Development that never stops I am sure many of us had witnessed a construction of roads, highways, or a building structure where we felt like it lasted for months or in some cases even years. We may move to another state to return many years later just to witness the construction that never stops. So, we ask ourselves – when will the development end? Is there a finish line? However, few more months or years go by and we still see the same, never-ending construction zone. I like this topic, because, I feel that it paints the picture of what personal development looks like at its best. Just like never-ending road construction, our personal development also doesn’t stop, it keeps on going, we keep learning and growing personally and professionally every day, every month, and every year indefinitely. There’s no ending to learning, because, we learn something new every day, building our ‘bank of skills’ and experiences that help us to progress further through life. Just like in construction, we build foundations for our future with knowledge that we acquire and skills we develop. As house will never build itself, our personal development foundation will never establish on its own, without us being actively involved in the building process. Have you ever seen roads and bridges being built without the direct involvement and effort from construction workers, structural engineers, construction equipment and machinery? Of course, not. So, why expect for things to change in our own lives for a better without us directly contributing to our growth and the creation of change? Think of our personal development as a never-ending construction zone – continuous need for tools and resources, ongoing research and evaluation of the progress made, facing and overcoming challenges encountered along the way, with a main goal of continuous improvement that we desire and require. I challenge you to think of each completed project, finished book, completed training opportunity as a small piece of a puzzle on the continuously changing image which continues to grow and expand into a larger and even more interesting image as new, smaller pieces of a puzzle are discovered and introduced into the picture. So, next time you see construction anywhere you may be, my hope is that you ask yourself a question – What am I doing today to invest into my own personal development, my foundation, in order to achieve and set new goals and objectives in life, creating happiness and success for myself and those that I love and care about? I hope you enjoyed reading this module as much as I enjoyed writing it, and hope that you found it to be very useful for you or someone else that you may know. Please feel free to share this post if you know someone who may benefit from reading it same way you did
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Module 155 - Personal Inner Strength, Resilience, and Patience can get us through the toughest times6/18/2019 Our mindset is a blueprint that we design with our thoughts and actions Many of us have faced challenges and/or difficult times in our lives. How we handled them, got through them, or tackling them now can be very different. Some choose to retreat and focus on how bad and difficult everything is as they face challenging times in personal or professional life, and others choose to focus only on the positive outcome in any situation, regardless of its complexity, and show inner strength, resilience, and patience while dealing with whatever challenge that life might have presented them with. Why does our approach to deal with similar challenges in life can be so different? Why do some choose to focus on the positive in every situation, while making their way through difficult times in life, even though it may be extremely difficult and use every bit of energy and patience that they have, without complaining, making excuses, and helping other people to deal with their challenges instead? When we are in a constantly negative state of mind, what does it get us? Does being in such state help us or hurt our ability to deal with life’s challenges? Personally, I believe that constant focus on negative in challenging situation and constantly complaining about our perceived inability to deal with our own problems would only attract more of the same – more negative, more challenges. Instead, I think that it’s very important to focus on the positive outcome from a difficult situation, believe that success is near and real, and display unshakable personal inner strength, resilience, and patience, while always searching for a solution to a problem or difficulty that we may be in. I am not saying that it’s easy, but I am saying that it can be done, if one is determined to deal with difficulties that he or she faces, vs. running away from them. What positive mindset and optimistic outlook on any challenging situation would do is help us see opportunities and way to solve our problems over time vs. convincing ourselves and those around us that solution does not exist. It’s simple, if we truly want to overcome our personal challenges, we will eventually find a solution, and if not, we will continue to find more problems. There’s no secret to problem solving, however, positive outlook on life, optimism, and belief in ourselves can help us to find solution we need much faster, because, we tell our mind to seek solution and avoid any negative thoughts or distractions that may present themselves to us along the way. Our mind and words that we say are very powerful tools at our disposal which can either help us or make our everyday life more difficult. There’ve been few times when I would go to see a doctor because I did not feel well, and as soon as I would leave doctor’s office after the visit, somehow, I had already felt better than I did before I came in. So, just like in this personal example, when we feed our mind with positive thoughts and tell ourselves that we are going to be ok, we begin to see positive changes over time. Our mind can be a very powerful ally for us if we choose to focus its power on positivity and solutioning, and not on complaining, negativity, and how difficult things may be as soon as we face yet another challenge in our daily personal and profession lives. I hope you enjoyed reading this module as much as I enjoyed writing it, and hope that you found it to be very useful for you or someone else that you may know. Please feel free to share this post if you know someone who may benefit from reading it same way you did
Search for happiness and motivation does not have to be complex or expensive as many of us tend to think and/or believe I never stop being amazed by how little small children need to receive a boost of happiness and excitement, especially when we take them to a toy store or to a place filled with inflatable bounce houses. You can purchase a toy that looks very simple, does not have any fancy bells and whistles, but to a kid it’s like the best and most exciting things that they’ve ever seen. Children can play with one toy for hours and sometimes days before letting it go and moving on to something else or jump for hours in the bounce houses with their faces shining with bright smiles and happiness. Then, kids grow up and same simple toys no longer have the same effect on them. They move on to bigger and better things that are more technologically advanced, more expansive, and apparently, more fun. Why is that? Why as we grow older, we need so much more to keep us happy and excited? Why do we have to purchase and own more things, things that are more and more expansive and more luxurious? Why do we constantly have to go to stores to purchase more clothes and shoes, when we have our entire closet that is overflowing with these items, but for some reason, in order to remain happy and boost up our self-esteem we seek more expansive clothes, more high-end electronics, largest tv's we can buy, even if we can't afford them, luxury and prestigious sports cars, etc.? No reason, besides the comments that we often hear from other people telling us that we need more stuff to be happy. So, after hearing it over and over again that we begin thinking that it must be true. We forget that in order to be happy every day, a trip to the store is not necessary. We forget how happy we were when we were small children, and how little we needed to be happy, spending hours every day just playing with some old toys, coloring with crayons, or building tall towers and robots from Lego blocks, creating our imaginary and magical world, and at the same time creating our own happy world. We didn’t care what other people thought of us, we just had fun. So, if we would simply remind ourselves from time to time that happiness is not in how much stuff we have, or in how many cars and houses we own, but in most basic things that already surround us and can be tapped into when desired. Spending just few minutes outside in the nature, whether it’s going to a local park, going to the lake or pond, or to the beach, if we live near the ocean, and just relax enjoying the nature, is often all that we need to get the energy, motivation, and happiness that we so often seek and need. Spending few minutes outside, absorbing the warm and happy energy of the sun, is a great way to get a boost of positive energy any time, of course, while remembering to be safe outdoors and use sun’s energy responsibly – wearing a hat covering our head, and sunscreen protecting our skin. Many of us find peace, happiness and inspiration that we so desire while reading an interesting book in a complete silence or listening to a good song uninterrupted. Regardless the sources of our motivation, inspiration and happiness, what’s important is to remember that it’s often within our reach and can be absolutely free, all we need to do is to remind ourselves of this next time when we look for it. I hope you enjoyed reading this module as much as I enjoyed writing it, and hope that you found it to be very useful for you or someone else that you may know. Please feel free to share this post if you know someone who may benefit from reading it same way you did
Changing lives of others through genuine care, respect, and understanding Many of us believe that we can be great mentors to others, simply because we have necessary education or set of skills and experience. However, being a great, true mentor requires so much more than base education and experience mentioned earlier. Many of us can receive education base and knowledge in a particular field by attending school or completing specific educational courses on our own, thereby, becoming subject matter experts in that what we choose to study. Then, through regular practice over a period of time we acquire experience which we can, with pride, include on our professional resumes. However, completing all activities mentioned earlier does not necessarily make us a great mentor to others. Because, mentorship is not how we see ourselves, but how people around us see us. Do they view us as a true mentor, whom they deeply respect as a leader and mentor, and seek guidance and support, or do they view us as educated individual with many years of experience, but not someone who they view as a mentor, not someone they look up to and have immense amount of trust and respect in? Many of us fall into a latter definition, but very few of us fall into former definition and view of a true mentor. True mentor genuinely and deeply cares about others, and not just us an individual, but also every member of our immediate family. Their genuine care is reflected not in words, but in actions. Things that they do for us every day to support, motivate, inspire and lift us up when we need it the most without being asked. They help and support others simply because they care, and true mentors never expect anything in return. Our success, happiness, and wellbeing are the biggest reward for a true, great mentor and a leader. Great mentors often orchestrate behind the scenes, helping us to succeed without us even knowing. However, what they do not realize is that we know who they are, and that we are deeply thankful to them for everything that they do for us. Naturally, throughout our lives, we find our true mentors without any promotion or advertisement on their part. We meet them in the place of business, in school we attend, in social events we participate in. Don’t look for shiny, prestigious diplomas mounted on the office walls, or luxurious offices filled with various achievement rewards and trophies when selecting a mentor, instead look inside of them, uncovering who they really are. Ask yourself if you would trust your future and your professional career into the hands of a specific individual leader and a mentor? Does he or she truly care about you, your success, your goals and aspiration and, of course, your family, through their actions, not their words? If the answer is ‘yes’ to all the questions listed earlier, then you may have found your true, great mentor. I wish you the best from the bottom of my heart to find your true mentor, who can help you build a roadmap and plan towards your success as you see it in your mind and replay it over and over in your dreams. I hope you enjoyed reading this module as much as I enjoyed writing it, and hope that you found it to be very useful for you or someone else that you may know. Please feel free to share this post if you know someone who may benefit from reading it same way you did
Being happy and honest with yourself and those around you without hiding your true personality inside We can hide our feeling and opinions inside of us or express them openly, his is the choice that we have every day, whether it is at home r in the place of business. However, often we are so afraid of our family our peers at work, or our boss, even when we know that expressing our thoughts and opinions to others would be the right thing to do. Why are we so afraid of being ourselves in front of others, especially in our place of business? Why are we afraid of displaying our genuine feeling and perspectives about a particular topic, and instead of speaking out we hide it inside of us for days, months, o sometimes even years? Wouldn’t it be so much easier to remove that fake ingenuine smile off of our face when we are not happy, and cry when we feel like crying, or smile when we feel like smiling, because, we feel good and are happy, not because somebody expects it from us? Somewhere deep inside of us we, of course, desperately want to answer – “yes,” to all these questions, but something is stopping many of us from doing so when we are surrounded by people with whom we socialize and/or work with. Why? Because, sharing our actual true feeling, thoughts, and opinions, may and usually does differ from opinions and feelings of others, and it would mean that we would be going against the flow, against the popular beliefs and expectations. But who cares? We all have unique personalities, our own unique character that makes us who we are. So, when we pretend to like something when we don’t, just to make someone else feel better, or smile when we don’t feel like doing so, for same reason mentioned earlier, we are in turn lying to ourselves. Is it really worth it? Does it make any sense to make ourselves feel poorly inside while making others happy and to like us more? Personally, I don’t think so. I believe that when we stay true to who we really are, without hiding or suppressing our feeling and opinions inside, we feel better in general, we feel more confident, have strong sense of self-esteem, smile more, and perform better simply because we focus on what’s in from of us vs. focusing our time and energy on everything that’s happing around us, or helping other people to feel better about themselves at our own emotional expense. The only source of motivation and inspiration that we should ever need is already inside of us in our minds and our hearts. Only we know what’s truly motivates us to be better, to feel stronger, to perform our best every day, nobody else does. So, why lie to ourselves and others seeking external motivation and approval, when everything we need to keep moving forward in life, be happy, and be best at everything we do? No reason. It’s much easier to go about our daily lives when we don’t have to worry about saying something or act in a way that others may find to be different from their own thoughts and actions. And, by being ourselves every day, we don’t have to pretend to be somebody who we are not and know that everything that we say and do represents the truth, represents us and our unique character, without any sugarcoating. Do you agree? My hope is that by reading this short article, it will help many of us to speak more confidently in meetings, in front of others, regardless the size of the audience, look and act confidently during an interview process, while at the same time feel at ease and happy inside, knowing that we are being true to ourselves every time, everywhere, every day. Be happy, be confident, be yourself! I hope you enjoyed reading this module as much as I enjoyed writing it, and hope that you found it to be very useful for you or someone else that you may know. Please feel free to share this post if you know someone who may benefit from reading it same way you did
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