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Personal growth: Our past does not equal our future May 20, 2014

Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Concept of personal growth, Living in the Now.
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One of the impediments to effectively implementing our personal growth and development programs can be the way we look at our past, and the attributes we apply to our past behaviour.

The past can be a barrier to forward progress in self-improvement if we look at it through a pessimistic and fatalistic perspective.

We might view the past and its problems as a negative indicator of how things will be in the future.

We might look at our past and fill our minds with regret of what we did or didn’t do.

We might negatively assess our entire personality based on our past.

One conclusion is inescapable; our past behaviour does affect our present and future circumstances.

However, can can’t un-do the past. We can only work in the present to build a positive outcome for the future.

In his book, Notes From a Friend, Tony Robbins makes a significant and carefully worded statement about the past and the future:
“Remember that what you did in the past does not determine what you’ll do in the future.”

In other words, we may not be able to change what we did in the past or its influence on our lives today, but we can change how we will act, what we will do, in the future.

In his comment Robbins is emphasising that behavioural change is possible, that our actions now can positively affect our future; that our past behaviour pattern does not have to be our future behaviour pattern.

We can’t un-ring a bell, but we can ring a new bell.

Positive thinking versus negative thinking.

On being generous with our encouragement and praise May 17, 2014

Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Concept of personal growth, Self-Esteem.
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One of the concepts that we learn in our work on our personal growth is the principle of creating improvement in our empathy and in our spiritual side by being generous to others with our time and talents.

To this we could add being generous with our recognition of others and with our praise of others.

And, our encouragement should not only be given when someone’s project is not going well, or during a tough period in their life; but also for recognizing their successful achievements and efforts.

All of us all appreciate receiving praise and encouragement when we have done something well.

Generosity towards others with sincere recognition and praise is a mark of strong self-esteem and self-confidence.

Withholding it speaks to insecurity, and small-mindedness.

The ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius spoke of encouragement of the good:

“The noble-minded encourage what is beautiful in people and discourage what is ugly in them. Little people do just the opposite.” (1)

(1) Confucius, The Analects, as translated by David Hinton in his book, The Four Chinese Classics