The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.
Michelangelo
The goals we set should be high enough to require an effort, even take us outside our comfort zone, and be worth achieving.
I’ve seen this quote before, today it turned up in “The Element – How finding your passion changes everything” by Sir Ken Robinson. That’s a great book.
Jenn Shallvey, @JennShallvey posts her Reflect comments at @reflect2see. It’s a great collection of thoughts and things to reflect on. Here are some of them, go check the Twitter profile for more. And while you’re there, follow it so you get the new ones.
Reflect: What pushes your buttons? Ever wonder why?
Reflect: Building a tribe is not about building your ego. If you can’t separate the two then you have false followers.
Reflect: Changing the outside appearance of what is on offer does not change the source. Always go to the source and be true.
Reflect: What you really truly desire in your life will come to you, but not necessarily in the way you think. Pay attention.
Reflect: On what terms are your relationships with others? Conditional or unconditional? Free or at a price?
Reflect: The places you go may be the same but you change each time you go there.
Reflect: How do you get in your own way?
Reflect: How many times do you need a life lesson before you get it?
Reflect: Many wise and wonderful souls may help you on your journey but ultimately the choice to heal is yours.
Reflect: What matters most in your life right now? How much attention and time go to this priority?
The last one goes nicely with the following two quotes that I have in front of me.
What’s the No. 1 thing you KNOW you should be doing that you’re not currently doing? Plant the seeds. Now.
Is the way you’re living your life today a foundation for the future you hope to build?
Jenn runs Reflect 2 See which is reclections with photos, very nice.
This was originally posted at Bengt’s Notes, another blog of mine.
Mary Jaksch at Goodlife Zen has posted The Ultimate Personal Growth Guide: 100 Best Posts. It’s a gold mine and an excellent starting point.
Peter Clemens over at The Change Blog has posted The Definitive List of Free Personal Development Ebooks. It is a collection that covers different aspects of personal development. Dive in and see what’s there for you!
This was originally posted at Bengt’s Notes, another blog of mine.
Leo Babauta has another great post over at Zen Habits, Get Less Done: Stop Being Productive and Enjoy Yourself.
There’s too much emphasis these days on productivity, on hyperefficiency, on squeezing the most production out of every last minute. People have forgotten how to relax. How to be lazy. How to enjoy life.
Productivity is not good in itself, it’s very important to decide what we do. We need to manage our attention and our priorities.
It’s possible we’re trying to get more done because we love doing it — and if that’s the case, that’s wonderful. But even then, working long hours and neglecting the rest of life isn’t always the best idea. Sometimes it’s good to Get Less Done, to relax, to breathe.
We do need to relax and breathe. No one runs their car engine on full throttle all the time, why do it with yourself?
Leo lists some useful tips on how to relax and ends the post like this:
Step by step, learn to relax. Learn that productivity isn’t everything. Creating is great, but you don’t need to fill every second with work. When you do work, get excited, pour yourself into it, work on important, high-impact tasks … and then relax.
Now I’ll do what I do on a regular basis, it’s also in Leo’s list of tips, I’ll go for a walk.
This was originally posted at Forty Plus Two, another blog of mine.
I got a link from Colin Lewis on Twitter that took me to Ed Batista: Time Horizons. Don’t miss that at the end there is a 2-slide PowerPoint version of the post
It’s an interesting article that made me think about which time horizons I use and why. Ed writes that ‘The 10 time horizons (See image) flow continuously from this immediate moment to my very last breath’.
I don’t agree with that, there are three horizons that I see as ‘timeless’ in the sense that we don’t know when it happens and how they fit in among the other. They are ‘in this job’, ‘in this career’ and ‘before I retire’. We can plan for them but I think these three horizons are on a different scale.
Ed Batista gives us these questions that help us check if we are using the right time horizon.
When we assess our lives–our fulfillment, our effectiveness, what’s working, what’s not working–how far ahead do we look? How far ahead should we look? Is that time horizon a good fit for the issues under consideration? And what issues are most relevant to us in a given time horizon?
when looking ahead it’s helpful to realize that I’ve moved from one horizon into the next. It prompts me to ask: Am I in the right timeframe? Should I take a step back–or jump even further ahead? Should my approach change? Am I still asking the right questions? Are the same issues in play?
The time horizons that I use are:
• Now.
• Today.
• This week.
• One month.
• 12 months.
I use An 18 Minute Plan That Keeps You Focused which means you refocus once an hour during the day. That keeps me on track with Now and Today.
The timeless horizons that I use are the same as Ed’s:
• In this job.
• In this career.
• Before I retire.
Which Time Horizons Do You Use?
This was originally posted at Forty Plus Two, another blog of mine.
I came across this quote which has a message worth considering:
When you’re lying on your death bed, you won’t wish you spent more hours in the office.
Robin Sharma
This was originally posted at Forty Plus Two, another blog of mine.
PickTheBrain had an interesting post by Kent Thune about “Is There Really Such a Thing as ‘Self Improvement’?”. It starts like this:
Can the self be improved? What is the self, anyway? Does the currently popular “self-help movement” really help us or is it a paradoxical diversion from our true self?
The post at PickTheBrain brings up some questions and answers and then ends like this:
I submit to you that there is no such thing as self-improvement – only varying degrees of self-discovery: This process of discovering who you are consists primarily of eliminating who you are not and, thereby, uncovering your true self…
I do not like the term self improvement since I think it is about finding our true self and not about improving our self. In my blogs I use personal growth or personal development which I think say more about what it is.
I got my Jon Kabat-Zinn Mindfulness books and CD-box today and on a coupon in the CD-box they use the words personal discovery. That sounds really great to me, finding your true self is a journey and a discovery.
This was originally posted at another (now extinct) blog of mine.
Tim Brownson has written an e-book titled Know Yourself Change Yourself. The book deals with beliefs and values and as Tim writes:
Your belief systems and values make you tick as a person.
The book looks at the difference between a belief and a value. It also deals with how to change a belief, some of them can hold you back.
We all carry loads of beliefs, some of them through our entire lives while others are discarded as we add other beliefs along the way. Beliefs can empower you or disempower you, the last ones are known as self-limiting beliefs. That is the negative kind like “I am doomed to fail”. The good news is that beliefs can be changed, replaced by better ones. It takes work but discarding self-limiting beliefs will help you achieve more in life. Tim writes:
Think about what holds you back from fulfilling your undoubted potential. There are some self-limiting beliefs, we need to isolate and deal with them.
The book shows how to work with changing your beliefs:
• word games that help you change
• methods of installing new beliefs
• playing mind tricks on yourself
• using visualization to accomplish goals
• anchoring your beliefs
There is also a section about submodalities which is how our mind internally organizes and ‘views’ events. Anthony Robbins, a well known motivational speaker, states that “our ability to change the way we feel depends upon our ability to change our submodalities.” Tim’s book shows you how you can work with this.
In the part of the book that deals with values Tim writes that:
Values tend to be more static and much more powerful than beliefs can be. Your values are the core of who you are as a person.
There are no right or wrong values. There are only values that are right or wrong for You!
The book has worksheets that help you sort out your hierarchy of core values and away-from-values. That is a great exercise since it helps you figure out both your core and what you do not like. Tim also talks about conflicting values, for instance your core values does not match the values at your work.
You can could buy the e-book at A Daring Adventure. Price is was $9.99 which is a good great investment if you want to know yourself better and then change yourself.
This was originally posted at Forty Plus Two, another blog of mine.
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