Tips on Becoming Personally Effective by author Susan Jones Sears is an article which offers advice and a set of guidelines for people who want to achieve more success, whether it's with school, work, or life in general. According to Sears, efficient and high achieving people are known to benefit from not just a single talent, but a multitude of factors leading to their success. These people usually have goals and game plans prepared for themselves as well. In order to create a game plan or determine specific goals in life, Sears advises to do the following: replace distractions, simplify life, manage your time, learn to say 'no', manage your money, build a strong network of friends, make time for yourself, identify and manage your stress. and accept and adapt to change.
The second article, by author Ruthann Fox-Hines, offers guidelines for communicating effectively. There are many different types of communication such as passive, aggressive, and passive-aggressive, but the most effective form is the one that most people have a harder time using: assertive communication. When communicating assertively, you are standing up for yourself clearly and directly while still respecting your rights as well as the rights of the other party. It's not defending yourself while putting others down, but instead, recognizing both sides of the conversation and speaking in a way that will truly get the other person to listen and understand. According to Fox-Hines, the basic formula for proper assertive communication is as follows: respect the other person, respect yourself, and be specific.
These two articles are definitely getting bookmarked for future reference for me. They both offered great advice in areas that I know I need help on, especially the time-management and effective communication topics. As a reader, I felt that the writings really reached out to me and tried to help me understand that I'm not the only one who needs help in these areas and that finding help isn't as hard as I think it is. I liked the similar organizational method of these two articles as well. They both started out by addressing a problem most people have, pointing out the importance of correcting that problem, and then offering guidelines and examples to help the reader manage the problem to the best of their ability. Fox-Hines' article was probably the most helpful to me, since I often find it difficult to communicate honest feelings with the people around me, especially when I'm worried that the other party will take what is said the wrong way. I admit to having used all the 'wrong' forms of communication (passive, aggressive, passive-aggressive) before and now, with the help of this article, I know how to start changing that.
The second article, by author Ruthann Fox-Hines, offers guidelines for communicating effectively. There are many different types of communication such as passive, aggressive, and passive-aggressive, but the most effective form is the one that most people have a harder time using: assertive communication. When communicating assertively, you are standing up for yourself clearly and directly while still respecting your rights as well as the rights of the other party. It's not defending yourself while putting others down, but instead, recognizing both sides of the conversation and speaking in a way that will truly get the other person to listen and understand. According to Fox-Hines, the basic formula for proper assertive communication is as follows: respect the other person, respect yourself, and be specific.
These two articles are definitely getting bookmarked for future reference for me. They both offered great advice in areas that I know I need help on, especially the time-management and effective communication topics. As a reader, I felt that the writings really reached out to me and tried to help me understand that I'm not the only one who needs help in these areas and that finding help isn't as hard as I think it is. I liked the similar organizational method of these two articles as well. They both started out by addressing a problem most people have, pointing out the importance of correcting that problem, and then offering guidelines and examples to help the reader manage the problem to the best of their ability. Fox-Hines' article was probably the most helpful to me, since I often find it difficult to communicate honest feelings with the people around me, especially when I'm worried that the other party will take what is said the wrong way. I admit to having used all the 'wrong' forms of communication (passive, aggressive, passive-aggressive) before and now, with the help of this article, I know how to start changing that.