The Most Powerful Tool
The most powerful tool in your arsenal, as a human being, is your mind. Your mind not only manages all the functions in your body and coordinates all the intelligent sub-systems embedded inside of it, but it also helps you become what you really want to be. I said “really” on purpose, because it is not just a matter of wanting or thinking, about what you want to be, it is a matter of really working hard and making sacrifices in order to achieve what you “really” want to accomplish.
Self-Development Literature
There are hundreds of books that talks about the power of the mind in self-development processes. We can read about it in the Bible when it says, “your faith can move mountains”. Also, in Neuro-Linguistic Programming(NLP) literature, where they basically show you how to “re-program” your brain through different communication venues, like: spoken words, mental pictures, and/or body language to achieve any goal you want to pursue. And finally, in books written for specific self-development activities like how to make more friends, how to influence people, how to play better at any sport, and many more. In all the examples above, your brain is used to accomplish anything you want to accomplish, it is just a matter of knowing that you can do it and how can you do it.
The Relationship Between Planning and Self-Development
The reason I included this material in my post is that it is, or should be, closely related to the process of achieving your planned goals, mission and vision. That is, if you know what you want to beand you have the right tools, then you’ll be whatever you set your mind to be. In most of the texts/books written about self-development, the authors depict that one of the main ways to achieve something, that has been achieved by someone else, is to emulate or copy that person’s behavior. In other words, if someone else can do it you can do it. It is just a matter of working hard and making the sacrifices required to obtain the same (or better) results that other people have achieved.
NLP
There are a lot of authors and “coaches” that talk about NLP and how to use it to achieve your personal goals. Most of the techniques used by these writers, coaches and motivators are basically the same, with some differences mostly in their form, but not in the content. What I mean by this is that almost all of them teach you how to get to your goal by creating a memory muscle, by way of physical and/or mental repetitions. It doesn’t matter if you perform the activity physically or mentally, you’ll get the same results as long as you do it either way. Of course, if you perform your practice sessions both, mentally and physically, you’ll perform much better. I won’t recommend you any books, because as I said there are plenty of them, but I do like the author and coach Tony Robbinsas a good source for self-development on teaching his own version of NLP, you can check him out at https://www.tonyrobbins.com/.
Specific Self-Development Activity Literature
There are also a lot of books, on the topic of NLP, written specifically to help you improve your performance. These books promise you that you’ll be the best at what you do if you follow their mental techniques and their physical practice sessions, just like your favorite sport’s hero. Some of them include the classic, and the one that helped create all the mind-body revolution, “The Inner Game of Tennis” by Timothy Gallwey. You can find NLP literature for almost any sport you like. I personally like “With Winning in Mind”,written by Olympic Rifle-Shooting gold medalist Lanny Bassham. Mr. Bassham is a riffle-shooting champion and his book talks about how he harnessed the power of his mind to win riffle-shooting championships. The great thing about his book is that his mental techniques can be used basically in any day-to-day activity or in any on other sport you can think of.
Let Information Work for You
When a business executes its strategic plan, it hires the best talent there is, with the required professional profile, to implement the tasks needed to achieve the short and long-term goals that are expected from the talent. Unfortunately, you cannot hire talent to execute your life tasks in order to achieve your planned goals, because you are basically flying solo. That doesn’t mean you won’t or can’t use some help from your family or friends, but the responsibility of each task, activity or goal for the whole process is 100% yours. Instead of hiring talent for execution, substitute it with information. You have all the literature you need to execute your plan, including using Google, with examples of how people all over the world achieved they dreams, and you should take advantage of that powerful platform.
Take Responsibility
You cannot, and should not, rely on someone else for the success you aspire for in your life. Executing your life plan to attain your short and long-term goals in not a group project, instead it is a very personal endeavor and as such you are responsible, and only you, on the outcome of every effort you need to make it a success. This doesn’t mean that you can’t use the help and support of others around you, what it means, is that, at the end, whatever results you have or how far or close you came to your goals, is only your fault. You can’t blame someone else on your mistakes and failures, because even if you do so and find the “perfect” person to blame, you are the one who will have to live with the results of that failure. Playing the victim game won’t help you get better results!
Information for the Mind
Life is a great school, but sometimes life could be a very expensive school, especially if we make big mistakes. Fortunately, we don’t need to invent everything we do, there is a lot of information within our grasp and it is only wise to use it. So, spend a lot of time researching on the web, you’ll see the results right away. With the right tools and information nothing will stop you from achieving what you want. Remember, the mind is your most powerful and important tool, and information is the food it needs to grow!