"Treat people as if they are already what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable of being".
Throughout my life I have made a number of self discoveries. Some time ago as a result of unfortunate circumstances I was given the time to investigate myself. I studied myself intently for 2 years and some of my friends said to me that I was very fortunate to have this time to spend on myself. Of course I was fortunate and I agreed with them but some time later I discovered the real meaning of what they had said and I am sure that they did not even realise the implications.
Of course they were implying that they do not have this time to spend getting to know themselves. Can you imagine this? It applies to all of us. We simply do not have the time.
We lead a full life. Usually our life is work, work and more work. We have a family and then we have to find time to squeeze this family into our work life. We do this because we want to be successful in work but why do we really want to do this? What does this mean to be successful? What drives one person to extraordinary lengths to want to be a leader and yet others just work hard with no further ambition other than to keep their jobs and look after their families. And, who is right? Is this what is known as "Work-Life balance"?
Life is hard and we all struggle. When I was younger I wanted to be very successful. I wanted to travel the World, lead an interesting life, be successful in the corporate world, become a CEO or be self employed. I wanted to be admired. I wanted to be somebody important. Do you think this is the reason why we do what we do- just to be important?
So from this period of self examination I have discovered some very interesting truths:
1 I have learnt about time. Time is all we do have. When we are born we unknowingly have a certain amount of time at our disposal. It is similar to buying a phone card where we have a certain number of available minutes to make our calls and then the card expires. Our life is the same. We have a certain number of minutes to do all that we should and then we expire. So time is all we have and so we should use it with wisdom and integrity.
2 The second simple truth I discovered was about all the time I had wasted by not getting to know myself. It seems that I had spent a great portion of my life avoiding myself by trying to become this "something". As an example this "something" which for a while was to be a CEO was a struggle but in the end I achieved my target. I became something but I had avoided the real objective to my life. I had avoided finding myself.
3 The third simple truth is that I had wasted a lot of time in the pursuit of materialistic dreams. If only I had had some teacher in my earlier life who had told me about the importance of finding myself or finding my "Real Nature" then my life would have been more fulfilled much earlier. This is the real secret to personal success. Find yourself and then be the best self you possibly can.
4 The next simple truth for me was about happiness. If you want to be happy then this can only be achieved when you are living with your "Real Nature". You are not trying to be something else. You are only yourself. In order to achieve this and live your life this way then you must understand your values and you must develop virtues and good habits. You must develop your own philosophy of life and this has to be a philosophy of the highest order.
Recently an Article was published in Australia about happiness and this was the result of a survey. The survey showed increased levels of happiness in Australians whereby males had increased up to 28% and women to 32%. The article made this seem to be a success for the Australian population however I was staggered because all I saw was that 72% of men were unhappy and 68% of women were unhappy. This unhappiness is a disease and it can spread and infect everyone because it is the nature of most humans to dwell on the negatives around them.
If you do not believe this then read a newspaper, watch television news and you will see the focus of the world. It is quite possible that this unhappiness is at a pandemic level.
We of course can change this situation. We can start the change within ourselves. If you do not know yourself then you will never be completely happy and if you cannot be completely happy then you will not achieve the success that you want.
To be happy is not something that comes later when you have reached that next promotion or become retired or buy that new car or new house. Happiness is a part of self awareness which comes from knowing yourself.
Are you prepared to confront yourself? Are you prepared to determine the values and virtues by which you should live and then to live your life in accordance. Are you prepared to live your life within this new philosophy because if you are then you are on the Way to go beyond happiness into living with your Real Nature?
When you achieve this then you will become self inspired and in so doing can inspire all others around you. We also need to improve our Self Efficiency and Effectiveness because from the basis of being well organised in all that we do and think then we have created the foundation for greater personal development into self awareness. The absence of this will be an obstacle to us and we will never truly feel that we are the Masters of our life. Naturally this obstacle will also flow into our relationships with all people around us.
Life often is about choices. Sometimes the message is there waiting for us to take it but often we do not see it. Sometimes we see too late and fail to act.
In our Workshops and Programs you can learn about the 3 Principles by which you can transform your life into being a Noble and Inspirational Leader for yourself and for others. You will also learn about the underlying components of these Principles and see how they can be applied successfully into all aspects and situations in your life.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Anthony_David_Foster
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