Personal Growth
« Previous EntriesSelf Renewal - The Critical Factor
Monday, May 12th, 2008I love watching the Home and Garden channel, especially when they renovate a house. Often times, when I watch the amazing home transformations that take place, I think about self renewal. For some reason, I started to relate the wear and tear and abuse we go through as people in comparison to a house. It’s amazing how a house weathers the external elements around it. In time, the house starts to show the signs of the battles it’s endured - the sagging shutters, the peeling paint, the loose shingles. Then there is the interior of the house - with its own unique set of needs - new plumbing, interior paint, new flooring.
Pitfall of Negative Thinking
Sunday, February 17th, 2008Negative thinking has a sneaky way of creeping up on you if you’re not careful. Even the most dedicated self-help, personal development junky finds his or herself falling victim to negativism at times. It happened to me today in the workplace. One of the supervisors I work with was explaining why one of our employees was unhappy in the office. This employee is one of the employees I label as the ‘floundering five’ because they are always critical, negative, whinny, complainers that never focus on anything positive. It gets old and irritating at times. I guess I let them get to me today. Years of ‘automatic’ negative thinking patterns snatched the opportunity to take over. This type of thinking became so natural over the years that I hadn’t even realized I was doing it.
Why Care What Other People Think?
Sunday, February 3rd, 2008I believe we care about what other people think because we want to be accepted. For many years, especially in the workplace, I let my concern over what other people think about my actions and behaviors control me.
By caring what other people think - I placed myself in a very bad place. For starters, we can never please everyone and there will always be people who do not like us. Moreover, instead of caring what we think of ourselves (internal forces that we can control) we place our happiness and wellbeing on external forces (which we cannot control).
Beware - Hater Alert
Sunday, January 20th, 2008Beware of your Haters. We all have them. What is a Hater? A Hater is a person who does not like you and wants to expose your flaws or knock you down a notch or two. Whether we admit it or not, we all have people who dislike us or want to make us feel less worthy. That’s life. Unfortunately, many people tend to react emotionally to Haters. Personally, I’ve learned to deal with them as irritants forcing me to grow into a better person.
Your Willpower Is Sabotaged
Sunday, January 20th, 2008Willpower in another way of describing our determination, our resolve, or simply stated…. our will. I started thinking about this, because at the beginning of every year people start setting New Year’s resolutions to lose weight, save money, or make other life changes. The hard part is that willpower isn’t effective for just one day. We need to consistently exercise our will over an extended period of time to experience success. This is a pretty daunting task in the type of society we live in today. Everyday, we are conditioned to seek the convenient way out. Here’s what I noticed on a typical food shopping day.
Tired Vs. Lazy
Thursday, January 17th, 2008Personal progress is damn hard work. When you’re busy it can make you wonder whether lack of progress is because your too tired or just plain lazy. I’ll be the first to admit, it’s easy to use my busy lifestyle as a scapegoat for lack of personal progress or results. When I come home from the office, I’m usually overworked and emotionally drained, which makes me tired.
Stress Less
Wednesday, January 9th, 2008Stress less. These were the beginning words in a magazine advertisement I noticed today. I started thinking, “how in the heck do I stress less?” Truthfully, I’d have to eliminate everything that gets on my nerves and irritates me on a daily basis if I’m really going to stress less.
As I’m sure you know, I can’t realistically ignore or eliminate every daily stress factor. However, I can incorporate techniques and habits to help myself stress less. As I matter of fact, lowering my stress levels is high on my personal growth list.
Understanding Your Strengths and Weaknesses
Monday, January 7th, 2008A lesson I’ve learned the hard way is the importance of knowing and understanding your strengths and weaknesses.
The funny thing is….. when most of us talk about improving some area of our lives we focus on fixing weaknesses. For instance I hate public speaking. Granted, public speaking is an excellent and important skill to have; however, if I’m a much better writer than speaker then guess where I should place more of my efforts? You guessed it. I should focus on how to capitalize on my love and talent for writing.
Spirituality and Self Esteem
Sunday, January 6th, 2008My self esteem received a major boost when I worked on my spirituality - my personal relationship with God.
I’ll never forget the day I was driving home from work - my self esteem at an all-time low. I was on my cell phone talking to my grandmother. I admitted to her that I needed professional help. My grandmother became very emotional - telling me that I didn’t need professional help - what I needed was God.
Simply Words
Saturday, January 5th, 2008Words are powerful. Words inspire, words motivate, words hurt, and words influence. Words are the foundation of our internal and external communication process. Many of us take words for granted - something we really can’t afford to do.
One of my favorite scriptures in the Bible states we should “be quick to listen and slow to speak.” In reading Proverbs the Bible provides many scriptures on words and speaking. For instance, “a fool’s lips bring him strife, and his mouth invites a beating” or “the words of a gossip are like choice morsels; they go down to a man’s inmost parts” and one of my favorites, “he who guards his mouth and his tongue keeps himself from calamity.”
« Previous Entries
