Chasing the adventures of life can make one take the route of living a life which isn’t his. He exists; yes, but not on his own, he takes after the lives of others and think it’s his which in the long run, ends in a confused state.
It is therefore very vital for all beings to take a conscious effort of living their own lives which will lead to their personal growth. This, when taken into consideration will prevent the rush in life cum comparison and regrets.
Living consciously is taking an intentional decision to be in charge of your own life. You need to be aware of your own existence such that, you are awake to things pertaining to you and not that of others.
There should be times in your life when you say; “this is me”, “yes I can do this better”, “well this, I’m not sure” and this “I cannot do”. Not, he is doing it, so I’m also going to do or I’ve got better looks so I’m going to beat her to it.
What he is doing, do you know the depth or genesis of it? Beating her to it, do you know what it takes? Knowing the depth and the genesis to someone’s life and beating her to it, depends solely on your abilities; knowing where to begin, the extent to which you can get to and getting there; that is self-realization.
When you realize who you are, then you can move on to become whoever you want to be, but if that isn’t the case then it’s a surety you will mess up somewhere.
Being sensitive to your thoughts, surroundings and existence makes you conscientious. Here your personality trait of being diligent and careful comes in its full take, as you desire to do a task well and take obligations to others seriously. You also become efficient and very organized as opposed to easy going and disorderliness.
Personal growth is the result of continual effort to improve one self, intellectually, morally and physically; covering activities that improves awareness and identity, develop potential, build human capital and facilitate employability, enhance the quality of life and contribute to the realization of dreams and aspiration.
To live a conscious life;
Know who you are. Man is only making his life comfortable but not enhancing its level of consciousness to understand the real stuff. The knowledge about yourself; your confidence level, your strength and weakness, values, dignity and integrity will take you very far. Who do you think you are? Is a question you always have to solve with your capabilities.
Your inability to find yourself worth will leave you to eat the crumps left by others. Being true to oneself is one of the most important things you can do as you live a conscious life.
Why do you go to a school reunion and tell friends the clothes you’re wearing was sent to you from France by an Aunty? When in actual sense, you have not a clue about your paternal or maternal relatives. Please, do not do anything no matter how absurd it is in order to avoid facing your own soul. (Carl Jung).
You can do better than living a lie life, by living simply. When a man is penalized for honesty, he learns to lie (Chris Jami). Don’t take Uber because your friends are doing so. Don’t go for the things out of your reach.
Don’t force yourself to get a gadget which you are well aware is beyond you, just to show off, or go bragging about things you definitely have no idea about. Live life simply, deepest joy is like a flower, beautiful in essence (Tony Samara).
Check your circle of friends. Recruit friends that impact positively. It’s always beautiful to have people you talk to, those who encourage and those who speak wisdom.
But if you are around people who look down on you and seem to have everything wrong with what you do; give you negative vibes, or lead you wayward and dumb your spirit, be careful; don’t allow anyone to walk in your mind with their dirty feet. (Mahatma Gandhi).
Be able to make your own decisions and stand by it. Learn to say no without explanations and say yes only to the positive; not the positive that leads the wrong direction, like that of the king who married his sister and felt aright because all his false prophets told him he was right except for John the Baptist who opposed him. Ask God to help you discern the kind of friends you have.
There is almost the sensual longing for communion with others who have a large vision, the immense fulfillment of friendship between those engaged in furthering the evolution of consciousness, has a quality, impossible to describe (Pierre Teilhard).
Check your health. Health may not solely depend on what you eat but it’s good to have a balanced diet. Don’t allow the heat of the day make you eat whatever you chance on.
Draw a menu and make sure whatever is on there, makes you healthy. Your health is your wealth. Be careful not to take in what someone eats to be in shape or look good with the skin or slim in body.
Our systems are always different from each other. Stick to what makes you feel good, seek medical advice if possible and have enough sleep as possible. Exercising regularly may not cut due to schedule of work but once in a while make it happen.
Be committed to this with self-discipline and it will help you uncover traits you didn’t know you have. Happiness is the new rich, inner peace is the new success, health is the new wealth and kindness is the new cool.
Learn; cultivate the habit of reading or pick up courses and learn. We often say, we do not have time or money for further studies, but truth is laziness and procrastination is hovering over our minds.
If you really want to have time for something, you can; same way when you want money to go for a gadget, you save for it; you should do same for your education. Stop spending all your money on junk stuff and save up for your education, be it closely related or for economic status. You can as well pick up free online courses to boost your knowledge.
You should try something creative. Write stories; fiction or non-fiction, comedy, any of which, just be creative. Paint pictures, learn photography or try acting in a local theatre production. There’s no wrong path to creativity. Creative people are more self-aware, better problem solvers and have more confidence.
Be conscious of time. A successful person is one who has time management and is able to put things in place before it gets out of hand. They don’t wait for the unfortunate to happen before they strike. They are always ahead of time.
Don’t wake up at 7am and expect to get things done by 4pm. Overcome procrastination and laziness and get things done as it is supposed to be. Plan your day; apportioning every activity to an allocated time and make sure you get everything done just as planned.
Eschew excuses for leaving things undone; it’s an enemy to personal growth and improvement. Everyone has time to do everything, it’s the modification that counts. Modify your time and give priorities to what you think is important.
Watch less television, do not center your life around things on screens; they are scripted. If you are to put yourself together, you will equally get there. Detach yourself from meaningless soap operas and get accustomed to the realities of life.
Avoid aimlessly surfing the internet and set goals for yourself. The hours spent on social media could be accumulated into reading something profitable. Going about looking for memes and sarcasm are very much unimportant, if it’s not putting money in your pocket.
Take a bus instead of driving for it enables you read and listen to podcasts to broaden your knowledge on what you want to do in life. Get a hobby; hobbies most of the time develops to be something great when done with passion. Allocate some of your time to fishing, sewing, swimming, dancing etc.
Travel. Take time off, get to meet new people, get in touch with nature. Get a serene environment, take in its fresh air, watch the beauty of the universe. Make peace with silence and remind yourself that, it is in this space that you will come to remember your spirit.
When you are able to transcend and averse to silence, you will also transcend many miseries and in this silence, that the remembrance of God will be activated.
If your mind carries a heavy burden of the past, you will experience more of the same, the past perpetuates itself in the lack of present. Therefore, the quality of your consciousness at the moment is what shapes the future (Eckhart Tolle).
If your past is still catching up with you, it only means you are still holding on to it. No matter what happened or what damage it caused you, until you let go, it will hang around your neck like a cleric. Unclutter yourself to answer to the calling of your soul.
The control of your consciousness determine the quality of your life (Mihaly Csikszentmihaly). If you are conscious of your past there is no future for you and one of the numerous ways to get out of that bondage is to find time alone with yourself.
Meditation is realizing and expanding your inner beauty in every direction (Amit Ray). As you find your silent place, meditate on whatever is holding you back, pick your strength out of it and find yourself. The strength you gather become your inner beauty to overcome the next adventures of life.
There is always lack of growth when you are always around the same people; there is same point of view and joints all the time together with beliefs and traditions; nothing processing your thoughts or challenging your senses.
Step out of there, travel abroad, go to a new region or state or different neighborhood, get to see new faces, get new ideas and work on them.
Personal growth lead to happiness, better career prospects and better relationships, therefore develop personal vision. This is about where you want to be in some months or years ahead of you. Have and develop a cynical purpose for your life and as you draw a plan for this, start the improvement process.
During the improvement process, record your personal development as the days go by. Reflect on your success and be happy about it. This will motivate you to learn more for the future. Keep a learning journal as you develop your skills and knowledge.
The learning journal helps to review and revise your development plan as you learn more from what you have done and continue to move towards your goals. Never compare your development or goals to others because you are working on these goals according to your strengths.
Desist from exaggerating how big life is and evaluate it as it is right now. Don’t be scared of this world’s uncertainties, take hold of the word of God and face circumstances with the strength drawn from it.
Be willing to identify and acknowledge strengths and short comings alike. Learn to control your anger; feel the feeling, but don’t become the emotion; witness it, allow it and release it. Be politer and be considerate as you become a more responsible person. Change your mindset and get more positive, it will help you choose the step you need to take, going forward.
The initiative to become a volunteer also helps. It may look as if you’re helping others but in actual sense, you are getting to know your real self and this helps your personal growth. It helps develop childlike sense of humor and allow you to make someone’s day.
Volunteerism open doors to learning new skills, have a spiritual and moral development, especially when you doing it for a church. It as well changes your perspective to develop more compassionate world view as your heart always go out to those in need of your help or you sympathize with lost ones.
It indirectly creates an overall happiness because, the more you put smiles on other people’s faces, you smile back or even shed tears. These tears aren’t that of pain but out of happiness, and as this goes on and on your body adjusts to it and you get happier even over little things.
We have been to the moon, we have darted the depths of the ocean and the heart of the atom, but we have a fear of looking inward to ourselves because we sense that is where all the contradictions flow together. Don’t let this be you; put in motion the above mentioned points, just be yourself and live a happy life.
BY STACY M.AMEWOYI
