Resolutions

Oscar Wilde on The Artistic Life (from De Profundis)

“A man whose desire is to be something separate from himself, to be a member of Parliament, or a successful grocer, or a prominent solicitor, or a judge, or something equally tedious, invariably succeeds in being what he wants to be. That is his punishment. Those who want a mask have to wear it.

 But with the dynamic forces of life, and those in whom those dynamic forces become incarnate, it is different. People whose desire is solely for self-realization never know where they are going. They can’t know.”

Oscar Wilde is saying that if you want to be something other than yourself, you may well succeed, but that may not bring happiness. The true path to fulfillment is to focus on self realization.

Every year at this time people make New Years resolutions, our self development society depends on this idea of setting resolutions or goals for oneself.  The Self development industry is goal obsessed. Its focus and drive is on helping you become. People buy books on how to become a rich businessman or a famous this or successful that.

The trouble with external goals like these is that they don’t give you what you are actually looking for When you achieve your goals, you have only given yourself what Wilde calls “your punishment.”

Put all your efforts into becoming rich or successful in your career, and you may become so. However, that does not mean you’ll be happy.

External labels are alluring and society shapes itself around us to make us wear our uniforms as ourselves, forgetting that self realization and true, fulfilling happiness is a separate quest entirely.

So rather than making a concerted effort from now on to focus only on your external goals, try to focus on self realization. This doesn't mean you cannot set goals or resolutions for external gain. Goal setting is extremely useful, but it’s just one step in the journey, not the final destination.

If you have the courage, start consciously asking yourself whether what you are searching for is really what you want, or whether it’s just “fools gold” that won’t help you actually feel fulfilled in the long term.

What Oscar Wilde realized was that if you spend all your time and energy trying to achieve a certain status or title, you may do so,  but that’s all you’ll ever be. If however you focus on developing as a person, and fully actualizing the essence of who you are, you can never tell what you will become, but whatever it is, you’ll be sure to enjoy the journey.

There is no road map to self realization but to make a start think about what Oscar Wilde said and apply the idea of combing both self realization to your goals of becoming or doing something, and if you do you should be successful and have a wonderful 2014

Self esteem is important

People who are confident and have high self esteem will always attract  good circumstances and situations into their reality. This is when they have genuine confidence or appear to the outside world that they have this confidence. People do not generally feel secure, so they like to be with people who are confident. Confident people attract other confident people. Like attracts like.

How do we obtain genuine confidence? By living our life in a joyous way, surrounding ourselves with the things that make us feel good and having goals which we want to achieve and strive towards and goals that we reach.

How do we move towards achievement of goals, we do that by having good habits of success. Habits are the things we do automatically without thinking about them or exerting will power. If you have the right habits already in place, you will act automatically and with absolute certainty. If you aren't succeeding , look at the habits you have formed in your life.  Are these habits helping or hindering your goals? 

What you do in the morning and how you handle it will determine where you end up in your life. Successful people tend to be early risers and you need to be one too, if you want to succeed. Waking up early makes your mind stronger, clearer and more focused. This brings the power of the subconscious mind to the surface so success becomes easier.

Train yourself to wake up between 5am-7am or whatever is realis ticfor you. The mind can easily do with 4-6 hours of sleep if it's trained for it

Feel better fast

 We all have down days, days where our self-esteem is low, or for one reason or another, we just seem to have  the blues.        
       
 Here is a simple little habit that will help you  instantly feel better about yourself.    Make it a habit to help another person for no reason at all. Here are some examples:      
       

•  Let someone get ahead of you in line.
•  Complement a complete stranger on the job they are doing, or how nice they look (a cashier at  a store, a toll attendant, etc) 
•  Help an elderly person cross the street
•  Put money in another person’s parking meter.         
•  Open a door for someone. 
•  Volunteer to help a charity organization 
•  When you see someone trying to get intoyour lane on the road, slow down and let them in.         

  You will be amazed at how much better you will feel when you help a complete stranger.      
       
 Try it .....      
        

Dare to Take a Chance

The only places to find security are a prison or mental hospital. Inmates are assured a roof over their heads, food and warmth and no responsibilities. The price tag for this security? No freedom.

Unfortunately, it's all too easy to reel off a list of bad things that could happen to us. For most people it's easier than thinking of the good things that could happen. People who crave security are slaves to a vivid imagination that conjures up bad news items that could happen to them, and they allow these images to cripple their actions. Too afraid to start that great business idea because of all the things they imagine that could go wrong. Too frightened to sell up and buy a larger house in another area because the house prices could drop or the children won't like the new schools, or... and so it goes on for an endless list.

Every child loves surprises and life is fun and exciting because of this. As we grow up and we fight for security, we eliminate the risks but in doing so we eliminate the surprises and limit our chances to achieve more than a humdrum life.

If you want to make sure you don't stifle your need for excitement:

1. Dare to be individual.

2. Dare to develop your own style - instead of following fashion.

3. Dare to study and work to improve yourself in your profession.

4. Dare to have a positive mental attitude and the courage to try.

In other words: Dare to take a chance

Lessons from Stephen Covey

The most important lesson I learned came from The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. In that book, Covey presents a technique for prioritizing that impressed me greatly and soon became a central part of my planning process. 

Divide your tasks, Covey says, into four categories: 

• Not important and not urgent
• Not important but urgent
• Important but not urgent
• Important and urgent

In the "not important and not urgent" category, you would put such things as: 

• Catching up on office gossip
• Shopping online for personal items
• Answering unimportant phone calls
• Responding to unimportant e-mails
• In the "not important but urgent" category, you would include: 
• Returning phone calls from pesky salespeople
• Making last-minute preparations for an office party
• Attending a required meeting that doesn't help your career
• Planning for a meeting that doesn't matter

In the "important and urgent" category, you might list: 

• Making last-minute preparations for an important meeting with the boss
• Making last-minute sales calls to key clients
• Solving unexpected problems
• And, finally, in the "important but not urgent" category, you might include: 
• Learning how to write better
• Learning how to speak better
• Learning how to think better
• Working on your novel
• Getting down to a healthy weight

If you discover that you are spending a lot of time on unimportant tasks, you've got a serious problem. Unless you change your ways, you're unlikely to achieve any of your important goals. 
So which tasks should you give priority to? 

In Seven Habits, Covey says that most people think they should give priority to important and urgent tasks. But this is a mistake. "It's like the pounding surf," he says. "A huge problem comes and knocks you down and you're wiped out. You struggle back up only to face another one that knocks you down and slams you to the ground." You are "literally beat up by problems all day every day." 

The important but not urgent tasks whisper, while the urgent tasks shout. But there is a way to get that critical but quiet stuff done in four simple steps: 

Step 1. When planning your day, divide your tasks into Covey's four categories: not important and not urgent, not important but urgent, important but not urgent, and important and urgent.

Step 2. You will, of course, have to do or the urgent tasks - at least until you get better at taking charge of your schedule. And you will have to find a way to get rid of the tasks that are not important and not urgent. But make sure you include one important but not urgent task that, when completed, will move you closer to one of your long-term goals.

Step 3. Highlight that important but not urgent task on your to-do list. Make it your number one priority for the day.

Step 4. Do that task first - before you do anything else.

Initially, you will find it difficult to do an important but not urgent task first. There are reasons for that. 

• Since it is not urgent, you don't feel like it's important. But it is.
• Since it supports a goal you've been putting off, you are in the habit of neglecting it.
• You are in the habit of neglecting it because you don't think it's important and because you might be afraid of doing it.
• You might be afraid of doing it because you know, deep down inside, that it will change your life. And change, even good change, is scary.

But once you start using this little four-step technique, you'll notice something right away. 

The first thing you'll notice is how good you feel. Accomplishing something you've been putting off is energizing. It will erase some doubts you have about yourself - doubts caused by years of "never getting to" your long-term goals.