"Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy" Norman Vincent Peale.
Personal development is your key to success. You are the only one who can address those areas in your life which hold you back.
Look out, long blurb following!
I have been reading many books on increasing my potential and there seems to be a common thread through these writings. The main one is keeping yourself positive in all your dealings. Every situation is an opportunity to improve yourself. If you fail you still win, provided you learn from your mistakes.
Every morning we are faced with a choice. That choice is whether to let circumstances get us down or not. How we answer that decision will set the tone for the whole day. That tone will affect every situation and relationship, right through to the end of the day. And if you are not careful can also end up giving you a restless nights sleep.
It is a conscious decision that will replay itself throughout the day. It does get a little easier over time, and infact it is said that if you practice something for 21 days you will form a habit. If I was planning on forming a habit I would want to make it worthwhile. It would need to be meaningful. I would want it to be something which would change the course of the day and affect others around me in an uplifting manner.
I remember hearing Joel Osteen preaching about his experience in a shopping centre carpark. He patiently waited as a car reversed from a parking spot and then when he went to drive into it, a car came from the opposite direction and took the spot. He was initially outraged, but then calmed himself and chose not to let this other driver steal his joy.
This is what I am trying to say. It is a choice we need to make and we will be challenged on it everywhere. Our choices will however, determine our success. In Joels case, he drove around the carpark and got a park right outside the entrance.
Where am I going with this you ask? Look at the day you are having. Ask yourself, have I been considerate of everyone today? Did I bring life to my environment or did I help to darken it? Did I ignore someone who was reaching out? Was I self consumed?
Today I received an email which I had read before, but it never ceases to drive home its message. It goes like this:-
John is the kind of guy you love to hate. He is always in a good mood and always has something positive to say. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, 'If I were any better, I would be twins!'
He was a natural motivator. If an employee was having a bad day, John was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation.
Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up and asked him, 'I don't get it! You can't be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?'
He replied, 'Each morning I wake up and say to myself, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or ... you can choose to be in a bad mood. I choose to be in a good mood.'
Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or...I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it.
Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or... I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive side of life.
'Yeah, right, it's not that easy,' I protested.
'Yes, it is,' he said. 'Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people affect your mood. You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. The bottom line: It's your choice how you live your life.'
I reflected on what he said. Soon hereafter, I left the Tower Industry to start my own business. We lost touch, but I often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it.
Several years later, I heard that he was involved in a serious accident, falling some 60 feet from a communications tower. After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, he was released from the hospital with rods placed in his back. I saw him about six months after the accident.
When I asked him how he was, he replied, 'If I were any better, I'd be twins. Wanna see my scars?'
I declined to see his wounds, but I did ask him what had gone through his mind as the accident took place.
'The first thing that went through my mind was the well-being of my soon-to-be born daughter,' he replied. 'Then, as I lay on the ground, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live or...I could choose to die. I chose to live.'
'Weren't you scared? Did you lose consciousness?' I asked.
He continued, '..the paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the ER and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read 'he's a dead man.' I knew I needed to take action.'
'What did you do?' I asked.
'Well, there was a big burly nurse shouting questions at me,' said John. 'She asked if I was allergic to anything. 'Yes, I replied.' The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breath and yelled, "Gravity." Over their laughter, I told them, 'I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead.'
He lived, thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude... I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live fully. Attitude, after all, is everything.
Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. After all today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.
Kind of gets the point across doesn't it. It is up to you how your day, week, month, life goes. Do your best and always keep positive.
We at Basic Wellness are not life coaches but we do have contact with people who have these qualifications. If you need to push through some issues which are holding you back, you may be on the brink of a fantastic journey of discovery. We may be able to help direct you to someone who can assist you in your journey. Just email us.
Also, have a look at the Secret and check out Justin Herald for inspiration. I suggest you read "The Power of Positive Thinking" by Norman Vincent Peale and "The Go-Giver" by Bob Burg and John David Mann. I can't recommend these books more highly. We get no kick backs from these referals, we simply want to pass on some positivity!