WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO IMPROVE YOUR SELF?

There was a time, in the not-so-distant past, when families were expected to give up everything in order to achieve the financial security they craved. Perhaps you remember those decades, perhaps you are too young to recall those times.

Those were the days when climbing the corporate ladder was a revered activity, and wives and children gazed fondly at pictures of the breadwinner in order to remember whether poor, exhausted Dad had blue eyes or brown.

Large companies moved employees from one city to another, like pawns on a chessboard and, if you had any hope of climbing the ladder toward upper management positions, you packed up the wife and kids and moved on from Chicago, to Boston, to New York, to Tokyo.

In the intervening years, the divorce rate climbed, fathers lost touch with their families and died of heart attacks and strokes at an alarming rate. When these men retired, they felt useless and unproductive.

Over the years, the identity of these men had become inextricably tied to their success on the job. New retirees found themselves wondering who they were, and why they were living with women who were complete strangers to them. And, whatever happened to those darling kids who used to live in the house?

Then women entered the workforce in earnest and joined the rat race. Lest you think that this rat race has come to an end, look to the evidence of stress related death and illness, an increase in the average number of hours worked by employees in the U.S. and around the world, skyrocketing numbers of divorces and children in single-parent families. In addition, let us not forget those of us who are responsible for the care of aging parents.

We live in a world of conveniences that were designed to give us more leisure time. However, it would seem that all the informational overload, whirring computers and media blitz has given us is more time for work.

It is not unusual for men and women to work sixty or seventy hours per week on average. Some of us work eighty or ninety hours without batting an eyelash and, we fool ourselves into thinking we have a life!

Are you one of the enlightened few, who have already concluded that giving up a social and family life is too great a price to pay.

Maybe, you have stress related health problems, perhaps you are not eating right, and you are probably fighting with your spouse, boyfriend or best friend because you spend too little time with the people you care about most. You probably cannot find the time to return phone calls or send a birthday card to your Aunt Betty.

It does not matter if you are a lineman for a utility company, a pizza delivery girl, a corporate executive or an aspiring dancer. In today’s chaotic world, it is a safe bet that you do not have enough time for work, family and friends. Moreover, since your boss holds a tight rein on your paycheck, it is likely that your family and friends are the ones that suffer.

Not surprisingly, of all the generations in the workforce today, these young adults are the most likely to consider job flexibility and schedules when they look for a job, and it is key to employee retention for companies that employ these young workforce.

The point of all of this background information is to let you know that you are not alone in your desire to find balance.

Nowadays, the terms self-improvement, personal development, self-growth and self-help have become a popular subject. It seems to me that people are now turning inside themselves to find the solutions to their problems. They seek knowledge, techniques, so they can be shown the way. Also people are starting to understand that self-improvement, personal-development and self-growth does improve the quality of life.

The subconscious mind is one of the major keys. However, changing the contents of the subconscious mind means you will also change your habits, behavior and attitude. This is brought about through visualization, meditation and analyzing behavior and habits.

The process of inner change requires inner work. It is not enough to read, you have to practice what you read and this takes time and effort. There is no such thing as instant self improvement. Any inner change takes time and there must be motivation, desire, ambition, perseverance and dedication. Outer and inner resistance and opposition must be taken into account too. Upon starting any self-development program most people usually encounter inner resistance; this comes from your old habits and your subconscious mind and also resistance and opposition from the people around you.

Have you the confidence to let go of the past and your suffering?

Every one of us has a past and has suffered in someway. It does not matter if you are rich, poor, male, female, white, black or purple. Many people have told me it is part of life. You have to suffer, however; some people seem to experience much greater personal tragedies than others. We all have painful issues or past events we have to live through.

Suffering can happen in thousands of different ways and whether it takes place in the form of abuse (physical or mental), people cheating on you, loved ones dying, parents not loving you enough, or losing a job. We are all affected at some point in our lives. Suffering is whatever causes you emotional upheaval.

The difference is how you deal with your suffering and whether you are able to move on from it. You can deal with your pain or you can let it slowly destroy you. The important part of gaining confidence is to LET GO of your suffering, and have the courage to move on and be the whole person you know you can be.

If you can never truly let go of the past, you can never truly feel joy today as long as you continue to process or make sense of a past event. So rather than denying your past, go ahead and look at it, but do it without judgment. Look at it, express it, admit it, acknowledge it, and accept it and now move on. In other words, let your past become something that is simply a matter of fact. Express your disappointment, your regret, your anger and then LET IT GO! If you do not, you will continue to draw on the very event that you are still resenting or regretting.

Letting go, also means letting go of anger. Much of the time you are filled with anger against a person or an event and you feel that you are helpless to do anything about it. When this happens the anger can turn inwards and you become very self destructive. Self destruction can take on any number of forms as we all seem to be very inventive when it comes to hurting ourselves.

You have the power to LET GO

It is important to understand that forgiveness and letting go will not happen overnight. After years of having hurt and anger bottled up inside, it takes a while to develop the willingness to let those emotions go and allow other positive feelings to take their place. You just need to take the first step to allow real healing to take place. Keep forgiving and keep letting go. The emotions can be incredibly painful, however, there is no way to heal except to go through it and feel the emotions.

You are the only one who has the power to let go and to move on with your life. It does not matter what anyone else says or does; only you have the power to take control of your life. It is incredibly empowering when you get to the stage when the past does not control your future anymore. You are relieved of your burden or anger, freeing you from your previous self destructive behavior. You may find at this point that you are able to help others who are going through the exact same thing you did. You have gotten your life back. You are liberated from the past and you are finally truly free. You have gained unbelievable confidence in yourself and the world around you. You have moved beyond suffering. It is one of the greatest lessons you can learn during you lifetime.