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

Are you trying to be successful at something, or with several areas in your life? This is a characteristic normal for us human creatures, to feel good about our abilities and accomplishments. We seem to be continuously striving for something more to feel good about. We so often think that we are not doing or being what we want.

When actually, it?s not a matter of finding out ?how? to have success in your life, but rather how and where to
direct your success. The problem is not, not being a success. The thing is you actually already are very successful every day, but maybe not at what you would like.

You are successfully living your life, your body is functioning and you are thinking about something every day, all day. Now if you weren?t having any thoughts at all, I would be concerned. And since you are thinking about something, you are receiving the fulfillment of those thought requests without fail.

The universe doesn?t fail itself, and since you are a part of it you will not be failed either. Just as a plant seed always gets what it requests, so do you. So then why don?t you get everything you think you want? You want it so you must be requesting it right.

Well, again you actually are getting everything that you are requesting. I know it seems like I?m taking you in a circle here but think about this for a moment, how do you know what a tulip has requested from the universe? Well, the tulip would not be a tulip if it had requested something else. The way to tell what has been requested is by the evidence that is present.

Now, a tulip can?t request anything else, it is programmed into the bulb exactly what it is to request from the all providing source. But you and I are a little different, we have two different aspects. One, like the tulip, your physical self, has been programmed much the same way through your DNA and this is just as automatic as with the flower. You don?t need to think to keep your body running as it was designed, including all your uniqueness.

Then, the other aspect you have is your mental capacity to reason, think and choose. Sure some other creatures have a little of this aspect but nothing like we do. A cat can decide to seek out a warm sunny spot to lay in, but it can?t learn a new trade or change the way it perceives things like you can. This second mental ability is one where you decide what is in the seed - your seed. You have the ability to design what the seed will request from the universe, let?s call it your ?creative seed?.

Now this part is important to understand, just like the tulip seed and your physical body, your ?creative seed? is always activated with the universe. This means the universe is constantly reading your request within your ?creative seed?, thus it is always responding in kind. Here is the scary part, your thoughts, all of them, are the ?creative seed? which is a continuous active request link to the intelligent universe. So everything you are thinking is your ?creative seed? whether you are or are not consciously aware of it.

This is why it is so critically important to make it your main objective all day every day to discover what you are thinking and adjust it to be congruent with that which best serves what you want in your life. When you may say that you want something, but all the while your inner thoughts are pointed elsewhere and your behavior is reinforcing something else, your ?want? doesn?t hold much weight in the request seen by the universe. Your predominant thoughts and actions are so strong; the universe can?t hear what you really want.

You are right now completely successful at what you have invested your thoughts and energies to, even if you are not totally aware of them. Your experience in life has a direct correlation to what you think about and feel strongly about most of the time. There is an exact relationship to the percentage of time you allot to any thoughts and your life experience.

So if you want to be successful at something other than what you are successful at today, you will need to devote a higher percentage of your thoughts, feelings and energies in ways that are more in alignment with these desires. Just occasional lip service will not do.

All of your thoughts combined are what is included inside of your ?seed? that the universe works to fulfil for you. So ask yourself, ?How much of the volume or space in the seed is taken up with what I deeply want and how much of it is what I don?t want, don?t like, put up with or just complain about?? You are constantly creating this seed, and from this you are completely successful based on what?s in it.

To change this, you will need to take command of your everyday thinking, choose to have more of your thoughts, feelings and actions be congruent with your deep desires. Using your valuable thought time to complain, ridicule, doubt, worry, feel angry, resent someone, and many other negative type thoughts, just steal time you can be filling your ?seed? with what you really want. Plus, you will just get more in your life to complain, resent, worry about and all the rest - is that what you really want?

Some people have actually kept track, in time, of their thoughts all day long in order to discover what percentage of time they devote to certain ideas. With this you can discover what undesirable thinking you want to replace with the aligned thinking you want.

Take command of your thinking now by aligning more of your thoughts with your deepest desires, you will see your feelings and actions follow suit, then your life experience will too. Choose what you are successful at by redirecting the same tools and power you now use to get what you now have.
John Halderman

Do you think happy people have more in their life to be happy about? Well, yes and no. They are happy about more things in their life because they focus on being thankful and grateful about more things in their life.

What you focus on expands. When more of your attention is on things that bring up good feelings more than bad feelings you will be much happier and less dissatisfied with daily life. It boils down to perspective. First, what are you looking at and how are you looking at it?

For example, you may feel that the home you live in no longer suits your wants and needs, so you focus on what you see as the negative aspects. And I?m sure you have noticed how easily your mind chatter will support your thinking about what you don?t like. This automatic feature of your mind will help to enhance whatever you think and feel ? it does it so easily with dislikes.

But think a minute, isn?t there a lot about where you now live that you can appreciate and be thankful for? You do have a roof over your head, you are protected from the elements, you have running water, flush toilets, etc. Think for a moment, if you did not have this home? I think you?ll see that there is really a lot about it that you can be grateful for. This is true of most everything in your life. If you are not sure, compare what you have and do against other people that have less. Think about your home, your clothes, your job, your possessions, your community, accessibility to what you want, how your basic needs are met, what IS going right, and so much more. There is always a good side.

Teach yourself to focus on anything and everything that you can no matter how minute you think it is and your happiness will increase. You can really only focus on one thing at a time, multitasking is when you bounce between different things more rapidly. But you can?t think about the good of something while thinking about the bad of it, always one or the other. To feel better and to send out the best signal, focus on the good. You can decide to be grateful for no specific reason, just for being alive and all that entails. This is actually a great base line for your life, your attitude, thinking, perceptions, health and behavior - grateful to be here, to be you.

If you have been thinking a lot about what you don?t like or want and you switch to fairly consistent gratitude, you will be amazed at how you feel. Your attitude, disposition and outlook will be much brighter, you may feel like you woke up on the ?right? side of the bed. Your body will respond positively too with more vitality, less stress and even some health improvements. The thing is, none of this is chance - the more thankful and grateful you are the better you will feel. You will be improving your happiness without even changing anything in your life except your perception.

Now you may be wondering what to do with all the new and different things you want in your life and I have talked about grateful for what you have. You need to do both. One of the ?tricks? in life is to find the fine line between two aspects of life, which we have an example of here with gratitude for what you have and thinking about what you want. Both are required for the most happiness and satisfaction in your life.

Where most of us fall into a trap is when we think it is logical to delineate what we don?t want, actually we just find it easy to complain about it since we have attached emotions that support our dislike. The key is this ? you can express thanks for what you have and feel grateful for it, and want more at the same time.

What you shouldn?t do is, to repeatedly express your dislike for something and expect it to change. When continuously expounding on what you don?t want, you get more of it. Every thought you hold is an order to the universe ? for what you want. To highlight how pointedly powerful each and every thought is, ?I AM? in front of everything you are thinking and feeling. If you are thinking, ?(I am) I hate my hair? you are what you want, just as an acorn is saying, ?I am an oak tree.? The same forces that ensure the acorn develops as requested is working in your behalf in the same way.

Be grateful for your current situation, it got you here, it is a stepping stone on the path, there is something to learn or gain from it. If anything it is a clue to what you should not be doing, if you don?t like it. But rather than going on about not liking it, let it help you find what you do want.

Also, I am not suggesting using gratitude as a way to ignore anything that needs attention and action. You can be grateful for something and be working on changing or improving it. There is a big difference in thinking about something as you are working with it as opposed to thoughts dwelling on the negative aspects of it.

The bottom line is that there is something about anything that you can find to be grateful for. Sometimes this can be tricky to find and you may need to adjust your perception in order to see it. It could be a lesson or something that needs to be experienced for you or someone else. As you know by now some lessons and experiences can be painful. I just recently had to face this as my wife passed away three months ago.

If there is something in your life that you are having difficulty finding an aspect to be grateful for, don?t let it bog you down, just look at other things that you can be thankful for now. But if you can see the lesson, it is something to be grateful for, because now you know and can do something about it and grow from it. And that is worth being grateful for!

The more you do this, the more you will. Start with whatever you can and you will notice more and more to be grateful about. As you express gratitude for a few things your perceptions will change a little

Writing down what you are thankful for increases your commitment and increases it?s power, and sharing with others does so even more, plus others will benefit from it as well. To share your gratitude and/or the results of your increased gratitude with others, plus get some encouragement and insights reading what others write ? go to the Gratitude Journal ? see category list.

John

John Halderman writes and trains in personal growth and development focusing on what can be done daily to enhance your happiness and satisfaction with life through the understanding of how life works, managing your thoughts and purposeful actions.

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