First published in 2019 by Sean Patrick Durham
Self Development is a natural process that all humans go through — throughout life. We cannot stop learning about our world, and ourselves.
Most importantly we must make decisions about the things we learn about and put to use in our own lives.
This is how we get to know who we really are.
It’s the things that we discover in our own lives that we should pay attention to. When we look into our own activities, and observe them with a deeper mind we begin to use creativity to help change perspectives on these things.
To believe that watching how others create success in their lives, and to slavishly follow in their steps is a mistake.
Doing this can only lead to a push-button style of living which blocks any chance of creative thinking.
What is your plan?
Without a solidly built plan which shows you the way forwards, you will not reach your goals. Goal setting is decision making, and a decision is the initiator of action.
Your planning must be based on what to do in order to reach a destination in your life. Those destinations that you choose for yourself must be realistic.
The realities that you decide upon are based on your own perspectives in life.
This is where the saying, “If you think a thing is possible, then it probably is,” comes from.
Your own perspective on a thing is important to your success.
What another person thinks about your plans should be of no importance to you, especially at the start, just after building the plan and revving up the engines at the start line.
It’s because we are all lacking in something that our plans will often appear to be incomplete to other people, and they will often have something negative to say about your ideas.
Your plan is your perspective on the matter and if you know that its about as good a start that you’ll get for now, then go ahead without the consent of others.
Go ahead without a full fledged plan, or all of the tools that are recommended, just get yourself into action. Its when you are doing something that you consider to be important you begin to see things more clearly.
When the creative juices start to bubble up with new ideas, your plan will show up the cracks that need filling, and the basis of your idea will be put to the test, by you, not by a third party who believes to know better.
You only know a thing by its qualities and its use, you can only discover this by being with it in action.
Realistic goals are always big. They are humanly possible and inspiring to the person who sets them. If you set small goals, and see the end results that you want as arbitrary but useful, that is what your life will become and it will stay that way until you finally set a goal that puts a current of air under your wings.
“The wings of transformation are born of patience and struggle”
Are you an action oriented person?
For anything to happen in life there must be action. That sounds simple, but astonishingly, many people spend their lives only dreaming and hoping. They never get past the starting gate and into the race.
The reason for this is simply that the thought of taking action frightens them.
That’s all of it, just fear.
Take Responsibility for yourself
Life should be a joy, that’s the happiness factor we are all looking for, joy. So, there is no risk in working on your plans to find out what happens when you do.
When we take responsibility for our own ideas, things begin to happen and we must react to them. This is were our creative minds come into play, we use our perspectives of life, our own experiences of the past to build new ideas about the present.
It’s as if a process of reiteration is taking place, sometimes it can feel like we are in free-fall with nothing to hold on to. It’s now that we must trust ourselves.
Creativity is the Queen of your mind
Creativity replaces the mundane habitual thinking that normally protects us, so we start to veer away from routines and ideas that offer security.
Being new, following fresh ideas, is all about veering off course and being different than before. That’s the path to achievement.
Taking a risk with your own thoughts, your own ideas and creativity in action, is to know yourself and trust yourself. Think about it, if you look to others to instruct you in how to start your business, how to write your novel, it will likely end being their business and their story. Which is not much use to you.
Listening to the experts on interesting subjects can be a beguiling experience, to genned up on the how to of something can satisfy questions in your own mind, and confirm your suspicions about what you already thought was right.
But, you should have the presence of mind to always keep your own perspective on the matter. To remember that what you plan on doing will most likely be more successful for you personally when you work at it according to your own unique perspective of the world.
Actions make waves and noise in the world — you open yourself to criticism from family and friends, you feel like you might be upsetting somebody “out there”, and they have more authority than you to be doing the work you do.
There is always somebody better than you, many are working in the same field of business as you but are not competent.
You must show the world that you know what you want, and that you offer something of great value to anybody who wishes to do business with you. that feeling to know, only comes when you do it yourself, make it up yourself and make sure it’s based on your own competent knowledge of how things work. You find out how things work by going into action.
Do you have self discipline?
Actions require self discipline to keep going. We all experience the great bursts of energy that initial enthusiasm brings us, but it will soon flatten-out into a straight forward need for simple hard work.
Self discipline will carry any person through the toughest and most unpleasant times. I’m not saying that your business is unpleasant to run, it is just a fact of life that most things have an element of tasks to do that aren’t always easy or fun to accomplish.
When your mind is focused on the task and you know that the end result depends on a good outcome, then self disciplined work will carry you through.
Good planning of how you will achieve a task, even when it lasts for several weeks before the good stuff happens, will help you finish what you begin.
Getting through difficult areas of moving forwards is an excellent way to learn about yourself and your business. Often, after achieving something difficult we have learned about some aspect that we couldn’t have seen before. The new standpoint of achievement gives us new knowledge and new perspectives.
Keeping a daily journal on how you feel about what you are doing, and where you intend on going with your idea, will clarify thoughts in a way you never thought possible. The journal is a marvellous tool for knowing what you are really thinking about, understanding why you did something and how to change things a bit at a time.
Try a journal and stick at it, the results are worth it.
Do you trust yourself and make good decisions? Decision making has a lot to do with self knowledge. How well do you cope with starting a new venture, going into the unknown territories and spaces of life where you basically have no idea how to work? Action is all we have when it comes to beginnings.
Using your daily journal to help you plot your course is a creative act and opens you up to a lot of new ideas that weren’t so clear before.
Self-discipline isn’t forcefulness. there is no use in bullying yourself into doing things. By writing a passage of journal a day, your thoughts about relative matters to your goals and needs, you discover how you feel about them.
You discover how you might avoid taking your income seriously, or that maybe you have to admit that hard work is not that attractive for you. But when you can see these things, and observe how you write about them, then it becomes clear in your mind, like a light shining on a bad thought, it becomes easier to route them out and replace them with a better perspective of things.
Journaling shows us our perspectives on life and our biases, good and bad. This presents the opportunity to change things properly and permanently.
Without the readiness for decisive action that continues on until after the sun has gone down, where you have to sacrifice other things that are more relaxing and enjoyable, nothing good will happen.
A decision is only worth the actions put behind it. The results speak for the validity of the decision, not the other way round.
You can never know much about an idea until you see it working in the world. You must act upon decisions with the attitude that you will find out if you made the right decision. Then you can make a new decision to continue or throw it, knowing that it’s not for you.
Are you always learning about your goals and yourself — how do they connect?
Without a constant self-check system in place, you will not be able to see your progress. Sometimes progress with yourself and your business is so small, almost hidden, that we can feel as if our actions are not worth anything when in fact they are valuable components of a bigger thing.
Nevertheless, without knowing it you are making from z<ero to hero, a little step at a time.
Keeping a check on what you have done and how you did it will build a back story to your progress.
Every good story has a solid backstory, characters who are action oriented, and feel compelled to face the world full-on.
Not all things in business are about money, income and the sound of the cash machine, your mind and how you deal with the work is important in your development as a business person, a writer, entrepreneur, or just a happy person who wants to experience life.
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