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 7/9/2007 |
Personal improvement plan
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Here and now, it’s time to create and follow a personal improvement plan.
Perhaps you have one – if so, you can go back to work. But for the rest of us poor people out there, it’s time to create a personal improvement plan – because if we don’t create a plan, and put it into motion, we’re only going to accidentally improve.
Why is it important to improve? What’s the matter with how we already are?
Well, as we know from watching the world around us, things don’t stand still. People, circumstances, jobs, companies – all of them are changing.
Now, we can stand there, with our hands in our pockets, lamenting the pace of change, or we can embrace the change, make ourselves better, and put our lives on a track that will mean personal, constant, improvement and growth.
It’s a terrifying thing, I know. Most of us would prefer to take life a little bit at a time, and then move on when we’re comfortable with where we’re at. But life doesn’t seem to do that. Things change when you least expect it. Sometimes, the changes are good, and sometimes, they are heartbreaking – but they change.
So here’s the first stop on your personal improvement plan – realize that no matter what changes around you, you are in control of your own life.
As the master of your life, each of us can choose where our life will head next; we can choose our reaction to the events around us; we can choose what we’re going to do in answer to the change that greets us every day.
If we do not make a choice, it doesn’t really stop anything – life changes around us, a choice is made for us, and good or bad, we are on our way.
It’s so much better if we choose our own plan – and that involves creating and following a personal improvement plan.
Physics teaches us that left to its own devices, the universe tends to get more disordered. And our lives are like that, as well. Left to their own devices, our lives will tend to get a bit less ordered, a bit less what we’re after.
If we consistently make bad decisions in our lives, perhaps this “default mode” is the way to go – hey, if we always make bad decisions, perhaps someone else will make a better decision for us. But for the rest of us, a decision we’ve made ourselves is a much better alternative than having a decision thrust upon us.
If we’re going to make a decision, then, our best approach is to make a decision that makes us better – that brings greater success, greater quality, greater happiness, into our lives.
That’s where the personal improvement plan comes along.
It’s simply a matter of three steps.
First off, determine what’s holding you back. For most of us, it boils down to several things: the past, the future, our worries, our fears, and our self-image.
Put this first step behind you, by choosing right now to go ahead with the change, no matter what anchor is currently holding you back. Choose to go ahead and get better, no matter what your ex-whatever may have told you, or what might lurk over the horizon. The fact is, the past is long gone. Even if it’s something that only happened an hour ago, the past is past – it can no longer affect your present, unless you let it. Worrying about the future doesn’t help. The future isn’t here yet – and when it gets here, it’s going to be determined a whole lot by the decisions you are making right now. Fear? Well, that’s a big one – we all have our fears. But you can conquer your fears, by choosing a path that you know is the best one for you. Fears exist to keep us safe, but sometimes, our irrational fears will actually stand in the way of our ultimate safety.
Self image problems? We all have them – at least most of us do. Determine right here and now that you are going to put your self image on “standby.” You’re going to allow your image of your abilities to be defined by who you are out to become, not by whatever miscast view you may have developed of yourself in the past.
Second, determine how you want to improve. Choose areas where you already have strengths, and build on those strengths – or if you’re strong in many areas, choose a weak area and decide to make it a strong one. Determine the parts you wish to build up, and make a plan how you can achieve it, through incremental daily movement. You see, most of us give up on personal improvement because we try to do it in one big leap – but just as you can’t climb a mountain in a single leap (unless it’s a small mountain), you can still conquer it one step at a time, followed by another step until you reach the summit.
Third, put it into play. Tell your spouse what you’re going to do, or tell a friend at work. I assure you, if they care about you, they won’t laugh too hard – and if they don’t care about you, then to heck with them, anyway!
Personal growth is an important thing to undertake – and it’s one that a lot of us put off.
Well, we’re starting in the here and now.
You can do it!
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