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Personal growth: Can we avoid wandering in the wilderness? March 21, 2017

Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Personal Development Potential.
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By Dennis Mellersh

There will not be much use in our pursuing programs of personal development and self-improvement unless it is actually possible to change our deeply ingrained attitudes and beliefs, and our behaviours stemming from those attitudes and beliefs.

The way we perceive ourselves clearly has a profound influence on how we deal with challenges and potential opportunities.

For example, are we generally looking forward with confidence and optimism, or are we fearful and full of doubt that the future will be positive?

A philosopher I read some time ago suggested that the real reason the Israelites and Moses had to wander in the desert for 40 years before entering the Promised Land is that there had to be a waiting period for the slave generation to die off.

The slave generation, in this view, was supposedly so ingrained to taking orders and doing the bidding of others that its members would be incapable of having the initiative to take charge of their own destiny and to develop and flourish in the Promised Land.

If that view of human nature is only even partially correct, and if we look at our own self-actualization programs and goals as a “promised land”, then most of us have considerable internal work to do to overcome the potential inertia of the limiting basic beliefs we have about ourselves.

Personal growth: Many small actions result in big success March 16, 2017

Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Personal Development Potential.
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By Dennis Mellersh

Achieving success with personal improvement and development programs is like completing any worthwhile, complex, long-term, large-scale project.

The best results are usually achieved incrementally by working on bite-size portions as often as possible.

Instead we often dismiss that approach and instead opt for doing something more substantial and significant when we “have more time.”

And predictably, “having more time,” happens infrequently, sometimes not at all.

If we wait for great swathes of free time, our book will never get written.

But if we write a hundred words a day, it will materialize reasonably quickly.

If we wait until we develop a grand plan for helping others it may never happen.

But if we put some clothing in a collection box today, we have already started on an outward- looking path of service to others.

And we have all learned from experience that if we want to learn something like a new language, “cramming` is the least effective way to do it.

Our goals of achieving our full potential in personal development will respond best to frequent, and ideally daily, action-oriented reinforcement.