Keeping promises

The ability to keep a promise is not only reason to feel good about yourself, but also reason for other people to develop trust in you. Promises come from inside yourself. They can be a source of motivation and energy. Your decision to keep or break them reflects part of your character.  Your behaviour also reveals things about your hopes and fears that you may not yet be aware. 

Life experience is meant to help you learn not to promise the impossible. Redefine your limits if you promise more than it turns out you can. This is a learning process. As we learn to promise less and surpass expectations, this will leave a better impression, and boost more confidence than if we're not following through. It's in your interest and in the interest of others, that you take your promises seriously. Consider the basis for business contracts, long-term relationships and spiritual growth are all intricately linked to learning how to make and keep promises.

Be considerate : If a friend promises to meet you in the park after school, and doesn't show up or offer any explanation why, then you may not see this friend in the same way as before. No matter what your age or circumstances, when you promise to be somewhere, imagine you're the person waiting and treat him or her with respect. Things may cause you to be late. Tell people.

Be realistic : If a boss gives you an assignment and you promise to submit it by an unrealistic deadline, you both benefit if you re-negotiate a new deadline you will meet. Your reputation will be built on your track record, on your ability to admit mis-judgments and how you rework them.

Be disciplined : If you promise to devote more time to your own relaxation and balance, and you don't, it's difficult to trust yourself to keep other promises, such as to exercise, rest well and eat right. Remind yourself your discipline (or disregard) also sets examples for friends, children, family and strangers. You wouldn't wish to be caught as a hypocrite saying, "do as I say, not as I do."

Be cautious : If you confide in your brother and he shares your intimate story with others, then this should indicate it wouldn't be prudent to trust him with other private details. Experience and intuition help to guide your views about with whom it's appropriate to share you inner self.

Be specific : If you promise to contact more sales prospects, this carries less of an impact than promising to come through with measurable financial results on a timeline. Effort is required for results, but promising only efforts will yield only efforts.

If you have been making promises to yourself and to others, but find you have been unable to keep them, identify whether what held you back was or wasn't within your control. Making a promise is a big commitment which itself deserves praise. How you evolve to respond to unforeseen obstacles and pressures reveals whether you'll focus on excuses and complaints or contributions that bring you closer to keeping promises. If you don't make valiant efforts, the biggest loser will be you; your conscience and how you're perceived by others in the future.

Reach out & grab it or find your own way

To deepen your own understanding of success and to expand on what you think you already know about your own views on the subject, you would benefit from thinking about your answers to these questions; for whom, where, what, when, why and how? Learn who decides what success is in your life, under what conditions or constraints, when the concept is shaped and how, and what you think you must do to approach and experience it differently on your own terms.

Success for whom implies the object or the focus of your energies right now. This may be you or, it may or may not include you. As an employee, you contribute to the financial and other success of your employer. What about your own sense of success? Is it separate or the same? If you seek to serve others or, act in the interest of someone else, you may stifle some of your desires. If you set these aside for now, you may hope to return later. Do you postpone or forget? Consider your priorities.

Success is where takes shape in your actual physical surroundings or socio- cultural background. The perceived parameters are associated with guides and standards for expectations that suit the milieu. You don’t necessarily define anything about it. You may be a conformist or non-conformist. Each role would have implications. Is this environment where you are where you wish to be or, do you envision yourself elsewhere? Realizing where you don’t desire to be is the first step to deciding where you do. Choose exhilarating places to cogitate and innovate. Become yourself. 

Success is what may represent a tangible thing you can reveal to the world as an indication of your progress and achievement. It may also be a simple feeling inside that nobody has to know about other than you.  How you perceive success can come from inside yourself or, it may be influenced by people and events that impose ideas on you. Which ideas do you believe or buy into? Do they help you discover yourself?

Success is when comes in your own time. Forms your most meaningful experiences will take are influenced by the time and effort you devote to bring them about. You may define a timeline as way to expedite certain kinds of success. However, people have also been known to stumble on unexpected success when original plans didn’t work out on schedule. Remind yourself that certain experiences have their own timelines, as regarding fertility, seasons, longevity and dexterity. Get informed. Your view of success may depend on cooperating with Mother Nature. Keep an open mind, identify what you want, and don’t forget to watch the clock.

Success is why is a reasoning that evolves inside yourself as you raise your own self-awareness. Your life meaning and priorities will change based on your grasp of who and what you are at a given time. Whether you justify action or inaction enables you to define the nature of your success.

Success is how will be realized throughout a given life journey. You can even sense it inside yourself. Once you think you know what you want, where you must go, and you have insight into time constraints, you may ask yourself how you’ll make things happen your way? Realize you’ll not be in control of everything that happens or everyone you meet. Yet, think of the atmosphere of your surroundings and how you feel about yourself. You set the mood of your life path. Will you choose to feel at ease and feel attitude and positive thinking lead you to people or circumstances which will realize your dreams? Raise self-awareness to attract opportunity.

More than meets the eye

What is with people who refuse to believe things unless they witness or experience them for themselves? Even when people do, they still come up with some logical explanation for what is really beyond our knowing. A highly-cherished belief held by many people is that each person has an appointed “guardian angel” to watch over and protect them. Some people also think we have more than one angel nearby. Of course, not everyone believes this either. Since you read this, you may believe or question the possibility. Consider stories which reveal rewards for believing.

A woman diagnosed with a terminal disease was told by physicians she had at most, six months. Every documented case of her illness before her resulted in rapid deterioration of the muscles, faculties and finally, complete physiological and biochemical control of the body. She left the medical office with the idea that she would prove those physicians wrong. She read everything she could about the subject of her diagnosis. She changed her diet, her lifestyle, and devoted considerably more time to deepening her spiritual path. The result was an astonishing complete healing of her physical body that shocked physicians.

Morris Goodman is described as "The Miracle Man." He defied what physicians predicted for his future after a serious aeroplane accident. With his neck broken at C1 and C2, his spinal cord crushed, and all key muscles in his body destroyed, Morris could no longer perform or control any body function except blink his eyes. Yet, faith in things beyond him nurtured his determination from within. He rebuilt his body though strength of his mind. As a well-known public speaker and contributor to Rhonda Byrne's book "The Secret", Goodman refers to his life as showing the power of mind over matter. Meeting him is a truly moving and inspirational experience.

Maybe you’ve also known experiences in your life when questions have been raised or judgment has been presented about your own capacities. You may ask yourself whether you’ve made the right choice at a given time, whether you are where you should be, whether you’ve learned what was necessary to do the best thing. It’s during such times that your inner self may become more accessible than ever before. You may even hear an inner voice clearly for the first time.

Angels may reinforce the power of your inner voice so you listen to yourself, and build new confidence in your decisions. Recognize the best thing for you is to learn from every choice you make. As you evolve, you may come to realize that your soul doesn't live inside your body but rather, your body is a temporary inhabitant within the force-field of your soul.  Inside yourself, that little voice tells how you already have a remarkable impact on the world around you. The practical implications of how you think about what you believe are almost totally up to you. Where to from here?

Discover your inner entrepreneur

How is it a physician like Michael Crichton can abandon traditional roads and become a bestselling author and film director? Why would internist Tess Gerritsen give up 16 hour days with cardiac patients to write medical thrillers that evolve on tv and movies ? Why might a pharmacist friend of mine reduce his hours in a Chemist shop to develop an exploding family flower business?

Why would a laboratory tech physician I met in passing turn attention away from cancer grant research to explore creative market advertising? What compels a bioethics expert I met to leave teaching to pursue dreams of playing jazz sax in nightclubs? Why are people like Tony & Maureen Wheeler willing to struggle financially for over 6 years in to develop a baby like 'Lonely Planet?' These people give into passions to pursue what matters to them, and overcome a fear of losing.

For many people, a lack of fulfillment will trigger their desire to step back from life at a given time, and rethink their options. I also know musicians who have feared failure in their area of passion and turned to medicine and other professions to feel safer, and earn predictable incomes. Yet, even for them, the draw of uncertainty and opportunity to earn deeper fulfillment lingers.

Do you ever think about what may be missing in your life or what you would do if money wasn't an option? No matter what job or career you choose, you will benefit from learning how to sell yourself. At times, this skill is useful to land you a job. More importantly perhaps, the art of persuasion may be most helpful to convince yourself you have what it takes to achieve anything.

1) Desire to be accountable for outcomes. If you give yourself freedom to create art, products and services as offshoots of your deepest beliefs and talents, you realize you control the quality of what you offer, as well as how you distribute or shape your image. As you grow to recognize synergy between how you think and what you choose to do, you become accountable for your own dreams and you realize your actions will inspire others.

2) Willingness to pull your weight. Basic salaries in start up businesses may be barely enough to live on. Money isn't supposed to be the primary motivation for the true entrepeneurial spirit. Rather, its gaining the understanding that money comes when you grasp your skills well and take risks to offer them to the world. To make a decent income, you must sell enough to pay off your costs, and then, you will earn profit, commissions and empower investments.

3) Ability to redefine the rules. The constant re-invention of yourself and your priorities can itself become a tradition. Why believe you must be like everyone else? Trend-setters aren't followers. They develop courage to be a visionary or pioneer. As you learn to define the rules of your game of life, you'll do what you discern necessary to stand out from the crowd and your competitors. Being yourself rewards clients for loyalty. Believe in your own immeasurable value. Not conforming requires you to define rules. You must learn to market yourself.

4) Instinct to be bold and adapt. Business has to change in order to survive. You need to be able to sense when trends and climates are evolving, and evolve with them so as to grow in ways that enable you to influence them. Develop media saavy and connect with people and you may emerge as a 'crowd-pleaser.' Ultimately, you'll please more people as you learn what you need to do to please yourself and listen.

5) Insight to recognize 'the good, the bad & the ugly'. Self-examination enables you to better understand yourself and what image(s) and skills you aim to project, as well as assess whether what you are doing is working. Are you achieving worthwhile goals? If not, why not? Truly honest assessments are more likely to generate honest answers that you can work with. In order to nurture those audacious ideas, and begin or revise how you offer meaningful, creative output, learn to understand yourself.  You'll naturally focus on a target market and plan for future surplus profits.

Get right down to it

When you get right down to it, your sense of success will depend on things like your energy level, how you've lived life to this point, and whether you feel motivated to do new things. If your mental views of success are distorted away from what you really hope to do, you're likely familiar with and discouraged by distorted results.

As you review your understanding of morality (your perception of right and wrong), justice (how you view acceptable and unacceptable), and ownership (your view of desireable or undesireable), you will gain a deeper insight into your different ideas of success. People often forget they experience varying degrees of success in their lives because each of us has different ideas of what is possible at a given time. Do you use your own standard for success or are you influenced by other people? In this sense, success can be partly measured by how you become more aware of your beliefs and the process of expressing them or going after them.

success you can see and touch: this kind of success is measured in quantity, size, cost and status based on materialism and financial value. You can count and appraise what you have and also compare what you've got to what others have in order to evaluate how real and precious it is.

success you can feel inside: this kind of success is measured by qualitative emotions and gestures based on your connection to people, places, ideas and experiences. You depend on inuition, your sixth sense and reciprocity or reverberrations to tell you how real it is.

success you can detect in self-awareness: this kind of success is measured in how well you get-to-know youself. How content you are with your choices reveals how well you know your needs and desires are understood and met. How attuned you are to your feelings and what you accept or deny in yourself also reveals degrees of truth.

success you can map in progress: this kind of success is measured by physical and mental development. It often helps to explain your individual sense of personal growth, level of health and well-being.If you've been ill or injured, your rate of approaching full recovery is measured by things like dexterity, motor skills, appetite and renewed strength. Your baseline was the past. You could always surpass that.

success you can anticipate: this kind of success is measured by what you attract with your positive thinking, accompanying mindset and attitude. You use your hopes and dreams and how close you feel as a success gauge.