Daily Gratitude: “The aim of life is self-development.”

Notice that this doesn’t say anything about being fully developed. It’s an “aim”, a goal. Of course we should always be trying to be better people. Part of that, though, is being happy with the process and not requiring that we become perfect in order to have some happiness.

I see this all the time. People are trying to learn, to figure out their lives and how to get better. But even when they are making progress they aren’t happy. Why? Because they haven’t reached their goal yet so they don’t think they deserve to feel happy.

Shhhh….here’s the secret they don’t know. There is no end in this goal. There is always room for more self-development. There’s only one perfect being and it’s no one you know.

I would suggest that the first aim or goal of self-development is to decide to be happy just because you’re trying to get better. There’s really no competition and no rules. So, by simply deciding you’re going to “work on yourself”, you’ve made great progress and should celebrate.

Once you decide you’re going to be happy where you are and in the present moment, the process of self-development is easier. There’s not much, if any, resistance because you are staying in the flow by being happy. Sure there’s more you want to discover but there’s plenty for you to revel in right now.

Don’t always be “wishing”. It gets you absolutely nowhere. Wishing without action is like affirmations without action. It’s disappointment and discouragement. If you wish for something, decide how important it is to you, make a plan to go for it and begin to take action.

Daily Gratitude: “We do not learn from experience… we learn from reflecting on experience.”

I imagine you might be doubting this quote’s Legitimacy. If so, read it again. Then think about it.

You could have an impactful experience such as jumping out of the way of a car missing being hit by inches. But do you learn from that? Not necessarily. If you don’t think about it and how it happened, you could just as easily make the same mistake again.

But if you think about it you might see that you were trying to cross in the middle of the street and maybe around a bend where lines of sight weren’t that good.

Maybe you were sleep deprived and not able to make decisions as quickly as usual. Maybe you just shouldn’t have tried to cross on that street at all.

Who knows. There could be a ton of things that go into it. But until you reflect on the entire thing you won’t know.

What experiences have you had that ended up repeating because you didn’t reflect and learn from what happened?

Always take time to look at what you’ve experienced and see what you need to change, if anything. It’s called growth.

Daily Gratitude: “Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.”

This is important but difficult. It’s so hard when everything seems so dark and dreary.

One of the best ways to accomplish this is to be prepared. How can you prepare for the down times?

By remembering “this, too, shall pass” and then proving it to yourself? How?

By reviewing your life. In as much detail as you can. Go back and find those times when you thought your world was going to end or never be the same. Then go to a point a year or so after and see how your life was then. If it was still yucky, keep going. Find a place when it wasn’t so bad. You did survive. What changed in your life? How did you feel about what had happened?

Then do it again with another event. Just keep doing it. Write these things down and keep them in a place you’ll remember.

So when things go “bad” in the future, go to your notebook and read through it. You can see that there is a light way down that tunnel. You just have to squint sometimes to see that light. But the list of things you’ve been through should help you know that even now “this, too, shall pass!”