Personal Development (1) |
When communication is deprived: we starve for human contact; When communication chokes: positivity, productivity and ambition are strangled; When communication cracks: businesses and organisations crumble; When communication freezes: relationships are cold and empty; When communication breaks: hearts break; When communication breaks down: it can end in a nervous breakdown; When communication fails: dreams of pleasure; power; relationships; romance; children; family; security and success – of desired futures, are never realised. |
Please write down your answers to the following two questions on a piece of paper: 1. Based on the list above, write down which, if any of these damages to communication (shown in bold type) you have experienced or witnessed? (e.g. ‘Communication freezes’) |
2. For each of those damages that you’ve identified in question ‘1’ pick one example and briefly answer the following questions: |
• What was the situation you were in when the damage to communication occurred? • What was the outcome? You may choose to add more information if you wish, but when you’ve completed this exercise you should have identified one or more situations from your life experiences in a format that looks similar to the following example: Damage: “Communication freezes” Situation: “Relationship with spouse” Outcome: “Divorce” |
Pearson Psychologies exists to help you avoid those threats to communication happening again. Where communication skills need to be developed, Pearson Psychologies works with and for you to develop them; where communication has broken down, Pearson Psychologies works with and for you to repair things; to restore what has been lost and/or obtain what has so far never been yours: to help you fulfil your ambitions and dreams for yourself and others; to help you know when and how to fight for something or someone and when and how to move on.
Secondly, No one can consistently control that which they don’t fully understand – and that includes ourselves, our ambitions and/or our business. Whether you’re trying to run a multi-national corporation or manage your own life, self-awareness is the key to improvement.
The naturally gifted individual will say they ‘just do things’ and this is fine. However the problem is that without self-knowledge they don’t know how they do things and therefore they cannot reliably recreate successes. The person/organisation that understands how they function and why they do what they do, is far more likely to reproduce their successes and avoid their failures, consistently gaining better results and reducing stress. Pearson Psychologies works by using various methods and approaches focused upon equipping the individual with greater self-knowledge and self-awareness, to facilitate improved understanding of themselves and others, and an enhanced understanding of themselves in relation to their broader environment. The human mind is complex: it communicates, and can be communicated with, in many ways and on many levels. Pearson Psychologies will work with and for you to access those aspects that are most relevant to your life and/or professional circumstances, enabling you to progress to the third stage of your journey.
Thirdly, it’s all about change. Change should be explored regularly by us all as it happens to each of us – every moment of every day. For example, something has changed for you by the very act of visiting this website and reading as you’re now doing. In this case it’s a positive change as, whatever you’re thinking right now, your reading has bought about challenge and is proposing options and opportunities. You’ll already have thought about your life in relation to what you’ve read and will have become slightly more self-aware as a result: as you have additional self-awareness so you now have new choices. With planned change comes informed choice, and Pearson Psychologies believes that you having choice is very positive.
Pearson Psychologies does not underestimate the power or the challenge of change. Change can be good, however, contrary to what some would have us believe, Pearson Psychologies acknowledges that change is not always good, and that change for the sake of change can actually be unproductive and even damaging. Not everything has to change in every way and this is something that needs to be examined carefully. Pearson Psychologies works with a broad range of clients, applying tailored psychological methodology to help and empower you to identify which areas of your life are important to fight for, which are worth retreating from and which are okay simply to be left alone – safe from damaging, ‘unnatural’ change. If it’s not broken Pearson Psychologies will not attempt to fix it: some things are best preserved and kept safe, and this is something which Pearson Psychologies takes into serious account when working with you.
Pearson Psychologies would like to offer you the following exercise, which examines your feelings towards positive change:
Work through the following questions, writing your answers on a piece of paper, please read through all 10 points before beginning this exercise.
Imagine if you changed today, in ways which you feel would be positive for you:
1. What would these ‘positive ways be? (E.g. more confidence, more control, better employment, a new relationship, etc.) |
2. What would your life feel like if you changed your internal communication for the better: i.e. developed new ways of thinking, coping, self-awareness, control of your anxieties, etc? |
3. What would your life feel like if you changed your external communication for the better: i.e. conversation with others, presentation, personal and professional relationships, etc? |
4. What would life feel like if you developed to a point where you could cope with, navigate through, control and survive the various situations that life throws up at you more skilfully with lower stress and better results? |
5. How differently would you feel and how differently would others view and feel towards you if you were able to manage situations more confidently and effectively with improved focus? |
6. How would it feel if people respected you; accepting your ‘yes’ as a ‘yes’ and your ‘no’ as a ‘no’, as you became known as the person who is neither a passive ‘door mat’ nor an aggressive ‘loaded gun’, but rather an assertive, balanced individual who exudes an air of authentic self-confidence? |
7. In what ways would people want to work with you; get know you; be attracted to you as a person, etc. as you became a more powerful, independent, focused, sensitive, self-aware person; what types of people would want to do business with you? |
Now please answer the following questions: • How would you view someone who demonstrated some or all of those skills and personality traits above? |
• Which of the above mentioned skills and traits would you most like to develop and why? For example “I’d like to develop the skills and traits in: Question 3: and change my external communication so I don’t feel self-conscious at social gatherings Question 6: and become more assertive to improve my relationship with my parents Question 7: and be experienced as more in-control to attract friends and get respect from work colleagues” |
• Briefly write down what your life is like at this very moment with those skills and traits that you’ve identified in question ‘9’ being at their current level? (mark them as follows ‘Low’, ‘Average’ or ‘high’) If there are any other skills and traits that are not identified above but that are important to you, or if you have your own words that describe what skills and traits you desire then please carry out the same exercise as in point ‘9’ and use them. |
Summary
If you’ve worked through the exercises so far, well done! It will have taken you time and courage. So far we’ve worked through exercises that have enabled you to:
• Examine your personal experience of breakdowns in communication and how these made you feel
• Examine those skills and traits that you desire and how you currently measure up against them in your life at the moment.
The exercises will continue in the next session where you can carry on developing your ‘self’ and environmental awareness, and find out more about Pearson Psychologies philosophies and services.