There are some things that stood out to me from reading today.
Well, I'll write a bit about some things I'm going to be focusing on
regarding my personal development, then I'll write about those things.
For a while now, I've already had certain things written down
for increasing my inner strength. It's important to focus on
because of those times I have 'moments of weakness.'
Not just emotional, or spiritual. Weaknesses that prevent me from
overcoming huge obstacles (blocks).
It takes inner strength to bust through these blocks.
This is why it is important to me.
Without it, I'm going to keep continually blocking myself.
And it will be harder to overcome these 'moments of weakness.'
With inner strength, I can turn these 'moments of weakness'
into 'moments of strength.' At least that's the pupose behind this.
So about these things I read today...
One was a set of questions...
1) Who are your teachers?
2) What are you learning?
3) What limits (if any) do you put on your teachers?
(who they are or what they have to teach).
4) Are there certain individuals or groups
from whom you are unwilling to learn?
"It's usually that which you resist
that contains the greatest opportunity
for growth & development."
Even that being said, there's a lot of reasons we resist what we resist.
Usually our resistance has to do with our beliefs.
Beliefs can do one of two things for us.
1) Support us, or...
2) Sabotage us.
For a long time, I sabotaged myself in many ways.
By letting things get the best of me.
Being consumed by things that weren't, don't, and aren't supporting me.
We close ourselves off from the things we resist.
And in doing so we close ourselves off from those opportunities
for growth & development.
The next thing:
"Unless you try to do something
beyond what you have already mastered,
you will never grow."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson.
The author was writing that those who invest in themselves
'experience more fulfillment.'
And yet few people 'commit to meaningful self-development.'
He goes on to provide statistics:
The average American reads less than one non-fiction book per year.
58% of the American population never reads another non-fiction book
front to back after they finish high school.
Just one hour each day positions us to get to the top in 3 years.
Increase the hours, shorten the amount of years it takes. That is how it works.
And what if we don't have an extra hour in the day?
We can create more time by giving up something else.
Like how we spend so much time feeding our addictions
and not a lot of time doing what it takes to get through and get ahead.
There was something about sharpening the saw.
Someone saw a lumberjack cutting down a tree and asked:
"Why don't you take a break and sharpen your saw?"
The lumberjack said: "I'm too busy sawing to sharpen my saw."
Many of us believe we are too busy to improve ourselves
even when improving ourselves would make doing what we do easier.
Many of us would say we are too busy to even find out how
we could improve ourselves if we 'had the time' to improve ourselves.
Many of us believe we don't have the time,
but not many of us make the time.
We all have the same amount of time, 24 hours each day.
Broken down to serve us in the allotted ways.
Sleep, eating, bathing, working, etc.
People often look for shortcuts.
They don't want to spend the time doing something.
"It would go faster if I did this..."
Even though they cut down on the quality of the results.
Expediency doesn't always equate to efficiency.
Like that saying....
There's no elevator to success, you have to take the stairs.
How many people would rather take an elevator than take the stairs?
Even when it's one floor they'd have to walk up to?
The thing is that a lot of people get complacent in their lives.
In many areas of their lives. It's not just about laziness.
It's about complacency.
But with complacency comes a lot of disatisfaction.
There's a certain level of comfort in habits, even bad habits,
but the results or lack of results
speaks to a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction.
Or unfulfillment and disatisfaction.
I get this. I understand this. I've been there.
I've been around people all my life who have gotten and been complacent.
In many areas of their lives. Which obviously has had a negative impact on me.
They simply do not try anymore. Because in some ways,
it's easier not to try. Trying means they have to make the effort.
They don't 'have the energy' to 'make the effort.'
So they make excuses like not having the energy to make the effort.
I've made a sh*tload of my own excuses.
Making excuses is only a way of excusing ourselves from doing it.
Giving us an escape route even though deep down,
we know that there are benefits that come with making the effort.
I see people all the time saying: "I wish I could do (whatever)."
But they don't ever try to do whatever. It takes time and effort.
People don't go from not being able to do something
to being able to do it in a couple of tries.
Yet they'll still say they 'wish' they 'could' do it.
Do they ever take the time to learn how to do it? No.
Because they are too busy wishing they could do it.
"Mastering the fundamentals requires patience, persistence, and practice."
How many times have I heard (when it comes to knitting)
"I wish I could do it, but I don't have the patience"?
I actually developed more patience as a result of using what little patience I had
as an eight year old kid learning to acquire a new skill.
Many kids would have given up. Many kids would just kept wishing they could.
I wanted to learn how to do it so that I could do it.
The only way I could do it is if I learned how to do it.
Same principles apply to other skills. Any skills.
Most people don't want to put in the time it takes to practice.
So they stick with the things they already do.
And already know how to do.
While wishing they could do so much more.
"Before advancing to the next step,
ask yourself to what extent you have committed
to mastering your current level of performance."
We end up cheating ourselves when we don't commit to ourselves.
All that time I wasn't committing to improving myself,
all that time I wasn't even believing that I could improve myself...
was time I could have been spending improving myself.
Sometimes I wonder how different my life would be today
if I had started so much sooner, when I initially hard the urge, but not the charge.
When I knew I 'should' be focusing on myself, my growth, my development.
Simply put, I wasn't ready. I thought I was many times, but I wasn't.
There have been blocks. I put them there by making excuses.
I put them there by believing things that sabotaged me.
I kept putting them there because I didn't know any better.
I couldn't see all the choices I have.
It's not easy to see all the choices
when you keep believing there are none!
In this regard, we only see what we believe.
In other regards, too. But this is a prime example.
Well, I'll write a bit about some things I'm going to be focusing on
regarding my personal development, then I'll write about those things.
For a while now, I've already had certain things written down
for increasing my inner strength. It's important to focus on
because of those times I have 'moments of weakness.'
Not just emotional, or spiritual. Weaknesses that prevent me from
overcoming huge obstacles (blocks).
It takes inner strength to bust through these blocks.
This is why it is important to me.
Without it, I'm going to keep continually blocking myself.
And it will be harder to overcome these 'moments of weakness.'
With inner strength, I can turn these 'moments of weakness'
into 'moments of strength.' At least that's the pupose behind this.
So about these things I read today...
One was a set of questions...
1) Who are your teachers?
2) What are you learning?
3) What limits (if any) do you put on your teachers?
(who they are or what they have to teach).
4) Are there certain individuals or groups
from whom you are unwilling to learn?
"It's usually that which you resist
that contains the greatest opportunity
for growth & development."
Even that being said, there's a lot of reasons we resist what we resist.
Usually our resistance has to do with our beliefs.
Beliefs can do one of two things for us.
1) Support us, or...
2) Sabotage us.
For a long time, I sabotaged myself in many ways.
By letting things get the best of me.
Being consumed by things that weren't, don't, and aren't supporting me.
We close ourselves off from the things we resist.
And in doing so we close ourselves off from those opportunities
for growth & development.
The next thing:
"Unless you try to do something
beyond what you have already mastered,
you will never grow."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson.
The author was writing that those who invest in themselves
'experience more fulfillment.'
And yet few people 'commit to meaningful self-development.'
He goes on to provide statistics:
The average American reads less than one non-fiction book per year.
58% of the American population never reads another non-fiction book
front to back after they finish high school.
Just one hour each day positions us to get to the top in 3 years.
Increase the hours, shorten the amount of years it takes. That is how it works.
And what if we don't have an extra hour in the day?
We can create more time by giving up something else.
Like how we spend so much time feeding our addictions
and not a lot of time doing what it takes to get through and get ahead.
There was something about sharpening the saw.
Someone saw a lumberjack cutting down a tree and asked:
"Why don't you take a break and sharpen your saw?"
The lumberjack said: "I'm too busy sawing to sharpen my saw."
Many of us believe we are too busy to improve ourselves
even when improving ourselves would make doing what we do easier.
Many of us would say we are too busy to even find out how
we could improve ourselves if we 'had the time' to improve ourselves.
Many of us believe we don't have the time,
but not many of us make the time.
We all have the same amount of time, 24 hours each day.
Broken down to serve us in the allotted ways.
Sleep, eating, bathing, working, etc.
People often look for shortcuts.
They don't want to spend the time doing something.
"It would go faster if I did this..."
Even though they cut down on the quality of the results.
Expediency doesn't always equate to efficiency.
Like that saying....
There's no elevator to success, you have to take the stairs.
How many people would rather take an elevator than take the stairs?
Even when it's one floor they'd have to walk up to?
The thing is that a lot of people get complacent in their lives.
In many areas of their lives. It's not just about laziness.
It's about complacency.
But with complacency comes a lot of disatisfaction.
There's a certain level of comfort in habits, even bad habits,
but the results or lack of results
speaks to a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction.
Or unfulfillment and disatisfaction.
I get this. I understand this. I've been there.
I've been around people all my life who have gotten and been complacent.
In many areas of their lives. Which obviously has had a negative impact on me.
They simply do not try anymore. Because in some ways,
it's easier not to try. Trying means they have to make the effort.
They don't 'have the energy' to 'make the effort.'
So they make excuses like not having the energy to make the effort.
I've made a sh*tload of my own excuses.
Making excuses is only a way of excusing ourselves from doing it.
Giving us an escape route even though deep down,
we know that there are benefits that come with making the effort.
I see people all the time saying: "I wish I could do (whatever)."
But they don't ever try to do whatever. It takes time and effort.
People don't go from not being able to do something
to being able to do it in a couple of tries.
Yet they'll still say they 'wish' they 'could' do it.
Do they ever take the time to learn how to do it? No.
Because they are too busy wishing they could do it.
"Mastering the fundamentals requires patience, persistence, and practice."
How many times have I heard (when it comes to knitting)
"I wish I could do it, but I don't have the patience"?
I actually developed more patience as a result of using what little patience I had
as an eight year old kid learning to acquire a new skill.
Many kids would have given up. Many kids would just kept wishing they could.
I wanted to learn how to do it so that I could do it.
The only way I could do it is if I learned how to do it.
Same principles apply to other skills. Any skills.
Most people don't want to put in the time it takes to practice.
So they stick with the things they already do.
And already know how to do.
While wishing they could do so much more.
"Before advancing to the next step,
ask yourself to what extent you have committed
to mastering your current level of performance."
We end up cheating ourselves when we don't commit to ourselves.
All that time I wasn't committing to improving myself,
all that time I wasn't even believing that I could improve myself...
was time I could have been spending improving myself.
Sometimes I wonder how different my life would be today
if I had started so much sooner, when I initially hard the urge, but not the charge.
When I knew I 'should' be focusing on myself, my growth, my development.
Simply put, I wasn't ready. I thought I was many times, but I wasn't.
There have been blocks. I put them there by making excuses.
I put them there by believing things that sabotaged me.
I kept putting them there because I didn't know any better.
I couldn't see all the choices I have.
It's not easy to see all the choices
when you keep believing there are none!
In this regard, we only see what we believe.
In other regards, too. But this is a prime example.
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