Professional Development

Even some simple changes in our everyday life and routine can make a profound difference to our performance and allow us to get more out of work and life generally. Taking care to do more things that boost serotonin and endorphins (our natural feel-good chemicals) will promote a better and more stable mood and help us to cope better in difficult times. In contrast, doing things that produce stress hormones will undermine mood and prevent us from performing well and getting the best from what we do.

Here are the main recommendations:

Without goals we are not stretched. Being stretched mentally or physically is one of our basic needs, alongside the sense of achievement and satisfaction that comes from achieving not only the goal itself, but also from achieving each step along the way.

So, what are goals and how do we best go about setting them? We can think of goal-setting as creating a positive set of expectations. Those expectations then give our mind something to work towards, mobilising our resources both consciously and sub-consciously.

One really effective method of setting goals is by using what is called the SMART approach. SMART stands for:

Some lucky few seem to be born with loads of confidence. Most of us need to develop it through practice. Confidence is about gaining the inner strength to do something and then feeling comfortable about using that strength, without worrying disproportionately about what others will think of you. So pursuing a job promotion, a personal dream, or even just standing up to speak in a team meeting, all take confidence. It’s not uncommon to think that we don’t need to build up our confidence until we are in a situation where it’s needed. However, this often means we are unprepared. So here are the top ten tips to help you build your confidence so you are more prepared:

We all need stress and anxiety to keep us motivated, energised and alert. Too much, however, can derail us at the times when we most need to have our wits about us and to stay sufficiently calm to deal with the matter at hand.

How is stress caused?

Stress is a natural response to a stimulus either in the environment or in our imagination. In the environment, it signals something which needs addressing, whether it is too much pressure, difficult people, criticism or something else. There may also be things at home or in our social life which are causing stress. We have strong powers of imagination as well. These, when misused to forecast negative outcomes or to produce negative explanations, will cause stress – our minds and bodies respond to stress in the same way whether the stimulus is real or imagined.

Dealing with difficult people is a skill. Managing them effectively involves a number of key principles:

1. Controlling yourself

Everybody does projects: whether it’s simply going on holiday, developing a complicated new product or anywhere in between. That doesn’t necessarily mean we’re particularly successful. Using some project management skills, tools and techniques can significantly increase your chances of not only achieving what you set out to achieve, but also making sure that it’s more likely to be beneficial in the long run. So here are the top ten tips for improving your management of projects:

1.  Get help. Managing projects often requires knowledge or skills we don’t have. Find some people who do to help you.

Deadlines are a common everyday occurrence in our busy lives. We’re either trying to meet them or chasing others to achieve theirs. And trying to work to too tight a deadline can affect the quality of your work or cause you to make errors. The following top ten tips will help you meet your deadlines and also help you manage others to meet theirs. Some tips apply to both!

1.  As soon as you are given a deadline for a task, put it in your diary and then work backwards from that date to ensure that you achieve it on time. If necessary, put stage reminders in your diary too. For example, if you have to put together a report for your manager by Friday, put a reminder in your diary for the previous Monday to check that all the components are available for you to work with.

Proofreading is the final, key, stage of writing.  You will have spent time planing, writing and re-writing your document so make sure you also invest he time in profreading.  A silly spelling eror or missing apostrophe could change the meaning of your message and it will definately give the wrong impression of you an you firm.  Use the ten tip’s blow to help you proof-read letters’, reports, documents and even emails to make sure you dont have the mistakes that youv’e noticed in this paragraph!!

1. Be methodical when proofreading.  When you finish a document, run a spell check, print it off and leave it for as long as possible before proofreading it.  This way, you have a greater chance of reading the document with “fresh eyes”.

While we all like to think that we meet our clients' needs and that our quality of service is tip-top, there are still occasions when our clients disagree!  In the current climate, clients have become very choosy, and feel more confident to say when they are not happy with something.  So before it gets to the stage where we start to look foolish, lose our clients or they take matters further, here are some helpful tips for dealing with complaints:

1. Let the client have their say.  When someone is angry or upset it is helpful for them to have the opportunity to "let off steam".  It also indicates to the client that you are willing to take the time to listen.

If you don’t hot-desk or have a clear-desk policy that works, the chances are your desk can sometimes (maybe frequently!) look like a bomb has hit it. So, before you lose another piece of paper or spend far too long looking for something that’s probably not there, here are the top ten tips to help you clear the paper clutter:

1. Sort your paper into four piles: Action, Read/Pass On, Filing and Junk. The last one is easy to deal with: ask yourself whether it would matter if you lost it. If not, why are you keeping it? If there isn’t a very good business reason to do so, or if you can get another copy easily, then bin it.