Change How You Delivery a No

• give an explanation – this helps associate logic with the response (some p
  eople value that)
• say you want to, but simply cannot or are unable to at that time
• No thanks, I’m simply not interested.
• Well I’d love to, but I don’t have time this weekend, sorry.

Say No When It Truly Matters

When first learning to say no, it might be very difficult to have that response for everything you want to actually say no to.  There are certainly things you value your time for more than others and its these most important things you value that will help you say no when requests come piling in for your time.  Perhaps its your time with your family you value most, perhaps its your activities, a special event; whatever it is, remembering to keep time available or that important item will help you identify which requests you should start saying ‘no’ to.  The ones that will impact your important time the most, the things that truly matter to you, those are the ones you need to start saying no to first.

I’m happy to introduce another guest author, Tim Rye who operates Extra Space Storage, and has much to tell about face to face communication skills.  Read more about Tim or contact him from his info at the end of the article.

One of my friends just came into the room. Oh, there’s another one. No, I’m not at a party (who has time for social events like that?) — I just happen to have my social networking software up and it’s telling me whenever a friend logs onto Facebook, sends me a tweet, or starts to compose an IM. The truth is, I can go for days interacting with friends and colleagues only via computer.

It’s great to be able to stay in touch this way, but as a result, I find that those occasional face to face encounters have become all the more precious. Ironically, I spend more time interacting with customers face to face than I do with my friends, family, or even my coworkers! But I believe in learning whatever you can from the experiences life gives you — and I’ve learned a lot about how to make the most from a face to face interaction by talking with my customers. Here are a few tips:

Make time for face time

Don’t turn down a chance to network with your colleagues because it will tear you away from your computer. I’m not an introvert — you can’t be in my line of work — but I know a lot of people who are. And for those individuals, the temptation to become a computer hermit is strong. If the opportunity for face time does not arise naturally, look for a professional conference to go to or even a lecture to attend. Or take the time to drop off a document in person (if it needs to go to someone in your town), just so you have a chance to say hello in person. Staying in touch through Facebook is good — but actual face to face time can really cement your connection. Make time for it.

Increase your vibration before you meet.

Increase your vibration? This is a New Age term I’ve been hearing from some of my customers — but to me it means, find a way to get your energy up before you meet with someone. If you are feeling down and depressed, you’ll be looking down a lot and your voice will seem flat. You won’t be able to seem interested in another person. So raise your energy in whatever way works for you — sing in the car on the way to your meeting, exercise that morning, drink a glass of orange juice or coffee — do whatever it takes to help you to feel cheerful and pleasant to be around. Most people can’t fake a good mood very effectively — so jolly yourself into a good mood, if you have to, before your face to face interaction. Extroverts seem to cheer up just by being around people, but if you are an introvert, you will have to take time to do this in advance.

Make eye contact.

In a meeting with colleagues or customers, don’t spend all your time looking down at your papers and taking notes. Not that having papers and notes is a bad thing — it can be a way to increase your credibility. But, I have to tell you, having facts and figures on the tip of your tongue, information that you can pull right out of your head, increases your credibility even more. Looking at people is hard if you are an introvert, but it shows people that you genuinely care and are interested in them. If you are too shy to look in someone’s eye, use an old self-defense trick: look at a point just over one of their shoulders. Believe it or not, it will still appear as though you are looking them in the eye.

Ask questions.

As they say on Sesame Street, asking questions is a good way to find out things you want to know! It’s true when you are a student, but it is equally true when you are a business owner or manager. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Most people are flattered when others take an interest in them.

Respect nonverbal cues.

Some nonverbal cues say “don’t talk to me right now.” Sometimes people don’t want to talk — yet. But pay attention, because “I don’t feel like talking” can turn into “I have a question” in the blink of an eye. You can tell when that change occurs by watching for nonverbal cues. Notice when a customer goes from a “head’s down” position, reading brochures and looking over merchandise, to a “head’s up” position, looking around and actively seeking to make eye contact with someone.

Have some down time later.

Again, this tip may not apply to you if you are an extrovert — but if you are a natural extrovert, you may not need to read this post at all! If you don’t get energized by being around people — if face to face interaction is a chore for you — then give yourself some time off between face to face interactions, if you can. Give yourself down time to recharge your batteries so that you can bring your energy back up for your next interaction. It’s worth taking the time to make sure that you are able to make the most out of each of your face to face experiences. But if one doesn’t go as well as you’d like, don’t worry about that either. I like to change the old saying, “Life is not a rehearsal,” and turn it on its head. The fact is, life IS a rehearsal. What comes before is practice for what comes next. So if a face to face doesn’t go so well, remind yourself that it was practice — and learn from it for next time.

Remember: most people say they are happiest when they have regular face to face interactions with other people. Don’t be shy about your face time with people — even if they are “merely” casual acquaintances — revel in it!

Tim Eyre helps residential and business customers who use self storage when they don’t have enough storage space on their own property. Tim’s company – Extra Space Storage – has locations from coast to coast, including Boston self storage storage and multiple Philadelphia self storage locations.

1. Make breakfast for someone in bed
2. Send someone a hand written thank you note for something they did
3. Leave a message or note telling someone what you appreciate about them
4. Make time commitments that are realistic and possible
5. Ensure you do everything you can to meet your commitments
6. Don’t take promises lightly, be honest and keep them
7. Turn the TV off and have a real conversation
8. Upgrade your communication style
9. Talk about what you both want out of a relationships
10. Find a chore you can do with another person
11. Offer to do a regular activity together
12. Buy groceries together
13. Go Shopping together
14. Organize a meal out with someone for friends
15. Go camping together
16. Take a road trip together
17. Have a staring contest
18. Have a picnic together
19. Schedule 10 minutes everyday to talk (with NO distractions)
20. Be spontaneous and energetic
21. Spend time researching great relationships
22. Learn from relationship masters
23. Read biographies of great relationship builders
24. Buy and read books on relationships
25. Put your relationship time BEFORE work, overtime or chores
26. Buy and gift a simple gift that reminds you of that person
27. Keep in touch with friends at least monthly even when living afar
28. Actually phone in person your facebook friends
29. Limit your online friends lists to those you want to be friends with
30. Don’t make lame excuses for things, be honest
31. Use encouraging positive words instead of negative or critical responses
32. Learn some cellphone etiquette and shut your phone off once in a while
33. NEVER be negative or critical in an email - its too dangerous and easily misinterpreted
34. Be a “yes” type of person when doing things for others
35. Learn to say “no” to keep your priorities in check
36. Teach someone how to do something
37. Exercise together
38. Make friendly competitions for achievement
39. Support each other in your actions / challenges
40. Take up a new hobby together to build a common interest
41. Never eat alone
42. Take and print photographs of activities together
43. Ask for help when you need it
44. Opening share your beliefs and values
45. Stick to your beliefs and express why
46. Know your moral principles and stick to themT
47. Share your spiritual personality
48. In challenging situations, ask yourself, “What would Jesus do?”
49. Learn behavioral models (like DISC) to communicate better
50. Learn personality models (like Meyers-Briggs) to apply personality tips
51. Be willing to have those necessary and crucial conversions
52. Create your own bucket list, share it and do many of them together
53. Improve your telephone skills
54. Give a gift that is more than a purchased item
55. Give genuine compliments on a regular basis
56. Surprise someone with a kind act towards them
57. Have conversations where one of you actively listens and ONLY repeats what you heard in your own words
58. Share your spiritual beliefs with each other
59. Pray together
60. Take up learning a new sport together
61. Take responsibility for your own happiness in the relationship without burdening or expected the other person to do that for you
62. Tell one another why and how they make you a better person
63. Identify and compliment anything you see them improve
64. Be gracious and quick to give an apology
65. Forgive one another quickly and completely
66. Stop complaining and start appreciating
67. Laugh together
68. Cry together
69. Serve others
70. Conquer a fear (like heights or fear of a certain animal) together
71. Never participate in gossip
72. Don’t share private relationship information that deserves to be kept private
73. Be spontaneous with activities and have fun
74. Never try to change someone else, change yourself instead
75. Avoid blaming others
76. Take time to think about your relationships in order to improve them
77. Make relationships priority and make time to work on them
78. Set some goals and work specifically on your relationships
79. Expose your vulnerabilities
80. Socialize with friends of friends
81. Compromise to resolve disputes
82. Be generous with expenses and money
83. Live below your means so you can save money and prevent money stress in your relationships
84. Be humble, not boastful
85. Take a weekend retreat together
86. Attend a relationships course
87. Put your self in other people’s shoes to gain perspective
88. Keep in touch often
89. Value what you have in each relationship and be grateful for it in conversations
90. Highlight and recognize every person’s specialty
91. Avoid assumptions by voicing questions and paraphrasing
92. Value your own time and don’t waste other’s time
93. Use humor and don’t take things too seriously
94. Building relationships takes time so be patient
95. Change things up with variety and by getting out of your comfort zone
96. Have empathy and express it
97. Study and improve your body language
98. Listen to music together
99. Tell the truth (in a kind way) even if it might be hurtful
100. Put the level of effort in, that you want to get out!

Do you have more to add?  Please add them as a comment for others to enjoy as well.

eBook – Building Better Relationships

Affiliate Program – What is it?

This affiliate program is a way for you to share in the profits from a great eBook as well as a way for you to help me get the word out for this new book.  My affiliate program is managed by ClickBank and it literally only takes a few minutes to sign up and you could immediately be earning 50% of any sales just by having it linked from your website as an article, a review, or an advertisement on your site.

Recommended Affiliate Steps

Step 1: First of all, the best way to encourage your readers to purchase anything is to first purchase it yourself and then provide a review page where you outline that product and recommend it.  Obviously this will work for my eBook as well and I’ve you to start as an affiliate by purchasing it and reviewing it for your readers.  You don’t have to purchase it of course, but that is the most effective way for bloggers to promote another product.  I know you will get the value you expect out of the eBook at its low price and what is even better, is that you can make that back after just 2 affiliate sales.

Step 2: Sign up as an affiliate at Clickbank.  All my instructions for how to do this are in my new affiliate page for the ebook. Signing up literally only takes a few minutes!

Step 3: Create your hoplink that tracks your affiliate sales from your review page and you will earn money for each sale.

Step 4: You can use ads on your site to promote the eBook as well and earn even more by offering this book to all your site visitors.  You can choose what kind of ad to use, from large sidebar boxes to several sizes of banner ads.  They are simple to ad to your side on widgets, in specific posts or by adding them to your theme so they appear on every page.  Many plugins for wordpress also exist for managing in post ads if you prefer to do it that way.  Again, my affiliate page for the ebook has advertising images you cna link to and the code is there for you to easily copy and paste into your site.  You simply will set your username in place of the XXXX codes to properly allow Clickbank to track that the sales are from your account.

Additional ClickBank Benefits and FAQ

• ClickBank costs absolutely NOTHING as an affiliate and only takes minutes to sign-up
• They have a low payout option in paypal set at only $10, so you can cash out for EACH sale from this ebook since you will earn $11
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We all strive for relationships to be improved somewhere in our lives and that is what this eBook is for.  It’s a guide to explore how you can begin to build better relationships today and get much more out of them in your life.  Relationships are the single most important things that impact our lives and affect our health, mindset and happiness.  This book explores the different aspects of relationships and how you can quickly and easily put specific actions and behaviors into place to break old negative relationship habits, and to form new healthier, stronger, more meaningful relationships.

View the eBooks page for more info on Building Better Relationships and hopefully, future eBooks as well.

Three Methods to Learn

Learning is obviously the main topic here at learnthis.ca and there are many ways to go about it and each person has their own learning styles.  There are three main styles of learning:

• Auditory (learn best by listening and hearing)
• Visually (learn best by seeing and observing visually)
• Kinesthetic (learn best by feelings, hands on and direct involvement)

Because of these styles, I wanted to make sure they all exist in this eBook as well to ensure it is useful to ANYONE.  And that is why this is so much MORE than an eBook.  It includes:

1. The eBook itself to read ( it is 38 pages with over 13000 words)
2. Not everyone learns or enjoys reading.  Some of us are audible learners or have more time available to listen than to read.  That is why there is also a full MP3 audio recording of the audio book read by the author, Mike King!  You will gain access to download the mp3 audio with the PDF upon purchase.
3. The best way to change habits and to make improvements is to actually take action!  That is why this book includes a 3 page workbook to help you assess your relationships and ensure that you reflect and plan specific actions to make the most of your relationships.

I’ll be updating my eBooks page on the LearnThis.ca site here with reader’s quotes and referrals for the book so I’d be happy to include any links or references from readers if you purchase it.  I’d love to hear your thoughts, would great appreciate any promotion you can help me with and I look forward to the reactions from this Book.  It was a joy to write and even more to learn from and put it into action.  I have a lot of work to do as well, as relationships are certainly not easy, but absolutely worth every second of investment.

Get The eBook, the Workbook AND the MP3 audio version all for one low price! View my eBook page here for ordering Building Better Relationships and future eBooks.
Twitter account (optional) Website (optional)	Only $22 US PDF, Workbook and MP3 Audio

A Friend that Gave it All

My story is of a friend I had that was always giving everything he had.  It didn’t matter what kind of circumstance he was in, he always seemed to bring so many great things to a situation, a conversation or a friendship.  I got together with him and other friends from time to time for some discussions, games or a meal and he always stood out to me in that he lived with no desire for all the stuff, possessions and things that are so desirable by today’s standards.  He led what seemed to be a simple life but I now think it was far from it, which I’ll explain below.  He just didn’t care about all that stuff the rest of us have.  He had a run down car that barely got him around, a simple house and very basic possessions.  He never had new ‘things’ to talk about and really just never seemed interested in any of that.  What I see now is how much of these other things in life and our possessions really PREVENT us from giving all we have.  I could see that he was always fully engaged in conversation, laughter and communicating with people because nothing else caught his eye and distracted him.  I’ve met no one like that before and that particular trait stood out to all who knew him.  You might say if was his charisma or his magnetic personality but really I think it was because he was always giving you everything he had in that moment.  All the things from Jonathan’s list linked above…

Anyway, he traveled a lot for missions giving his time and energy to those in much more need than him around the world.  His love for others and to serve God enabled him to give so deeply and passionately.  I never understood giving in this way until hearing his stories of giving in shattered 3rd worlds where there seems to be little hope.  The beautiful thing with giving from the heart, and especially in 3rd worlds, is that any gift from the heart is immediately recognized and valued sincerely.  People (and especially children) who don’t experience much joy in life get a little piece of happiness and hope when someone gives them their attention, a smile, or some time to play with them.  These are gifts from the heart and they are the most valuable gifts you can give.  Looking at how to love someone else and provide them something on the spot and in the moment is the greatest gift and I’m afraid loosing its perceived value against our society of stuff.

So, let me explain my comment about living simply from above.  Our high standards society in 1st world nations has a different definition of simple if you ask me.  It would state that simple life is less stuff and this is really only partially true.  I also see simple in the WAY we react to everything around us.  A simple life is actually more complex and more difficult because there is a far deeper understanding of oneself and one’s awareness and present moment in order to keep our interactions simple. This is especially true in a complex and distracting environment.   There are literally thousands of advertisements and distractions every single day that train us to think all those things will make our lives simpler when in reality they just mess it up more.  Its easiest to just go with the flow and experience all those distractions every single day.  To avoid all that is tough, and its certainly not simple. In fact, its more acceptable to be distant and distracted every moment of our lives and we willingly join in competition to express how busy we are all the time.  None of this helps learn to give though, for that, we need to eliminate distractions and look at the things we have to give others from our heart.  We must enhance our ability to focus on people instead of stuff, to be fully present with others regardless of the distractions.  This will generate a more fulfilling life and it enables a person to give more from the heart.

A journey into the unknown… . I don’t really know where or when I will end up, and it doesn’t really matter. It will be an adventure, an epic journey, a time of soul-searching and of praying, of exploring and learning and sharing – a time of drinking Life to the fullest.
–Quoted from his blog

OK, back to the story. Well, my friend decided to ride his bicycle across west Africa to experience his favorite place on Earth to its absolute fullest and he headed out to do so.  He wrote about his journey about how he was impacting people daily with his incredible giving spirit and how much joy he was experiencing as a result.  He literally created hundreds of smiles from strangers every day and great friendships with the people he’s met and stayed with along his way.  Before he was able to complete his bicycle journey, however, he was struck and killed by a vehicle on one of the highways.  His Earthly years may have been short, but his impact and influence left behind is great.  I always remember his giving spirit and he’s one of those people you think of that is just larger than life.  All of those fond memories are memories that are tied to the authentic giving he was always able to do from his heart.

What kind of gifts do you think of when you hear about a gift from the heart?  Who have you learned the essence of giving from?  How do you come across to others in your giving?  Spend some time thinking of your own stories and memories about giving this Christmas and do what you are meant to do at Christmas, give from the heart!

Gossip is one of the most common problems in the workplace as well as in relationships.  The biggest problem with it is that most people don’t even realize when a discussing takes a turn towards gossip and even worse is that they don’t realize the impact of gossip. Well gossip is a relationship killer and it happens much more frequently than you might want to believe.  Gossip is basically anything that could be seen as a negative spoken about one person to another when they are not there to hear it first hand.  It could be something very simple with zero intent to harm them and it could be as harsh as an intentional slander of someone’s character.

There is nothing good about gossip and it usually hurts the person under gossip and the people involved in sharing the gossip.  There are risks in having the person find out about a person sharing gossip (gossips) as well as the pain and hurt to that person of whatever negative information is spread.  There are many additional dangers of gossip:

• stress to those involved
• hurt feelings
• destroys teamwork
• destroys the desire for people to share any meaningful vulnerabilities
• prevents communication that requires trust by encouraging people to keep their mouth shut
• creates undeserved reputations

Your Own Choices Around Gossip

All of these dangers should be enough to convince anyone to avoid gossip, unfortunately, they are not.  Gossip is temping and often encouraged by the behaviors of people.  Gossips welcome all new gossip and they often turn those who don’t participate in their gossip into their own victims of new gossip. Its often easier to participate than to risk becoming a victim and for many there is also an attraction (for a multitude of reason) to participate for their own reasons.  Gossip is selfish and usually malicious in that it downplays or attacks someone else (whether subtle or obvious) to make the gossips look better in comparison.  This is exactly why its so destructive because it destroys so much in oneself, let alone the victims of gossip.  It destroys your character and puts you into a position where you can’t be trusted.  The power that gossip gives is very temporary and usually short sided which ends up coming back negatively to the gossips.  The most common of these methods is when gossip turns around and the people involved in gossip then become victims of gossip themselves, often within the same group destroying any bonds the gossip might be falsely or temporarily created anyway.  Other consequences of gossip are getting caught, building mistrust, false relationships, spreading untrue rumors and many hurt feelings and people left in the wake of gossip.

The great thing about gossip is that it really is very easy to free yourself from it if you can chose to avoid it and learn a few techniques to help identify it, handle it and stay clear of the problems caused by it.  So how is that done?

Identify Gossip

Many times gossip is quite obvious and undisguised.  It could be as simple as people asking questions about what you heard or know or thought about someone else or their actions.  It could sound like the following:

• Did you hear what Frank said to Sally?
• You wouldn’t believe what I heard John did this weekend?
• I heard that Gerry…
• Did you see Lisa’s new boyfriend?

All these do not necessarily lead to negative gossip but they are obvious conversations about other people and should be very easy to identify in a conversation or start of one.  Not all gossip is as easy to recognize as this, unfortunately, and sometimes it is much more disguised.  It might even happen when talking with a friend or colleague when the conversation started about simple facts or positives about someone else and shifted to negatives or problems about that person.  If you are not talking about how to help that person, support them to resolve their problems or some other positive action when discussing others, its quite likely its turning into gossip.  Basically, if you are talking about someone else, you need to really stop and think if you are doing it to help them or not.  If your not, its gossip and there is no need for it.

Influencing Gossip

“Death and life are in the power of the tongue.” Proverbs 18:21

Since gossip is so powerful it has a great influence on others and so it must be battled through positive influence in response.  There are a number of actions you can take against gossip.

Ignore it:

• Avoid people who talk gossip and don’t give any opportunities for them to spread it
• Simply leave the room or conversation when gossip starts
• Don’t respond to questions about opinions on others or other gossip traps
• Ignore gossip and don’t engage in any gossip based conversations

Prevent it:

• Never start any of your own gossip
• Change the topic whenever a conversation leads to gossip
• Refuse to listen or respond to any gossip you are faced with
• Hide any hurt feelings or dramatic reaction to gossip.  This fuels the gossips to continue as its often what gossips want to generate.

Confront it:

• Politely say that you would prefer to talk about that person when they are present
• If you know the source of gossip, go and confront them immediately and calmly tell them you do not appreciate them talking about you and that it causes hurt feelings whether intentional or not.
• If you hear someone start some gossip, offer to go to that victimized person with the gossiper right away to discuss it.
• Simply respond to gossip, “Would you like to have someone share that about you without you knowing?” and walk away.
• State I don’t like talking about other people because I don’t like them talking about me.
• State that you don’t talk about others unless its to help them or support them
• State that you don’t want to talk about others negatively unless they are involved in the discussion

The One Communication Mistake We All Make

There is one mistake everyone makes from time to time in the way they communicate.  This is when we send our message instead of communicating in a way that ensures our message is in fact received.  This happens when we are impatient or not considering the other person’s perspective and we simply think that making our voice heard and our message sent is in fact communicating.  Well, it is not.  Communication is all about how you actually deliver your message and so you cannot simply send your message without knowing it is actually received.

Don’t make the mistake of sending your message simply to get your ideas out without regard for others.  Keep your ego at bay when you want to be heard and consider whether it is an appropriate time for the receiver as well as you to communicate.  Remember, if they are not going to hear it, then it isn’t worth saying.

Getting Past Being Right

The next mistake often made in communication is that of having to be right.  Many of us just love to be right and it is a conversation and healthy communication killer.  If you do not stop to listen to other perspectives and accept new ideas in the way you communicate, this having to be right habit will surface often and it a tough problem to break.  Trust me, I know from experience.  I can’t say I’ve broken this habit myself but its something I’m much more aware of and I do notice it and stop myself often.  If you simply state that you disagree AFTER listening to another person’s angle and actually ensuring you understand it, you can still debate things in conversation but if you have a habit of telling someone else how they are wrong, you can immediate kill the conversation.

Criticism

Criticism for some people is very easy and its often the first thing on your mind when you hear other people’s ideas.  I think this is closely related to the bad habit of having to be right and this one comes more subtle but even more dangerous because often it isn’t even founded in anything.  Being critical and voicing it often comes very easy to most.  Its a way to express creative ideas but unfortunately, when it is delivered as critism, it is often a power trip for a creative mind to show their creative powers over another’s idea.

All three of these bad communication habits lead to adversarial communications and they can harm your relationships with other people.  Be aware of these in your conversations and look to eliminate these bad habits by replacing them with good communication habits.  Listen more than you speak, try to actually understand what others are telling you before debating it and don’t tell them they are wrong or make generalizations about people with words like always and never.  Keep your criticism at bay and do your best to keep conversations going by showing interest in others, inquiring more about what they want to talk about and by staying open minded of other’s ideas.  These steps will help you practise good communication techniques and can lead you away from the bad habits that bring upon adversarial communication.

Your heart and soul must be engaged for true forgiveness, not just your actions.

Trapped in the Past

The need for forgiveness always stems from some moral wrongdoing, harm caused to self and others or some situation that leads a person feeling victimized.  Each of these leave reminders and memories in our lives about our past and locks us into a cycle of guilt, doubt, and pain.  Getting out of this cycle and looking at what true forgiveness really entails is so important.  It’s tough to do though, since true forgiveness is very difficult.

Victimization is a huge roadblock for many things in life and certainly, its connected to forgiveness and nearly always the reason preventing true forgiveness from happening.  These victim scenarios are held fast in our minds and to forgive, we must let them go and look to move on from that situation or hurt associated with it.  The pain is real and should not be suppressed, it should be dealt with and faced instead.  Victimization keeps reviving those feelings and locks us in to continual feelings of guilt, shame and anger.  Release those feelings of resentment and look forward to future intentions.

Acceptance, Not Tolerance

Often apologies and the age old response of “I forgive you” are treated as the steps to forgiveness and while those actions can be helpful in the process of forgiveness, they are not enough themselves.  Forgiveness is a process, not a single event and it goes much deeper than what you say or reveal to others.

Often forgiveness is pushed to the surface for others to see where there is still resentment inside.  This is not forgiveness, it’s tolerance and it does nothing to get by the internal pain of the wrong doing.  True forgiveness takes that so much deeper and turns the wrong doing around by acceptance of it and understanding of it.  This certainly doesn’t mean you agree with it or are not hurt by it, but it does mean you fully accept the actions, the pain and can let it go so you are no longer trapped by the hurtful act.

Acceptance comes from within when forgiving actions and it requires one to find acceptance within your own beliefs, understanding and experience.  You cannot repeatedly stumble or dwell on a problem and have truly forgiven it.  They just can’t coexist.  To forgive, is to accept and to move on.

There is Always Love in Forgiveness

I can’t write about forgiveness without including love.  Love is the foundation of true forgiveness and must be present.  Love is far more powerful than anger and hatred and is exactly why it enables forgiveness to happen.  Love prevails.  Love endures.

Love when it comes to forgiveness is about the love of others and love of self necessary to bring true acceptance, repentance for wrong doings and even the hope to look only for future intentions.  Self love battles the victimization and can lead a person from shame or pity from a hurtful act to forgive themselves, learn from those actions and use it to serve others and the future.

These factors seem obvious to me and they are actually the reasons why I don’t have a cell phone.  I find most cell phone users to be completely unaware of how their usage of their phone portrays their own etiquette.  Sometimes it seems that phone users think they are in their own little world when they use their phone.  Surprise surprise, others can still hear you and your phone when you use it. Because of this, here are some tips to make better use of your phone.

Your Cell Phone Ring

It’s one thing to have a unique ring, but another to have an annoying one.  You really should pick a ring that is unique so you can easily identify your own phone’s ring, but you should never pick one that is annoying. Your ring is not only heard by you, but everyone around you, strangers, your friends, your colleagues and even potential employers.  You should keep it professional and tolerable.

The other thing with you phone’s ringer you should get in the habit of using is the silent mode or vibrate mode.  Spare those around you and put the phone on silent mode so you don’t interrupt them.  After all, no one else cares when your phone rings so why would force them to hear it?  There is nothing more annoying than people who have a cell phone that rings when they leave it on their desk and walk away from it.  If you don’t keep your phone on you all day, you should definitely keep it on silent.  And if you do keep it on you, then there is no reason not to use vibrate mode.

Your Cell Phone Volume

The volume you use on your cell phone isn’t much different than the volume of your own voice in a conversation.  Do you think it’s polite to be yelling in a conversation?  Of course not, nor is it polite to have a cell phone so loud others can hear your conversation.  The same goes for the ringer.  Keep the volume down!

Your Cell Phone Interruptions

This is what bothers me the most from cell phone users.  Taking a call no matter where or what you are doing with no regard to what or who you are interrupting.  When someone is in a conversation, is it polite to instantly interrupt them? Well no, so you shouldn’t let anyone do this in a conversation with your cell phone either.  Put attention and priority to who you are physically with and turn your cell phone off or at least don’t answer it when you are in a conversation.  Let it go to voice mail.  You show great respect to an individual if you let them be your prime focus when in a conversation instead of letting your phone interrupt you.  When you do put attention to your phone interruption, it sends the message to the party you were first talking to in person that your phone call (even before you know who it was) was more important to you and that you’d rather take the call.  Not really a polite thing to do.

Your Cell Phone Distractions

Not only do the call interruptions impact the people you interrupt, but calls also become major distractions to your own productivity and activities.  If you are busy working on something or focusing on a task, phone calls and ringing cell phones just distract you from that.  Most calls are truly not that important and there is always voice mail to answer the call for you so you can then check all your messages together at a later time.  This allows you to stay focused on your tasks at the right time and then batch process your messages on your cell phone when you are ready to.  Eliminating these distractions lets you accomplish more, be more productive and to be more professional in your relationships and manners with your cell phone.