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Executive Education, Personal and Professional development Programmes
POSITIVE SELF-DIRECTION - There's value in being you
Bella Enahoro
Have you ever been in that place where you know what you’re doing isn’t right for you? You ache to be in a different job? You regret not approaching the guy/girl you really wanted to be with? You long to ‘have a go’ and relocate, maybe even to a different country?
Have you felt the stab of pain in trying to repress the awareness that you’re ‘settling’ or you have ‘settled’ for 'this will do'? Or just to ‘keep the peace’ you went along with your parents ideas of who you should be? Maybe you’ve bought into the idea of ‘I’m powerless to get what I really want’ so why bother?
The pain of regret, disappointment, somehow feeling bad about ourselves is hard to live with. We didn’t even give ourselves a chance, we just assumed it wasn’t going to work out for us. But on the edges of our awareness all we truly desire still hovers, waiting acknowledgement by us.
When we ask ourselves what it is we really want, our awareness flies open. And then we may ask ourselves, why aren’t we getting it? And why aren’t we living it?
Is it fear? Is it one set-back too many? Is it disappointment? Are we listening to the ‘nay’ brigade? Did we stop short of our goal? Did we lose confidence? Did we tell ourselves ‘it’s just too hard’.
Or did we just substitute what we really wanted with a ‘cheaper’ version thinking it will do just as well. Let’s not kid ourselves, it seldom does.
If we don’t ‘go for it’ and at least give ourselves a chance to attain our desires, what happens? There’s only so much muting of ache, pain and regret we can sustain before making ourselves ill, before becoming embittered, before poisoning our own lives. Why live like that?
Yes, we’ve all been given the dignity of choice. And learning to exercise that gift in such a way so that we don’t end up living a life we don’t want to be in, living in a place we don’t want to be, working all our lives in jobs that don’t pay enough on any level, - to avoid all that means paying attention to what we’re doing.
It’s hard when life throws us a ‘curve ball’. Incredibly hard – where did that come from we ask ourselves? And all we can do is rely on support and encourage and the ‘know how’ we can pull from the environment around us, to get us through.
But positive self-direction means taking responsibility for our lives – not necessarily responsibility for what happens to us, but how we handle it. The choice is ours to listen to the nay-sayers or go in search of more encouraging people. The choice is ours to give in to the set-backs, to give up on ourselves or find ways to keep going till we get what makes our heart sing.
It’s never too late.
There’s no substitute for charting one’s own course through life. Positive self-direction requires two important facets – self-knowledge: know who you are and what you want to do with your life - and self-preparation: be ready for what you desire. Don’t let it sneak up on you and you miss it.
And this is what I’m learning through all the bumps in the road, the great value is, yes getting what you want but more importantly discovering who you become in the process. When we go for what we want, it makes something of us however humble the desire or ‘large’. We have to become the kind of person who can achieve that goal, instead of settling for being the kind of person who ‘let it all go’.
There’s value in our hearts desires and becoming the kind of people who can achieve them. In so doing you become you and there’s value in being you, fully and uniquely, even if others don’t acknowledge it.
Copyright ©Bella Enahoro Sept 2013
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If you like this article please 'LIKE' and Bookmark us and share with others
Have you felt the stab of pain in trying to repress the awareness that you’re ‘settling’ or you have ‘settled’ for 'this will do'? Or just to ‘keep the peace’ you went along with your parents ideas of who you should be? Maybe you’ve bought into the idea of ‘I’m powerless to get what I really want’ so why bother?
The pain of regret, disappointment, somehow feeling bad about ourselves is hard to live with. We didn’t even give ourselves a chance, we just assumed it wasn’t going to work out for us. But on the edges of our awareness all we truly desire still hovers, waiting acknowledgement by us.
When we ask ourselves what it is we really want, our awareness flies open. And then we may ask ourselves, why aren’t we getting it? And why aren’t we living it?
Is it fear? Is it one set-back too many? Is it disappointment? Are we listening to the ‘nay’ brigade? Did we stop short of our goal? Did we lose confidence? Did we tell ourselves ‘it’s just too hard’.
Or did we just substitute what we really wanted with a ‘cheaper’ version thinking it will do just as well. Let’s not kid ourselves, it seldom does.
If we don’t ‘go for it’ and at least give ourselves a chance to attain our desires, what happens? There’s only so much muting of ache, pain and regret we can sustain before making ourselves ill, before becoming embittered, before poisoning our own lives. Why live like that?
Yes, we’ve all been given the dignity of choice. And learning to exercise that gift in such a way so that we don’t end up living a life we don’t want to be in, living in a place we don’t want to be, working all our lives in jobs that don’t pay enough on any level, - to avoid all that means paying attention to what we’re doing.
It’s hard when life throws us a ‘curve ball’. Incredibly hard – where did that come from we ask ourselves? And all we can do is rely on support and encourage and the ‘know how’ we can pull from the environment around us, to get us through.
But positive self-direction means taking responsibility for our lives – not necessarily responsibility for what happens to us, but how we handle it. The choice is ours to listen to the nay-sayers or go in search of more encouraging people. The choice is ours to give in to the set-backs, to give up on ourselves or find ways to keep going till we get what makes our heart sing.
It’s never too late.
There’s no substitute for charting one’s own course through life. Positive self-direction requires two important facets – self-knowledge: know who you are and what you want to do with your life - and self-preparation: be ready for what you desire. Don’t let it sneak up on you and you miss it.
And this is what I’m learning through all the bumps in the road, the great value is, yes getting what you want but more importantly discovering who you become in the process. When we go for what we want, it makes something of us however humble the desire or ‘large’. We have to become the kind of person who can achieve that goal, instead of settling for being the kind of person who ‘let it all go’.
There’s value in our hearts desires and becoming the kind of people who can achieve them. In so doing you become you and there’s value in being you, fully and uniquely, even if others don’t acknowledge it.
Copyright ©Bella Enahoro Sept 2013
For more articles go to more.
If you like this article please 'LIKE' and Bookmark us and share with others
