Developing Your Personal Philosophy

Rohn: 7 Tips for Developing Your Personal Philosophy

Your philosophy is the greatest determining factor in how your life works out. This is how to build a meaningful one. 

Jim Rohn

August 9, 2015 

Jim Rohn was broke at 25 and a millionaire by 31. How does an Idaho farm boy make it to Beverly Hills? This is how…

At 25, there was nothing in my bank and I needed to provide for my family. As I was considering what to do, I met John Earl Shoaff, a wealthy entrepreneur who became my employer for the next five years. He revolutionized my life and taught me the importance of developing my personal philosophy, to look for those few things that make the most difference and to spend most of my time doing those things. It isn’t a complex or mystical process but a principle that can make a difference in how your life turns out.

While there are many puzzle pieces for success, without developing a sound philosophy the other pieces are of little value. So as you go forward on this journey toward success, remember to:

1. Set your sail.

The winds of circumstance blow upon all of us. We all have experienced the winds of disappointment, despair and heartbreak, but why do people arrive at such different places at the end of the journey? Have we not all sailed upon the same sea?

The major difference isn’t circumstance; it’s the set of the sail, or the way we think—it’s what we do after we’ve set our sails and the wind decides to change direction. When the winds change, we must change. We have to struggle to our feet and reset the sail in a manner that will steer us in the direction of our own deliberate choice. The set of the sail, or how we think and how we respond, has a far greater capacity to destroy our lives than any challenges we face. How quickly we respond to adversity is far more important than adversity itself.

The great challenge of life is to control the process of our own thinking.

2. Learn from success and failure.

The best way to establish a new and powerful personal philosophy is to objectively review the conclusions you’ve drawn about life. Any conclusion you’ve drawn that isn’t working for you could be working against you. The best way to counteract misinformation and wrong data is to input new and accurate information. Gather information from personal experience. If you’re doing something wrong, evaluate what you did wrong and change things.

Seek an objective, outside voice about how you are and what you’re doing. An objective opinion from someone you respect can lead you to early and accurate information about your decision-making process. Listen to the freshness of an outside voice—someone who can see the forest and isn’t lost in the trees.

Observe the successes and failures of other people. If people who failed were to give seminars, it would be helpful. You could see how people mess up and you wouldn’t do what they did. Past failures and errors prompt us to amend current conduct so we don’t replicate the past.

Study from people who do well. Each of us should be in a constant search for people we admire and respect and whose behavior we can model. It’s far better to deliberately choose the people we will permit to influence us than to allow bad influences to affect us without our conscious choice.

3. Read all you can.

People from all walks of life who’ve had some of the most incredible experiences have taken the time to write of these experiences so we can be instructed and amend our philosophies.

The contributions of other people enable us to reset our sails based upon their experiences. Books offer treasures of information that can change our lives, fortunes, relationships, health and careers for the better.

There are two books you need to read to build your philosophy: Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill and The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason.

4. Keep a journal.

A journal is a gathering place for all of our observations and discoveries about life. It’s our own handwritten transcript that captures our experiences, ideas, desires and conclusions about the people and the events that have touched our lives. The past, when properly documented, is one of the best guides for making good decisions.

The very act of writing about our lives helps us think more objectively about our actions. Writing tends to slow down the flow of information and gives us time to analyze and ponder the experience. The intense scrutiny of journal writing can enable us to make refinements in our philosophy that are truly life-changing.

Jot down what you learn and be a buyer of empty books. It’s the small disciplines that lead to great accomplishments.

5. Observe and listen.

Pay attention during your day, watch what’s going on. Surround yourself with people you respect and admire. Find people whose personalities and achievements stimulate, fascinate and inspire you, and then strive to assimilate their best qualities. This is called the skill of selecting. Don’t waste your time on the silly and the shallow.

One of the major reasons people don’t do well is because they keep trying to get through the day while a more worthy cause is to get from the day. We must become sensitive enough to observe and ponder what is happening around us. Be alert. Be awake. Often the most extraordinary opportunities are hidden among seemingly insignificant events.

Be a good listener. Find a voice of value and stay for a while. With so many voices vying for your attention, you need to develop the skill of selective listening and only dial into the radio station that appeals to you. If a voice is not leading to the achievement of your goals, exercise caution in how long you listen.

6. Be disciplined.

Every day is filled with dozens of personal crossroads, moments when we’re called upon to make a decision regarding minor as well as major questions. These decisions chart a path to a future destination. With careful mental preparation, we can make wise choices.

The development of a sound philosophy prepares us for making sound decisions. When we eat healthy foods, we experience positive results in a short time. When we start exercising, we feel a new vitality almost immediately. When we begin reading, we experience a growing awareness and a new level of self-confidence.

New disciplines practiced daily will produce exciting results. The magic of new disciplines causes us to amend our thinking.

7. Don’t neglect.

Neglect is the major reason people don’t have what they want. If you don’t take care of things in your life, neglect becomes a disease. If you neglect to do good things with your money, you probably neglect to do good things with your time. If you don’t know what’s going on with your health or your bank account, you could be at risk.

Set up new disciplines to change your life. Don’t neglect. Everything is within our reach if we will read books, use journals, practice the disciplines and wage a new and vigorous battle against neglect.

Build your philosophy. Commit yourself to a new journey and say, I’m going to change my life. Once you do, you’ll never look back.

Article Source Rohn: 7 Tips for Developing Your Personal Philosophy

How to lead ones self into the desired direction? Personal Leadership

I recently wrote about a couple of steps to help with self motivation. How do you actually put yourself in the position to actually make the decision about what you want and make that first step?  In making that first step you have to put the word 'tomorrow' out of your mind. "Never put off what you can do today to tomorrow".  That world should not exist in your vocabulary when it comes to your aspirations and your future.  You must learn to be your own leader.  

I have found this great article on personal leadership by Joe Farcht,which you might find interesting
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Personal Leadership Definition
Personal leadership is the ability and desire to crystallize your thinking and to establish a specific direction and destination for your own life. It includes the courage, choice, and commitment to move in that direction by taking committed and determined action to acquire, accomplish, or become whatever you visualize for your future. 

Building Personal Leadership
Critical to your work and personal success is building your own personal leadership. There is no substitute to learning more about yourself, acquiring knowledge and wisdom, practicing new skills, and developing more of your personal potential for greatness. Building personal leadership is absolutely essential to your long-term achievements, success, and happiness. However, what I observe is that many people are so busy that they find no time to create a brighter future for themselves. 

When you build personal leadership you develop your own capacity to work smarter. You improve your effectiveness and productivity. You develop a focus for your life endeavors through developing clear statements of vision, purpose, mission, and values. You make steady conscious progress toward your planned goals, dreams, and aspirations. You become a model of personal leadership for those you interact with. You qualify yourself to become an effective organizational leader. You become aware of the potential pitfalls that could derail you in your work and life. You march confidently down the path of life knowing you are on “purpose.” You easily say “Yes” to the life you should live and “No” to the parts of life that would distract you from your mission.

Many business people believe that developing leadership in their organizations is important and I concur. Building personal leadership precedes building organizational leadership. Examine your own personal development plans and actions. If you are not daily and consciously developing your personal leadership, then you will be ineffective at helping the people who work for you develop their leadership skills. It all starts with you. You have a choice today. What will your choice be?

The original article can be found at http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/Definition_Leadership.html

Believe in yourself to Reach Your Goals

Each and every one of us yearn for something. It may be being better off financially, living a healthier life, finding one’s soul mate or just to be satisfied and happy. Now as I mention these things, let us imagine our own dreams and aspirations in life. Let us imagine what our desires are and let us not only think about the material things we desire but those things which are most important to us and our family, the intangible things like love, health and happiness.

As we are thinking about these things, what goes inside your head? Most people as they think about the things they want, they fear or they believe that they will not be able to have it. They do not believe they will be able to be financially independent or that they will be capable of being truly happy. They do not believe that they will be able to accomplish the goals they have in life.

Now how do you think you will act if you do not believe that you will have what you want? How do you think your beliefs will affect your actions? When you desire something but do not believe that you are capable of having it or being it will mean that your actions towards having what you desire will be affected.

Instead of pursuing the things you wish to attain, your actions will become - cautious and uncertain, you will become fearful of what may happen, you will believe that others are better than you and most of all you will expect failure. Now is it any wonder that others quit and give up before they even start? People quit and give up because they do not believe in themselves. They do not believe they have what it takes to reach their goals. They have trained themselves to think that they are not good enough so even before starting towards their goals they have resigned themselves to failure.

Now you don’t need this. What you need to do is start believing in yourself. Start believing that you can do it, you can achieve your goals and you are most capable of reaching success. Now get ready and begin by re-training your brain to believe that you can do it, that you are capable of reaching your goals and most of all re train your brain to believe in yourself. You can do it!

Article Source: http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/believe-in-yourself-to-reach-your-goals

Why Gratitude Works

We all have goals that we want to achieve in our lives.  There is one route that will help you to achieve them faster and easier and that is gratitude.  This concept is so important to our goal achievement that Wallace Wattles in his book, "The Science of Getting Rich" dedicates a full one-third of it to this topic.

Why, then, is the concept of being grateful so hard for us to integrate into our lives?  After all, from the time we were small children we have been told that whenever we are given something we should say "thank you".  Maybe the concept of gratitude is so simple that we just simply forget about it.

Wes Hopper in his e-book "The Astonishing Power of Gratitude" says that there are 5 key mistakes that we make that keep us from being in a state of gratefulness.  They are:

A belief in scarcity, that there just is not enough of anything to go around.  We don't believe in a friendly and abundance universe

We live our lives in a state of resistance.  We do not readily accept that our lives are perfect just the way that they are.

We postpone happiness until something in the future occurs.  For instance we get that new car, new job, pay raise, etc. and then we can be happy.

We prefer to be satisfied with the status quo rather than dissatisfied.  Yet, it is dissatisfaction with the way things are that will boost us in our growth.

We see ourselves as victims of circumstance rather than co-creators of our world.

We want to hold onto grudges rather than to forgive.

We don't see the flow of abundance.  We have to be willing to give if we are ever going to receive.

If we are going to successfully achieve our goals, then we have got to understand that the universe operates by predictable and reliable laws.  One of these is gratitude.  In "The Science of Getting Rich", Wallace Wattles writes:  "There is a law of gratitude, and if you are to get the results you seek, it is absolutely necessary that you should observe this law."

Universal laws tend to operate within the natural principle of polarity.  That action and reaction are always equal and in opposite directions.  That is why whatever we put our positive energy into will grow.  It is like you placed an order for it with the universe.  That is why gratefullness is so crucial, it has a high positive energy vibration that is powerfully attractive.  A mind that is focused on gratitude is constantly focused on the best and that keeps us from dwelling on worry and fear.

The concept of gratitude is why it is always stressed that you see your goal as already having been achieved.  By being grateful in the now, you are putting an immense amount of positive energy into it's in the accomplishment.

In the next couple of articles we are going to look at these hang ups that keep us from achieving our goals through maintaining an attitude of gratitude so that we can eliminate them from our lives and live the dreams we desire.

 

Article source: Why Gratitude Works

Motivation Is Nothing Without Action

Create small habits and these will keep you going.  Watch this  video and try a 30 day challenge and see how you feel.  Great video,  watch and let me know what you think?