Are you focusing your time and attention to the right things? Are you placing importance on the right thoughts, feelings and behaviors?

Did you know that for most people, much of what they do in life was not consciously chosen by them? And many times we have done these things for so long they now do seem important to us, but deep down they really are not. At least not as important as what truly is deeply important. This is because doing so requires us to take command of our thinking and analyze the state of our life. But letting our minds just run things is easier, efficient and more comfortable.

Self-discovery happens as the result of conscious mental and physical action. Doing the same things over and over is not conscious mental action, it’s passive unconscious automatic beahavior.

We think we are thinking because our brains are working, that is not thinking. Real thinking is active curiosity, analysis, planning, dreaming and questioning. When you carry on only doing the same things each day in the same ways, you are essentially living one day many times. But when you are actively thinking, you are living a new day each day. And your personal growth and development is based on self-discovery. If you don’t find out more about yourself, who you are and what you can do, there is nothing to grow into. Becoming aware of yourself right now is the first important step- you can’t do anything about what you aren’t aware of.

I learned this lesson in my early 20’s when I was the night shift foreman in a precision sheet metal shop in the Silicon Valley during the initial electronics boom of the 70’s. The owner of the shop had hired a new brake operator who said that he had 20 years of experience doing the job. In this shop situation we did many small run jobs so there was always a lot of setting up the machines required all day long. The idea of someone with 20 years experience excited me because I was the main person doing all the set ups at the time, which kept me running from place to place to keep everyone productive.

When I was introduced to this new man, he looked at me, the 20-year-old, and gave me this look like, who are you to be my boss? I didn’t let it bother me as I had been working with others much older than I for some time. I showed him the machines where he would be working and gave him a basic run down of the current task at hand, and left him alone figuring he knew what he was doing. After about 30 minutes I got a chance to go to see how he was doing, I figured he would be well on his way.

He had not done anything! And guess what, his demeanor had changed. Right then I found out that here was a guy that had been using this kind of machine for over 20 years and did not know how to make a simple set up for one. All he had done for all those years was to put the parts in, hit the pedal to make it operate, and pull the part out - someone else had made the set ups.

Now I am not saying this to brag rather to illustrate the difference in how we can spend our time. Here was a man that essentially lived the same year 20 times, never progressing with his knowledge, skills and activities. Then, I was a 20 year old who started this kind of work when I was 16 and at this time had been doing prototype work and now running my own shift making most of the set ups for everyone there. My previous 4 years were each different as I progressed through the learning and skill development process.

My point here is not to judge someone for wanting to remain doing the same things for years but rather to illustrate how we can look at our use of our time. Everyone has their own life path and certainly can choose as they will. But if you are not experiencing life as you have dreamed, you can do something about it. It comes down to choice, if you are enjoying your life as it is great. But if you have been thinking about wanting your life to be different and you can see that you have been doing the same things in the same ways for a long time, you can do something about it.

How this all fits into self-discovery is this, when your mind is actively working with questions, finding solutions, being creative, and trying new things you are setting yourself up to discover more. Just ask yourself this question, if what you are doing and how you are doing it is working and satisfying, why would you seek a different or better way? You wouldn’t. You mind is designed to help automate as much as possible for you so doing simple tasks and operating your physical body do not require a lot of conscious thought all the time. Can you imagine the mental burden if you had to consciously think about all this basic stuff?

Your mind is consciously engaged as you choose to engage it. Your conscious mind does always have something going on, but if you do not actively engage it, this thought tends to be mainly repetitive, as you know. In order to engage your mind you are actually asking it questions or giving commands. Your brain will serve to solve these questions and fulfill the commands. And this is when you really discover many things. You discover more about yourself, more about how to do something, and more of what is possible for you. All this because you are engaging your brain with active thought.

Take a look at what you are doing? Enhance your self-awareness. Are you moving forward at the pace you are happy with? Do you feel stuck in a repetitive cycle? Do you like where you are, or not? Asking questions of yourself is a great way to stimulate self-discovery and get your life moving in the direction you want. And, to find out what you are truly happy with right now. Personal growth and development is a daily ongoing process, to keep it going, pay attention every day.

John Halderman

Are you a done with yourself or are you continuing to discover more about yourself, seek personal growth and development?

You see it all around how science keeps going, discovering more and more about the world and universe we exist in. As technology improves, which is change, science is able to understand more about our universe plus obtain more ways to describe it all. For example, this picture of a supernova remnant was not possible just a few years ago even though the object was there.

This is how life is, ever expanding in its awareness of itself. Plus, the increasing awareness of humans to what is already there. Much of the change seems to not exist or that the change is very slow, but it is there. Everything in the universe grows and changes we are certainly not excluded. We have the ability to continue to change and grow throughout our entire life, including our final change here, death.

But at the same time there are so many people who are ‘checking out’ so early. Getting tired, feeling aches and pain, feeling beat down - telling themselves they are wearing out -that it’s too late. I’m not trying to tell you that pains should be ignored, but how you look at them can have a huge affect on the power they play in your life.

The biggest factor to your growth is your thinking. What you think about your life and your growth determines what you see, feel and do. If you see possibilities - you will see them, and if you see the ‘end’ in your mind, you will see it in your life. If you think you are too tired, sick or whatever - you are.

Time to check yourself:

· How are you the same today as you were 10 years ago?
· How are you different?
· What are you doing that you thought were not possible for you a few
years ago?
· Do you look at things in the same way you did several years ago?
· Do you see possibilities for your life or feel hopeless?
· Do you feel that your life continues to move on or do you feel stuck?
· Are you open to new ideas and concepts or do you want to keep things
the way they are?
· Do you feel your problems hold you back, sap your energy and nix your
motivation?
· Are your dreams alive or have you given up on what you want in your
life?

Can you change any of this? Well yes you can - much of it. Many times we let one thing affect all of our life. We allow our attitude and outlook to be clouded when one thing has happened when we don’t need to. Certainly there are situations where something may temporarily set you back but it does not need to be for all time. Only you can determine if you are temporarily off or if it has been too long. You will need to ask yourself honest straight questions about it. The easy answer is of course, “I will just suffer a little longer” but maybe not the best!

The truth is that a broken foot does not come with a bad attitude, that’s our choice. A marital separation does not come with resentment that carries through all of your life, that’s our choice. Because something did not work out for us does not mean nothing ever will, that’s our choice to think so. The thing to be careful for is that when something that appears negative happens don’t allow it to affect all of your life any more than is necessary.

Ask yourself some key questions that help enhance your self awareness so you discover how you think and feel about everything. There is always more out there for you if you allow it and if you are open to recognize it. When you are clouded by negative reactions it may not seem so, but you can always change and grow. Your outlook on life is a choice - yours. You are never done, unless you choose.

John Halderman - More on daily life actions to support a better life,
http://www.effectivepersonaldevelopmentblog.com

A recent study has proven that your brain uses the same neurons when you recall a memory as it did when you initially had the experience. This has been thought to be the case for some time but the study now shows scientific proof. This is good news for your personal growth and development.

For the brain, remembering is a lot like doing. This is powerful! When you realize this is how the brain works, you can use this knowledge to your advantage. It has been believed that your brain does not know the difference between an actual occurrence, a memory or specific thought about a possibility.

In this new study conducted by a team of American and Israeli researchers, they were able to pinpoint the location of mini-storms of brain activity that occurred with the initial action as well as the later recall of it. They were able to show that both occurred in the same brain cells concentrated around the hippocampus region of the
brain.

It has been found in other research that the brain does not really know the difference between an imagined action, a real one or the memory of either. Similar to how you can affect your body and mind from input to one or the other. It has been commonly known that you can train your body to do specific motions through your thoughts, and it has been shown that you can affect your thought by specific physical movement of you body. In other words, an athlete can train their mind to control the body by physically doing an activity in exactly the way you want and the brain will learn how this is done.

All of this continues to build support for how you can direct your thoughts and actions through visualization and affirmation. There is now more proof that the memory of and the actual occurrence of something are no different in your mind. This leads to your being able to pre-program your mind to ‘know’ specific things without them actually happening yet. Your brain will allow you to do something, which it knows, easier than an unknown.

When you create a powerful vivid imagined scenario in your mind, backed by appropriate emotions, you can program your mind much like it has actually occurred. Your mind likes to do what it is familiar with, so if you create this familiarity with clear emotionally backed thought your brain acts as though it has happened. It is easier to do again what you are familiar with. There is a natural hesitation to what your brain does not know, so make it known and familiar through your imagination.

Familiarizing your brain with what you want through emotion backed visualization and affirmations acts to program it for desirable situations making them easier to do again and again. Also your unconscious mind and inner self attempt to support and assist the thoughts you hold. Just like the more you physically practice a sports technique the more your mind helps you fulfill the desire, your mind will attempt to help fulfill thoughts of any clear desires.

Learning how your brain works helps you to understand how you can use it to your advantage. After all, it will be doing these things anyway, why not direct them to your wants and needs? Use tools such as affirmations, visualization, treasure maps, writing your story, act as though, or anything that can help familiarize your mind with what you want. Remember, use thoughts of what you DO want, not what you don’t want or like. Your mind will act to support whatever you think about with emotion and clarity - good or bad!

John Halderman, for more daily growth and self discovery tools and methods - http://www.effectivepersonaldevelopmentblog.com

What keeps us from doing all that we want? Many say that personal growth and development and self awareness are our number one priorities in life, yet most spend very little time and attention towards this end. Some people do not realize how important it is to continually grow, in fact they may not even realize they can. Many people know that they can continue to grow, develop and become more self aware, but they don’t do much about it.

And then there are those few that seem to be able to actively keep moving forward on their life path. Why? They allow their thinking to focus on their enlightenment, on how they think and act on a regular basis, not just once in a while. They are able to let their mind calm down and get quiet, allowing the chatter to fade away. They are willing to allow their fears, doubts and worries to be present in their thought, knowing that these thoughts can’t actually harm them - knowing that avoidance just postpones not
eliminate.

There are different reasons why we all don’t actively participate in our own personal enlightenment, but one of the main reasons is due to distraction. The human mind can actually do only one thing at a time, those of you that think otherwise are just good at rapidly switching from one focus to another. So what we choose to think about determines much of our life experience. In relation to distraction, when we think about is something that helps us feel comfortable or think we should be doing because of our life responsibilities we are not focusing on growth and self realization.

Now I’m not here to tell you what is and is not important in your physical life, but I know that you need to apply some of your time and attention to your inner growth which includes how you think and act. So what keeps you from doing this you may not even be aware of. Since it is normal for humans to seek happiness, which we equate to comfort, we tend to avoid uncomfortable thinking and feelings. And we do this in many ways, some are our daily activities. We may not be aware of how our daily activities can be getting the way of our growth and self-realization

Things you may do to avoid discomfort:

Listening to music
Listening to talk radio
Watching TV
Playing video games
Reading
Games
Hobbies
Cleaning
Tinkering
Socializing
Hold on! You say, “these are normal things.”

Yes they are, but they can all be used as a distraction. And only you can know what role they play in your life. Like anything, moderation is usually the best.

There are two situations you may be avoiding.

1)If you tend to go to any activity when you feel uncomfortable, you are probably escaping. Sure you will feel better doing something you are familiar with, but this behavior can just postpone what you are avoiding or even make it worse. What I’m referring to here relates to more discomfort than simple relaxation and enjoyment.

2)One of the biggest things you may be doing without knowing it is avoiding real thinking. This is when you are uncomfortable with allowing your mind to run through the incessant mind chatter, which shakes your worries and doubts in your face, to the point where your mind is clear.

Life requires balance, and what I have found is that for most, any self-growth is pushed into a small corner receiving only spare time attention - sometimes. Are you running in circles doing the same things each day and not seeing any change? Are you frustrated with your life? There could be an initial feeling of discomfort when you choose to allow yourself to think freely and not choose a distraction, but this will pass. Using methods of relaxation and meditation will help.

If you want more for yourself take a look at what you do and why you do it. Take a look at what you do everyday towards your own personal growth and development, to what you are doing towards self-realization.  Only you can know if you are using activities to avoid something that is actually more important. Choose to set aside time to just relax and think - this is how you can get in touch with your inner self on a more regular basis.

The choice of how you spend your time is yours and the result is your life experience.

John Halderman,
Tips and tools for daily personal growth, increased happiness and
self-discovery. http://www.effectivepersonaldevelopmentblog.com