Your goals should be yours

When we decide it is time to grow as a person we often run about setting goals. We look outside our elves to books, to teachers and to blogs to tell us what we should work on. While these sources are great as sign posts if we do not look inside our selves we are still only working on the world's definition of successes. To truly find happiness and be successful we need to do it in a way that is as unique as we are and as personal as our private thoughts.

When deciding if our goals are our own we need to make sure that they meet certain criteria. Do they support our dreams? Are they in line with our values? Does it feed your passions? And dos it honor your commitments?

Dreams: When you day dream and let your mind wander over to the things you would like in your life where does it go. Think back to when you were younger and you knew you would do something great; what was it you dreamed of doing, how would you change the world?

Passion: What exits you what drives you on what gets your blood up? Passion gives us energy to push on to fight when the going gets tough. From passion comes resolve.

Values: We all have guiding principles. These core values help us make decisions and feel that we are doing the right thing. When we work towards a goal that does not fit our values we are left feeling like phonies and fakes.

Commitments: We make commitments to other people and to our selves every day. We must take these commitments seriously because they have a huge effect on how people see us. They affect how people expect us to act and therefore how we will act when we are around them.

When we set goals we need to think about these things and decide if this goal is something that comes from inside us or if it is the product of advertising and promotion. If we do change in to the person we want to be we will not be happy no matter how much work we do.

If you want to see these ideas in action, what it looks like when our passions, dreams, commitments and values all line up and are put in to action watch Jamie Oliver presenting his TED Prize wish.

Under the hood of the onion

We are onions. Do you know why onions make us cry? There is a chemical reaction that occurs when you break through there layers that creates a weak version of tear gas. So I will say it again we are onions. We put on layers of personality that cover up our root self and when these layers are broken it can cause emotional distress, even tears. The problem with these layers is that they make it harder to see ourselves and they create false stresses in our lives. Now don't get me wrong these layers of self image protects the fragile core of our being from the rough and tumble nature of our world and this is an important and necessary function. However if we are ever to truly change and grow we have to look past our shields and see in to our own hart.

So wear to do these layers come from? I don't want to start a debate over nature and nurture, but I think they both play a role in the building of identity. These layers are constantly shifting, they come from our attitude towards our country, our social circles, sports teams we support, churches we go to hell it can even come from the blogs we read. The layers are the adjectives we use to describe ourselves look at me for example some of my layers are gay, gamer, male, student, liberal, smart cat owner. These are ways I see myself and more importantly ways that I can feel vulnerable when people want to insult me. We get defensive when our layers are challenged; we see this as an attack on who we are.

However these layers are more than just targets for hurt feelings. Think of them as the hood of your car underneath it is yourself awareness that which dives you that bit that makes you human. Without the armor of these layers it would be exposed to the world. Better to set a few targets out to let the world take shots at then to risk damaging the self. Sometimes big events, deaths, births, car accidents blow holes in these layers of protection and we have a life changing event. These are the moments when we see ourselves and start to see the need for change in our lives.

Once this process has begun we can start learning how to lift the hood and work on the engine. This is the process of personnel growth, the process of transforming our lives from what they are to what we want them to be. The trick to lifting the hood and seeing through the layers is introspection. An honest and unrelenting, unflinching look at who we are and why we make the choices we do is the only way we can know our selves. There are many techniques for doing this, some find meditation helps, I prefer writing. The important thing is to find a time a place and a method where you can look at yourself and take an honest assessment of who we are.

To all of you who have, like me, taken upon yourself the labor of becoming a better person, a happier person: congratulations! We are not alone in this. While the work is hard and the road can be long we can do this we can change and make life what we want it to be. Understanding the ways we define ourselves is an important first step and seeing below those definitions is just as important. Have a great weekend and if you agree with me or disagree leave me a comment.

Meet adversity head on

Life will throw you curve balls, it's a given. Sometimes we hit them out of the park and we see them as opportunities. Other times we pick up a strike and move on. Then there are the times that the pitch hits us. What do you do when the random and tumultuous nature of life leaves you hurting, emotionally, physically, and financially? Often times when this sort of trouble comes in to your life the only on you have to count on is yourself and those whose lives are tide to yours, spouses lovers parents and siblings. While this help from outside is nice and useful the most important resource we have is our own attitude in the face of adversity.

The first thing to understand is to make time for grief. Every situation will be different sometimes there is an opportunity for grief and regret out front other times action is needed right away and we must put our feeling aside and get the job done. Either way it is important to understand that grief and sadness are natural and should be allowed to take their course. When we work too hard to push these so called negative emotions out of our lives we create more emotional baggage for ourselves.

When life has hit us with a gut punch it is easy to retreat and curl up in a nice safe place and shut the world out. This does not work; the hardships and bad times in our lives are patient bullies. They are willing to wait outside our door all day and night while we hide in our beds but when we step outside they are ready to take our lunch money once again. Like a bully the problems in our life only go away when we stand up to them. Action is the key to overcoming. As finding the right time to grieve will be different each situation has its own set of actions that need to be taken in order to find resolution.

These actions are not always obvious or clear or easy that is one reason it is important to have a network of support in place. We all must have our trusted advisers, those people who we can turn to who we know have our best interest at hart. This is another key to overcoming hardship we should not do it alone. When we find ourselves in adversity it often times will bruise our ego and we become afraid of what people will think of us if they find out. Those people in your life who love you love you. They want what is best for you and will help you in any way they can. It should be noted here that a true friend will most likely give the help that we need (if they are able) rather than the help that we want. Be grateful for the help that is given whether it was what you asked for or not.

The other key element to overcoming adversity is to learn. Every hard ship and every joy in our lives brings lessons we can learn. We can come to understand ourselves better and we can figure out what we did to contribute to the situation at hand. We can see the things we did or the things we did not do that caused a situation to come in to existence and in the future devise a plan to change our course of action. This is not just a key to overcoming hardship this is a key to growing as a person: learn from your mistakes and your accomplishments in equal measure.

So when life gets ruff and scary take a moment to gather your thoughts, your emotions and stand up to the monsters and beasts in your life. Only through rational, responbul action and the help of good friends can we get through the tuff times.

Fear and nervousness outside the comfort zone

Conventional wisdom states that we only grow when we step outside our comfort zone this is different than facing our fears however. Our comfort zone is filled with all the things we are used to doing, the things we understand, and the things that are easy for us. When we step outside in to the wilds of discomfort we start to feel uneasy, and nervous. Why? Because there is a chance we might fail, and it might happen publicly. But as you spend time in the wilds you start to clear the land build a camp site, in other words make that territory yours and as the new skill becomes easier the wilds become part of your comfort zone.

In our society fear and nervousness are often confused. Nervousness is that quivering in our stomach that says I don't like this and happens when we think that something might harm us. Fear, real fear is a powerful instinctive force that we cannot resist without help and training. Fear shows up when we stop knowing that something can hurt us and know that it will unless we act. Stepping outside our comfort zone should not make us afraid but does often make us nervous.

When we try something new, when we reach for our goals we often feel nervous and anxious. We worry that we will fail that we will be laughed at or that people will mock us. What we must realize is that if we want to create a better life for our self first true failure is stagnation. The entire concept of creating a better life for ourselves is rutted in the principle that we are not satisfied with were we are today. I would rather try and fail publicly then to sit and stagnate. Why? I can walk away from the mocking voice of others; the voice inside my own head that tells me I am not achieving what I could is something I can not escape.

What are your thoughts? Let me know I n the comments and stay safe but keep growing and as always have a great day.

Ask Questions

"The willingness to ask questions is a sign of courage not a sign of confusion" Steven Bernstine

Weather we are confused, lost, feeling complacent or in the proses of making a decisions one of the most powerful tools we have at our disposal is the ability to question. However we are encultured, especially the guys in the audience, to not ask questions, it is viewed as a sign of weakens, of low intelligence and discontent.

Remember this: No great change has come from some one who is satisfied with the way things are. If we are afraid to ask our selvs and our leaders hard questions we will get the life and leadership we re given. If insted we put our hand in the air and ask why do I do this? Is what we are doing the right thing to do? Does this realy solve the problem? Who am I? we open up the posbility to recive the leadership and life we create.

Asking questions makes us responsible for finding the answer weather it comes from inside us or we find an outside source. Because of this it is important that we ask the right questions in the first place. When we craft a questions we need to make sure that the answer will be useful, practical, and understandable.

If the answer to a question will not produce results or impact us in some way what is the point of asking?

If the answer to a question can not be applied to the situation at hand, weather it is a good idea or to, how can it help us to make the world a place we want to live in?

If the answer to a question is beyond your comprehension how can it impact your life?

So today I challenge you to get out there ask questions that matter, of you self and of others. Listen to the answers and use them to make changes in the world around you and the world inside you. Be bold, be cognoscente and be vocal. If you have thoughts on this let me know in the comments and don't forget to follow the feed.

The friends of personal growth: part 4 Action

We have spent a good bit of time talking about things to avoid when trying to make changes in our lives, procrastination, distractions, and doubts just to name a few. Lets call these the enemies of personal development. With the holiday season directly on top of us now I thought it would be nice to shift from talking about personal growths enemies and start talking about its friends. We have met and chated with honesty, Dedication and The Plan so far and the next guest has just arived, Action.

Action is the member of Personal Growths circle of friends who gets everyone moving. The plan knows whats going on sure, but Action is the one who gets everyone on board and moving in the right direction.

When we decide that we are going to change our lives we can dream, we set goals, and we can plan all we want but if we do not put our selves out there and actually do the things we say we are going to then we will never see results. The Plan is only as powerful as our ablity to make it happen. But waht can we do to maintain action and keep our selves moving.

So here is your call to action, if your plans for personal growth have slowed or stagnated or if you have things you have been meeting to change. Do it stand up and get started right now. Make this the present you give yourself this holiday season: look at your plans and do what you have said you will. Quit worrying about what will happen if you fail because you will never relies your dreams if you do not start making them happen.

With out action we are all talk, stuffed shirts and holow men. If we are not putting effort and action in to creating the lives we wish to live then we are betraying our selves and refusing happiness when it is there for the taking. Take action, take happiness and take control of your life.

here comes the plan to steel Action away from us. They are probably off to figure out were the after party is going to be. There is still one more guest at Personal Growths holiday party that we need to talk to, lets go over and say hi.

The friends of personal growth: part 3 The plan

We have spent a good bit of time talking about things to avoid when trying to make changes in our lives, procrastination, distractions, and doubts just to name a few. Lets call these the enemies of personal development. With the holiday season directly on top of us now I thought it would be nice to shift from talking about personal growths enemies and start talking about its friends. So far we have met Honesty and Dedication.

The next friend of Personal Growth to show up is the hipster of the click, it likes to call it's self The Plan. The plan shows up to the part and everyone at the party flocks to it wanting to know what is going on, what happens next and how we are all getting there.

After we have been honest with ourselves and dedicated ourselves to the goals of personal growth, we need a plan to make the change happen. Planing is the proses of turning our dreams in to goals. The plan has to be fluid and flexible while still setting out the road markers that help us find the way to were we want to be. There are to aspects to this kind of planing the long view and the short view for the plan to be effective.


The long view

When we talk about long view planing we are not always talking about were we want to be in five years or ten years. We are talking about the big changes we want to see in our lives weather they happen in a few months or in a few years. The long view covers the things we have to change if we want our life to better and represents the place we want to be in our lives. The long view can be as concrete or as abstract as you like in the beginning but as you move towards realizing it you must allow it to crystallize in to a precise concept and goal other wise there will be no clear steps to take to reach it.

For example when I started working on this blog a few months ago my long term plan was to "I want a creative job. I want to work from home.I want to take control of my finances.I want to own my own home. In four years I want to be in a position to bring a son or daughter in to my family." Since then my goals have solidified a bit and I have decided I want a job in journalism as I see this as a creative outlet that can help generate the stable income I want to realize the other goals on my list.

The short view

The short view planing is all about how do i make it to the long view. These are the day to day goals set specifically with reaching the long view in mind. If the long view is our destination then the short view plan is the turn by turn directions on how to get there. Again fluidity is important here, the ability to adjust and adapt are plans to the situations and opportunities that we encounter along our journey. We have to be prepared to take detours and stop at the rest stops along the way. When we try to control our journey to much we loose sight of the real purpose behind personnel growth: Being happy.

When we put the long term and short term aspects of The Plan in place and satay Dedicated to the path we have chosen form our own Honest self analysis we set our selves on the the path to truly being happy. So wtith these thoughts in mind we will leave The Plan to talk to it's fans and move back over to the door to be introduced to Personal Growths next friend.

The friends of personal growth: part 2 Dedication

We have spent a good bit of time talking about things to avoid when trying to make changes in our lives, procrastination, distractions, and doubts just to name a few. Lets call these the enemies of personal development. With the holiday season directly on top of us now I thought it would be nice to shift from talking about personal growths enemies and start talking about its friends. While we have been hanging out with honesty over at the punch bowel a new guest has arrive. Lets go and say hello to Dedication.

Of all of Personal Growths friends Dedication is the most reliable, it is there when ever Personal Growth is feeling down and needs some one to help shoulder the load. When Honesty has said to much Dedication is there to sit quietly and hold personnel growths hand saying we can do this, we can change this.

Once we have decided to make a change in our lives dedication is the strongest tool we have to make that change become real. What does dedication mean? It means we put our selves wholey in to our goal, giving our selves up to the proses of change with a willingness to see the proses to it's end. If you are not willing to dedicate your self to personal growth then don;t even bother starting. All you will do is waste your time and energy to wind up were you started, if you are lucky, if you aren't lucky you will have reinforced your weaknesses and be even more unhappy then when you started. But if you are willing to put in the effoert and make a dedicated effort to change then you can not fail as failure is just the result of giving up.

So what steps can we take to increase our dedication and bolster it when we are feeling weak?

1 Self assessment. Taking the time each morning to review your goals and the time each night to review what you have done to accomplish them. Dedication does not demand that you hit the mark every day but that you try to hit the mark every day.

2 Don't stop. Dedication is not about quick successes it is about the power of slow constant effort.

3. Form habits. When we make a habit of doing anything it stops being something we concouisly focus on doing and becomes a part of our lives. By turning the behaviors we want to see in our lives in to habits we begin to do them with out thinking about it.

4. Start early. Build the practice of dedication into your efforts to change from the beginning, or as close to the beginning as you can. Knowing you committed to change and unwilling to give up at the beginning of a project creates a condition of expected success.

When times get rough, it becomes easy to slack off on our goals, to get boged down in the ires of hardship. However if we have cultivated an attitude of dedication to our goals we will be more inclined to keep on keeping on when we need it. The practice of dedication can become a source of peace from the turmoil of daily life.

When we choose to work on some aspect of our lives or any task we deem important we must dedicate our selves to it. Put all our effort in to the task and see it through to the end. As for Dedication we will show it over to a nice chair by the fire were it can watch Personal Growths holiday party while it waits to help clean up the dishes afterward.

The friends of personal growth: part 1 Honesty

We have spent a good bit of time talking about things to avoid when trying to make changes in our lives, procrastination, distractions, and doubts just to name a few. Lets call these the enemies of personal development. With the holiday season directly on top of us now I thought it would be nice to shift from talking about personal growths enemies and start talking about its friends. So lets get started I would like to introduce you to the first friend of personal growth, Honesty.

Honesty may be the closest friend the personnel growth has. This is the friend that is willing to call growth on the mistakes it makes and on the areas were it needs more work. If we do not look at our lives with honesty and decrement we will never even acknowledge the real problems in our lives. If we never acknowledge the problem we will never work on it and all our change will be for nothing.

We all have truths in our lives that we do not want to face, things we do not want to talk about even in the privacy of our own head. These are the things we have done that bring us shame or the impulses we do not want to control even though we know they are bad for us. To avoid these subjects we tell our self lies and either ignore the problem or adress a symtom rather then look for a cure.

An example: Maintaining a healthy diet is something i strive to do but do not have all that much luck with most of the time. As some of you may remember I have had successes giving up soda but this is not the real problem but just a symptom. The core of the problem is composed of two factors: I want food which is quick and easy and I have a horrible sweet tooth. To correct my bad eating behaviors (a package of Oreos is not dinner) I have to be honest with my self about the source of the problem and only then can I start to correct it.

Being on honest with our selves is the place to start whenever we look at our lives whether we want to change or not. Chance are however if we do take the time to make an honest assessment of were we are today we will see some areas were we want to grow or change. Honesty loves to talk but things that few people ever listen to what it has to say. So lets take Honesty's coat and hat and show it over to the punch bole and ask for it's opinion while we wait for some of personnel developments other friends to arrive.