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Managing the ego to focus on achieving tangible goals March 13, 2012

Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Ego Management.
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A great deal of personal development information focusses on the need for generating positive feelings and attitudes and the overall desirability of positive thinking.

However, it is often difficult to achieve this, primarily because in attempting to always think positively, we are, more often than not, faced with what we regard as negative realities.  These realities might be the need for a job or a better paying job, meeting the mortgage payment, looking after a sick child, overdue bills, worrying about an elderly parent; the list goes on.

The events and circumstances of everyday life are not always positive and it is difficult to be totally positive in our outlook when faced with a lot of difficulties that are not being resolved.

I am not saying that we can’t control our ego, or our mind, to think positively, but sometimes it is more practical to achieve a positive attitude by accomplishing a small goal, or a portion or sub-set of a larger goal, and thereby achieving a positive outlook through taking action.

I remember a sign I once saw when I was in my doctor’s office for a check-up, which said something like: “You can’t think yourself into a new way of acting; you have to act yourself into a new way of thinking.”

The idea being that we are more likely to be able to achieve a positive frame of mind or mindset, by taking action right now, in the present moment, by working on a solution to our problems one-by-one,  and feeling positive in that we are doing something real and tangible about negative situations, or challenges.

The concept of personal development is much wider than concentrating a lot of time and effort in an attempt to think positively. Much of personal development, and thereby much of controlling our ego, or mental outlook lies in tackling difficulties and making progress with life’s challenges.

Adding up the successes achieved in small action steps can equal a positive feeling of accomplishment.  And, the operative word in all of this is doing some work on a challenge now, not focussing all of our present mental energy on trying to create a future mindset of positivity. A useful personal development maxim that might help is: “We are all called upon to create our own future.” This quotation was also from a sign in my doctor’s office.

Imagination, persistence, and courage in personal development March 11, 2012

Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Self-Discipline.
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In our efforts towards self-improvement or personal development, discouragement, and even fear, may set in periodically as our personal growth goals are not being realized as fast as we would like.

In this case persistence and courage are two of the personal development traits that we need to develop. While doing some research on various approaches to goal setting and self-realization, I came across the following statement by Winston S. Churchill, in which he speaks of persistence and courage in trying to stay true to our guiding principles: “Never give in; never give in, never, never, never, never – in nothing, great or small, large or petty – never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense.”

For sensitive and introspective people who are working on a program of self-improvement or personal growth and development, however, our personalities can sometimes produce fears and self-doubts and thereby interfere with our efforts towards our personal growth goals. Our imagination, can lead us into periods of intellectual uncertainty and fearfulness.

However, as Churchill points out in another comment, these fears are normal for sensitive, imaginative people: “You cannot tell from appearances how things will go. Sometimes imagination makes things out far worse than they are; yet without imagination not much can be done. Those people who are imaginative see many more dangers than perhaps exist; certainly many more than will happen; but then they must also pray to be given that extra courage to carry this far-reaching imagination.”

These quotations are from a speech Churchill gave in 1941 during the 2nd World War, a talk that has become known as his “Never Give In” speech.