Mental
We are in a world where physical labor is generally less valued compared to what you know. It’s been said you will be the exact same person in five years with the exception of the books you read and the people you meet. Thankfully, “the books you read” is easily transferred to the websites, podcasts, audio, video, or other media that you consume that expands your vision, world view, understanding, knowledge, and/or abilities.
There are two negative actions you can take that generallca will not help you be the best you you can be in this area:
- don’t work on growing
- fill your mind with crap
We all have a limited amount of time and energy, luckily we can work and generate more energy, yet we cannot do anything to increase our time.
How this effects other areas is not as clear cut as the physical and some other areas. It also depends more on other areas.
If you never grow mentally:
- your production will be stagnant
- your personal finances will reduce relative to the rest of the world
- you will have less to relate to with people in the future
- you will not have the best techniques in your toolkit to improve physically or spiritually
Now if you just fill your head with crap, and I am not downplaying the need to entertainment, or relaxation, the issue come in with a reduced amount of time for development in the seven areas, or ability since your only have a set amount of ram in your head. It makes mental growth harder and less likely to happen.
Improvement & MeasurementI don’t recommend any way that your formal education graded your improvement as a standard measurement of growth. Even if you measure your growth by the same methods understand that it is not the ability to have raw knowledge or facts in your head that is a sign of mental growth, it is the ability to understand more, solve more (both number and difficulty level) problems, and envision more options & opportunities.
- read X number of books, or if you are like me – listen though & take notes on X number of books – in a set amount of time
listen to a specific podcast that helps you grow mentally within a week of the episode comes out- work a sudoku, picross, or other puzzle each morning before you go to work
- watch one “how to” video on youtube each week on a topic you want to learn about – I learned how to make sushi form a few videos.
- pick up RSS feeds, or a system to receive emails when articles on specific topics come out
- find a mentor – someone who you want to be like & have lunch with them once a (enter time period here)
Each of those has a time frame, vision, and direction you are going to, but the difference is the way in which you are learning.
Mark Twain basically said:
Don’t let your schooling interfere with your education.
I would employ you, you who are not in a formal school to not let your life or mindset interfere with your education. There are always lessons to learn. Remember, pick the fruit and burn the rest.
where to focus?
Jack of all trades, master of none, though often times better than a master of one
Into the Horizon
Today I went to a frame shop & art gallery to see if they could fix a frame that we picked up recently.
Since I was there, I looked around at the different artwork they had. I keyed in on this one painting of a few sailboats.
It was a great image, I even took a picture of it with my cell phone so I could remember it and told my wife about it when we talked.
The piece is by Thomas Kincaid titled “New Horizons”
Well, this evening as I ended up looking at his website for the first time. When I found the image I noticed this one icon below each of the images on the New Releases page & appears to have done so for a few years now.
I clicked the one under “New Horizons” and up pops a video of the artist talking about the painting and the story behind the painting. After typing this up I found it on youtube too.
It made me want the painting even more.
Now, that in and of itself is not why I am typing this up and attempting to get a copy of the image to include, it’s the face he takes the time, energy, and money to do this video for each of his paintings.
This is a concept I had promoted to artists in the past.
Tell your story, if you are not a writer, then record your audio at least, or a video. Build your fanbase, feed your fans, let them get to know the process you went through to create this intellectual property. Sometimes the creative juices flow, the words, brush strokes, or code just happens almost like you are not controlling your hands or mind. Other times, you are locked down, nothing is working, you try different methods from reading, listening to music, or taking a walk.
Long term, I say, don’t hide either side, at least not with your biggest fans. They will understand, respect you more, and be an even bigger advocate for you.
You should always focus most of your time on your greatest strength or strengths, yet customer or fan relationships must be managed, cultivated, and developed. If you are a one person operations, that means you. If you can hire or recruit people to help and support, then go for you … you need to do what is your hedgehog concept or specialization.
most important
How you think about a problem is more important than the problem itself. So always think positively
~ Norman Vincent Peale
sides of your life
As usual, the serious me is working hard, but the real me is having fun.
~ John Reed, CEO, Citicorp
Spiritual
For many, this is the hardest area of your life to accept, or consider.
I am not going to spend a lot of time making the case that there is more then the tangible world we see, touch, and feel around us, but the bottom line is we all have the basic questions that Thomas Anderson in The Matrix asked:
- Who are we?
- Why are we here?
- What’s happening to us; why?
Lets just assume that the reason we all ask these seemingly bland and obvious questions is because there is more then meets the eye, and that is what happens in the spiritual realm.
The spiritual aspects of your life deal with connecting with, and understanding the deeper aspects that cause us to ask those questions, to not know but to know that we don’t know. In my own spiritual walk, it’s really not about traditions, rituals, costumes, meditation, good works, or studying some text. All those play a part, however the main focus is a relationship with my Creator.
It’s working on myself in regards to my character, integrity, personality, and world view. Always attempting to gain a larger, deeper, broader, and bigger understanding of the world, or worlds around me.
Faith
Everyone has faith; everyone trusts something or strives to be loyal to a promise. One definition that I use outside what is found at dictionary.com is the ability to deal with the unknown or chaos.
Faith is not necessarily the absence of your own knowledge, but it is how you use your knowledge and experiences to grasp, comprehend, or move forward.
Faith plus your world view determines how you act and react to anything.
Spiritual side of your life is in part dealing with that second part, your world view, more so then the first part … your ability to trust and deal with the unknown.
Improvement & Measurement
This is the hardest area for me to measure.
You can apply many of the ideas found in the mental and physical sections.
There are two big suggestions for improvement:
- journaling & documentation – just take some time on a regular basis and keep track of what is going on.
- don’t ignore it for too long – it is easy to go about your life and not even think about anything outside your filling your perceived wants and needs.
Exploration into the questions behind the questions, or needs causing the needs and facing the brutal facts that either your life is providing the abundant life we believe it should have, or it is not.
This is the most ignored area of life in our current culture, yet and thus it is also the key aspect that you probably need to spend more time on.
3, 2, 1, blast off
If you believe you can, you probably can. If you believe you won’t, you most assuredly won’t. Belief is the ignition switch that gets you off the launching pad.
~Denis Waitley
the world around you
Kites rise against, not with, the wind. No man has ever worked his passage anywhere in a dead calm.
~John Neal
daily medicine
People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.
~ Zig Ziglar
pick your poison
We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons.
~ Jim Rohn
