We live in a day when too many people are comfortable with the average. Few stretch themselves beyond the norm. I know many people who are paid just enough to prevent them from quitting and they work just enough to prevent them from getting fired. Many began their careers with expectations of rapid growth and progress and life somehow made them settle for the ordinary and mundane. We need to learn to live beyond average. Soar above mediocrity! We were engineered for excellence and born with greatness within us. You can achieve more thanthe norm. Stretch yourself. Unleash your full potential! Live above the level of mediocrity!
Many times we define ourselves based on the circumstances and situations of our lives. In reality, our current circumstances reflect who we were because it is our thinking that got us into those circumstances. In order for us to get out of those circumstances, we need to be able to change our thinking. Things as they are do not necessarily have to define how things will be tomorrow. Start thinking differently and you can alter your life.
I recently joined a networking site, linkedin.com. I’ve found it to be a great tool for connecting people. Blogs too can be tremendously useful in bringing people together. By visiting and commenting on other blogs you are building valuable relationships that are truly rewarding for your personal growth. Social networking sites can be great tools for building relationships and networking with people who have similar inetrests to yours.
There was a time in my life when I was so consumed with the idea of winning in life. This was right after I graduated from college and was so eager to get out into the market place and unleash the real me. I’m glad to say that this period of my life was short-lived because I’m not sure what kind of stresses I would have been grappling with by this time of my life. My change of perspective came when I decided that there was more to life than just winning or losing in the game of life. The purpose of life is for us to richly experience it with ever-increasing depth. My goal now is to have a sweeter, more satisfying and fuller experience of life from one day to the next. How do you develop such a perspective on life? Instead of asking yourself whether you won or lost, ask yourself whether you are growing. Are you growing? How have you changed in the last month? Has it been for better or worse? Are you stretching yourself? Your focus should be on your personal potential. Measure yourself against what you could do, not what other people have done or are doing? Live a deeper life.
I’ve heard people say many times that they cannot afford to lose at one thing or another because “the stakes are too high”. Well, I’d like to reconsider this in terms of our personal lives. We cannot afford to play mediocre and live average lives because the stakes are our very life! Many times we fail to realize that we only get one shot at life. We give haphazard performances and output because we are just plain lazy or we think we have tomorrow to provide a more stellar output.
If you are going to uncover your full potential, you’ve got to realize that the stakes are your very life. Every day must be an endeavor to produce your very best effort. What’s keeping you from unleashing your full potential? Is it the thought that you still have time to it right? The time is now! The stakes are your life!
Marianne Williamson says, “Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do.” Each moment is stellar opportunity for you. You’ve got to expend yourself at every moment and uncover the true you. Go for it! You can do it!
Yesterday I pointed out that soft leadership skills are more important than hard leadership skills in today’s world. Hard leadership skills result in a variety of problems for organizations which limit their true potential from being realized. Here are a few that should get us thinking serously about our quality of leadership:
1. Dependent Employees - Hard leadership skills tend to produce employees who depend too much on their leaders. This dependency puts a lid on the employee’s personal development because it limits them from thinking for themselves.
2. Paternal Management - This is where the leader always feels the urge to ‘always be there’. It’s Management by Hovering Around. Such a style of leadership prevents employees from feeling free enough to exercise their own judgement.
3. Unresolved Emotional Demands - The above two problems really stem from unresolved emotional demands in people’s personal lives. This becomes a key factor in their professional lives and can easily derail their careers.
Leaders need to develop themselves and eradicate these problems. An organization that has leaders who have successfully dealt with these problems will maximize it’s potential.
In his book, The Heart Aroused, David Whyte provides an ancient English poem titled Beowulf, as a solution to some of the corporate problems of today. He defines it as a masculine story of descent into the waters of the unconscious, but where the restoration of a profound inner feminine power is essential to his survival. Recently, Tom Peters blogged about the topic, Girls Rule! We live today in a society where corporations and leaders are recognizing that soft leadership skills are more important than hard leadership skills. Compassion is more important than vision. People are more important than money. Tomorrow I will look at a few corporate problems.
I’m currently reading a very illuminating book titled “The Heart Aroused” by David Whyte. In this book, David goes to great poetic lengths to outline how corporate America needs to regain and preserve it’s soul. It is a book that I would recommend even for those who may not be working in corporate America (like me) but want to live a life that is grounded in enlightenment. Over the next two days I will be posting some of my thought here as I read the book.
Over the past couple of days, it seems as if I’ve settled and been content with a lot of what is happening in my life. My close friends have always known me to be a big thinker, always dreaming about new things, new ideas and new experiences. But for some reason that I am yet to fully understand, a huge sense of contentment has flooded my spirit all week. Contentment does not mean that you stop pursuing a fuller experience of life. True contentment is having a healthy satisfaction with your current position in life as you continue to work towards attaining your full potential. Contentment secures your destiny and keeps you on course towards all that you can be, do and have. Embrace the power of contentment today.
Everything that we ever attain and accomplish in life begins as a thought. The thought is developed as an image in our minds. The key to attaining a richer experience of life this month then is to see bigger possibilities in store for you. Seeing is the first step in the process of attaining your objectives. Stretch yourself this month and begin to access the bigger things ahead for you. Set aside time just for seeing that which is possible in your life. This time set aside is the greatest investment you can make in your growth and development.
This is going to be a great month. I can see it. I can feel it. I sense new breakthroughs that will continue to enhance many aspects of my personal purpose and vision for life. I hope that you are also experiencing the same. Life is so designed that we have periods of newness that allow us to expand ourselves in many different ways. Every day is a new day. Every months is a new month. The new period allows us to begin afresh and put aside the happenings of the previous period.
There are three crucial keys that will allow us to experience the newness that new seasons offer us. Enjoying newness comes in three steps. We need to be able to conceptualize, then visualize and finally materialize the newness.
Conceptualize
This begins with vision. One might even say the need to have a dream to pursue. It takes a lot of optimism to conceptualize a future that is yet to made manifest. The key is to really believe that you can make it happen and you have all the resources to pursue that which you desire. Conceptualizing means birthing ideas of what’s possible. This is crucial.
Visualize
Beyond conceiving the dream, you need to be able to see yourself walking in it’s fulness. To visualize is simply to form mental pictures or images of something. It simply means imagining yourself being, doing and having that which you are dreaming of. It’s using the power of perception to transform what you have conceptualized into a vision of possibility.
Materialize
Dreams and visions reach their full term when they are materialized. Nothing is more rewarding than seeing your ideas go from concept to reality. As you pursue newness this month, your goal is to do just that - transform ideas into powerful results. Embrace newness and bring fresh results into your life. This is going to be an awesome month!
In tomorrow’s post, I will follow this line of thought and explore more on how to make this month the best month of your year so far.
