Take 20
Personal Development Advice, Tools to Improve The Quality Of Your Life

“Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident, riches take wings. Only one thing endures and that is character.”
- Horace Greeley

Stop. Take a few moments to evaluate your character. How would you describe yourself? Are you courageous? Generous? Arrogant? Manipulative? Optimistic? Pessimistic? Resilient? Judgmental? Hateful? Loyal? Haughty? Humble? Easygoing? Respectful?

The words listed above are specific characteristics. If you were to compile a comprehensive list of your own characteristics, you would be looking at a mirror image of yourself. Take a moment to create your own list, and hold on to it. We will be using it as a point of reference later on in the article.

Evaluate Your Character

Character defines who we are. When we judge someone else, we judge them based on character. For example, when someone opens their mouth and something illogical comes out, many of us write the person off as unintelligent or “slow”. When someone always seems to do the right thing, we classify him/her as noble. When someone is constantly negative, we consider him/her pessimistic. These judgments occur in an instant, and whether they are right or wrong, they influence how we feel about a person.

If we are so quick to judge others based on character, why do so many of us fail to judge ourselves based on our character? We get caught up in what others think of us, or we lie to ourselves and convince ourselves we’re something we’re not. Many of us judge ourselves based on our accomplishments, yet fail to question our integrity and honesty in achieving these accomplishments. Instead of being so quick to judge others, take a look in the mirror and evaluate yourself. Perhaps you will see something you weren’t expecting. You may realize it’s time to make a few changes.

“The Guy in the Glass”

There’s a poem I read a couple of weeks ago which sums up the importance of character.

When you get what you want in your struggle for wealth,
And the world makes you King for a day,
Then go to the mirror and look at yourself,
And see what that guy has to say.

For it isn’t your Father, or Mother, or Wife,
Who judgement upon you must pass.
The feller whose verdict counts most in your life
Is the guy staring back from the glass.

He’s the feller to please, never mind all the rest,
For he’s with you clear up to the end,
And you’ve passed your most dangerous, difficult test
If the guy in the glass is your friend.

You may be like Jack Horner and “chisel” a plum,
And think you’re a wonderful guy,
But the man in the glass says you’re only a bum
If you can’t look him straight in the eye.

You can fool the whole world down the pathway of years,
And get pats on the back as you pass,
But your final reward will be heartaches and tears
If you’ve cheated the guy in the glass.

As described in the poem, at the end of the day the only person you have to answer to is yourself. How do you make sure the guy/gal in the glass is always satisfied with who you are?

The key is to make sure you have done nothing that unsettles your subconscious mind. As described in my previous post, at the center of your being you know who you are and you know what you want. I firmly believe we humans are good natured at our core, and that our good nature is deeply rooted in our subconscious mind. However, sometimes people get so far off track in their lives that their true nature gets buried at the bottom of their subconscious mind. This would explain why there are murders, thieves, rapists, and other criminals in our society today.

We take action and make decisions based on our character. If you are arrogant, selfish, and disrespectful, when you look in the mirror you’re not going to be happy with what you see. If, instead, you are generous, loving, and respectful, when you look in the mirror you will be happy with what you see. We can describe this satisfaction as “peace of mind”. To illustrate what I mean, here’s an example from my own life.

My father has reached a state of contentment and peace of mind. Whenever I ask him how he reached this state of mind, his answer is always the same. “I’ve lived my life in such a way that when I put my head down on my pillow, my mind is absolutely clear. I have nothing to be ashamed of.” He’s a man of integrity, honesty, responsibility, and respect. He has managed to develop these characteristics over the past 55 years, and as a result he is content and at peace with himself.

Similarly, I have been striving to mold myself into an individual who is capable of experiencing “peace of mind”. As I become more courageous, trustworthy, responsible, mature, educated, and loving, I’ve realized a shift towards serenity in my life. Whenever I look in the mirror nowadays, I find myself much happier and much more content with the person I am than I was a few months ago.

Develop High Character

Look at the list you compiled a few minutes ago. As you read each of your characteristics, ask yourself if the trait you’re looking at contributes to your peace of mind, or if it takes away from it. Does the trait bring positive energy to you and this world, or does it bring you and others down?

If you are completely honest with yourself, you will see a few of these negative characteristics as you scroll down your list. This is perfectly normal and quite fixable. The first step in developing a high quality character is the ability to acknowledge your flaws. Once you’re aware of them, you can begin the process of changing them.

Now that you’ve identified your disempowering characteristics, you must decide what you want to replace them with. Here are a few examples to get you started:

• Arrogance transforms into humility
• Self-centeredness transforms into loving and contributory
• Insulting transforms into complimentary
• Pessimist transforms into optimist
• Unappreciative transforms into gracious
• Spiteful transforms into forgiving
• Argumentative transforms into agreeable

We humans have the amazing ability to transmute negative energy into positive energy simply by shifting our thoughts. By compiling a comprehensive list of your characteristics, you are raising your awareness towards your character flaws. The next time these flaws rear their ugly heads, you will have the power to consciously replace them with the actions of their empowering substitutes. Keep this awareness up for a month, and what you’ll find is that some positive transformations have taken place.

I’ve found it’s better to pay close attention to one characteristic at a time. You can try to devote your attention to all of the traits you would like to change at one time, but it might not be as effective. Aim for gradual change, this way you will avoid feeling overwhelmed. For the first 30 days, it will take a considerable amount of focus and willpower to replace your old, negative characteristics with new, empowering ones. However, once you get past this initial stage it will be smooth sailing. Stick with it!

Observe the People Around You

I learned an exercise a while back that has proven to be greatly beneficial in my own character development. Give it a try.

• Write down the names of 3 people you despise (or dislike)
• Write down the traits you despise most about these three individuals
• Write down the names of 3 people you admire
• Write down the traits you admire most about these three individuals

The traits you wrote down about the people you despise the most are characteristics that constitute your “dark side”. They are a part of your character, and subversively influence your actions and decisions. At first I didn’t believe this to be true; however, I soon learned after doing this exercise that the above statement was remarkably accurate. If you can observe the negative traits in others, the traits are also certainly inside of you.

The traits you wrote down about the people you admire most are traits you love about yourself, but that you are repressing. These are traits which could become your greatest strengths if you acknowledge them as a part of you, and choose to develop them.

When I did this exercise a while back, I found I admired courage, modesty, and self-confidence. At the time, I was repressing these traits. I have since embraced them as characteristics of myself trying to burst out from within. The results have been remarkable. I feel as though I discovered a new path of growth. Each step I take along the way is extremely rewarding.

As you can see, doing this exercise can provide you with a great deal of insight. You can easily identify those characteristics within you would consider flaws, and discover those characteristics within you that you would consider empowering. The next time you notice yourself looking down at someone; realize the characteristic you are looking down at is also a part of who you are. The next time you find yourself admiring someone; realize the characteristic you’re admiring is also within you, waiting to be acknowledged and set free.

A Lifelong Journey

Building character is definitely a lifelong journey. There will always be some part of your character you can develop to the next level. As you make progress in this area, you will notice the quality of your life is constantly improving. Your reality is increasingly generous towards you. More opportunities arise, people are nicer to you, and the environment is more favorable for your success.

No matter who you are today, understand that tomorrow doesn’t have to be like yesterday. Don’t let your past dictate the present and the future. Make the choice to develop your character today. Make that guy in the glass happy!

Photo by zooboing

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“At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want.”

-Lao Tzu

Have you ever faced a tough decision, and miraculously known what action to take without consciously thinking about it?

Somehow, your subconscious mind knows what to do, and it makes the decision for you in a matter of seconds. It’s a state of heightened consciousness, which we often describe as our “gut instinct.” You take action without thinking twice, and in retrospect you see you made the right decision. This is intuition.

While some of us are more intuitive than others, I don’t believe we inherently less intuitive beings have to limit ourselves by saying, “I’m not intuitive”¦ I just wasn’t born with it.” Intuition is, contrary to popular belief, a developed understanding. Your mind sends you messages all the time, whether you are able to interpret them or not. Being able to interpret these messages is largely dependent on how willing you are to listen to and accept them for what they are.

Emotional Intelligence

What is emotion? I’ve come to understand emotion as a strong, internal, subconscious response to external circumstance. We don’t think happiness, or sadness. We just are. We may be able to influence our emotions with thought, but thought is not emotion. Once we accept emotion for what it is, we can begin to interpret what it’s trying to tell us.

Emotion is designed to be the feedback messenger of your subconscious mind. Think of it as the Hermes of your subconscious mind.

When you’re angry, it’s usually because you are unable to come to terms with a specific aspect of your external environment.

When you’re frustrated, you’re attempting to bend your external environment to your will with little or no success.

When you’re sad, you may be having a hard time coping with your external environment. Regardless of the emotion you are feeling, there is always a message lying subtly beneath its surface.

So, how do you go about discerning the message? The key is to separate yourself from your emotions. You are not your emotions. Often times we get lost in our emotions, and allow them to consume our consciousness. They take over our minds, influence our actions, and frequently cause us to make poor decisions. Instead of thinking with our emotions, we must learn to use our emotions to think.

I was first introduced to this concept by Robert Kiyosaki in his book, “Rich Dad, Poor Dad”. He describes that emotion provides us with an opportunity to think and learn about ourselves. Whenever I feel a strong emotion these days, I stop and reflect on Robert Kiyosaki’s perspective for a moment. I then decide to detach myself from my emotion and interpret what it means. You’ll soon find that every emotion serves as an opportunity to learn something new about yourself.

If I’m angry at something or someone, I see it as an opportunity to evaluate a mistake in my state of mind. I’m being ungrateful, and failing to remember how good I have it. Maybe I’m being egotistical, and upsetting everyone around me while also upsetting myself. If I’m feeling frustrated, I may be beating my head against the wall. I need to re-evaluate my approach, and choose a different path to reach my goal. If I’m feeling anxious, chances are I need to learn a new skill. When I’m feeling bored, it may be a sign I need to take on new, exciting challenges. As you get more in touch with your emotions, you’ll begin to make noticeable leaps in your awareness. You’ll begin to see yourself in a new light.

Feeling emotion is human. Yet, so many of us try and push away our emotions instead of embracing them as a part of what makes us human. No matter how far we get in our personal development, emotion will always be with us. We will never escape our humanity, so why fight it? Do you ever attempt to fight the thunderstorm outside? Accept your emotional “thunderstorms”, and use them to learn as much about yourself as possible.

Motivational Intelligence

Ever since I began 6th grade, I’ve had a hard time motivating myself to do well in school. For a while, I wrote it off as being lazy. I figured, since all the other kids seemed to be working hard, maybe something was wrong with me.

Was I destined to be a bum? Maybe school wasn’t my thing.

At the end of senior year, it hit me. “What if I’m not just being lazy? What if it’s something deeper than that,” I asked myself. There were plenty of tough subjects for me to deal with. Usually I’m the type of guy who loves a good challenge. However, the challenge of the subjects wasn’t motivating me either, and I began to wonder why.

It has taken me nearly 3 years since that point in my life to recognize why I’ve had trouble motivating myself. It took a great deal of inner-reflection and thinking to understand why. Finally, I determined that at my core, one of my most important characteristics is my desire for freedom.

I’ve found it’s hard to focus my mind on anything which doesn’t interest me, regardless of its proclaimed “importance” to my future. Thus, in an environment like high school in which we are forced to take a certain curriculum whether we like it or not, I found it difficult to motivate myself. None of the subjects interested me, and I felt as though I had no freedom to choose otherwise.

You may be saying, “Rahul, you’re just making excuses. You really are lazy!” I won’t disagree. You’re entitled to your own opinion. However, following this profound realization about my true nature, I’ve started picking up activities which do interest me; such writing articles for this blog, studying philosophy, and personal development. The results are I find myself working 100 times harder, 100 times more efficiently, and providing 100 times more value to society. All the while, I’ve retained my freedom, and feel much more motivated.

The long example above from my own life introduces us to the concept of “motivational intelligence”. Much like the quote at the beginning of this article by Lao Tzu, at the center of your being, you know who you really are.

If you’re finding it hard to motivate yourself to do something, ask yourself why. Is the task not interesting? Is it too challenging? Does it restrict your freedom? Is the task too menial? Don’t do as I did and write yourself off as being “lazy”. This will only lead to negative self-talk, and will prevent you from obtaining valuable information.

Try and understand why you’re having difficulty motivating yourself. You will soon discover, just as I have, Lao Tzu’s quote is true. Your subconscious mind knows exactly what you want to be.

If your true interest is music, but you’re forcing yourself to study medicine, you’ll have a hard time motivating yourself. If your true interest is serving the greater good, and you’re stuck in a job which provides little or no value for anyone, you’ll have a hard time motivating yourself. If you’ve been denying yourself from using your motivational intelligence for a long time, the first step is to accept you have deviated from what you should be doing with your life. Once you’ve accepted this truth, you will be prepared to make progress in the right direction.

The next time you fall asleep on your books while studying for a test, or pass out on your desk while your boss is out to lunch, ask yourself, “Is this really what I’m supposed to be doing with my life?”

Don’t “Go Through the Motions”

It’s easy to fall into the trap of “going through the motions” in life, and ending up somewhere you aren’t supposed to be. When we stop listening to what we are trying to tell ourselves, this is precisely what happens. Blindly going through the motions could surely lead you to some interesting places. However, it’s much more likely this method will lead you to a sub-optimal place in life which limits your contribution to society by barring you from your true potential.

The longer you choose to ignore your intuition, you deprive society of all the potential good you could be doing. Don’t be the reason why society is missing out. Learn to use your intuition.

Photo by helgabj

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