The three of us

When we are working on personal growth we have to relies that there are three uss involved in the process. The first us is who we are now the second us is who we want to be and the third us is the one that control the transition from one to the other.

We often think about whom we are now and who we want to be but little about the transitioners. Our transitioners can work in different ways, each has its place and each will work better for some people then it does for others.

The quiet teacher: This is the gentlest of the transitioners. Here we hold our own hand and say how should we approach this, what is wrong about what you did, what did you do right? This transitioner guides us with questions and gold start.

The authoritarian: This transitioner tells us NO! This is the voice we need to hear when the only way to improve is to not do something. Here we change by obeying a system of self devised rules designed to produce a way of living that is more conducive to who we want to be.

The coach: Similar to the authoritarian this transitioner keeps kicking are asses to do something. We push we push we push, that is the voice of the coach.

We need to understand the third us, and how we motivate ourselves and be able to switch between different transitioner models to overcome different challenges.

Only for the brave and the strong

Personal growth is only for the strong and courageous. I saw this not to dissuade any one from starting down the path to be better but to allow people to know what they are getting into.

When we decide it is time to change in a conscious manner, to grow in to the person we want to be, we must face the person we are. Whether we like our selves or not if we have found the desire to change our selves there is some aspect of how we act, behave or live that goes against the person we want to be. It takes courage to face that we are not always the person we want to be. It takes strength of character to change old habits.

Courage and strength play a role throughout the process of personal growth. We will have times were we fall back to our old ways and we must face again the part of our selves we have put to rest. When we get comfortable with where we are in our development we can find ourselves slaking off on the will power and falling back in to bad habits. This is part of the process but when we find it happening we must have the courage to stop and admit our error and the strength of will to get back to work.

The worst thing we can say is "well I screwed up I might as well keep screwing up." NO! The correct answer is I screwed up now I will do better. We cannot give in, once we have desired that we need to change we must continue to change. Otherwise our awareness of our flaws will cause us to become depressed and steal our confidence, our self-respect, and our motivation. So in addition to strength and courage personal growth also requires endurance.

So we must remember we are brave, teach ourselves to be strong and just not stop.

Open thought process courage

At the end of last week I was asked to write about courage and so I have been giving it some thought.

First courage is necessary for personal growth. To face who we are and what we need to do in our lives takes an endless amount of courage. The process of personnel growth involves looking our fears and weaknesses in the eye and saying I will not back down.

That said were does courage come from? There are two possibilities here we are naturally courageous and it comes from within or we are naturally fearful and courage must be created artificially and brought in to our selves. I think we are all naturally courageous. Fear slips in the cracks of our being and forms a fog between our sense of self and who we really are. Being brave, having courage is more a matter of seeing through the fog and finding what has been there all along. Fear makes us forget we are brave. The other option is that we create courage. This opens the door to questions like how do we create courage and how can we bring it in to ourselves. This possibility does not seem intuitively true to me. What do you think? What is our base state fear or courage?

No matter where it comes from courage is something that is hard to masseur, most of the time we only know that we have just enough and then when we need more if we dig deep, part the fog we can usually find a bit more. Fears on the other hand abound. We fear a loss of status, loss of things a loss of life, a loss of health. These things will happen, but that is not a reason to fear them. Things change, nothing stays the same. We must accept change and be willing to confront our doubts and worries.

Live courageously, face the demons and know no matter what they tell you, you are brave, you are strong and you can win.