the whole room, a group or a discussion with your presence. So the next time you are not there, people would feel something to be missing. It is important that people value your presence but it is more important that people realize your absence.
6) Prioritize – If you want to build an all-round personality, you will have to work on your language, tone, fluency, body language, knowledge base, dressing sense, hygiene and the list goes on! If you have to do all this in one day, every day, make sure you make the most of your day. Set up a schedule, stick to deadlines, never compromise with work and be sincere. Once you identify any activity to be non-developmental, quit it and use that time to relax, pursue your hobbies or chisel yourself. It is important to know what activities to indulge in, but it is equally important to identify the activities/people/groups that you must quit.
5) Take responsibility – In order to be good at something, it is necessary to take responsibility. Once you are answerable for something, you would automatically learn it well and do it right each time. Raise your hand when the professor asks one person to take charge for the class. If you keep fawning your skills in the nest, you would never know how well you can fly. You need to jump out of the nest, take the plunge and fly hard because that is all you can do then to save your life. Push yourself and take charge!
4) Fail at least once – In order to grow individually, it is very important that you fail at least once in life. You can never reach the height if you have not seen the depth. Falling is not an issue, not getting up back is one. It is very important to fail in life in order to identify your limitations and to know what is not to be done.
3) Do it yourself – Do not know how to make a presentation, open MS PowerPoint and try every tab. Unless you learn things yourself, you would not have the capacity to adapt things quickly when taught to you. This does not mean that you do not take any outside help. Take as much assistance as you need, but make sure that it is you who does it at the end. If somebody does it for you and tells you how it is done, you would probably forget the same in 3 months’ time, but if you learn it yourself and try your hands on it, you would never forget how to tune a radio or how to change the tyre. The difference between our generation and our parents’ is that they used their hands more and we use our finger tips more. Get to the ground and use your hands.You would become a different person altogether!
2) Perfection – Every reason behind making a mistake is an excuse. Extending the deadline even by one day, incorrect date on one assignment or any such trivial mistake. The moment you allow yourself to go wrong or do things incompletely, it would become your habit. In order to have an influential personality, try and make it a habit to do it right the first time and do it right every time. Mistakes are not taboo, their repetition is, casualness is. Try and make every activity as perfect as you can. The day you can say I did this in the best way I could, I know I couldn’t have done this any better, that day even a failure would be a victory!
1) Know the mind – There are certain peculiar facts about the mind, the way it works. The best way to master your personality is to master your mind and the best way to master your mind is to know the nuances of it. The conscious, sub-conscious mind, the muscle memory and theconscious memory, senses which appeal to you the most etc. Once you are aware of the way it works, you can take charge of it and expand your strengths by narrowing down your weaknesses.
From my originals I quote - you are not what you are made of, you are what you make out of what you are made of! Work the hardest you can, while you can !
Luck and Love ~~ Palak Marwah
