December 2010
By Anil Bhatnagar
Keys to a lifetime to healthy relationship.
Known as Mr Dependable, Rahul Dravid is respected by his team mates for consistently putting team over self. |
This is the fourth and last instalment of our ongoing quiz on communication, active presence, trustworthiness and dependability. It should help you understand how far your habits and attitude are geared towards initiating and developing empowering and deeply fulfilling relationships. The quiz should also help you draw a customised step-by-step action plan to bring about desired changes that may provide you with a lifetime of happy relationships. There are columns numbered 1 to 10 sandwiched between two bigger columns titled ‘The favourables’ and ‘The unfavourables’ that denote desirable and undesirable behaviors. The quiz will gauge how effectively you communicate, carry your active presence in interactions and are perceived as trustworthy and dependable by others. These are traits that play a vital role in developing mutually nourishing relationships.
A. Scoring
• Read the first statement in the ‘Unfavourables’ column and then its ‘desirable’ version under the ‘Favourables’ column.
• Depending on the extent to which this statement is true for you, rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 (If you never do what is written in the statement, mark yourself ‘1’ under the sub-column marked ‘1’ and if you always do it (100 per cent of the time), give yourself ‘10’ under the sub-column ‘10’. Give yourself marks accordingly in between. For example, if you do it 50 per cent of the time, mark a ‘5’ under the sub-column ‘5’.
• Repeat step ‘1’ and ‘2’ above for each of the 10 statements.
B. Interpretation
Total up your marks and divideby 10.
• A score of 1 to 2 is poor
• 3 to 4 is below average
• 5 to 6 is average
• 7 to 8 is above average
• 9 to 10 is excellent
C. Action plan
• Identify areas where you have scored low (below 5). These are the habits which you need to improve upon. Now considering your relative scorings and importance, endorse each of these favourable habits with priority numbers from ‘1’ to ‘10’. The habit where you have scored a ‘1’ and which, according to you, is more important than the others where you earned a scoring of ‘1’ should become your top priority.
• Use your will power to work on developing the top priority habit by doing it every day for 30 consecutive days against all inner resistance. If you miss a day, start all over again.
• Pick up the next habit in the priority and develop it as suggested in step 5
Sr. No. | Unfavourables | Evaluation on ten points scale | Favourables | |||||||||
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | |||
1 | I am very sensitive towards my own needs but I am quite dumb in understanding those of others unless these are expressed. Sometimes I have difficulty fulfilling even expressed needs. | I am blessed with the gift of seeing and understanding other person’s needs in a given situation. And I seek to fulfill these needs even before these are expressed. (However I don’t expect the same from the other person). | ||||||||||
2 | In mature relationships, people don’t need to share their needs, expectations and feelings. | In mature relationships, it is a desirable trait to express our needs, expectations and feelings and seek to understand those of others. | ||||||||||
3 | A greeting has no other purpose than what it is — a starter to a conversation or a way to express that I acknowledge your presence. We all (including me) do it absent-mindedly. | My greetings are not mechanical habitual things. I become aware of the meaning of the greeting as I say it. I send my heartfelt good wishes when I do so. | ||||||||||
4 | I am too intelligent. I somehow come to know what the other person wants to convey even before he has finished talking. Therefore, I am very impatient with people, especially when they are talking. I find it difficult not to interrupt them in between. | I seek to understand the other person before wanting to be understood. I listen to the other person patiently. I never interrupt others till they have finished talkinxg and seek their permission before beginning to convey my viewpoint. | ||||||||||
5 | I get deeply hurt and lose my temper whenever my basic expectations are not met with. | Whenever a person fails to meet my expectations, instead of feeling hurt and expressing my anger and displeasure, I express what I want the other person to do to make me feel better. | ||||||||||
6 | I cannot see others except through my own image of them. |
There is always a gap between our image of the other person and that person’s own image about himself/herself. This gap is often a source of unnecessary and avoidable friction and must be discussed and reconciled at appropriate junctures. Man is a river and keeps changing and this must be taken into account. | ||||||||||
7 | I find it boring to share the stuff that is over and I am not sure if the other person will be willing to listen to me even if I make an attempt. |
I share almost every happening and development with people around me. I also show eagerness to know the same from others. And I don’t discuss just the easy stuff. I have the courage, honesty, trust and tact to discuss the most difficult things, including grievances and any other kind of negative feedback in the most soothing and peaceful manner possible and I don’t postpone important discussions. | ||||||||||
8 | I am too quick to promise without thinking much. I usually need to break my word. |
I keep my word. | ||||||||||
9 | I am pretty busy. I know that I am offering a lip service when I say that I am available when needed. But I cannot help it. | I make myself available when the other person needs me. | ||||||||||
10 | I often distort the facts and speak lies because sometimes I do not have the courage to speak the truth, especially because I feel insecure doing so. In life, a practical person cannot help but hide things. | I always speak the truth, unless it is because of a well considered conscious reason to help the person from whom I withhold the truth. Even under such circumstances, I consider telling the truth as soon as circumstances make it possible. | ||||||||||
11 | I know relationships demand time, and time is precious. I do not spend it on every Tom, Dick, and Harry, but on well-connected powerful people who can help me get business or support me in a crisis or an emergency. I am choosy in relationships. | I keep questioning the deeper, especially, the not-so-pleasant to know’ motives of my responses, to the other person in a ruthlessly honest manner. |
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12 | I ensure in each interaction with others that I hold a mirror in which people can see their ugly face. | I make others feel special. I ensure that others feel ‘better than before’ after meeting me. | ||||||||||
Total | = |
(* This quiz is strictly for the personal use of readers only. No part of this quiz, or the ones published before by the same author in this magazine are permitted to be reproduced in any form or to be used by anyone, in part or full, for any commercial purposes without the written permission of the author).
Anil Bhatnagar, an IITian, apart from being a corporate trainer on behavioural skills to over 50 leading companies of the nation, is a motivational speaker, a personal growth coach, a reiki teacher, a painter, a columnist with The Times of India, and an ISTD award-winning author of five internationally acclaimed books. He also writes prolifically for some of the top Indian and International journals.
www.anilbhatnagar.com
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