You’re reading How to Build Confidence and have Better Conversations, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

Here’s a little secret: many, many people find conversation difficult. And the ones that think they find it easy, well – aren’t they the conversationalists who we so often find dull or irritating because they have no sense of self-censorship?

Learning to constructively criticize your own social skills while recognizing the value and pleasure that can come from meaningful conversation is a powerful way of making a big impact on your life, and those people with whom you share it.

What’s beautiful about conversation is that it takes at least two people to have one (unless you’re really in a quandary about something and like to debate things with yourself!). This means that if you lack self-confidence and are hesitant to focus too much on your own conversation game, you can start by reflecting outwards and engaging in chat in more subtle ways. The key to great conversation, after all, is not speaking – but listening. Work on your listening and non-verbal communication skills first, and the art of dialogue will follow.

Listening starts with giving your full attention. That means putting down phones and other devices and making eye contact with the person that you’re speaking with. Think about how babies react to eye contact: it is a fundamental part of conveying trust, attention, and togetherness.

And believe it or not, you need to learn to listen with your eyes. All sorts of statistics abound as to what percentage of communication is visual versus verbal, but a pretty convincing case has been made that 55% of meaning is conveyed by facial expression, 38% from voice tone, and just 7% from the words used. If you’ve been glued to your phone the last few years, just think how much ‘meaning’ you’ve missed out on! Pay close attention to the nuances in someone’s way of speaking, and you will start to make new connections between things they say. Be patient, and don’t expect to reach an understanding as quickly as you might in a simplified online conversation: meaningful dialogue takes time!

Listening also means letting go of your own ego for a moment. It can be easy to become distracted by your own thoughts, particularly when you’re forming an argument to what is being said or you’re excited about a great example you have to share. But while these words are forming in your mind, you’re only giving partial attention to the other person. Don’t be afraid of silences: listen carefully, then let them know that you’re thinking how best to phrase your response, rather than doing so while they’re still talking.

When it comes to upping your own end of the dialogue, you can continue by working with what the other person has brought to the table. Make it clear that you’re listening, and improve your own understanding, by repeating back or rephrasing difficult or unclear ideas that the other person has spoken about, to ensure that you understand them properly. And don’t leap in with your own authoritative ideas – especially when it comes to giving advice – because that isn’t dialogue: it’s didacticism.

It can be more constructive to ask questions and tease a subject towards resolution by working with each other’s ideas. That’s why you’re having a conversation with someone else to start with. Open-ended questions (beginning with How, What, or Why and requiring more than a Yes or No answer) are a great way of turning up unexpected information and ideas.

Telling a story is another great way to engage your friend or colleague while making your point – and all without coming across superior. Words, as they say, are given to us to hide our true feelings; a story, on the other hand, while made of words, can convey more complex feelings and concepts through the use of themes and verbal images. We also just love to hear a good story, and have done since our ancestors first sat around the campfire.

This step-by-step infographic from OnStride gathers these ideas and more into one place, so it’s easy to check in from time to time when you feel your conversation skills are lagging. It’s quite normal to be nervous of getting stuck in a conversation you can’t get out of – but just remember, the person on the other end is only human too.

You’ve read How to Build Confidence and have Better Conversations, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

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You’re reading 6 Effective Tips For Yoga Newbies — To Attain A Life Balance., originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

Yoga is a form of exercise used to increase strength, flexibility, and VO2 consumption. It helps in shaping the mind and body to attain a life balance. Meanwhile there are some key points yoga newbies needs to take note of.

Daily yoga practice can help you stay more productive, happy and more reasonable. This exercise reduces high blood pressure, increases flexibility, muscle strength and tone.

It also improves respiration energy and fertility, also helps in weight reduction.

This and more benefits of this exercise has encouraged several people especially, entrepreneurs to consider yoga as a key practice for productivity and maintaining life balance.

As a matter of fact, the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) reveals that yoga is the sixth most commonly use complementary health practice for American adults. This survey also discovered that more than 1.5 million children practice yoga annually.

As a yoga newbie, it’s normal to lack confidence and motivation in the beginning. Most times you feel intimidated by the die-hard yogis who warm up with headstands. But seriously, you shouldn’t be bothered with that; they also started as a beginner before getting to that stage.

The most important thing is to prepare your body and make up your mind to get through the beginners stage, and with time, you’ll naturally find motivation to practice yoga at will.

Below therefore are 5 effective tips for yoga newbies to achieve a life balance.

1. Prepare for it:

Do you know that by spending time out preparing for this exercise, you can actually optimize your yoga experience?

Effective preparation before the exercise brings about optimum results and helps loosen up the body before venturing into the real yoga exercise.

To start with, set up a soft warm-up routine for 5- 15 minutes before starting the real yoga exercise.

Here are few warm-up exercises you can implement:

• Rotate your neck both clockwise and anticlockwise to know if there’s any stiffness.

• Pump your shoulder and shake your hands to shrug off the lethargy

• Message your head, browse, nose and chick

2. Start simple:

Being a yoga experts is not an instantaneous activity. The process starts from being a yoga newbie to becoming an expert. So, start simple!

As humans, we love to get to the peak of our activity even right from the scratch, but most times it requires great commitment of yoga newbies to attain and maintain a balanced life.

“You don’t have to be great to get started, but you have to get started to be great”- Les Brown.

As a newbie, it’s advisable to learn simple yoga posts first before proceeding to the tough ones. So as not to loose motivation at the beginning of your experience.

3. Get a yoga kit equipment:

As a newbie, there’s high desire to get new steps in yoga practice. It’s more important to acquire yoga kits, in other to get the most effective result out of your practice.  

In addition, getting yoga kits gives you a sense of professionalism at the exercise, and as well, protects you from unnecessary injury. While there are some auto transport service that helps customers ship their cars, there are also some shipping services that can help in conveying your yoga kits to you, so worry less about the market. 

Here are 5 bit of yoga kit and equipment for beginners.

• Yoga mat: This will provide cushioning on a hard floor and a non sleep surface for standing. Also, it grants friction, padding and increases safety when doing yoga positioning.

• The Yoga block: Yoga block is also known as foam block. It’ll help stabilize standing positions when you can’t reach the floor easily. 

• Bolster: Yoga bolster is used to support the leg, spine or abdomen in certain positions.

• Yoga belt: This type of  belt is made of cotton or nylon, it helps to support your back and extend your grasp.

• The Blanket: The yoga blanket keeps you warm and comfortable at the end of each yoga postures.

4. Get and Communicate with a seasoned yoga teacher:

As a newbie it’s important to learn under a good instructor or teacher — that would observe and assist you during practice.

Communicate with a professional yoga instructor if you have any medical  condition. It’ll help the teacher to customize a special training that’ll not affect you physically but help your health condition. 

One more important thing is to have the ability to say no. If a pose feels wrong or too painful for your health status, communicate with your teacher and say it out, your teacher may know a simple way to help.

5. Be consistent:

As a newbie it’s important to make sure you practice frequently. Little and often is more effective than occasional long session of yoga.

Practicing for just 20 minutes daily, with a few well chosen poses, can have a positive effect on your physical and emotional well being.

Be dedicated with constant practice to strengthen your inner desire. And as time passes, your body will begin to feel comfortable and familiar with the process and the exercise becomes a part of you.

6. Wear a comfortable clothing:

You’ll have to put on a comfortable clothe and put away body gadget like belt or jewelry as it could get in the way of your yoga practice. You’ll need to stretch your body to different directions, so you must not put on anything that’ll restrict your movement.

It is advisable to wear all natural materials, for example 100 percent cotton and hemp (which will allow circulation of air into the entire body) is good for yoga practice. 

You can also check various materials to find out the one that best fit you for your yoga activities.

You’ve read 6 Effective Tips For Yoga Newbies — To Attain A Life Balance., originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

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