Creating Your Map to Success Thursday, Nov. 1, 2007 By Rachael J. Mercer, Contributing Editor Norman Rose, president, Excel Sales Consulting, began his NACE course titled “Develop Your Own Road Map,” by encouraging attendees to complete a self-evaluation. Designed to discover characteristics about each person’s professional and personal lives, the participants’ completed self-evaluation also revealed areas in need of improvement. Following this self-evaluation, Rose and participants worked through a handout designed to review personal and professional goals. Rose introduced attendees to the “Seven Steps to Self-Improvement” and persuaded them to begin working through each of the steps, beginning with prioritizing and setting goals. After setting goals, Rose pointed out the importance of writing down the goals and implementing a plan for reaching those goals. Make sure your goals are realistic,” said Rose. “Nothing sets someone up for failure as easily as setting goals which are completely unattainable.” The Toolbox Today’s participants learned: • Developing personal awareness through “self evaluation.” • Developing and maintaining a positive attitude. • Setting goals. • Increasing self-motivation to achieve goals. • Improving communication skills. Next, Rose said, participants should identify their strengths and weaknesses that could affect their abilities to achieve the goals they set. The last of the seven steps involved following up on each previous step and finally, achieving the goal. Rose offered tips on goal-setting, returning to emphasize the disaster that can occur when unattainable goals are set and not met. “It is important to understand that achieving your goals requires effort and commitment,” said Rose. In one of the interactive sections of his presentation, Rose allowed attendees to point out barriers they had experienced when trying to attain goals. The group discussed whether these barriers were internal and external and talked about ways to eliminate as many of the barriers as possible. The group listed techniques that can help people maintain a positive attitude, which Rose said was vital to reaching goals and eliminating barriers. “Effective communication is the key to strong relationship-building,” said Rose. Participants spent the next few minutes naming the key components necessary to having effective listening and communicating skills. “Listening is just as important, maybe more so, than talking,” said Rose. “Give others a chance to finish talking, use positive body language and show interest in what others are saying.” “Of course there are difficult people,” Rose said. “And we will encounter them in both our personal and professional lives. We must do our best to avoid being difficult with difficult people.” Attendees listed techniques for dealing with difficult people that had and had not worked for them in the past. Rose’s seminar was upbeat, interactive and informative. Rose encouraged attendees to focus on developing and maintaining a positive attitude, while setting goals and developing communication skills. He emphasized that keeping the right attitude about all things can make each situation easier. “It’s all in how you see it,” he said. “Remember, we have the choice about how to respond to negativity, and we can control our attitudes by starting everyday with a positive plan.”