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Self-actualization: Thoughts and actions reflecting our speech March 17, 2018

Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Personal Development Potential.
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In our efforts to maximize our personal development potential, one of the steps we can take is to make an effort to speak more positively, which leads to the larger question of whether doing this can make us think more positively and act more positively.

An obvious benefit of developing the idea and habit of speaking positively is that it is a personal growth action step, a tangible behavior with measurable results. With a bit of effort we can tell if we are speaking more positively or not.

Sometimes self-realization and self-actualization advice asks us to make non-measurable emotional or intellectual commitments or resolutions in our personal development programs; and this can be discouraging when we try to determine if we are making actual progress.

But in some cases we need to make the effort and have faith that by taking concrete tangible action steps, that those steps can result in an improvement in our emotional and intellectual status and ultimately lead to a more measurable result.

Hopefully then, if we speak more positively, we will begin to think more positively, and in turn we may then also begin to act more positively.

— Dennis Mellersh

Personal growth: Misconceptions on “doing what you love” December 28, 2017

Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Personal Development Potential.
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One of the ironies of our wanting to earn our living by “doing what we love to do” is that we may not be very good at what we love doing, and in fact, are actually more talented at doing something else; something we do not find as fun and enjoyable.

Moreover just because we may love doing something, it does not necessarily follow that, financially, we should be able to make a livable income through doing it.

To keep insisting to ourselves that we should be able to earn our living by doing what we love can be a needless source of frustration and, ultimately, disappointment

We need to seriously consider, for example,  if what we love doing, such as creative writing, is a vocation for which we are actually  willing to spend a huge amount of time in learning the skills needed to convert our interest or “love” of “doing” to a professional level of ability.

I think the word “love” is overworked and perhaps misused and misdirected in the self-improvement context of it being a requirement to love what we do in order for it to matter, or be fulfilling.

Does a brain surgeon “love” doing the work of the surgery itself, or does the surgeon enjoy the work, but love the endgame of improving and often saving the lives of their patients.

We sometimes ask too much of ourselves in our personal growth efforts, and in thinking we are not respecting ourselves unless we “love” our work is an example of this.

What’s wrong with simply “liking” and enjoying our work, but saving our love for something deeper?

We can like our work, but love the ultimate objective, or reason, of why we are doing the work.

—Dennis Mellersh