Friday, December 5, 2008

Assertive Communication - 10 Tips For Expressing Yourself Assertively

1. Think before you speak. The first step is to be clear within yourself as to what you want to say.

2. Communicate your needs without excuses or disclaimers at the beginning, such as "well, this may not really be important" or "I may be making a big deal out of nothing".

Aggressive, Assertive of Passive?

Assertiveness is a method of communication that lets others know your ideas and feelings, while respecting their feelings as well.

A person behaving aggressively states her feelings directly, but she violates the rights of others. For example, suppose a neighbor asks you to baby-sit her four children and you don't want to.

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Don't Blame the Reflection

Many times we can sit and ask ourselves why things aren't going right in our lives. We tend to blame things outside of ourselves and try to find the answers there as well. Blaming the reflection will not bring you the things that you crave in your life. So what will? That's what this article discusses.

Friday, November 21, 2008

How to Achieve Your Goals with a Positive Mental Attitude

Happiness is something we all want. Good times with friends, and close relationships are the things that make us feel complete as people. But in these present times there are many distractions that leave us feeling overwhelmed and that we don't have full control in our life's situation. It seems that we always have to trade one priority for another to accomplish our daily tasks.

Clean Up Your Language With These 7 Assertive Techniques

Use this 7-point assertive language guide to get your unsatisfactory relationships back on track.

If you want to put your relationships onto a more assertive footing, and earn more respect from others, there's no better way to do it than to use the following 7 verbal techniques.

7 Ways to Harness the Power of Questions

We all ask questions every part of every day from "Did you sleep well?" to "How can we come in under budget?" to "What was the best part of your day?". Simply asking questions isn't enough - you already do that - asking better questions is the key to more success and greater achievements. This article offers 10 ideas separated into three categories designed to help you ask great questions.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Enjoy Your "Right Now" Journey

Life is a journey marked with the highest mountaintops and lowest valleys, winding roads, steep hills and slippery slopes. It's certainly okay to have goals, ambitions, and a destination in mind -- in fact, it's encouraged; however, it is equally important not to lose sight of the good things offered on the journey.

Ready to Reinvent?

What does it take to sustain a successful business or career? My answer: You must continually reinvent yourself. Changing times requires changing you, but reinventing yourself is not easy. Most change causes a sense of fear. Fear of failure, fear of success, and fear of rejection are common fears we face during reinvention. Don't allow fear to rule your life. Instead feel the fear and do it anyway. Then you will discover that fear has no power over you.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Don't Let Other People Control How You Feel About Yourself

It is an acknowledged fact that most people do not like themselves to some degree or other and our ability to give our love to others is conditioned by the love we have for ourselves. If we lack self-worth how can we believe that anyone else can love us?

Friday, August 29, 2008

When Someone Close to You Changes

How do you react when someone close to you exhibits signs of change? Does it frighten or anger you? Are you attached to things being the way they are right now?

Moving Forward With Your Life - Improving Confidence

"You were not born with self-confidence".

That is, self-confidence is not something innate - it can be taught, nurtured and built over the years, at any stage in life. By using the exercise below, you will prove just that! Let me share two other things with you...

Friday, August 8, 2008

A Guide for Healing from Childhood Abuse for Men and Their Partners

Available online - A Guide for Healing from Childhood Abuse for Men and Their Partners. By Daniel Jay Sonkin, Ph.D

Comprehensive and enlightening, Wounded Boys Heroic Men is also a guide to help partners, friends, and family members better understand the struggles these men face, so that they can support the healing journey. Dr. Sonkin's message is simple: With help, healing is possible.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Conflict Resolution Strategies in the Workforce

Conflict in the work environment is inevitable. When two or more people have to work together and combine ideas, the doorway of conflict is ever open. The goal is to learn how to use conflict as a tool that can benefit the whole, rather than destroy it and the idea of concern. A team must have a common goal of success (Temme and Katzel, 1995).

Stress Management in Simple Steps

There will be times in your life, both professional and personal, when you feel that you have no control over things that are happening around you. And you say "you are stressed out." What is stress? Stress is the emotional, mental and physical strain in reaction to pressures from the outside world. The word is derived from the Latin word 'stringere' which means to 'draw tight'. It is your body's way of responding to any kind of demand placed on it.

Sunday, August 3, 2008

Exercise Your Brain

There are over 650 muscles in the human body, and we have all heard the old saying "use it or lose it" regarding muscle conditioning. In fact, our muscle mass will atrophy at a rate of about one half pound per year, after we turn thirty.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Motivational Wallpaper

Recently, I started to notice that a number of visitors to this site were seeking motivational wallpapers or desktop images, it is for this reason that I have developed a number of wallpapers. What do you think of these wallpapers, I'd appreciate your comments (below) to determine if anymore should be developed?

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Technology helps with Anger Issues !

Visual reminders offer a powerful way to assist us change our behaviour. Many of the people I work with as a counsellor are been looking for easy to apply effective techniques that they can try in addressing their anger issues. The purpose of this article is to provide a step by step guide as to how technology can be used as a visual tool for anger management.

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Feeling Angry Playing Fair (1998) by Ken McMaster - online book

Feeling Angry Playing Fair is an excellent resource for any man who really wants :

  • his partner to feel genuine respect for him and want to be with him rather than a relationship based on fear or duty

  • a family which is fair and based on trust and caring

  • his children's admiration and respect rather than their fear or resentment

  • to set an example his children would want to follow

  • to stop hurting the ones he loves

  • to be true to himself to find genuine self-respect


Book can be downloaded from - http://www.hma.co.nz/Publications/Feeling-angry-playing-fair.asp

[print_link] For graphic/photo/image credits.

Sunday, June 1, 2008

7 Step Guide To Staying Completely Stuck In Your Life

Are you stuck in your life? Do you receive some satisfaction from staying stuck and from no one being able to help you get unstuck? If you are invested in staying stuck, why not do it consciously and deliberately? Here is your guide to never getting unstuck.

Monday, May 26, 2008

The art of assertiveness to ease anxiety

The problem is non-assertive individuals often go out of their way to avoid a clash of heads, leaving them to stew in silence with their frustrations and anxiety. From time to time biting your tongue can be a shrewd move, but when it becomes the default behaviour there will be a loss confidence and self-esteem. This can also lead to a build up of frustration which can lead to feelings of anger and resentment.

Saturday, May 17, 2008

How To Control Your Anger Before It Controls You

Learning to control your anger is an important trait for anyone to have. This is due to the fact that suffering from excess rage can gravely harm your health, career, social life, and family life. Let's face it, no one likes to be around an angry person. Anger drives people away.

Monday, May 12, 2008

Motivation - 7 Tips To Keep Your Motivation Fire Burning!

Motivation is an essential part of everything we do ... it governs whether or not we will successfully achieve our goals and dreams throughout life.

Motivation is our desire or level of energy to do something. Our motivation comes from within us, it is our drive based on our desire to achieve something, to do something, or to become something. Motivation also comes from outside us e.g. other people, events, actions of others.

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Assertiveness to Ease Anxiety

The problem is non-assertive individuals often go out of their way to avoid a clash of heads, leaving them to stew in silence with their frustrations and anxiety. From time to time biting your tongue can be a shrewd move, but when it becomes the default behaviour there will be a loss confidence and self-esteem. This can also lead to a build up of frustration which can lead to feelings of anger and resentment.

Fear of Rejection - What is it?

Fear of rejection is something most of us have experienced at some point in our life.

It affects a person's thoughts, feelings and actions. Although we all experience fear of rejection to a certain degree, for some it has become a problem and has major implications in every aspect of their life.

Monday, May 5, 2008

Getting Information

- How Phrasing Questions Can Make or Break You - What You Deserve

Understand this. The quality of information you receive will be directly related to the quality of the questions you ask. Sloppy, imprecise questions attract sloppy, imprecise answers. Some managers think that because they're managers, staff will tell them exactly what they need to know. Sadly, it just isn't so.

Workplace Change

Whether it's a company wide or department change, you still have to motivate your team to understand, participate and accept the required changes. In order to motivate your staff, you need to plan...plan...plan. What do you need to plan?

Saturday, May 3, 2008

What does happiness mean for you

The desire to be happy is a universal part of human nature. It is a fact, though, that there are nearly as many definitions for the word "happiness" as there are human beings on this planet. Every person has his or her own unique definition of what happiness means; this is because each person has his or her own unique desires, wishes, thoughts, emotions and dreams.

Thursday, May 1, 2008

Dealing with Workplace Worry and Anxiety

Learning to manage workplace worries and anxieties will not only allow you to think more clearly and get more done, but also reduce levels of stress which in turn will improve your health and allow you to relax and unwind more easily in your free time. So how can you tame workplace anxiety?

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

How to Set Yourself Effective Goals

You are about to learn a very effective way to set yourself effective goals. First, decide on your goal. Work out your goal by planning how to go about it and then make every effort to pursue it. Here are some useful ways to achieve this.

Friday, April 18, 2008

Self Esteem 101

"There is a voice inside us who speaks down to us and is disempowering. Don't listen!"

I call that voice the inner-critic voice. I have named my inner-critic Fred, so I can actually converse with that critical part of myself and put "him" where it belongs - not in charge of my life!

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Communication and the Brain

As human beings, even though we are all basically the same, (having a brain, body, set of eyes etc.) we are all wired differently. This is important to realize, as many people too often believe that we should all see things the same way and come to the same conclusions.

Saturday, April 5, 2008

Motivational Makeover

So often, we see individuals on television receiving a free makeover from a talk show host or a panel of celebrity "fashion police" on a reality show. The participants are absolutely elated with their new clothes, new hairstyle, and fresh new look. Their faces beam at the idea of becoming a new person - shedding off the old and taking on a new, different persona, like a snake shedding its skin. The transformation is sometimes drastic and commonly for the better.

10 Ways to Get Unstuck

Here is how to get your life, work or personal goals out of that rut...right now!

1. Clarify matters that remain unclear.

Are you stuck because you are in a mental fog? How can you possibly move forward with confidence if you don't know where you are headed? What exactly are you doing and what end result are you seeking? Resolve these issues!

Thursday, April 3, 2008

Taking Charge of Your Inner Movie

I first heard about this when I read The New Psycho-cybernetics by Dr Maxwell Maltz and Dan Kennedy. I enjoyed it because it expanded on the importance of Intrapersonal Communication.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Self Esteem

Self-esteem is not like a cool pair of shoes that you'd love to have but don't really have to have. Good self-esteem is important because it helps us hold our head high and feel proud of ourselves and what we are capable of. It gives us the courage to try new things as well as the power to believe in ourselves.

Setting Your Personal Goals

What differentiates Graeme is the depth and breadth of his experience in management. He has either been in management or has been consulting to management ...

Tips For Managing Workplace Stress

One of the best ways of preventing or managing workplace stress is work planning. A planning tool is a good investment for improving yourself in most areas of life, your job included. You have to understand that there is nothing like a very routine work that doesn̢۪t require any planning. The belief that it will go on by itself is wrong. Even tasks that can be done on an everyday basis can be improved if there is good planning involved. Everywhere there is scope for improvement, better methods that are yet to be implemented and problems that have to be solved. And for all this you need proper planning. Let̢۪s take a look at the different steps involved in planning for a week. The best way to plan the work for a week is to maintain a planning sheet. Now, please remember that this is apart from the routine work that is done in the office.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Journaling Your Way to Stress Reduction

Journaling can take problems you have and help you find ways to create solutions in your life. You can also gain a lot of experience viewing your life as an outsider when you read your journal entries after you've had time to digest problems or circumstances in your life. Writing unleashes creativity and can help you tap into your self, your goals and your wants.

Friday, March 7, 2008

10 Ways to stressless

stressless postcard

Reproduced in accordance with NSW Mental Health Association requirements - check out their site

Options for use - copy the image to a word or openoffice document and expand the size, print it off and put it on the wall or, use the image as your computer wallpaper/background. Pass the image on to your colleagues or friends.

Monday, March 3, 2008

Can Journaling Help Self Acceptance?

Journaling can be extremely helpful in the goal of improving yourself and finding happiness. Gaining and maintaining self acceptance is a process in self improvement that requires effort in many cases. You can tap into a very valuable resource that is perfectly designed to help you gain access to the necessary tools to help you love yourself unconditionally. A primary step in the process is to keep a journal. There are countless benefits to using this time-tested approach.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Dialogue vs. Discussion

By Graeme Nichol

Have you ever sat in a meeting where everyone is busy giving their point of view and trying to prove why they are right? Where no one is actually listening or trying to understand other individuals̢۪ points of view. The alternative meeting format is where everyone listens to and agrees with the meeting leader. No one contributes or adds ideas, they are just compliant.

Breaking Through the Barriers

By Maria Boomhower

You've tried everything, you've listen to the experts, in frustration you shout out, "Why can't I seem to figure this out?" This can be stated for many areas in life, whether you are working on health, finances, business, improved communication skills or relationships. Quite often when we start out on the path to change one or more areas of our lives, we hit stumbling blocks and set backs.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Anger Management Online Book

Anger as an emotion has a significant impact on the lives of so many people. For some, formal anger management programs might be mandated by the courts or other agencies.

Anger Work - a workbook for men (PDF format,  49 pages)

Me, Angry - a resource for women (PDF format, 36 pages)

Monday, February 18, 2008

The Key To Success: Build Those Relationships!

Powerful relationships are the key to effective work environments, and goal attainment. Powerful, healthy relationships are the pulse behind any great endeavor and achievement. It must never be forgotten that every organizational structure, flow chart and arrangement ever conceived, merely represented the relationships which formed these structures. It is said that genius is often found in that which is simple. What can be more simple than treating your people as partners in the creation of business success.

Dissolving Conflict Through Reframing

Reframing is looking at the situation with a new set of eyes. Its asking your self if you have a clear picture of the situation and of what is happening around you.Many people get so caught up in a situation that they take on the other persons issues as their own. When you can remain calm, take a step back, you can ask your self, am I seeing this issue clearly or can I look at it differently?

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Career Advice: Career Success Requires Management Of Change

article by - Ramon Greenwood


Change is certain and constant. Benjamin Franklin would have been wise to add "change" to his adage that "death and taxes are the only certainties of life."



We are inundated every day with new relationships, new ways to do things, new expectations and new information. The total of all knowledge doubles every five years. It has been estimated that 75 percent of all current workers will need retraining by the year 2010; today's high school graduates will have to be prepared to change jobs or careers at least 10 times in their lifetimes.

Antagonists And Fear

article by - By Maria Boomhower


It is important to have your own values, beliefs and understanding of the world around you and not let fear take hold of you.

The quote, "My life has been filled with terrible misfortune; most of which never happened." By Michel de Montaigne, has been repeated many times by different authors. It drives home the point that sometimes we can be our own worst enemies.

The statistics show, that 80% of our thoughts are negative and most are repeated.

Monday, January 7, 2008

Great Site - Men's Health Australia

I found this great site on the web that might be of interest to you relating to Men's Health Australia is Australia's primary source of information about the psychological and social wellbeing of men and boys - http://www.menshealthaustralia.net/