Self-development articles | part 2
Hey! Hey!
Welcome to the second part of Self-development articles. If you haven't read the first part, click here.
The author of this article does not take the content as "the only right truth", please reflect on the text, verify the content, think about the content and take what resonates with you. The author takes no responsibility for the non-functionality or ineffectiveness of this information in your life.
WHAT DO YOU WANT?
What do you want? What do you want from life? Do you even know what you want?
Have you even answered these questions? Answer them. Get clear on what you want.
You need to know where you're going. If we don't know what we want, how can we get anywhere? In this case, you're going in a random direction, wandering through life. The more we are not sure what our desire is, the more we will have a random life. Imagine you're walking through a forest where there are many paths. If you don't know where you want to go, you will wander endlessly, you will be a lost soul. Another example might be ordering at a restaurant. You have to say exactly what food you want so that the waiter can satisfy you. He may bring you some random food, but you may not like what he brings you. When you know what you want, you can attract what will be good for you, the universe will know what to deliver. Otherwise, you may end up getting what doesn't make you feel good.
When you don't know what you want, your productivity goes down. It's hard to create or build something without a vision, an idea, and most importantly, a desire. You may then seek out activities that won't benefit you in the long run because you don't know how to make better use of your time. Why, for example, do young people drink, go to clubs, etc.? For example, because they don't know what they want properly, their desires are small or they don't desire enough to go for it. You have energy that can be used powerfully, so use it for what you really want. What are your dreams?
Imagine you have won the lottery. You have billions. What would you do? What would you own? Write it down and achieve it. Don't worry about how to achieve it. Don't worry about whether it's possible. If you really want something, there's always a way. Napoleon Hill said: Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve. Henry Ford said: Whether you think you can, or you think you can't--you're right. Put these two familiar yet golden ingredients in context.
You know what you don't want? Great! Because when you know what gives you the unwanted feeling, you know what you don't want, and because of that, you can determine what you do want! What do you want? Focus on your dreams. Dream big! Just don't waste your energy focusing on what you don't want. Determine what you don't want, through that determine what you want and focus on it. You become what you think about -Earl Nightingale - Or you get what you think about.
We don't actually want specific things. We don't really want millions, a nice car, the love of our lives... What we really want is the feeling that those things give us! You don't want financial freedom, you want the feeling of financial freedom. If you can create these feelings, then you are not attached to what you want, then you are free. When you control the mind, you control everything. When you have the feelings you want, you have everything. Isn't life about feelings?
What do you want?
What feelings do you want?
May your life change for the better!
Luke Hojnost.
BALANCE IN LIFE
Balance is something I have been trying to maintain in my life for a long time. Balance is important because there are always two opposing energies, two sides to consider. Like the universe/God/source, you can describe these energies in different ways, like the yin yang, feminine and masculine energies, light and dark... We all have both sides to us, without one there probably wouldn't be the other, these energies form a perfect dualism.(Spiritual dualism is basically two extremes that influence each other, e.g. Good and Evil. The opposite of dualism is unity: Source energy, nothing is good or bad, everything is neutral, everything just simply is).
We all have a feminine and masculine side to us. Both need to be satisfied in order to have a balance. The feminine side receives things, the masculine side gives things. We need to give but also receive. The balance can be different for everyone at a certain moment. Not long ago I was a workaholic, I was always putting my enegy into business and self-development, but I didn't give myself a proper rest. Because of that, I had a situation five times in six months where I couldn't function properly for a week because I didn't allow myself to embrace the other side. I was out of balance. I barely allowed myself to watch a movie or a TV show, for example, and I was always thinking that I needed to work on myself. That kind of attitude can be dangerous. Give yourself some rest. It's best to let your intuition guide you in this regard. Intuition will always give you good advice.
Another good example might be the range of emotions. In the past, I have tended to suppress negative emotions and tend to feel only positive emotions all the time. Because of this, I didn't feel the negative feelings and so the feelings stuck with me and stayed with me until I felt them. It's called karma. We have to go through karma (feel and accept what is happening) so that it doesn't come back (burn of the karma). Having negative emotions and feelings is not a bad thing, it is the other side of the coin, there is positivity in dualism due to negativity. We are here to feel all emotions, subconsciously we want to feel all emotions. A beautiful example is horror movies. Why do people watch horror movies if it gives them feelings of fear and tension? Because we humans want to feel those feelings. And that's okay, that's what this life is all about. If we feel negative emotions, we'll feel better if we feel them and accept them than if we reject them and force positive emotions. Swim in all emotions, even the negative ones if you need to.
Dualism has already been mentioned. No one seems to be very comfortable when something negative happens to us... But if it weren't for negative things, we wouldn't know positive things and positivity wouldn't exist. In this case, we can look at negativity from two perspectives: 1) The dualistic perspective 2) The unity perspective. If we look at it through the dualistic view, negativity is something that we are mostly uncomfortable with, there are good and bad things for us, and we see negative things as negative. But if we look at it from a unity point of view, everything is neutral, there's really nothing bad or good, everything is just energy. Only our mind determines what is good or not. In that case negative things are not bad, they are just something happening. Mostly we don't know what we don't know. A bad thing can show up a year from now as the best blessing. For example, through hard times, we can be the best version. Pain is the best fuel, it can kick us perfectly and propel us forward.
May your life change for the better!
Luke Hojnost.
WHAT IS SUCCESS
Everyone wants to succeed in something. We all want to achieve something, to get that prize we are striving for. We want that feeling of freedom that achieving that goal will give us. But what is success? Let's look at what success is and what it can mean to us.
One way we can define success is: The state of feeling good. Because when we want something, we actually want to feel good. It's about the feeling it gives us when we achieve it. If we feel good, if we feel the way we want, we have succeeded. A person can have a lot, but if he feels unhappy in life, it doesn't matter what he has. A person who has a little and is content and happy is more successful than a person who has everything but is unhappy, because I repeat: we want things because we want a certain feeling. We want to feel good and enjoy life. We want to feel joy, love, maybe adventure, passion, excitement, peace...Success is different for everyone. Everyone has different desires, different goals and dreams. For some people, success can mean being financially free or having millions, while others have absolutely no interest in millions. For some people, winning a match means nothing because they don't want that feeling and that activity. For him it's not success, but on the contrary someone can enjoy every day training and winning matches. It gives him a great feeling, which for him at that moment means to be successful = he achieved the feeling he wanted, he feels good.You define what success is for yourself. Don't want the success of others, don't want something because others want/have it. Want what you want wholeheartedly. Want your success. You create this game, so play it your way and succeed! If you are doing something that you may be good at and maybe have a good career in, but it doesn't give you joy, it doesn't fulfill you, you may not be that successful. Is feeling bitter, resentful, disgusted or exhausted a success?May your life change for the better!
Luke Hojnost.
SMALL THINGS MAKE BIG THINGS
Little things make big things. This is a golden argument that is good to keep in mind, ideally in the subconscious. Because this is true in all cases, and we need to act accordingly.
When I hear this phrase, one of the things that comes to mind is habits. It's not what we have, it's who we are. Achieving certain goals requires a certain pattern of behavior. The right attitude plays a big part. 99% of it is about our mind-set. How we think are habits. Our actions are then based on our thinking, which is why thinking comes first. We can have actions as good as we want, if we have the wrong attitude/thinking, we will fail. For example, someone can exercise correctly, but because they have the wrong thinking habits, they will fail. Why? Because, for example, they don't see results right away, so they give up.
To get big results you usually need to have lots of small results. No one is likely to have overnight success. The most successful have achieved their success through difficult trials, challenges, obstacles... I've heard the story a few times where The Beatles had a conversation where they talked about how they became extremely popular out of nowhere. They just didn't have overnight success. For two years they worked hard and played underground without much results. With the right habits, they did it. We don't know what you can or could go through.
The road to your goal consists of small goals, tasks and daily actions. They say we eat the elephant in bits and pieces. It is necessary to eat the pieces regularly. What counts is what we do most of the time and what we do repeatedly. In that case, discipline and perseverance intervene. It's better to do a small piece every day(or other regular interval) than a bigger piece once in a while. Doing things in small chunks will probably be more efficient, we will probably get more done as a result. For example, how do we want to build a house without regular daily construction? When would the house probably be finished if we built it irregularly? When we want to win a game, we also need to take small steps, such as training. Without practice, we probably won't win the game.
It's one thing to do something regularly, it's another thing to do something right. We need to take the right action steps. For example, if we want to have a nice figure and have muscles, eating junk food is probably not the right habit. If we have the occasional junk food treat, it usually doesn't affect us much, but once junk food is a daily action, it will probably hold us back or pull us back.
I recommend writing down daily action steps. Changing your priorities is an important thing to do. A lot of people say they don't have time for things, but that's just an excuse. We all have the same amount of time, we all have 24 hours every day. It's all about priorities. If we write down what we're going to do every day and what time we're going to do it, we'll save our willpower, we'll have more order in our lives. Force yourself into daily action steps by writing it down as a task. You can write it down on paper or feel free to put it in an app that reminds you at any given time what activity is currently on your schedule.
Take steps every day to achieve the goals that will make you reach the chief aim that will make you achieve your dream!
DREAM <--- CHIEF AIM <--- GOALS <--- DAILY ACTION STEPS
Let your life change for the better!
Luke Hojnost.
CHALLENGES AND SITUATIONS
We face challenges and situations in life. Their difficulty and intensity may vary according to one's approach to life, what one has been through, one's experience and skills, and so on. For someone driving a car is a minimal challenge because they have already done some mileage. On the other hand, a person who is just learning to drive sees it as an intense challenge. Either way, after a while it won't be as challenging. Therefore, if you are going through something challenging now, realize that it will probably be a piece of cake after a while.
I remember once addressing a similar topic with a good friend of mine. He was showing me a "ladder" in some painting program. He drew me 10 levels, with the idea that the higher the level, the more challenging. A person who is at level 1 will have level 2 as a hard challenge. Once he gets to level 2, the challenges at level 1 will already be easy for him. That's how it goes up. But if a person at level 1 was doing a challenge at level 10, he wouldn't give it, it would destroy him. For someone starting a business, for example, at level 1, he has a business to set up and learn how to navigate in such a world. If he jumped from nothing to level 10 and had 10 companies with 5000 employees, he would quit. However, for a person at level 10, starting and running a business is a pleasant walk. But no need to worry here, the Universe will only give us what we can handle.
When most people have an obstacle in their lives, a situation that disrupts their plan, or slows it down or complicates it, they take a rather negative view. But in the universe nothing is random, everything has a purpose. We don't know what we don't know. As I've written in a couple of articles, adversity can be the greatest blessing.
Ideas for articles usually come to me on their own without any thought. In this case, I got the inspiration for this article from this very site. I was solving display ads, using Google AdSence. I gave the site to Google for review and waited for their response. The check turned out that they didn't like the site very much. The site didn't look very valuable. Was I unlucky? Was I unlucky? The stars were not in my favor? No way! This situation made the site look much nicer and more attractive! I've also added a new section where I put posts like videos or pictures. Google blessed me by rejecting them! Something that seemed like bad luck was actually good luck. And even if it wasn't, I would have found or created that luck.
A lot of people would use the word PROBLEM for challenges and situations. Since they use this rather negative word, it's really something negative. Much better to use the names already mentioned: challenge, situation. This helps us to have a more positive outlook. Challenge helps us to grow. Challenge has a positive meaning. And a situation is just something that happens to us, the word situation is more of a neutral meaning. It's up to us what meaning we give to the situation. Only our mind determines what is good and what is not.
Obstacles and problems are great opportunities for our growth. It is the challenges that make us better. They also make life more interesting and fun. You just have to find the beauty in it.
May your life change for the better!
Luke Hojnost.
WHAT DO THE OTHERS THINK?
One of the common fears people have is the fear of criticism and what others will think. At least 90% of the population has some degree of this fear and is afraid to stand out from the crowd and be different from others.
Why are we afraid of criticism or being the black sheep? Why do we care so much what others think of us? It probably goes back to the very roots. In the past, condemnation by society could cost us our lives. We are a species that has always survived in groups, tribes, just like some animals. We subconsciously want to fit in, to be part of a group, to survive.
Nowadays we can afford to stand out from the crowd, we can also find people who will be like us, with whom we can connect. We are no longer in danger (in most cases) of going outside the crowd. But why step out of the crowd in the first place?
Whether to step out of the crowd depends on what kind of life you want to live. What kind of life do you want to have? Do you want to have an average, normal life, do you want to live like everyone else? Maybe it's good to think about what normal actually means these days. How do most people behave, how do they think, what are their dreams and goals, how do they spend their free time, what are their habits, what are their relationships, what is their health? I'll just write here a few examples of normal life in today's Western civilization: working in a low-paying job during the week, finally getting relief on weekends, and escaping reality with alcohol. Most relationships nowadays don't last and many men are put in a more feminine position,on the contrary women are forced to be dominant in the relationship. Unhealthy diet and unhealthy body, even unhealthy mentality. People have more psychological problems than in the past. Addictions to food, nicotine, computer games and series, pornography or even to a partner. Most people have small goals and dreams, and if they have bigger ones, they don't go for them anyway, so they never achieve them. This is just a small percentage of today's normalcy, too broadly written.
Do you want to live like that? Great! If you're that happy, mission accomplished... But maybe some of you want more out of life. Maybe financial freedom? A beautiful functional loving relationship, perfect health, waking up with enthusiasm and a smile? Maybe you feel like you're here to do something much bigger than do school and go to work, wait for retirement and die. What do you want?
What do you feel deep down? If you want a different life, you can't be normal! Successful people are willing to do what normal people don't do. I repeat: Successful people are willing to do what normal people don't do...!
Do you want to be like everyone else? You don't? Then why care what they think? If we worry about what others think, we will conform to their framework, so in the end we will go in their direction, or at least it will keep us where we are.
Maybe they'll laugh at you, maybe they'll say it won't work, maybe they'll want to give you advice or push their opinions on you... In that case, the question is: What have they done? Have they achieved what I want? If not, why take their insights to heart.
It doesn't matter what they think, what matters is what we think! The only one who has to believe in us is ourselves! It doesn't matter if someone doesn't believe that we can do it, if we do!
One of the few principles I follow is that I don't tell anyone my plans and dreams. This is because it is information that certain people would react to sabotage, whether consciously or unconsciously. Someone might just tell you some "silly, meaningless observation", but it's exactly that kind of little remark that can influence you. For example, it can put a program in your mind, a belief that will hold you back because, for example, a parent told you that, which is an authority figure to you, so you tend to take it more to heart from that person. Those closest to us can sabotage us the most. Let's take the example of Adam having a dream to be rich. He tells his beautiful dream and goal to his father, but the father believes that being rich is bad, that money is evil, that money corrupts a person, and so on... Of course he tells his son his beliefs, and since Adam's father is his father, i.e. an authority figure, it is stored in his subconscious (This is also true, for example, in movies or in school, where we are programmed this way on purpose).
I only tell my plans and dreams to people I can really trust. For example, someone who is working with me on a goal, a mentor, or someone I know is safe to tell.
May your life change for the better!
Luke Hojnost.