Personal Evolution: A Journey Into The Undiscovered Self

One of the most rewarding personal development practices is developing a quality that, to put it simply, one is not good at.

Example
If you are a daring person, there is little point going into overdrive to develop your daring capacity. However, if you are beset by impatience and patience is called for, the trap in being daring is if it becomes your default go-to strength regardless of what a situation calls for. I shall leave the contemplation of being an impatient darer to your imagination.

Self-awareness
What are the first couple of qualities that turn up in your mind in contemplating the nature of your affair with life? If you were to highlight one quality that resides in your radiation, which would it be? Might it be happiness? Boldness? Warmth? Kindness? Resolve?

Next to that, which absent quality, if attended to, will constructively catalyse your development at this point in time?

The human story
Magnificent chapters in the human story are written around qualities such as wisdom, care, generosity, adventurism, heroism, love, endurance, foresight, resilience, perseverance…

Qualities, together with values, are the yellow brick road that keeps paving itself forward to make way for human evolution. Think for a moment about the function of resilience in the story of human survival. It is an established fact that in any human engagement – including business and the needed conditions for cutting edge innovation – strength of character, defined by enduring qualities, is the key driver of progress.

If you watch football, many have amazing dribbling skills but only the few possess the qualities that define the character that enables them to convert those skills to consistently effective play under the highly demanding, grueling framework of top-flight plays.

The task
What quality must you be good at that you are not? What quality, if attended to, would spice up your life and through that, the lives of those around you?

What quality would serve as a media of connection to an undiscovered part of you?

Such is the mystery of the human potentiality that the undiscovered parts of us forever outweigh the discovered part. The qualities media is a readily present, instantly accessible vehicle to the unconquered realms of one’s limitless potentialities.

In the realms of inter-personal communication, the muted unspoken is often the loudest message. In the worlds of human development, a developmental deficiency in a critical area is often first to rear its head in the onset of a tough challenge.

Defy your comfort-zone
Pick up a quality that lives outside your habitual go-to contemplation. Look up its dictionary definition. Study it. Develop an affair with it. Befriend it. It will always be there for you. The outcome may surprise you – in a good way.

Plant the seeds of wisdom in your mind. Nurture them, find ways to assist their growth and evolution by way of simple self-tasking. The world is in desperate need of the truly wise. When was the last time you conversed with one of those? You can of course swap ‘wisdom’ above with any other fine quality.

In the realms of development, when you change one thing you change everything

Developing self-determination
Train yourself to be able to be able to overcome yourself. Radiating warmth; exercising patience; being forthcoming; developing finesse; being generous; being supportive; sending genuine well-wishes… There are times where it’s the last thing you feel like, thus presenting precious winning opportunities in one’s journey towards becoming a self-determining person.

You may think: “I must be true to how I feel” But you know that this is a weak excuse to not do or be what a situation cries for. Feelings exist inside of a bar – from those surrounding retarded laziness to special high feelings of love and endearment. You know that in order to achieve you must at times drive yourself beyond the lower end of the bar of feelings.

Natural cycles awareness
If you are serious about your development, you need to be mindful of the workings of the natural cycles that shape the human existence. One of those is the nine-month conception to birth cycle. When a human being takes on a developmental task, it will take six to nine months from the point of self-tasking conception before results take hold to become an integral part of a person’s way.

Being a star-dust collector
Qualities are magnets for star dust that fills their inner linings to eventually crystallise into magnificent formations that last beyond one’s life-time.

We are gifted with life, consciousness and choice, with which we create qualities combinations that are utterly unique to each individual, that enrich and make the world around us a better place.

A great sculptor fashions an enduring statue from a slab of stone. An aspiring human fashions an enduring quality – part of one’s spiritual legacy – from raw essence power.

Ask someone you trust which quality they would love for you to develop. The answer may surprise you. And so will the impact into everything you do as you apply yourself to it.

The coin in the shoe
Once you have chosen a quality to work on, you need a little ‘irritant’ that will remind you to remember, such as a coin in your shoe, a bracelet or an object on your desk.

Imagine the impact if world ‘leaders’ were to undertake this practice