It is no surprise that you experience such things.  In fact, most of us actually have this problem of bringing past information back for use. Our brains are excellent in filtering incoming information, retain those required ones and understand in our own world the relevant ones that are most appealing to us.   If our brain does not do all these filtering, we will be overwhelmed with the massive amount of information flooding into us.  Ironically, the main problem that disallowed us to be effective in absorbing information is the filtering mechanism in our head.  Our brain filter worked in a way not really intended by us.  We do not choose to retain the information we absorb.  It is sub-conscious.  Our brain chooses to retain “right” information that sometimes isn’t useful to us.

It may be difficult to really understand how our brain works.  They are built on our life experiences and our map of the world (NLP concept).  To really understand how our brain works, we need to be fully aware of what we are doing, hearing, seeing and thinking from our past till current date.  That is a topic by itself.  Ok!  Let’s leave the understanding of our brain aside for now and focus on making your brain effective in absorbing information.  Now, experience is the key word here!

We need to get our brains experienced with the things that we are doing, seeing, hearing and thinking now!  Experience is based on engaging certain similar things or events for a period of time, which means you, need to be familiar with the things you are engaging with.  Having experiences of the events, you will be able to understand things better.

For example, when you are reading a document, it may take ages for you to complete it if it is like hundreds of pages long.  If you are not familiar with the document, you definitely take a longer time to complete reading it.  Even so, you may not understand what you had read fully and have to restart the process again.  This is counter-productive and waste lots of time re-reading it.  How do you improve the effectiveness in absorbing information then?  To get you understanding the document faster, instead of reading the document line by line, drilling to every single detail, try this.  Make a quick glance of the entire document.  Get an overview of the document and its flow.  Do this a few times if you do not get the big picture initially.  Once you get the bigger picture, you know what to expect from the document and you absorb information faster as you know what is important in the document and what is not.  This top-down approach allows you to pin-point to specified areas that you require information.

There are many ways to improve efficiency in absorbing information.  This is just one of them, which is to improve familiarity and experience of the information to further improve the efficiency in information absorption.  Note, this works for many people but not everyone.  Everyone absorb information differently.  You may have your own method that works well for you too! J

• Activate the anti-conflict brain – First thing you should do is activate the anti-conflict brain.   When we are heated up, whatever that comes out from out mouth that is often offending and unpleasant to the other party.  Studies have also shown that you almost insane (not thinking logically) when your emotions are overdrive!  Therefore, it is essential to always know that you have a choice.  You have a choice of respond.  Your respond will create another outcome of the argument.
• Think of reaching a conclusion (or agreement) on the conflict – Think that you want to end the conflict either in a win-win, win-lose or lose-lose outcome.  Whatever that will be coming out from you may make matter better, neutral or worse.  Therefore, before you respond to your other party’s remark, think first.  Think of the consequences of what you will say.  If it’s going to make matter worse, think of another way of phrasing your statement or else, just don’t even mention it. J
• Avoid mentioning the past mistakes – Mentioning the past events will only make matters worst.  It suggests that you are listing more evidences to make your partner feel bad.  It also suggests that whatever agreement made previously were just being patronized.  In any case, what is done before should be closed.  Move forward and not mention the past.
• Avoid using You too much – You suggests a line drawn between you and your partner.  You also suggests blame.  Avoid You as much as you can.  The conflict is a matter of both sides and should be addressed as We.  Both of you want to resolve this conflict constructively as the conflict belongs to both of you.  For a start, be constantly aware if you have the tendency to say You most of the time.  Being constantly aware will put you on the toe in refraining yourself from saying it.
• Avoid saying who started it first – Never ever say that the other party started the argument first!  Unless it is some biological reasons (such as PMS or menstruation) which as a guy (if you are one) should give leeway on it.  If not, do not mention about it.  This will also only make matters worst.  Remember, you want to resolve it, not to further sore the situation.

Avoiding is quite hard when your blood is boiling.  Keep cool, breath in deeply.  Remember, it goes down to your self-control and awareness.  Be aware of what you are thinking and this will put you at a good position to be cautious about what you will say.  When you are cautious, you will think of the consequences of your respond, and you will also alert yourself when you are going to say things that can make matters worst such as You, past events or who started it first.  Remember, self-control and awareness is the first step to resolving conflicts and it begins with you!  Make an effort to have self-control and awareness, and your anti-conflict brain will be activated!

1. Be sure of what you are doing – Always be sure of what you are doing.  Be sure of what you are handling.  If you do not know what you are doing, it’s advisable to find out more and be sure about it.  You do not want to be caught being vulnerable with being unclear of what you are doing, right?
2. Be sure of what is going on around you – That is, being sensitive to the surrounding, the going-on of the organisation, the management, the people, and your peers.  You want to be aware of the situation around you and not be vulnerable for your lack of awareness in the organisation.
3. Be humble on your achievements – Do not go around the office and tell everyone about your achievements and success story.  Ok you may not be shouting out to everyone, BUT are you in every conversation with your peers, trying to inject the topic of your individual success into it?  If you are, curb that habit!  Be humble and modest about it.  Let other’s know your success stories through words from your peers, not you!
4. Be always on your feet to sharpen your skills – Do always take time to improve yourself and skills.  Bring your skill sets to another level or learn another area of expertise.  The more proficient and knowledgeable you are in your field of expertise and experience, the less “surface areas” for the troublemakers to use your proficiency to exploit as a point of weakness.  Also with a new skill sets being acquired, you are more knowledgeable and prepared against their scheming attacks!
5. Be always increasing and improving your relationship with your colleagues – Do always increase your network of friends.  Also take time to improve and maintain the existing ones.  You want to knit a stronger and wider network that you can have support from.  With this network, you would have also established yourself a strong credential in the organisation.  This is a preventive measure against individuals that want to exploit your weak credentials in the organisation.  With a strong credential, they will not be able to exploit that easily.

These are preventive measures against prospective backstabbers.  There will be other methods of prevention as well but the list will certainly help you fend off or deter most troublemakers.  What is your method of prevention against backstabbers?

Yes, it’s true.  With the Me factor alone, we are comfortable with any situation by being aware of ourselves.  We know what we can control and what we can’t.  With the You factor, we are able to understand someone else’s need and thoughts.  We stand a higher chance of negotiation and influence with the other party.  With the final factor, Situation factor, we complete the equation of personal productivity with the awareness of situational demands and boundaries.  Awareness of the Situation factor allows seeing what is really needed at that point of time and context.  Thus guiding us to take the correct action and gain confidence.  Remember, awareness is always the fundamental block of confidence!

We can consider Me factor as the first layer, You factor as the second layer and Situation factor as the third layer.  Each additional layer allows us to achieve a higher personal productivity, which inherently ties to individual confidence.  We must agree that each situation is different with different objectives and history.  Furthermore, there are different demands and boundaries in different situations.  We won’t be able to use the same techniques to boost confidence and personal productivity.

How do we boost confidence and personal productivity? We want to know as much as possible of the situation.  Let’s take the presentation as an example.  What are we presenting?  Why are we presenting? What’s the objective of this presentation?  What’s the key message you want to drive the point across?  Who are we presenting to? Where will the presentation be?  What do you want to be in the slides?  Are you sufficiently prepared for FAQ?  Do you need additional experts to be in the presentation to take questions?

Having asked the questions, you have built an awareness of the situation (Situation factor).  You know what to expect in the situation.  Now you address each question on the situation.  Which are the ones that you can control (Me factor)? – Key message, content of slides, FAQ and additional experts.  What are the things that you can influence (You factor)?  — Key message, management and additional experts.  Which areas are still not addressed? – You identified the missing gaps and fill them accordingly.  Your confidence eventually builds up in handling the situation.

What’s next?  You want to be well-prepared for the presentation. A “well-prepared” presentation is the position you want to be in before the situation arises.  Essentially, you want to enter into a position that is advantageous to you and does not jeopardize you in anyway.  By doing necessary preparation of the presentation, you are entering a valid position for the situation.  With everything addressed (at your best knowledge), you will feel comfortable and confident for the situation.

In summary, lack of confidence in a situation is attributed to the lack of awareness of the Situation factor.  By understanding the Situational factor, with the assistance of awareness of the Me and You factor, you are able to boost a higher level of confidence in handling them.  Re-look our presentation example.  An understanding of the presentation needs, demands, scope and context allows the presenter to be more prepared for it – essentially the confidence level for presentation.  Keep in mind that confidence is about awareness.  We hope you will develop a higher sense of awareness, thus boosting the confidence in handling situations.

Having no confidence to approach your boss can be attributed to the lack of awareness of the You factor.  Remember, personal productivity is the equation of the Me, You and Situation factor.  Personal productivity requires confidence of one self and handling of situations.  You’ve gotten your Me factor right.  Now you’ve got to work on awareness of the You factor.

All of us have needs.  Marslow Hierarchy of Need tends to explain at the fundamental level, what a human being would desire (need) to have.  He proposed that all of us have needs of different level, in particular, physiological, safety, love/belong, esteem and self-actualization at the top.    That may be too abstract for us now.  Let’s bring the context closer to us.  Your boss may be thinking of his target, such as the next promotion or hitting company sales.  Maybe he is concerned with the timely delivery of the piece of work.   Or it could be even out of work concerns, such as if he can leave the office on the dot to catch a dinner with his family on time or he just wants a peaceful holiday without phone calls from the office.  Do you feel more “closer” after understanding him more?

Now think.  You can’t hide from your boss everyday.  You need to consult him for advice.  You need his approval.  You need to meet up with him to discuss your career development.  Career development equals promotion!  (A discussion about your personal career development shows your interest to work for him)  Are you saying you are going to forsake your chance of promotion?  Every little day that you “expose” yourself to the boss, you stand a higher chance of promotion than the others.  So you see, it’s impossible for you not to see your boss.  Not even using the reason of unconfident meeting him.

So, what now?  Bridge the gap between you and your boss.  Remember, he is also a human being.  He has to eat, drink and sleep.  He too has needs to address.  Find out what he REALLY wants.  Is it his promotion or a less problematic holiday?  At the task level, find out what he wants to achieve.  Is it a dateline or a political agenda he is driving through the completion of the task?  Also, find out how he think, what is he’s mental model like?  Is there some form of working style that he is particular with?  Are there things that he doesn’t like to see?    With a little bit self-questioning and observation of your boss, you’ve got the You factor answered.

After you have found out what he really wants, you get down to the managing process.  Your personal awareness of the Me factor will come in handy as it complements the You factor.  With the Me and You factor, you are more accustomed to handling your boss.   You do not feel uneasy approaching him.  Now, confidence is regained when working with him as you now how to manage his expectations.

Confidence can be lost in a variety of ways.  It can be after a series of failures at work, or consistent lectures from an un-motivating and demanding boss.   Setbacks after setbacks definitely will bring the even a strong man down with doubts of your abilities.  You start to loose touch from your personal awareness of your abilities.  You start to question your abilities.  You begin to be unaware of what you can achieve.  You do not know what to deliver.  You begin to drift into “I do not know what I can do”.  If you continue to drift, you eventually end up hopeless and loosing your self-worth, falling into the combination of “I do not know what I can do” and “I do not know what I cannot do”.

On the opposite end, a confident you would have know what to do.  You know what your abilities are.  You know you can achieve.  You do not cast doubts on yourself.  You deliver results.  Essentially, you would have belonged to the “I know what I can do” and “I know what I cannot do”, “I know what I can do” and “I do not know what I cannot do”.  This is where you want to be again.

So now, throw the despair feelings aside.   To regain your confidence back, you’ve got to move yourself back to the correct quadrant, the confident combinations.  You’ve got to move yourself away from “I do not know what I can do” and “I do not know what I cannot do” to “I know what I can do” and “I know what I cannot do” combination.  You’ve got to re-look at the Me factor in yourself.  Re-assess all your abilities.  Ask someone else for their opinion on you.  They may have a different view of your abilities.  Do you have the qualities that are useful in the given situation where you failed?  Was it a direct fit in that given situation?  Think Situation factor.  It may not be always your fault.    In this way, when you work from the inner self of personal awareness, you will realize your self-worth.  Remember, self-worth leads to confidence.

Confidence is all about knowing yourself and what you can do.  Confidence is your level of self-worth and hope.  All these relates closely to personal awareness.  It is essential that it served as a foundation block for you to regain confidence.  Do not despair that you are loosing confidence.  The answer is that you have yet to find yourself, the personal awareness within.  Give ample amount of time for yourself to discover the person within.  Eventually, you will see the light at the end of the tunnel.

“I know what I can do” & “I know what I cannot do”

It’s a great combination.  You know where your limits.  You know how much you are able to manage.  However, you may become complacent of your current situation is.  You’ll get trapped in your own defined boundaries and oversee the potential that you can unleashed.  Now, what is good is that, knowing your limits allows you to know if you are out of your comfort boundaries, thus pushing you to another grounding of comfort zone.  Therefore, do not limit yourself; use the limits as a benchmark that you can excel even more.  You never know how far you can go!

“I know what I can do” & “I do not know what I cannot do”

This is great too.  But there are problems to this individual.  You move too fast and high up, and may hit into lots of blind spots and obstacles.  You may hurt people and yourself along the way to complete your tasks.  Not good in the long run as you may loose friends at work (which are very important), UNLESS you want to be successful lone ranger.  Our advice is to pair up with someone who complements your character.  They can watch the blind spots for you and reduce the damage done along the way.

“I know what I cannot do” & “I do not know what I can do”

You are limiting yourself and not wanting to expose to opportunities.  You are change resistant.  Not good.  Give yourself a chance to explore.  You never know what you can achieve.  But don’t rush yourself; you need time and the right situation to wake the potential.  If you belong to this combination, our advice is to talk to your surrounding friends and co-workers.  They will know what you can be best in.  Heed their advices and be certain that you will make it.

“I do not know what I can do” & “I do not know what I cannot do”

Individuals are totally in a lost of direction in their life.  If you feel this way, you may be experiencing some downward trend of your life.  Fear not.  The first thing you have done well is that you recognize that you belong to this combination.  The second thing you will do is to think positive.  It’s not a day that you will become positive.  Sometimes take a break from whatever you are doing will certainly help you find the answer.  Try asking the people around you too like “I know what I cannot do” & “I do not know what I can do” individuals.  They might have some positive perception of you that you do not know.

Being aware of your abilities and how you think is important to achieving personal productivity.  Personal productivity starts with Me, with personal awareness.  It is important not to undermine our personal awareness.  Sharpening our personal awareness allows to even better have self-control and delivering work.  Essentially transforming to better personal productivity for you!

Recall back to our combination from the personal awareness quadrants?  Pessimism and hopelessness are what we want to avoid.

1. “I know what I can do” & “I know what I cannot do” – Certainty
2. “I know what I can do” & “I do not know what I cannot do” – Boldness
3. “I know what I cannot do” & “I do not know what I can do” – Pessimism
4. “I do not know what I can do” & “I do not know what I cannot do” – Hopeless

“I know what I cannot do” & “I do not know what I can do”

Picture this, your boss believes that you are a team lead potential and assigns you management tasks.  He is fully confident of your ability to assume the position.  However, you on the other hand feel that you are not up to mark to this new title and rejected it. In the end, your boss gets annoyed after persistence offering and promoted somebody else.  Sounds familiar?

These individuals can be sometimes annoying to the bosses or co-workers.   The external parties know you are up to mark.  But you insist you are incapable, overseeing what you really are worthy of.  The exact nature of “I do not know what I can do”.  Further to that, “I know what I cannot do” reinforces the unworthiness of the individual.  How can we achieve personal productivity with such negative mind set?

There is still one good thing about these individuals.  They have untapped potentials that is waiting for the right time to be unleashed.  Therefore, be patient with them as they are usually change resistant too.

“I do not know what I can do” & “I do not know what I cannot do”

Lost sheep, lack of self-worth and hopeless are good words to define such individuals. This is an extreme case where we really want to get out of.  You will definitely have met one of this people in your life be it is at work or life.   They do not know what they can do, directed by “I do not know what I can do”.  “I do not know what I cannot do” further makes them blinded by such thoughts.

With such hopelessness, how can one achieve personal productivity when there is so much emptiness to fill?  The lack of self-worth creates a situation where the individual will continue to indulge in his negative thoughts in a downward spiral manner.  Personal productivity will never be achieved with the individual in a constant mode of negativism.

We hope you do not fall into the negative personal awareness combination.  If you do, all hope is not lost.  The least we start of is to recognise them.  Everything has a starting point and there are ways to correct them and proceed with the positive personal awareness.

Mixing and matching them, you get the following combination.

1. “I know what I can do” & “I know what I cannot do” – Certainty
2. “I know what I can do” & “I do not know what I cannot do” – Boldness
3. “I know what I cannot do” & “I do not know what I can do” – Pessimistic
4. “I do know what I can do” & “I do not know what I cannot do” – Hopeless

Let us look at the combinations of positive awareness.

“I know what I can do” & “I know what I cannot do”

Given a task, the individual will plan out what to do base on his abilities and experiences.  He knows how to “get there”.  He is certain of the outcome.  This is defined by “I know what I can do”.  Further to that, he draws the limits that he is supposed to work in.  This is defined by “I know what I cannot do”.  Knowing what he cannot do, he knows that he needs to be resourceful in order to get the piece of work done.  It may be through searching through the network of names he has or targeted topics in his research.

This is ideal in getting work done.  He knows how to manage.  The circumstance he wants to be in that will be advantageous to him.  The knowledge of the certainty outcome will get him committing to sub-tasks which eventually lead to the completion of the main task.  Personal productivity achieved at a modest level.

“I know what I can do” & “I do not know what I cannot do”

You will have at least one of these individuals in your life. This individual is bold and daring.   He is a forward driven person with hindsight of his past experiences.  Dictated by “I know what I can do”.  He knows he CAN do it.  He knows he can succeed and will not fail.  He does not allow limits to be drawn around his given task.  Without the awareness of “I do not know what I cannot do” he do not know where his limits are. He only considers obstacles as a challenge to bring him forward to his next goal.

This is ideal in excelling from the average.  The sky’s the limit.  He only wants “win”.  The boldness and attitude will allow him to overcome all obstacles and eventually lead him to excel in his field of work.  Personal productivity achieved at the peak level.

Both are positive combination of personal awareness.  The individuals of both combination have one thing in common, positive thinking.  They are forward looking and certain of their outcome.  They do not say “no”.  Personal productivity begins with Me saying “yes”.  Their thinking mechanism only permits the successful completion of the task (saying to “yes”).    With this “yes” attitude, the individual is able to overcome obstacles and achieve their goals (completion of tasks), resulting in productivity, a personal one.

Do you have any resemblances of the positive personal awareness?

“I know what I can do” – The most preferred quadrant.  Individuals of this quadrant know what they are doing.  Know who, what, where, when and how they can do to achieve their objectives.  Usually they are confident individuals that are able to predict the outcome.

“I know what I cannot do” – Usually paired together with individuals of “I know what I can do”; Individuals are conscious of their limit of their abilities.  This is important as they can identify which type of work is suitable for them and which are above their abilities.

“I do not know what I can do” – Individuals fail to recognize their fullest potential.  Their superiors may have identified their untapped potentials but always stumble with the unwillingness of the individual to unleash them.   Usually these individuals are resistance to change.

“I do not know what I cannot do” – Ignorance is not a blessing here.  Individuals that fall into this quadrant are usually ignorant and over-confident.  They fail to see what they can’t perform and usually get themselves into trouble.

Personal productivity starts from understanding your personal awareness.  In the four quadrants, by knowing where you are, you can estimate your effort in a task, the time frame committed, the boundaries you are working in, or even further improve personal productivity.  Personal productivity is not merely the personal aspect but it can also be achieved at the situational aspect where for example, you are aware of how much effort is required in performing a certain task in a particular situation.

Of course, there is no one straight cut to a specific quadrant.  There can be combinations of quadrant and they can deviate in different situations.  Now look back the past events that happened at work.  Which of the quadrants do you feel you best relate to in how you are aware of yourself and the situation?  Were you able to identify that you were able to optimize personal productivity if you were being more aware of yourself or the situation?    Have a thought about it!