As I wrote yesterday, my personal development journey started with one small question: What if there's another way?
After I asked that question, God quickly gave me my first resource. I'll tell you more about this resource in another blogpost, because today I want to share something else with you: My 5 reasons why I decided to invest in my personal development.
My number 1 reason was because clearly what I was thinking and believing up to then wasn't working for me. It wasn't working for me, because I felt insecure, uninspired, anxious and down very often. And personally, I didn't want to resort to medication before I tried to find out first if there was another way. Personal development showed me an alternative. And it empowered me to have agency over myself and my life experience.
Number 2: There's this saying: 'You don't know what you don't know.' And the only way to know what you don't know is to have an open mind and be curious to explore other ways of thinking and behaving. Read, learn, contemplate, feel what resonates in your heart. Pay attention to the Aha!-moments or the 'Hmmm interesting...'-emotion. I've always had an open mind, so this wasn't so difficult for me. I don't believe anything I hear, but I am open to contemplate information and check with my inner guidance.
Number 3: I saw a pattern in my life experiences, in my ways of thinking and in my emotional reactions. And if I was being bluntly honest with myself, I knew that I had a choice to either see myself as a victim, or see myself as a co-creator in my life experience. I've already tried that victim perspective and that always made me feel worse to the extent that it would drive me to a feeling of hopelessness. Because if you choose the victim perspective, it means that you have no control whatsoever to what happens to you. It means that you are just always at the mercy of people, fate and circumstances. The alternative was to see myself as a co-creator, which at least put me in the driver seat of my life and made me feel hopeful, because I know we can't control other people, but we can control ourselves. Seeing our own part and taking responsibility for our part of the 'dance', always empowers us.
Number 4: I knew I was investing on my long term well-being. I knew that inner work leads to lasting transformation. I knew that my growth would stack on each other over time resulting in a better understanding of myself and the practice of life skills I would forever be able to use. It was a no-brainer to me, all external goals are fleeting, but my inner work is long lasting.
Number 5: I had a dream. I had a dream I wanted to achieve. I had a dream I wanted to work towards. And I knew the only way to achieve that dream was through inner work.
To be continued....