How is it that we go about creating personal excellence in our lives? Do we just need to figure out the best strategy and then commit ourselves to following through on it no matter what?.
A well thought out plan of action is an absolute necessity when striving to make improvements in the quality of your life. We’ve all heard the expression “those who fail to plan, plan to fail.” However, as valuable as a good strategy is, this is by no means the first step toward personal growth.
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The first step in the personal development process starts with self-examination. We need to understand our own strengths and weaknesses. Do our personal beliefs empower us to reach our goals or do they sabotage us right from the beginning? Do we really understand our own deeply held values and standards? Do we know ourselves well enough to recognize why we want to make certain changes in our lives? Are we certain that our motives are in harmony with our values?
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The quality of our life today is a reflection of our past motives and values. Raising the quality of our life means raising the bar on our standards. The only legitimate way to expect more from life is to be willing to give more. Living by higher standards means more is required; it demands that we become more in order to achieve more.
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Personal excellence is the goal of personal growth and development. Learning to be honest with our self is the beginning of progress. When we clearly see who we are and take responsibility for our own values and beliefs, we come to recognize that we actually live in a world of our own making. Our personal world is an accurate reflection of who we are. To change our world we must start by changing our self.
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Do you agree? If so, check this out!
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Taking responsibility for everything in our lives can be a scary concept. What most people don’t realize is that it is actually quite liberating.
Once we take responsibility we no longer blame others for our reality, we don’t waste time making excuses.
If our actions produced a result we are not happy with, we adjust our approach until we get the result we want. Taking responsibility makes life a lot simpler.
Jonathan, I’d like to take a moment to thank you for leaving a comment on my site.
(So that your readers don’t have to follow to my site in order to track the conversation, here’s the story: I wrote two lists, with my desires and my fears, with the intent to release them, so that I could work with them more effectively. Jonathan reminded me to look deeper into the fears/desires, and find the root paradigms behind them. Often, by releasing the paradigm, the fear will take care of itself.)
Jonathan, that little piece of advice helped me to make a few breakthroughs… and now that I’m visiting your site, I see more little hints about how to shift our paradigms… advice that comes at an unexpectedly appropriate time.
So again, thank you. You have impressive timing.