“When there is no enemy within, the enemy outside can do you no harm.”
African Proverb
It is MY belief that the most effective way for you to effect change in the World is to first journey inward. It is only by being the true you that you can then start to bring your unique skills and talents to bear.
Internal Experiences
You can CONTROL and work with rather than against most aspects of the following Internal experiences that ‘I’ will discuss separately within their own sections but you have to be open and make time to listen to your core feelings despite any EXTERNAL factors distracting you.
- Your EGO
- Your Mental Health
- Your Addictions
- Your Physical Health
- Your Happiness
- Your Kindness
- Your Spirituality
- Your Sexuality
- Your Masculinity
- Your Femininity
In addition to the topics ‘I’ am going to write about above, various happiness guides and articles also recommend in more general terms, focusing on what you can control in order to feel more positive. The following list might be useful for you to print out as a handy reminder next time you are worrying about something…
Things you can control
- Your beliefs
- Your attitude
- Your thoughts
- Your perspective
- Your friends
- Your honesty with others and yourself
- Your daily exercise
- Your daily food choices
- Your education – books and tutorials
- Your kindness to others and yourself
- Your willingness to grow
- Your interpretation of events and situations
- Your ability and frequency of saying “I love you”
- Your ability and frequency of saying “Thank you”
- Your choice of asking for help
- Your practice of gratitude
- Your judgement or others
- Your prejudices
- Your determination and effort
- Your choices of how you spend your free time
- Your time spent on looking backwards, forwards or being present in the NOW
In addition to the above ‘I’ think it’s also important to recognise that each of us play different roles in OUR own lives such as mum, father, brother, boss or employee, victim, teacher, pupil, extrovert or introvert etc.
Recognising your everyday roles or personas is important as it is existing proof you can change and are already not one fixed person 24/7!
However it is vital to be conscious of what aspects of each of these personas you enjoy and which aspects make you feel uncomfortable. Armed with such knowledge you can then hopefully use this to make changes to your life for the better 👍
Similar to the idea of a persona you might have heard of what are collectively known as personality types…
Personality Types
Personality type refers to the psychological classification of different types of individuals. Personality types are sometimes distinguished from personality traits, with the latter embodying a smaller grouping of behavioral tendencies. Types are sometimes said to involve qualitative differences between people, whereas traits might be construed as quantitative differences.[1] According to type theories, for example, introverts and extraverts are two fundamentally different categories of people. According to trait theories, introversion and extraversion are part of a continuous dimension, with many people in the middle.
Wikipedia contributors, ‘Personality type‘, Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia
There are various personality type tests and theories such as the Enneagram of Personality amongst others (see the Personality type Wiki for more) however the one ‘I’ have found most useful is what it known as The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
“The Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is an introspective self-report questionnaire with the purpose of indicating differing psychological preferences in how people perceive the world around them and make decisions.[1][2][3]
Wikipedia contributors, ‘Myers–Briggs Type Indicator‘, Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia
‘I’ discovered The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) system via the free 16personalities.com web site, where you can take their test as it based on MBTI. In around 12 minutes ‘I’ found out my type which then helped me progress of my own internal journey.
If you were like ‘I’ was and have never taken such a test before then be prepared to have some of your ego seriously challenged as ‘I’ did via their “freakishly accurate” results. MY ego was certainly a bit bruised when ‘I’ realised ‘I’ was ‘classifiable’ via some sort of artificial external identity or group. However with MY growth mindset, ‘I’ was then able to use the feedback positively…
‘I’ actually realised ‘I’ could learn far more about myself by reading around the background of the MBTI and the tests and most importantly including those who criticised it within this reading. ‘I’ then researched other public figures and others online who had the same type as ME to see how they have navigated life.
However let us not get too carried away by boxing ourselves into some external identities as this section is all about internal or intrinsic Human concepts WE can control!
The following 9 minute video can be summarised as “Eliminate who you aren’t” and is REALLY worth taking some time to watch and / or listen to. Within it the narrator says that finding and aligning himself to his core values guided him to further success..
Are you feeling motivated and ready to eliminate who you aren’t?
If so click below to go to the next section and learn about how to find out your Core Values in order to start living in less with conflict with these…