Moving towards my authentic self
Acceptance
When I went to a ‘find your purpose’ seminar a month ago, one of the things that I got from it was that I need to practice acceptance in order to move forward with my purpose. Acceptance has been a problem in my life. I have trouble accepting other people, situations, or even myself. I have trouble accepting the world for what it is, and want it to be different. I have trouble accepting myself for what I am, and want to be different.
While wanting things to be different can be a worthy desire, it prevents acceptance of how things are right now. We want change because ‘how things are’ makes us unhappy. We don’t want to be unhappy, so we want things – and people – to change around us.
What we’re really doing is avoiding responsibility for our own perceptions and beliefs.
Everything is changing, again
There’s all kinds of changes going on in my life right now. So many, I just don’t know where to start! I’ll try to summarise…
- My contract was extended during April for another month, but then someone changed their mind and thought they had a better idea, so they cancelled the extension. My last day was Thursday last week.
- Now that I’ve got some decent spare time, I’ve been working very heavily on my new website. Where this site is about my life, my new site will be about my consulting services. That’s all the hint you’re getting right now. The site will be announced soon, when it’s reached a state I’m happy with.
- After more than a year of being happily single and not looking, I’ve recently realised I’m ready to look again. I asked a lovely lady out last week, and we should be catching up for coffee sometime soon.
Connecting On Purpose
I went to a seminar on the weekend in Sydney, to ‘find my Purpose’. I’m quite passionate in my life about helping people grow, but wanted some clarity on how I’m meant to do that, so off I went to the seminar.
I got a lot more than I expected.
As soon as I first saw her I thought there was something special about her, but when she smiled and sat down next to me and introduced herself, I was surprised. There were a lot of vacant chairs and other people in the room…
So we introduced ourselves and chatted a bit before the seminar started. Then we had lunch together, and that was pretty cool, with some deep and meaningful conversations shared. Then back to the seminar, before heading our separate ways after it finished for the day.
Growing out of passive aggression
When I started learning about passive aggression, one of the things that stood out for me was that wherever I looked, all the 'experts' were telling me that passive aggression cannot be cured, and that all they can do is hope to control it.
I'm not so sure that's true.
What are some of the common traits of passive aggressives? Procrastination, inefficiency, avoidance, blaming others….
It's very easy for a passive aggressive to continue the trend and find reasons why they can't be 'cured'. They may even use the diagnosis itself of being passive aggressive to justify why they can't change who they are.
I think that's a copout, however. Over the past two years, since I became aware of my own passive aggression, I've taken active steps to try and deal with it. I've looked at the traits of passive aggression, recognised where I'm doing them, and consciously tried to do exactly the opposite. Feedback I've received has confirmed I'm making good progress.
What’s my personal brand?
Over here, Steve Pavlina discusses personal branding, which is "how you market yourself to the world. Your personal brand is what other people think of you." He also asked his audience to do him a favour, to send him three adjectives that they feel describe him. I thought that's a great idea, and I want to ask you guys, who are reading this blog, to do the same. Send me an email with just 3 words that pop into your head. (Please email them to me instead of commenting here, so that your contribution doesn't influence others.) Don't worry if they're positive or even negative, because what's important is what you think describes me as a person. This is useful for me to understand how I'm being perceived by you, the readers, and for that reason I'd love to get 3 words from all of you, whether you've been reading for years, or months, or even if you've just visited. Your feedback in this way will help me gain further clarification about how I'm presenting myself and the content in this blog. Please take the time to send me those 3 words that you feel best describe me. I look forward to hearing from you!
