Mi Hamba Blog

Personal Development — takes practice and experience.  Like most things, as you start to practice a new skill such as guitar, piano, swim or personal growth the “novelty” wears off relatively quickly and it may start to feel like work.  This is all about achieving our results isn’t it?  We must remember that our results will not be determined by what we did yesterday, or even what we are doing right now.  Our results will be determined by our feelings, thoughts and actions from this moment on.  Developing a vision of our burning desire.In every case of our desired achievement, there will be adversity — this is not if there will be but that there will be adversity.  Great victories always come after adversity has been overcome.  Knowing the Law of Attraction we always attract our own adversity and that is a fact.  Once we allow and empower ourselves to overcome what is guaranteed to come we will achieve our vision.  Many times the adversity is the means to the end for the realization of our goals and aspirations.

Regardless of what the adversity is or when it rares it’s ugly presence you must be aware that it is enroute to you.  Through this adversity you will develop a story for yourself and whether you choose the story to be positive and empowering or negative and disabling.  Through working on your own personal growth, now, when things are great or, now, when the adversity is feeling overwhelming.  Belief in yourself is developed through your own mindset and your mindset is not easily developed all by yourself. 

Get good at Personal Development by tapping into associations with successful people.  A life Coach can show you the way, can provide the excercises and the mental visualizations of your burning desires.  You can also find the tools that will allow you to grow and to be able to change the way you look at adversity and at your life situation.  I find it so much easier to have someone that holds me accountable and keeps me in integrity to the promises I make to myself.

When in conversations with other, do you spend more time talking or listening?  We have all heard the saying, “You have two ears and one mouth, so listen twice as much as you speak”.  This is truly a great rule to live by.  When we are listening, we have the potential to be learning something we may not already know.  When we are talking, it can only be about something we already know and we therefore are not growing as a person.  

People love to be heard and will speak more truthfully to you if they feel you are being an intent listener.  You will soon gain their trust as your listening helps to validate them and make them feel like you sincerely care about them.  

It is easy to get caught up in listening to our own internal dialogue or allowing our mind to wander.  We tend to stop listening to the other person as we begin to start thinking about what we want to say next.  Listening is definitely a learned skill which takes practice. 

Begin to pay attention to how well you listen.  By simply making a conscious effort to be a more effective listener, you will be amazed at your personal growth.  You will not only learn alot about others, but you will probably build better, more effective relationships. 

When you reach a goal that you have been working towards, do you immediately set and start working towards the next goal?  Do you take the time to openly celebrate your achievement, or are you afraid that you may appear arrogant or full or yourself if you do?  In team sports when someone scores a goal this calls for a massive celebration, why is that not the case in our day to day lives?  We get so focused on working towards our next desire that the success vibration from our last win quickly diminishes.  By constantly focsuing on what we still have to achieve, we send out a vibration of lack.

I am certainly not suggesting that you become a “used to be”, by constantly reliving past glories instead of working on achieving new ones.  I am suggesting that taking a moment to celebrate your present successes, will elevate your chances of continued future success. 

Keep track of your wins in a success journal.  You can write about your accomplishment as well as the way you feel because of it.  This is a vital tool in your personal growth journey.  You can refer to it whenever you are feeling down and out, and especially when you are doubting your ability to reach another goal.  It can help you to get back into the feeling and the knowing that you are a successful person who achieves all of your goals.

We have all heard stories of people who have suffered an illness or injury and have used the time they spent in the hospital to pause and reflect on their lives.  Then upon recovery they have gone on to achieve great things in their lives.  Why do we wait until it could potentially be too late before we decide to think about improving our lives?

Is it because we are just too busy, or too preoccupied with our day to day lives?  For many of us, life is just go, go, go from the time we wake up in the morning, unil the time we lay our head on our pillow at night completely exhausted.  Time studying and thinking about our lives is a nice thought, but it just doesn’t fit into our list of priorities until it may be too late.

There are 1,440 minutes in every day.  If you spend just one percent of each day in study, thinking, and planning time with regards to your personal, family, and professional life, you will be amazed with the results..  We can all find fifteen minutes in a day to spend on self discovery and growth.  This precious time you spend on yourself each day will soon become a top priority for you as you begin to live a more rewarding life.  

How many millions of Americans commute 1 hour or more per day to their jobs?  You may be surprised to know that 140 million Americans commute more than 1/2 hour each way, 5 days per week to jobs many of them don’t even enjoy!  That’s a whopping 225 hours per year (less vacation time, sick time, and holidays) of wasted time.  You may even be commuting more than that!

Consider using this wasted time for your own personal growth.  Listen to something inspiring, educational or entertaining.  Learn what it takes to be successful in your industry or profession and accelerate your career.  Many personal growth books now come in audio format that are available at your local library.   You can download podcasts to your iPod, or if you’re adding books to your own library collection, check out Audible.com

You’ll soon find that you actually look forward to your daily commute, arrive at the office with a lower stress level than those listening to the depressing and repetitive news broadcasts, and start your work day with renewed energy.  My greatest inspiration and ideas have come when I’ve been listening to an audio program while driving.  Where do you get your inspiration and ideas from?

We all have our strengths and weaknesses, that goes without saying, and as part of our self help we try to improve upon those weaknesses.  If you are like me you have probably been taught that the best way to improve your weaknesses is with continual and consistent practice and effort.  While it is in most cases true that practice makes perfect, is this really the best method for our personal growth? 

You see when your energy is high and you are feeling great, that is when you are most productive.  It is pretty hard to have great, positive, high energy when you are spending so much time working on things that are hard for you or that you are not good at.    If we take the opposite approach and spend most of our time each day on our strengths, we will find ourselves more energetic and productive.  We can then use the spillover effect of this energy towards spending a little bit of time working on our weaknesses.  This becomes a win-win because we are focusing our strengths and at the same time improving our weaknesses in a more effective way.