Category Archives: Personal Growth and Development
On Fate and Destiny
“Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her. But once
they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how
to play the cards in order to win the game.”
– Voltaire
Much has been written about fate and destiny. Those that I read presented varied opinions on whether or not those two concepts are one and the same with some claiming they can be interchangeably used and some arguing that one should not be mistaken for the other. There are assertions that fate and destiny both refer to what the future holds for you and me. However, that future, when viewed using the lens of fate, is negative and is neutral – not really positive as you might have expected I would say – when seen from the vantage point of destiny.
The common thing that the literature I explored on the said constructs clearly articulated is that both fate and destiny are manifestations of the future of a person but the former has negative connotations while the latter is neither positive nor negative… and I will explain why I view it that way.
Fate is negative because it is a belief that everything that happens to us in the future have been set in stone. We cannot change our fate no matter how hard we try. That is a scary proposition because it implies that we are not in control of our life and what will happen to us in the future. There is nothing we could do but go with the flow, dance to the tune of whoever we believe designed our fate. That is we choose to believe it.
Conversely, destiny, as I said previously, is neutral because it presents a future that is yet to happen, a story not written yet. The reason I consider it neither positive nor negative is that things will go either way for you – good or bad – depending on the quality of the decisions you make in the different areas of your life.
I believe that I create my own destiny. I am writing my own story. You should do the same. You hold the pen, you have control over how your story will turn out to be. You should not surrender that pen to other people and make them write that story for you because it may be written not the way you want. You should take control and try very hard to make the right decisions in order to ensure that the destiny you create for yourself is a great one.
Fate and destiny are both considered a predetermined course of events. However, fate is viewed as inevitable which is controlled by an unseen force while destiny is likened to clay in the hands of a potter – it can be shaped as desired. Would you let others hold the mold and put the clay and let them be the ones to shape your future?
You ought to decide whether to accept that the life you live is tied to threads controlled by the puppeteer called fate or is it a book filled with empty pages and you’re holding the pen and have that opportunity to fill those pages with stories of triumphs and happiness. You may decide whether you will be living a fate assigned to you or you will be controlling your own destiny.
Fatalism, the doctrine that events are fixed in advance so that human beings are powerless to change them (Merriam-Webster, n.d.), has influenced the way people live life since time immemorial. The danger with subscribing to the idea that events in our lives are determined by the hand that fate dealt with us is it leads to a passive life. Fatalism reduces a person to merely a driftwood on the waves being tossed to and fro.
Believing that success and failure are preordained, people may not be motivated to give their best shot in any endeavor or be afraid to take risks in any way. They would simply wait for their future to unfold for they are sold to the idea that they are not in control. They believe that fate would bring them to where they should be anyway and would make them what they are meant to be. For them, there is not much (or nothing) that they could do but wait until their wheel of fortune grinds to a halt and hope that they hit the “jackpot” (and not the “bankrupt”) when it does stop.
Fatalistic people also believe that nobody knows what the future holds. But those who use the lens of destiny when viewing the future, while they accept that they don’t have the ability to predict the future and determine what will happen eventually, there’s nothing that can prevent them from preparing for it. They know that there are variables they can control to make sure that the future will unfold the way they want it to happen. This is what extremely successful people do. They plan. They execute that plan. They take control of their future. Some of them would even say that they create their own future.
Innate in us is the capability to chart our own destiny. Living our fate or shaping our own future is a matter of choice. Instead of waiting passively for the future, we should take control by laying out a plan to ensure that it unfolds the way we want it to happen.
Remember what Albert Camus said – “Life is the sum of all our choices.” “Our life,” as Myles Munroe puts it, “is the sum total of all the decisions we make every day.” It is then incumbent upon you to make the right choices all the time. And the first decision you need to make is whether you view yourself as the master of your fate or its slave. Are you in control of your future or the puppeteer called fate is?
The fatalistic attitude of people stems from the doctrine of predestination upheld by most of the world’s monotheistic religions (Christianity, Islam, and Judaism). The said doctrine maintains that whatever happens has already been determined by God. What if this means that God, omniscient and omnipresent that He is, only knows, and not controls, how our future unfolds based on the decisions we make as individuals? It doesn’t require a scientific mind to figure out that it doesn’t make sense that God gifted mankind with free will if after all He already preordained everything.
Buddhists and Hindus believe that our destiny as humans is determined by our actions, thoughts, and words. If it is so, it is important to be careful with what we do, think, and say. We take control of our future by making sure that our actions, thoughts, and words will bring us to the pinnacle of success and not perdition.
Creating our own destiny does not mean denying that certain aspects and events in life are inevitable and unavoidable. For instance, we could not choose the body we want and the physical attributes we desire. We also could not choose the parents we were born to. When finally we face the mirror and contend with our personal realities, we could only wish that we were born to parents who would endow us not only with wealth but with good genes.
Yes, we could not control the circumstances of our birth. There’s no way we could also prevent people around us from making bad decisions that might adversely affect us. However, we can choose how we shall respond to all the limitations and unfavorable conditions that we encounter. We could not afford to be held hostage by them. We should never play the role of a helpless victim. Voltaire puts it this way – “Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her. But once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game.”
As Sartre (1956) argued, “Predetermined nature, facticity or essence do not control who or what we are; moreover, one is radically free to choose one’s destiny and it is one’s moral responsibility to do so.”
The moment we become capable of deciding for ourselves and aware of our capabilities was the moment we start charting our own destiny – that’s when we begin to be in control. We should begin by embracing our limitations and recognizing which aspects of our life were not properly put in place by the people who were in charge of us when we were young and incapable of making decisions for ourselves. Limitations and unfavorable conditions can be overcome if one so desires. This May (1981) articulated by saying, “Fate is that which cannot be changed about a person, such as gender and race. Destiny is that which can be created from what was given.”
Aside from the circumstances of our birth, the only other thing we have no way of avoiding is death. We don’t know when it would come, except to those who are terminally ill and predicted by doctors to have only a certain time left to live. We’ll never know how long we live and how soon we breathe our last. This presents us with a choice – live our life to the fullest and make every moment count or live in fear trembling at the thought of the Moirae named Atropos coming any moment to cut our life thread.
References:
Fatalism. (n.d.). In merriam-webster.com. Retrieved from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fatalism
Sartre, J. P. (1956). Being and nothingness. (H. Barnes, Trans.). NewYork: Washington Square Press.
May, R. (1981). Freedom and destiny. New York: W.W. Norton
On Self-Belief and Other Related Constructs
As the term implies, self-belief is a person’s faith or complete trust and confidence in their abilities and skills and value as a human being. Consider it as a combination of self-confidence and self-worth.
Self-belief is an essential component in a person’s pursuit of success and happiness. If you don’t have it, don’t expect to achieve anything for without self-belief a person will never succeed in any kind of endeavor. But too much of it is not good either. An exaggerated opinion of one’s own qualities and abilities is called self-conceit. The Greeks refer to it as hubris.
Self-belief is a concept not difficult to comprehend yet not too many really know how having or not having it would affect their lives in general. Some may have chosen to disregard it not fully understanding the possible negative consequences for neglecting it.
If you won’t trust in your own abilities and skills… if you won’t believe that you are valuable, no one else would. If you want others to believe in you, you have to convince them first that you believe in yourself. And even if nobody believes in you but yourself, you are in a strong position in life.
The issue is not what other people say and think about what you can and can’t do and achieve but rather whether or not you believe in your own capabilities and worth as a person. The disbelief of people around you won’t move the needle of your success. It is your self-belief that would. People not believing in you won’t kill your dreams and ambitions, your self-doubt would.
Self-doubt is by no means just a simple problem. It is a very serious one. A person is in serious trouble when they doubt themselves and when they think they are worthless. The failure of people to develop self-belief stems from them not understanding the nature of self-doubt. In a separate essay – “Self-doubt: The Unknown Sin” – I discussed the said concept extensively.
Self-belief should serve as the starting point of all self-improvement activities. Any personal growth and development program should start with the elimination of self-doubt. Imagine self-doubt as old wineskins and all the attitudes, beliefs, and skills you need for self-improvement, altogether, like new wine. You should not pour the new wine into the old wineskins. The Lord Jesus Christ warned – “And no one pours new wine into old wineskins, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins (Mark 2:22).”
There are several constructs that are construed to be the same or somewhat related to self-belief, namely self-concept, self-esteem, self-efficacy, and self-image. These concepts have been explored extensively and a vast body of literature has been created for each of them. There are numerous articles available explaining how similar and different are they from each other. But if you examine the bottom lines of the said constructs, all of them lead to the notion that people need to develop their faith or complete trust and confidence in their abilities and skills and also to value themselves as human beings.
The primary objective of all activities recommended by experts for the improvement of self-concept, self-esteem , self-efficacy, and self-image is the development or strengthening of self-belief. If all ideas related to these constructs are to be synthesized into one single idea, very likely that that the term self-belief would be used.
This article does not intend to deal with specific details about these concepts but only their definitions to see how they relate to self-belief.
Let’s take a look at self-concept first. As explained by McLeod (2008), self-concept is a general term used to refer to “how people think about, evaluate, or perceive themselves. To be aware of oneself is to have a concept of oneself.” Additionally, “self-concept is an overarching idea we have about who we are—physically, emotionally, socially, spiritually, and in terms of any other aspects that make up who we are (Neill, 2005).”
Your self-concept is a collection of your beliefs about yourself. Being aware of what beliefs you hold about yourself is instrumental in the development of self-belief. Your self-concept would help you identify what negative perceptions you hold about yourself. Self-belief doesn’t mean ignoring or sweeping under the rug what you consider as your weaknesses but rather accepting them. But accept them only if after serious introspection you will find them to be true. What comes next after that is you exerting conscious efforts to address them. Self-concept enables you to identify what are your problems and deficiencies which need correction. The process of self-improvement includes not just finding and developing your strengths but also identifying your negative attributes and getting rid of them.
What about self-esteem? This concept refers to the extent to which we like, accept or approves of ourselves, or how much we value ourselves (McLeod, 2008).” Harter (1986) added that “self-esteem is the evaluative and affective dimension of the self-concept, and is considered as equivalent to self-regard, self-estimation, and self-worth.”
Think of self-esteem as a self-appraisal that leads to an honest valuation of yourself. The more positive is your self-appraisal (or the stronger your self-belief is) the higher is your self-esteem.
Low self-esteem – a person’s failure to value themselves as a human being – leads to a variety of problems that can affect a person’s personal and professional pursuits, health, and relationships.
If we go back to the definition of self-belief at the beginning of this article, we can say that half of this construct is self-concept and the other half is self-esteem.
Next is self-efficacy. Bandura (1994) defines the term as people’s belief about their capabilities to produce designated levels of performance that exercise influence over events that affect their lives. Self-efficacy beliefs determine how people feel, think, motivate themselves, and behave.
The foregoing definition shows the thin line that separates self-belief from self-efficacy. That thin line may not even exist.
“People with a strong sense of self-efficacy,” as Bandura explained, “develop a deeper interest in the activities in which they participate, form a stronger sense of commitment to their interests and activities, recover quickly from setbacks and disappointments, and view challenging problems as tasks to be mastered.”
These exactly are what people with a strong self-belief (are and) do – they know what particular skills and capabilities they have, nurture and use them as leverage to achieve success; they are not afraid to fail and when they do they bounce back; and they face and conquer challenges and difficulties.
Seemingly, self-belief is just another word for self-efficacy.
Now, let’s take a look at self-image. The Meriam-Webster English Dictionary defines the said construct “as the way you think about yourself and your abilities or appearance.” That, too, is almost exactly how we define self-belief.
According to Dr. Maltz (1993), “Whether we realize it or not, each of us carries a mental blueprint or picture of ourselves. It may be vague and ill-defined to our conscious gaze. In fact, it may not be consciously recognizable at all. But it is there, complete down to the last detail. This self-image is our own conception of the ‘sort of person I am.’ It has been built up from our own beliefs about ourselves. But most of these beliefs have been formed from our own past experiences, our successes and our failures, and the way people have reacted to us.”
Bob Proctor once said that when you stand in front of a mirror you see a reflection of the physical you. But that’s not the real you. You also have a picture of yourself in your mind. That, according to him, is what Dr. Maltz postulated – that people have two images of themselves, the one that’s coming back from the mirror and the other one is their inner image.
The kind of inner image, that self-image you hold constitutes your self-belief. If you have a poor self-image, it means you don’t have faith in your skills and capabilities and that you have a low self-worth.
There are plenty to learn from the literature and studies conducted on self-concept, self-esteem, self-efficacy, and self-image. Anybody serious about developing a strong self-belief should take a look at them. What I presented in this article about the constructs aforementioned barely scratched the surfaces of each of them.
Let me end with a quote from Alexander Dumas:
“A man who doubts himself is like a man who would enlist in the ranks of his enemies and bear arms against himself. He makes his failure certain by himself being the first person to be convinced of it.”
References:
Bandura, A. (1994). Self-efficacy. In V. S. Ramachaudran (Ed.), Encyclopedia of human behavior (Vol. 4, pp. 71-81). New York: Academic Press. (Reprinted in H. Friedman [Ed.], Encyclopedia of mental health. San Diego: Academic Press, 1998).
McLeod, S. A. (2008). Self concept. Simply Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/ self-concept.html
Neill, J. (2005). Definitions of various self constructs: Self-esteem, self-efficacy, self-confidence & self-concept. Wilderdom. Retrieved from http://www.wilderdom.com/self/
Harter, S. (1986). Processes underlying the construction, maintenance and enhancement of the self-concept in children. In Suls, J. and Greenwald, A.G. (eds), Psychological Perspectives on the Self. Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ, vol. 3, pp. 137–181
Maltz, M. (1993). Psycho-Cybernatics. New York: Prentice Hall Press.
Cultivating A Positive Mindset
Mindset refers to the general attitudes of people and the way they think about things. It is what informs whatever decisions they make (or don’t make). It controls what they say and do. Their mindset is also the lens they use when evaluating the issues and events happening around them.
Mindset affects the way a person looks at things and issues. Let me share an experience as an illustration.
I once had a conversation with a colleague about salaries and working conditions. He bewailed the fact that a truck driver in his country earns more than what he is earning in a year as an expat teacher. After listening to his litany, I told him to pause for a while and dig deeper into his comparison and consider other factors like the number of required work hours and the physical demands for the job. When computing the number of hours, I reminded him that we as teachers are not actually working during winter and summer breaks but we get paid in full by the university as stipulated in our contracts. That’s a total of four months when we practically do almost nothing related to work but get paid. On the other hand, that truck driver needs to grind it out winter, spring, summer, and fall to earn every single penny he is earning.
He realized at the end that his pay per hour is actually higher than the truck driver and his working conditions are much better.
A positive mindset allows a person to have a broad perspective enabling them to see the bigger picture. That’s what my colleague failed to see – the bigger picture. Big-picture thinking is one of the components of what Dr. John Maxwell referred to as “good thinking.” Dr. Maxwell explained that successful people reached the pinnacle of success because they cultivated “big-picture thinking.” We can choose to do the same.
Factors related to family, school, and environment are considered determinants of the kind of mindset that people possess. How such elements affect them as they grow older could be gleaned from the way they behave, think, and talk.
Mindset could be affected by the culture people have grown into and it could either be positive or negative. Studies done on mindset have established a strong correlation between mindset and achievement and happiness. Needless to say that people with a positive mindset are more successful and live a stress-free life. They have either a flourishing business or a rewarding career (or both) and their personal lives are amazing.
A positive mindset can be cultivated if anyone wants to. But it’s easier said than done. It would take a very strong commitment and determination for it to happen. It will entail hard work. The rewards people with a positive mindset are reaping are not being handed to them in a silver platter. Those are the fruits of the seeds of hard work they have sown.
Dr. Carol S. Dweck, a Stanford psychologist, made a comprehensive study of mindset. Dr. Dweck coined the words “fixed mindset” and “growth mindset.” She explained that “In a fixed mindset students [people] believe that their abilities, their intelligence, their talents, are just fixed traits. In a growth mindset, students [people] understand that their talents and abilities can be developed through effort, good teaching, and persistence.”
We need to make a choice between having a “fixed mindset” or a “growth mindset.”
Learning is a lifelong process. We should never stop acquiring the knowledge, skills, attitude, and values we need.
We never cease to be students. But which kind of student are we – the one with a fixed mindset or with a growth mindset?”
As explained by Dr. Dweck, because people with a “fixed mindset” believe that intelligence and other human traits are static, they avoid challenges, give up easily, and see the exertion of extra efforts as fruitless and futile. Conversely, people with a “growth mindset” are convinced that human intelligence and other traits can be developed which would lead them to embrace challenges, persist in the face of setbacks, and see effort as the path to mastery. People with a “fixed mindset” ignore useful negative feedback and feel threatened by the success of others while those with a “growth mindset” learn from criticism and find lessons and inspiration in the success of others.
It’s time to evaluate which of the two mindsets you possess. Whether you change it or not is a decision only you can make.
I have been trying to cultivate a positive mindset. It is an ongoing process and I am happy with the results. How I wish I have started doing this when I was younger.
My journey to changing my mindset for the better was not easy. It made me completely overhaul my way of thinking that was programmed by the environment I have grown into and the kind of education and experiences I had. It is equivalent to getting out of my comfort zone because I have to change the habits and routines that I got accustomed to. But it’s worth a try.
The Road To Self-Improvement: A Collection of Essays
I gathered in this part of my website the essays I have written about personal growth and development. I want to share the lessons and insights I learned from motivational speakers whose books (and videos on YouTube) have given me the blueprint on how best I could restructure my way of thinking so I could make better decisions in the different areas of my life.
I have been experiencing amazing changes in my life that I started regretting why didn’t I dig into these personal development stuffs when I was younger. I have heard a lot about “positive thinking” and related ideas before but I did not pay attention. But as the saying goes, “better late than never.”
I came to realize that “positive thinking” is but the first step in a person’s journey to a better self and a better life. It’s not the be-all-end-all of personal growth and development. But it all begins in setting a positive mindset. Positive actions should follow. People are in a better position to succeed when they break free from limiting beliefs and debilitating attitudes.
My goal in writing these essays and have them put together in this corner of my website is to help promote awareness on personal growth and development. I am not (yet) an expert in this field. I just want to share the little things I have learned so far and to say that I am so happy with the results I am getting.
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Cultivating a Positive Mindset
On Self-Improvement
“There is no heavier burden than an unfulfilled potential.”
– Charles Schulz
Aside from them being listed in the Forbes’ list of richest men in the world, what else do Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Elon Musk have in common? They are all certified bookworms. They love reading.
Include in the list of those who surrounded themselves with books famous people like Barack Obama, J.K. Rowling, and Oprah Winfrey. Even Mahatma Gandhi was reportedly a voracious reader. The list of the bookworms who became wealthy and famous is long.
There are no doubts about two things. The first one – that the personalities aforementioned succeeded in their chosen careers and gained wealth and renown in the process. And the second one – that reading contributed to their success. I doubt that reading for them is just a hobby done to kill time but something they deliberately do for learning. They are what we call “lifelong learners.”
One common denominator among extremely successful people is this – they decided to be lifelong learners. They did not stop being engaged in the endless process of personal growth and development. They want to accumulate more knowledge and to either develop further their skills or learn some new ones. They have the humility to admit they don’t know everything. They acknowledge the need to continue growing as a person.
They (the few people who succeeded) knew that schools cannot teach everything that they ought to learn. This is so true. There are essential knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values which the academia do not teach. There is a gap between what the schools teach and what should a person learn and develop for them to be holistically functional and live life to the fullest. They considered it their duty to fill in those gaps. They knew that nobody else will do it for them.
Their main objective in getting involved in personal growth and development is to unlock their full potential knowing that it is only when people become the best version of themselves that they could have the best chance to succeed in whatever endeavors they initiate. Self-improvement is a quest that they undertook to make themselves better.
You should do the same. Self-improvement is something that you owe to yourself.
Philosophers have actually disputed the notion of self-improvement as a moral duty. Arguing if it is or not (a moral duty) is a case of analysis paralysis. For me it’s simple – self-improvement is a MUST. For me it’s plain common sense, it is my duty to improve myself in all aspects of my being a person in order to increase my chances of getting what I want and in becoming what I envision myself of becoming.
Let me, however, mention some assertions made by Immanuel Kant about the subject, not to refute them but to use them in support of the contention that self-improvement is important. He asserted that “man should find in himself a talent which could, by means of some cultivation, make him in many respects a useful man.”
In case you haven’t discovered yet, lying dormant within you is a particular skill (or a set of skills) waiting for you to uncover and develop. You have a natural talent (or talents) that you need to hone, or cultivate (as Kant suggested). Others don’t have natural talents but they chose one particular skill they are interested with and spent time (hundreds to thousands of hours) and practiced complete dedication and focus to develop it. There’s no magic pill you can buy anywhere to help you master a skill or talent. You need two things – grit and hard work.
Kant continued by saying that “man cannot possibly will that self-improvement becomes a universal law of nature but as a rational being, he necessarily wills that all his faculties should be developed.”
I consider the decision not to develop one’s faculties to the fullest as irrational. It’s just hard to fathom why people would not try to explore to what extent they could develop themselves as a person.
Kant also posited this – “Poverty is the result of lack of self-improvement?” What if this is true? What if people who are currently mired in financial and other forms of difficulties got to where they are now because they failed to improve themselves in areas that need improvement.
But whether you accept that self-improvement is a moral duty or not is a matter of choice. And I hope and pray that you make the right choice. No adults capable of making decisions for themselves can be forced to do anything they don’t want especially if doing so would require them to leave their comfort zones. It is hard to convince people to learn something new even if doing so would mean them reaping great benefits in the long run. It is even harder to persuade people to unlearn something they have gotten accustomed to doing even if clearly continuing a pattern of habit and holding to a set of beliefs and practices are harming them personally and ruining their chance of living a better and happier life.
Whether you like it not, self-improvement is necessary. Yes, it’s not easy but it is a journey you should take and not doing it is like living a meaningless life. Let me add another one from Immanuel Kant – “Self-improvement is an obligation that each person owes to himself/herself.” Imagine self-improvement as a road that leads to success and happiness. Would you not like to traverse it? How long it will take before you take your first step?
Self-improvement can be achieved by patiently putting a workable personal growth and development program. It is the only path to go towards unleashing your full potential for you to become the best you.. There are lots of self-help books and plenty of resources in the Internet that can help you get started.
Being at your best will make you more equipped to face challenges and rigors of having to exert your best efforts towards the attainment of your dreams and ambitions. It will give you a better chance to succeed in all your undertakings.
This is not saying that you will not encounter failure. There are times you might but failing would make you wiser and more careful so you will try better on your next attempts to succeed and will not stop until you get your desired results. The function of failure is to tell you what does not work, not to prevent you from trying again.
Is trying to unlock one’s full potential an attempt to be perfect?
It is not. It is simply an attempt to attain complete and holistic development. It is an organized effort to discover and cultivate one’s natural powers and abilities.
There’s one personal duty that we are free to perform or not – that is discovering how far we could develop ourselves – how productive we could become. It is an opportunity that some people chose to pass up. We indeed have the freedom to choose. It is just unfortunate that some people would choose not to make themselves better.
When you try to develop fully as an individual, you are not attempting to be perfect and blameless. No person could ever attain perfection in the areas that Psychology refers to as different dimensions of individuality, namely physical, intellectual, emotional, moral, and social.
Trying to be holistically developed is not about becoming perfect. For me, any attempt to be perfect would end in a disappointment for nobody would ever be perfect. Hara Estroff Marano, as quoted by Jim Kwik in his book “Limitless,” said, “perfectionism reduces creativity and innovation. It is an endless report card; it keeps people completely self-absorbed, engaged in perpetual self-evaluation – reaping relentless frustration and doomed to anxiety and depression.”
Attempting to be holistically developed is trying to attain your best form in the different dimensions of individuality until you reach the full extent of your capabilities. And while some people would not bother to discover what talents and skills they have, some are trying to go beyond the limits of whatever they discovered they are capable of doing.
We often hear people say that despite them working hard they could not reach their goals, have what they want, and be where they want to be. They don’t understand why for them success is so elusive.
When people do not achieve their goals it is possible that they have either not done everything right or have not exerted enough effort.
People may reason out after not getting the results they want that it was the best they could do. And that’s another problem – them setting their limitations or allowing other to set the limitations for them. There are no odds so insurmountable for those who do not know how to give up.
One of the reasons why people don’t get what they want – – they did not do their best or they thought their best is already their best not knowing what they thought is already their best is only the tip of the iceberg which we call their full potential – their maximal capability.
People fail to get what they want and become what they envision themselves to be because not they are not good but rather they don’t know how good they are. They have not discovered yet their maximum potential.
We would know our ceiling only after we unleash the best version of that person within us. This is the reason why we should not pass up the opportunities for self-improvement. And if those opportunities don’t come, we have to create them.
Those who succeeded in climbing mountains of success have left trails. They put markers and painted trees with blazes along the way. They paved the way for those who intend to do what they have done.
There are many trails you could follow if you really want to reach the pinnacle of success in the same manner that there are also a lot of justifications you could give if you don’t want to. Which one would you like to do – follow the trails or give a justification for not trying?
It’s all up to you.
You might ask – “What if there are no trails?” What if no one yet has tried climbing the mountain you wish to scale thus the way is not paved yet? What should I do?
Remember what Hannibal said when the only way to defeat the Romans was to make his soldiers, horses, and elephants climb the Alps – “I will either find a way or make one.”
In his book “The Direct Line,” Earl Nightingale explained why only a fraction of people really succeeded in life. He cited among others the Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset who bemoaned people’s laziness to study. The said philosopher compared studying to paying taxes – something people don’t like to do and something practically no one does when he doesn’t have to. He added that the great majority of people will go to school just as long as they have to during that time they will learn only what is absolutely necessary which isn’t very much and they will stop on any subject that moment they’re allowed to.
Nightingale mentioned about people complaining because they’re not successful. He was aghast because those people would most of the time sit dull ahead and slack-jawed in front of their TV sets instead of going to libraries to read.
Are you one of those who stopped learning after schooling? Are you one of those who consider that self-improvement is just a waste of your precious time? If yes, then you might want to consider St. Paul recommendation, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
The Road to Self-Improvement
The Pursuit of Happiness
A lot of essays have already been written about happiness. There’s even a scientific journal called “Journal of Happiness Studies.” I think I don’t need to explain what kind of studies are published in the said journal.
I also have several essays about this topic. One of them is entitled “Defining Happiness” which if you wish to read later then you may click on this link.
So, what else should I be discussing here about happiness when it is possible that I may have already articulated everything I wish to say about it in my past essays. I decided to revisit this topic because I just want to share one very significant insight I heard when I listened to one of Dr. John C. Maxwell’s audiobooks. Dr. Maxwell is an American author, speaker, and pastor. He has written many books and I have actually purchased two of those – “How Successful People Think” and “Jumpstart Your Thinking.” I sometimes watch his videos on YouTube and that’s how I came across that audio book.
In that said audio book Dr. Maxwell shared an experience when he and his wife (Margaret) were invited as co-speakers in a seminar about happiness. According to him, when it was Mrs. Maxwell’s turn to speak, one of the participants asked, “Does your husband make you happy?”
Dr. Maxwell said that he was surprised with the question, but even more so with the answer given by his wife – “No!” He added that upon hearing that, people started to look at him. And as if the negative response was not enough to indict him (if it were true), somebody from the audience asked “Why?”
Then his wife explained.
“No! John Maxwell cannot make me happy. John Maxwell is a very good husband. He is never drunk. He never cheats on me. He always tries to fulfill my needs, physically and spiritually. But still, he cannot make me happy. Why? Because no one in this world is responsible for my happiness than me.”
The message is simple – we are responsible for our own happiness. It’s nobody else’s job to make us happy. Mrs. Maxwell is telling us that whether we become happy or not is up to us. It is a decision we make and not based on what others do or don’t do. As you probably have read (or heard) many times – “Happiness is an inside job.” You should have control over it. You shouldn’t allow your JOYstick to be handled by anyone.
Each of us is responsible for setting the parameters of our own happiness and we should be careful when we do so. We should set our own answers to the question “What would make me happy?” The question that should follow is – Which level (or levels) in the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs should be met for you to be happy – the basic, the psychological, or the self-actualization needs?
Those who consider money as their source of happiness have their physiological and safety needs as underlying reasons for doing so. Their need for food, clothes, and shelter are foremost among their concerns. There’s nothing wrong with that – for as long as they acknowledge that living a happy life requires more than eating, wearing clothes, and living under a roof.
We all have a dream house and car. We all want to eat the best foods. We all want something more – jewelry, bag, and what have you. We all want to have a vacation in the places listed in our bucket lists. For all those, we need money.
Money is not bad, it’s a blessing. The more of it we have, the better. Whoever says “I don’t need it” is a hypocrite. Whoever says also that “money is the root of all evils” is mistaken. Very likely that those people who have this kind of mindset about money don’t have it. What makes money bad is the way we want it, how we acquire it, how we spend it, and what we sacrifice to have it. What makes it bad is the answer to the question – “Are you the master of money… or its slave?” And what are you sacrificing in your quest for fortune? Is it your health… relationships… or your dignity as a human being? Is it worth it?
If you tie up your happiness with your need for love and belongingness, that’s when other people – your family and loved ones, friends, and to some extent, co-workers – get involved. From “What makes you happy?” it now becomes a matter of “Who makes you happy?” This is when we should be reminded of Mrs. Maxwell’s words – “No one is responsible for my happiness than me.”
It’s difficult but we should not allow other people to dictate our happiness. No matter how close they may be to us. We should manage our relationships in such a way that it would not destroy the tranquility of our lives and distract us from our personal pursuits and endeavors.
How to do it?
We become unhappy in our relationships when we get disappointed by something that a loved one, a friend, or a co-worker did or had failed to do. That is because we have set expectations and standards that they must measure up to. When they don’t, we become disappointed leading us to feel unhappy.
What should you do then? Consider dumping your expectations and standards.
Our happiness should not be contingent upon the way we expect other people to think, speak, and act. Do not set standards that whether your relatives, boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife, children, parents, friends, co-workers, boss, leaders, neighbor or a stranger, like it or not, should comply with. You will be gravely disappointed if you expect other people to behave and think exactly the way you want.
You have no control of the way your fellowmen would conduct themselves as persons and as professionals. You just need to embrace them for the way that they are. Just like you and me, they are not perfect. If your relationship is at a level that they could accept rebuke and advice then try. But how sure are you that with whatever issues or disagreements that you have with whoever, you are right and they are wrong – that the mistake is theirs, not yours. Should they not accept your rebuke or advice, in the event that you are certain that you stand on the side of truth and reason, then let them be and you do what is best for you. Move on. Let whoever erred suffer the consequences… and pray that it’s not you.
Happiness, being an inside job that it is, should not be hinged upon any external factors that we don’t have direct control of. We should, therefore, in our pursuit of happiness, focus internally. Our happiness is our own business. We should strive higher than satisfying our basic needs and our need for love and belongingness. We should set higher ideals for ourselves.
Nestled on top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs are self-esteem and self-actualization. Include them in the list of your answers to the question “What would make me happy?”. It will be in your best interest should you place them on top of your list as well.
Happy you will certainly become if you acquire the knowledge and skills that would enable you to achieve success in your chosen field of endeavor. Through it, you will earn the recognition and respect of your fellowmen bringing you an immeasurable amount of self-esteem.
If you attain self-actualization, it means that you succeeded in unleashing your full potential as a person and you will be surprised how money, love and admiration, and respect of other people will come knocking at your door even if you don’t seek them.
True happiness comes from within thus there are people asserting that it (happiness) is actually a decision we make and not a goal that we try to achieve. But if we consider it as an “end,” the “means” of getting it should not be anybody or anything but what we become as a person.
Happiness is our reward when we succeed in our efforts to become, not perfect for perfection can never be achieved, but the best version of ourselves. When we become the best of what we could be, we can live our lives to the fullest and become productive members of both our family and society.
Where Has “Positive Thinking” Brought Me?
“Positive thinking” as a concept is like a narrow street that seemingly leads to nowhere. When you embrace it and take the first few steps forward, it would make you feel like you’re not going anywhere.
Consider that normal. When you venture into the unknown and leave your comfort zone, it’s normal to feel iffy. It is your old negative mental programming taking control of your thought processes. As you take a few more steps forward, doubts would start to set in and you’ll be tempted to go back where you came from. That temptation to abandon the journey just beginning would become stronger when people around you start saying how crazy you are to even believe that “positive thinking” works. But should you succeed in conquering all the negative chatters and take the courage to just keep on walking you would soon hit the main road.
The main road that narrow street called “positive thinking” leads to is “personal growth and development.” That was what I personally discovered.
When I decided to dive deeper into “positive thinking,” I realized that it is but the tip of the iceberg. “Positive thinking” is not the main thing. “Personal growth and development” is.
My journey to “positive thinking” started with my accidental discovery of a “self-help” film. I stopped by a stall selling old (pirated) DVDs of old movies. The label (title) of the one of the DVDs – “The Secret” – caught my attention. It intrigued me. So, I picked it up thinking that it’s either a mystery-thriller or a sci-fi movie.
I described in full that encounter with “The Secret” in my essay entitled “Beyond Positive Thinking.”
It is that “self-help” film that got me into positive thinking. For me, anything that advocates positive change is worth my time and worth trying. I though I had nothing to lose but everything to gain when I decided to give it a try.
When I watched that film for the second time, I took off my “critic’s hat” and emptied my mind of all those philosophies that tried to filter all the information the film conveyed and was leading me to analysis paralysis. Anyway, all of those philosophies – all of those isms – which I previously learned were seemingly not leading me to what I want to be and what I want to achieve. Honestly, at that point in my life, I was not even so certain of what I really wanted to be and what I really wanted to achieve. That “self-help” film offered me an option, an opportunity to try another system of beliefs that might help me have clarity of purpose.
I really thought then that my PhD would transform me into the best version of myself. I was wrong.
So, I took a leap of faith and embraced “positive thinking.” I walked down that narrow street that seemingly led to nowhere. I struggled but succeeded in overcoming doubts, in shooting down skepticism, and in turning a deaf ear to the internal and external negative chatters.
And I don’t regret that decision I made.
Then I probed deeper. I read existing literature about “positive thinking” and watched lots of videos about it. That’s how I came to discover that it (“positive thinking”) is the narrow street that leads to the main road called “personal growth and development.”
“Positive thinking” is the springboard to “personal growth and development.” The former is the key to unlocking the latter. I strongly believe that only when a person develops dispositional optimism, when that person expects good things to happen, and when that person hopes that he/she could be a better person and live a better life that he/she would become open to the idea of undertaking the necessary steps to venture seriously into growing and developing further as a person.
When I reached the end of that narrow street of “positive thinking” and got to the main road of “personal growth and development,” I confirmed that indeed it (“positive thinking”) is just the beginning of the journey. The road ahead is long and winding. There’s much to be done. After the “thinking” comes the “doing.”
I discovered that in order to experience meaningful growth and development as a person, it would take more than “positive thinking.” There are other requirements aside from having a positive mindset. There are other things that ought to be done and these are what the gurus of “personal growth and development” commonly describe as the practices and habits that made extremely successful people who and what they are. These people became the best versions of themselves and had found the happiness, good health, and wealth they sought because of such practices and habits.
These practices and habits are actually very practical ones. They are not magical and out of this world stuffs. They are as follows: knowing your whys; embracing a solid belief system; goal setting; short and long-term planning; managing time effectively; developing self-discipline; practicing mindfulness; being purposive; becoming self-sufficient; and living a balanced life.
These are the things that Brendon Burchard, Tom Bilyeu, Jim Rohn, Wayne Dyer, Les Brown, Joe Dispenza, Brian Tracy, Zig Ziglar, Tony Robbins, Simon Sinek, John Maxwell, Mel Robbins, and the like, recommend to people intending to maximize their potentials.
The above-mentioned experts in the field of “personal growth and development” pointed out also that extremely successful people have a common hobby – reading. They also practice meditation.
What I consider as the most significant among those practices or habits of people who reached the pinnacle of success in their fields of endeavors is “living a balanced life.”
“Balanced life” is a concept difficult to define definitively. It is so because people have different priorities and live different kinds of life.
But when I sifted through the works of advocates of “personal growth and development” I saw a common pattern about living a “balanced life” that made me understand what the concept is. And it is not rocket science.
Firstly – as people work hard to achieve what they want in life – money, degree, fame, and what have you – they should not disregard their health and relationships. Not disregarding health means eating the right food, getting enough rest, and exercising regularly. Not disregarding relationships means not forgetting that you have a family and friends needing your attention too.
Secondly (and lastly) – become a well-rounded person. Becoming a well-rounded person means bearing in mind that you are a physical, intellectual, emotional, and a social being (insert spiritual if you happen to believe in God). You should strive to develop in all these areas.
This is how far “positive thinking” brought me – to the discovery of these “personal growth and development” practices and habits. They seem to be simple, but believe me, they are easier said than done – especially if you have a fixed mindset and you keep looking at life and the world using a negative perspective.
M.A.D. LIGAYA
M.A.D. L I G A Y A 