Personal Growth & Change

"In this quietly moving talk, writer Andrew Solomon shares what he learned from talking to dozens of parents -- asking them: What's the line between unconditional love and unconditional acceptance?"

"You don't have to live your life the way other people expect you to." "11 Ways to be Unremarkably Average" by Chris Guillebeau of Zen Pencils, 2012 (prints available) via Joey deVilla

In her video learning course, Dr. Brené Brown affirms, We can’t know things like love and belonging and creativity and joy without vulnerability.

Writer and therapist Pam Johnson points out there is value in achieving goals, because "Even if the goal is small, you will feel a great deal of success… Whatever the success is, you will have reached a goal.

Certainly there are some short-term, concrete or very narrow goals that are useful steps in developing your talents and making your life better.

But many personal growth leaders promote the idea of making long-term, life mission kind of goals as a needed part of personal achievement.

I have never felt comfortable with that strategy, and here are two other viewpoints on why those ‘huge’ goals may not be so useful.

Habits are something that you do without thinking.  People joke about being on auto-pilot, but that is not far from the truth.  The brain is constantly trying

Susan K. Perry, Ph.D. in Creating in Flow

By Morty Lefkoe. Many of you have written to me saying you understand how to eliminate a belief, but you don’t know how to find the specific beliefs that cause specific problems. 

If you follow the instructions given below, you will be able to find at least some of the beliefs that cause specific problems.

"I believe the ultimate aim of all human beings is to obtain happiness and a sense of fulfillment." The Dalai Lama

"The effort to try and feel happy is often precisely the thing that makes us miserable." Oliver Burkeman

"But it turns out that most trauma victims — even survivors of combat, torture or concentration camps — rebound to live full, normal lives. That has given rise to a more nuanced view of trauma — less a poison than an infectious agent, a challenge that most people overcome but that may defeat those weakened by past traumas, genetics or other factors.

"Now, a significant body of work suggests that even this view is too narrow — that the environment just after the event, particularly other people’s responses, may be just as crucial as the event itself."

~ ~ ~

Related post: Traumatic Childhood, Creative Adult

http://talentdevelop.com/6175/traumatic-childhood-creative-adult/

Role Models of Strong Women

Jennifer Lawrence in “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.” - “The thing I like about this movie, which is different from many others, is Katniss is focused on survival, focused on a revolution and not focused on who is going to be her boyfriend,” Lawrence said. // Shailene Woodley, right, in “Divergent.” - "I’m a very strong advocate of taking charge and being a wild woman.”

Many talented and creative people experience impostor feelings and beliefs about themselves, despite their accomplishments. 

Rosalyn Lang has a Ph.D. in molecular biology, has just completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Duke University, and recently launched her own consulting firm. In other words, she’s a walking advertisement for what it takes to be successful in science: smarts, opportunity, and perseverance.

“Yet when she looks back, she takes little credit for her successes.”

Many talented and creative people experience impostor feelings and beliefs about themselves, despite their accomplishments. Valerie Young, Ed.D. is an expert on impostor syndrome and commented in an Entrepreneur magazine article: “Millions of people, from entrepreneurs to celebrities, have a hard time internalizing their accomplishments.”

Photo: “Rosalyn Lang has a Ph.D. in molecular biology, has just completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Duke University, and recently launched her own consulting firm. “Yet when she looks back, she takes little credit for her successes.”

“I felt inadequate the entire time I was in graduate school. If I got a nice compliment, I just felt, ‘What? They’re trying to pull my leg! I can get kicked out at any minute.”

Motivational aphorisms and anecdotes can do just that – motivate us. To grow, to feel inspired, to change our thinking and what we are doing.

Another story in the video is about Walt Disney being fired for having no imagination and lacking original ideas.

t can be inspiring to hear stories like that, giving us hope that not all people in authority over us really know what we have to offer to the world.

But what about a person who gets “downsized” for not making the effort to craft good ideas to benefit a company and present them effectively? Maybe they end up blaming “the man” for their lack of employment or advancement, rather than considering what they need to do differently themselves.

Another huge domain of motivational quotes is so-called wise sayings – many of which are inspiring, or instructive or otherwise helpful.

Gretchen Rubin describes in her post How To Be Happier – in Four Easy Lessons the series of truths she came up with, based on her study of Buddhism.

Her Fourth Splendid Truth is “You’re not happy unless you think you’re happy. Corollary: You’re happy if you think you’re happy.”

One of her books: Happier at Home: Kiss More, Jump More, Abandon a Project, Read Samuel Johnson, and My Other Experiments in the Practice of Everyday Life.  http://vsb.li/EmdyZn