Some say, “Life is like a box of chocolates,” while others equate it to the twists and turns of a roller coaster. However you view things, at times in life you never know what you’ll get or how far you’ll drop. When one’s emotions sink, there are ways to cope and ultimately see the beauty of silver linings. Remember to enjoy the ride and you may find the best in all types of situations.

The Power of Gratitude

Individuals who practice gratitude regularly are better able to find creative solutions to problems. Because they focus more, these people are also less likely to procrastinate. Other positive impacts of gratitude consist of:

• Physical, psychological and social wellness
• Boost in immune system
• Reduction of stress and anxiety
• Battling depression
• Improving sleep
• Promotion of healthy behaviors, like exercise
• Reciprocal benefits – a person who gives, receives, or witnesses gratitude benefits from its expression

Integrating Meditation

Research shows that the effects of meditation tie closely to those of gratitude. Meditation can be a relaxing way to help one view the bigger picture in life and remain grateful. It allows for more trust in individuals and helps with reflection of deeper issues. Seek guidance in a meditation expert for optimal results.

Turn Those Thoughts Around

Every negative trait can be turned into a positive, depending on how it’s seen. When flaws are viewed as strengths in disguise, it’s easier to have a positive attitude towards life. Try applying the following:

• Think you’re bossy? Use the term assertive instead.  Use your strong voice to stand up for issues close to your heart
• Friends say you’re irresponsible? Think: adventurous. You find passion in everything you do.
• If roommates have used the term “sloppy” to fit your description, remember it’s simply creativity. See the beauty in the surrounding chaos with unique flair.
• Been called impulsive? Try spontaneous. Be the one to turn to when friends opt for last minute plans.
• Your “stubborn-ness” is really persistence, a solid quality in life. You’re a strong, dedicated force in the community.

Sources:

https://www.happify.com/hd/7-tips-to-find-the-silver-lining-within-yourself/

https://qz.com/558908/the-psychological-benefits-of-gratitude-closely-mirror-those-of-meditation/

http://mindworks.org/meditation-knowledge/guided-gratitude-meditation/

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/researchers-find-power-seeing-silver-lining-negative-personality-traits

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Life in the ever-changing world seems more hectic by the minute. Tasks seem to get longer and there never seems to be enough time in a day. Taking a few minutes to yourself on a daily basis can drastically help improve mood and find balance. Certain relaxation techniques and organizational exercises can help aid in this important step towards mental growth.

Don’t Rush

With the bustle of responsibilities, taking time to slow down can seem almost impossible. However, this can be crucial in one’s search for balance. Often, we create deadlines in our heads when they don’t exist.  No one should dictate how you choose to spend your time. Allow yourself to move at your own pace.

Eliminate Business

This isn’t referring to your packed to-do lists or schedules, it has more to do with your mentality. Activities you once loved can grow overwhelming if you turn them into tasks. Appreciate down time as it presents itself and make it all about relaxation.

Let Some Chances Pass

When opportunities knock at your door, your first instinct is to answer all of them. Truth is, many of them probably aren’t for you. Cut your losses and listen to your gut instinct. Examples of these chances include the following:

• Job offers
• Friendships and personal relationships
• Possible investments
• Traveling
• Making a major life decision, i.e. having a baby, buying a home or getting married

Accept the Here and Now

Our past is full of things we could have done or should have said. The unknown makes up the future, making it particularly daunting. The internal struggle of the two can leave anyone feeling unbalanced. Accept the present and remember: the only time worth thinking about is now.

Invest in a Coach

People from every background and lifestyle can benefit from life coaching. Any person who wishes to achieve specific goals in their personal or professional life may seek the aid of a professional. Life coaches can help with the following:

• Motivation
• Accountability
• Additional support
• Keep you focused
• Help you take action

Sources:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-workaholics/201111/achieving-inner-balance

https://tinybuddha.com/blog/5-steps-to-find-your-inner-balance-and-feel-less-anxious/

https://www.medgadget.com/2013/05/take-a-deep-breath-and-find-your-inner-balance-a-user-friendly-ios-sensor-and-app-from-heartmath.html

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In a world of constant judgement, it can be easy to feel critical of yourself and wonder how to make improvements. But where does one begin? Even those who make it a priority to practice self-care can get caught up in the everyday struggle and not know where to start.  Personal growth exercises help target individual feelings and show areas that need improving.

Goal Setting

Activate your mental powers and stimulate your mind with proper goal setting. Write down at least three to ten goals in the present tense you’d like to achieve. Writing your goals in physical form can help solidify and program them into your subconscious mind. You will begin to notice more ways to achieve your goals throughout the day. These goals could include:

• More self-confidence
• Gradual weight loss
• Career changes
• Better relationships

Be Grateful

Gratefulness is a big step in personal growth. When you are grateful, you become happier with the things you have, thus making your mind feel more at peace. Keep a journal of all the things you have to be grateful. That way, if something gets you down, you can read your blessings again and renew your mindset.

Exercise and Fuel

Your physical health can play a key factor in your mental health. Exercise regularly and fuel your body accordingly. This type of discipline promotes high levels of health and fitness throughout your life.

Utilize Your Senses

Often, our daily lives are so busy that we forget to stop and enjoy the simple things. Use your senses to get back to basics and obtain peace. Examples include the following:

• Stop and smell the flowers
• Appreciate the beauty of nature
• Taste new dishes
• Travel the world
• Create something with your hands

Seek Guidance

On our own, we can only go so far in our search for personal growth. However, with the help of a coach, individuals can go much further. Whatever you seek, a professional coach can help keep you motivated and focused in your personal and professional life. Coaches provide constructive feedback that may be hard to obtain through your own eyes or even a loved one’s.

Sources:

https://www.briantracy.com/blog/personal-success/create-your-daily-personal-growth-and-development-schedule-goal-setting-high-value/

http://www.bonvitastyle.com/7-personal-growth-exercises-that-boost-your-peace-of-mind

http://www.finerminds.com/personal-growth/personal-growth-exercises/

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The past 15 years have shown a substantial increase in the number of people hiring life coaches. Many people confuse life coaching as a type of counseling, but this isn’t the case. A life coach is a professional who helps you manage your entire life, rather than only your emotions or personal challenges. If you feel as though your life could use a little pick-me-up, keep reading to see if a life coach is what you need.

Therapy or Life Coach?

The biggest difference between a therapist and a life coach are the goals associated with each. Therapists will focus much of their time on identifying negative emotions and behaviors. They are also state-licensed professionals who are trained to assist with mental health issues.

Life coaches are professionals who work with you to achieve incremental goals in your life. When you hire a life coach, you will jointly assess your life, where you are now and where you want to be. They will become a sounding board for your ideas, guide you into new behavior patterns, and help you achieve goals that you set together. You can think of your life coach as a professional friend. They are unbiased but have your best interests at heart.

Gain Clarity

Life coaches are experts at helping you gain clarity about your life. Have you ever felt like you’re running on a hamster wheel, and regardless of how fast you go, the result is the same? A life coach will think outside the box for you and give you new ideas to accomplish your goals. A coach can help simplify your goals by defining what you want, why you want it, and precisely what steps you should take to get it done.

Accountability

While life coaches will be your biggest cheerleader, they can also be your fiercest drill sergeant. Accomplishing goals can be difficult by yourself, and a life coach will hold you accountable for your choices and behaviors. After all, that is what they are paid to do! If you do not meet the goals that you have set with your life coach, you will have to explain why you did not accomplish these goals at your next meeting. Procrastinating becomes more difficult when you are accountable to someone else.

As soon as you have a partner to keep you accountable, the gap between where you are now and where you want to be will evaporate. The shortest distance between two points in your career, personal life, family plan, and more is through a life coach!

Sources:

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/jen-smith/the-benefits-of-hiring-a_b_10022676.html%20

https://projectlifemastery.com/video-blog-7-reasons-why-you-need-a-life-coach/

http://thelifecoachingcompany.com/benefits-of-life-coaching.aspx

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Organizational leadership can make or break an organization. Studies have found that 50% of people who leave their jobs quit because of their managers. As a reflection of leadership ability, that equates to a 50% failure rate. Poor leadership leads to high turnover rates, low morale, and continuity issues.

What Makes a Good Leader?

Good leadership can be defined many ways, but three aspects are found consistently in organizational studies.

 1. Respect

Respect is a continuously cited trait across leadership studies. Treatment of peers, subordinates, and superiors all affect the success of a leader. Leaders who show empathy and trust their employees’ decisions are considered successful. Condescending, micromanaging, and nit-picky supervisors are viewed unfavorably, as one might imagine. Good leaders praise in public and correct in private, but also take the blame when things go south.

 2. Accountability

Good leaders follow through on promises and take responsibility for their decisions. They will hear all sides of an argument, decide, and then accept whatever consequences might come. Being accountable for what occurs under their watch builds confidence and trust with not only subordinates, but superiors also. With trust and confidence, the channels of communication stay open and honest.

 3. Effective Communication

Successful leaders not only communicate the company’s needs effectively, they also inspire others with their words. This doesn’t mean that a good leader must be a motivational public speaker. It simply means that good leaders know how to communicate effectively with others, whether one-on-one or in a group setting. It is also important to note that leaders understand that communication is a two-way street. Good leaders do not always dominate conversation; they encourage back and forth dialogue as well.

Few people are born leaders. Most great leaders only become such after years of study and trial and error. When thinking about your leadership style, ask yourself what you would have wanted in a leader when you first began your career, and try to become that person at each opportunity. Leadership counseling and training are great ways to take that extra step toward becoming an excellent leader.

Sources:

http://fortune.com/2015/04/02/quit-reasons/

https://www.inc.com/peter-economy/the-9-traits-that-define-great-leadership.html

https://www.thebalance.com/important-leadership-qualities-2275812

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 Training within the business world no longer involves hours of boring conferences. Psychologists have found that the most-effective methods for training groups are team-building exercises. Most employees already have what are referred to as “hard skills,” such as educational degrees, software experience, or machine operating skills. “Soft skills” like communication, cohesiveness, and problem-solving abilities are all taught during team-building. Below you will find solid reasons team-building activities should be included in your company’s training budget.

Improved Employee Communication

Team-building has been shown to break down barriers between individuals. Most employees interact with only small groups of coworkers to accomplish their daily tasks. Team-building exercises break people out of these groups and give them a chance to interact with different coworkers. Solving a problem together can have a lasting impact on employees’ communication abilities. The casual interaction will destroy barriers and eventually create better productivity in the office.

Make It Fun!

Many people roll their eyes at the mention of team-building days. Making the day “corporate” or including lectures will work against what you are trying to accomplish. If management wishes to have a follow-up to the team-building event, wait until everyone is back in the office.

Psychologists have found that happiness and learning are very closely related. When employees are engaged and having fun, they are more likely to retain the soft skills they are learning. Just as with hard skills, the more soft skills employees learn, the more successful they will be.

Mission: Teamwork

The goal of team-building exercises is the development of teamwork and cohesion in the office. Monotony can be a morale-killer, so breaking up the routine with a team-building day is always a good idea. Ideally, this team day will build new employee relationships and strengthen existing ones.

Strengthening employee relationships will directly increase morale. When employees have high morale, their productivity, effectiveness, and initiative also increase. If the team-building exercises are successful, your employees will return to the office more engaged and enthusiastic than ever before.

Sources:

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/benefits-team-building-1979.html

https://www.forbes.com/sites/work-in-progress/2014/10/14/the-power-of-pause/#30fca7717368

http://www.freshbusinessthinking.com/10-benefits-of-corporate-team-building-activities/

The post How Team Building Could Change Your Company  appeared first on ClarityOK.com | Executive Leadership Coach.

The best organizations often draw leadership staff from existing employees, choosing people who stand apart in knowledge and skills. Formal leadership development benefits everyone from the CEO to the entry-level employee. By training and emphasizing the role of good leadership in your organization, you set the tone for how your employees relate to each other. Here are just a few of the benefits of leadership training for your organization.

Create the Culture

Every organization has a unique culture. That culture will either be developed intentionally, or over time it will be created by circumstances and the attitudes of those currently employed. By providing formal leadership training, you grab the opportunity to instill a particular mindset and identify those who are unwilling or unable to embrace it. Create the culture by training employees in the best leadership practices and create uniform expectations for how leadership will operate in your culture.

Attract and Retain the Best

Recruiting and training new employees is a time-consuming and expensive proposition, even when skilled labor is plentiful. A leadership program is an incentive that naturally attracts the best talent and encourages the best in your organization to stay with you. Having a leadership training program communicates that you encourage and expect great leaders to advance in your organization. Your existing employees are your best candidates for leading your organization forward in the future.

Boost Morale

Nothing destroys morale faster than poor leadership or the prospect of being stuck in a dead-end position. By providing leadership training, you foster not only better leadership, but a clearer understanding from those carrying out the everyday business of the organization of how they belong in the picture. By simply providing the training, you create an expectation that those who do well have opportunities available beyond their current roles. Let your leadership training program provide the opportunity to strengthen teamwork and the ties between employees at all levels of your organization. Leadership training benefits everyone in the organization from top to bottom and is asset that any successful company should consider investing in.

Sources:

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/276203

http://www.quantumvalues.com/news-views/leadership-training-programs-how-can-they-help/

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/benefits-leadership-programs-69072.html

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Each member of a group brings diversity and originality. Those facets can cause friction, or they can improve group strength and produce dramatic results. A sense of purpose and mission sets a group of people apart as a team working together to accomplish a shared goal. Instilling that ethos into a team changes the dynamic from a humdrum plodding to a purposeful endeavor. Here are three strategies for creating such an atmosphere.

Keep the Goal in Mind

A good team always has a compelling goal in mind. Knowing what you want to achieve and the steps you need to take to achieve it are what drive a team’s motivation. Achieving short-term goals provides the impetus to attack the next. Over time, this becomes a way of life and infects everyone with a determination to meet the next challenge. Create an action plan that makes clear long, medium and short-term goals and then regularly assess the team’s progress in achieving success.

Success Breeds Success

Setting clear goals gives you a benchmark with which to assess your team’s progress. While there are often times when you will need to address a shortcoming with someone or the team as a whole, the fact is that even in failure there is almost always some effort that you can encourage and support. By constantly playing up your team’s real victories and efforts, you create a sense of winning. This sets an expectation for succeeding in the future and a desire to try harder to reach the next objective. Encouragement enables everyone to see the value of their efforts.

Communication Is the Lifeblood of Teamwork

Set the example of clear communication. Make meetings events that move your objective forward rather than rambling messes that only promote confusion. Make critical feedback in person and make sure you are judging performance, not the person. Create an open pathway for communication to flow both ways. People rarely accept criticism from people who are not themselves open to criticism. By welcoming feedback yourself, you create an environment where everyone is free to communicate.

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William Shakespeare was a legendary playwright, but he likely would have made a terrible accountant, and anyone who employed him as such would have suffered as a result. Everyone has the potential to stretch beyond their natural abilities and grow, but if you want to see your team really succeed, it pays to play to their strengths. Follow these steps to identify, utilize and maximize your employees’ strengths.

Identify Strengths

During interviews, prospective employees might describe themselves in terms like detail oriented or self-motivated, but that only gives you a small peek into their true abilities. To make the most of each employee’s potential, employers and managers can identify their strengths in some of the following ways:

• Be open yourself. Have transparent conversations about your own strengths and weaknesses and listen carefully to how they respond.
• Research their interests. Most people make a lot of information public in their social media profiles. Employers can find an indication of their personality strengths, interests and the skills they might not have thought to include in their resume.
• Observe their actions with others. If employees tend to lead naturally and communicate effectively when they talk with their team before the meeting, or if they offer co-workers creative solutions to personal concerns, this gives you key insight into their abilities.
• Conduct employee skills assessments.

Tell Them What You Know

A Gallup News publication says when people know their strengths and use them on the job, they’re six times more likely to be engaged.  Just learning where they’re strong makes employees 7.8 percent more productive on average. Once you’ve assessed their talents, let them know what you’ve found.

Provide Frequent Feedback

When managers have daily, affirmative conversations with their employees, the workers feel empowered. Prioritize frequent, positive interaction that focuses on reinforcing their strengths. Don’t just tell them they’re doing a good job, talk specifically about their ongoing projects and their daily activities. Link their work to the company’s vision to point out the value of what they do, and acknowledge how they contribute to your organization. Provide regular encouragement so employees feel satisfied and engaged.

The post 3 Strategies for Making the Most of Your Employees’ Strengths appeared first on ClarityOK.com | Executive Leadership Coach.

Corporate Leadership Training Benefits

Many misconceptions surround corporate leadership training, including one that corporate money is better spent elsewhere. Clarity’s coaching training fosters personal fulfillment, work-life balance, and an individually tailored process that proves its value and return on investment. From enhancing individual strengths to developing new leadership skills, from feeling more confident at work to improving the performance of the entire workplace team, sign up today so you can enjoy the many benefits corporate coaching offers you.

1. Fostering Collaborative Teamwork

As agents of change, leaders influence the workforce, key stakeholders, and strategies. Leaders develop partnerships with their teams and other interested parties to work toward the desired goal. Clarity’s leadership training helps transform leaders into these agents.

2. Creating a Coach Culture

By training leaders to double as coaches, leaders learn how to develop relationships to face certain challenges while passing on the same skills to those they work with. A coach may engage the staff in more focused, goal-oriented interactions, which in turn contribute to improvements in workforce performance and competence.

3. Adaptability and Agility

A good coach reflects on actions taken, critically evaluating the circumstances to identify the way ahead. Building on the relationships formed with the coach methodology, a coach understands the personal factors and preferences needed to adapt his or her leadership to any situation and maximize a team’s potential.

4. Communication, Feedback Loops, and Reflection

The coaching approach helps leaders gather important information on their members or subordinates in ways that avoid traditional pitfalls such as communication gaps and skill gap masking. It provides a safe space for the coach and team member to reflect on strength and weakness, with the end goal of employing each member in ways that play to his or her strengths while improving on weaknesses.

5. Real-Time Goal-Oriented Interventions

Coaches can employ this approach to intervene directly in workforce development, allowing leaders to promote growth in individuals with short-term leadership roles. Coaches enjoy a more personal connection to mentees, providing a day-to-day overview of growth as opposed to a project-end review.

Coaching helps you to move forward on your personal path toward leadership and goal achievement. Take advantage of what Clarity offers and transform yourself into a true agent of change. Contact us Clarity today to book a leadership training today!

Sources:
10 Benefits of Leadership Development Coaching Dr. Bruce
How Corporate Learning Drives Competitive Advantage
Businesses Can Benefit from Investing in Corporate Training

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