Today some people like to joke around about relationships. Relationships was not a subject learned at school, so many of us have to learn from experience and practicing. Some are on different level and some have different rules. Relationships could be an area in life that could be unfair, some people will have a advantage and same will have a disadvantage. So where do we find this experience and practice from??

Relationships are all very similar, weather its relationship with family, friends, partner or yourself. We want to share, give, receive, grow, feel good and be happy. If we want relationship that works, we must be doing the things I mentioned. Some relationship might fail because they don’t understand this, so they don’t meet each others needs. We all need to share, give, receive, grow, feel good and be happy.

When ever I fail in my relationships, like a breakup. I felt like it’s the end of the world. I felt like my education, work, money, everything didn’t matter. I felt like everything I did was for a better relationship. I don’t understand and I didn’t know how to control my emotions, when there was loss in relationship. I was looking for an answers. Drinking, looking for new relationship, doing many stupid things. Trying to change things out of my control. After many years of failing I have found the answer. It is to look within yourself. To love yourself. To be yourself. To appreciate yourself. To Grow yourself. How can we love others and expect others to love us back and create a relationship with them, if we can’t do these things for ourselves first.

Don’t forget we all have many kinds of relationships like family, friends, work mates and partner. We can’t just give up other relationship if one fails or spend all the energy on one type of relationship. we have to balance between all our relationships. We can’t always control all the events and people around us. We can’t change what happened in the past. We can control ourselves, control what we think, control how we feel, control what we learn and control what is happening right now.

Challengers are part of life, we need them to learn and grow. Don’t avoid them. There are plenty of help around, to get you though all the challenging times.If you don’t understand something, go to the library, book store, search the web or find people who can help you.

Spend most time finding or thinking about a solutions and not on the problem.

Personal development is as old as Plato and Aristotle. In fact, personal development was considered by many societies as the only true vocation. They also believed that the study and application of philosophy was the best method to achieve personal development.

Various cultures and various individuals throughout history have discussed and studied the need and ways to achieve personal development. At times it has been called “virtues”, or “moral character”, and in others it is referred to as “ethics”. Christianity has been concerned with the “moral development” of individuals and took their “virtues” from the Bible. These are: Faith, Hope, and charity or love/agape.

Virtue as defined by ancient Greeks was: The commitment to “habitual excellence”.

In most cases the major concern was, “personal development”. Each defined ways and means of achieving this development. Aristotle believed that it was necessary to achieve the “golden mean” between a trait and it’s opposite. Take Aristotle’s example of courage. “Courage is the balance between cowardice (deficit of courage) and foolhardiness (excess of courage)”. So Aristotle’s Golden Mean would lie in the middle between these two extremes but lying closer to “foolhardiness than cowardice”.

Benjamin Franklin developed a 13 week system in which he concentrated on one character trait per week. Listed below are traits he considered most important for him to work towards to be successful.

Character Traits

Self-control: be determined and disciplined in your efforts.

Silence: listen better in all discussions.

Order: don’t agonize-organize.

Pledge: promise to put your best effort into today’s activities.

Thrift: watch how you spend your money and your time.

Productivity: work hard-work smart-have fun.

Fairness: treat others the way you want to be treated.

Moderation: avoid extremes.

Cleanliness: have a clean mind, body and habits.

Tranquility: take time to slow down and “smell the roses.”

Charity: help others.

Humility: keep your ego in check.

Sincerity: be honest with yourself and others.

These are just brief examples of the history of “character development”, or “personal development”. It is beyond this article to provide a history of personal development, but I can give a brief discussion of what personal development means to me.

Stephen Covey in his books on “7 Habits of Highly Effective People”, discusses the evolution of “personal development”. In one section he talks of his study of personal development and makes a significant observation. He maintains that prior to the 1920’s and 1930’s, personal development was defined as “Character Development”. Ben Franklin’s list of character traits highlights the idea that a person needed to develop their “character”.

However, in the 1920’s and after, he states that the focus of personal development changed from character development to “personality development”. The focus of development changed from inner development to focus on the outer traits of a person or personality traits, such as a “pleasing personality”, or “having a positive personality”. With this as a guideline, it isn’t important if we truly have a positive personality or if we have a pleasing personality, it is more important to “act” like we have them. Mr. Covey maintains that this translates into other virtues and traits and what we end up with is all flash and no substance.

Mr. Covey provides several examples of this and used the then President Clinton and other politicians, as example’s. Instead of “being” honest or committed to excellence and integrity, they decided that “acting” honest or acting as a person with integrity is more important because they then appeal to the broadest possible voter base.

I went through treatment for alcoholism in 1977 and again in 1978. This March, I celebrated 30 years of being clean and sober. When I first sobered up in 1978, the self-help groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous exploded on the American scene.

Since then we have numerous groups which fashioned themselves after Alcoholics Anonymous, adopting and changing A.A.’s Twelve Steps to fit their particular problem.

However, at the base of all of them, is “personal or character” development. Bill Wilson, co-founder of A.A., says in his book, “As Bill See’s It”, “the main purpose of the 12 Steps of A.A, is “character development”. He goes on to say, “but who wants to talk of or work on their “character”? He also maintains that A.A., is a spiritual kindergarten. While the primary purpose of A.A., is abstinence of alcohol, Mr. Wilson maintains that the only way to obtain that goal is by committing, one day at a time, to the development of our character.

This is true of the other self-help programs which use Alcoholics Anonymous as their foundation.

On a personal level, couple months ago, my son, who is 14 years old, was teasing me about the “self-help” books I read. I told him that he should be thankful that I have continued reading and using those books, because if I hadn’t, his life and mine would be entirely different, and not in a good way.

Personal Improvement, in my experience encompasses all areas of our lives. Mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual. There is an old saying in A.A, which says, “if you’re not going forward in your life, you’re going backward”. This means that there is no status quo. We can’t rest on our laurels or what we did yesterday. As Ben Franklin showed, personal improvement is a life time activity and if we are not actively pursing excellence we are at the mercy of mediocrity.

As one person pointed out, “if we are not pursing our own goals, we are working towards somebody else’s goals”.

Personal development, for me, provides meaning to my life. It gives me a yard stick to measure my progress in life. What is personal development? When I first sobered up, I went to a meeting where on the wall behind the speakers were two boards.

On one board was listed about 20 different positive character traits such as courage, integrity, patience, gratitude, determination, persistence, etc. On the other board was listed their opposites.

During the meeting, at least once a week, my sponsor would lean over and quietly ask me, “which side of the board are you on”?

A commitment to personal development insures I stay on the right side of the board!

Once you release your emotional attachment to your past you are free to enjoy the present. From this powerful place of being happy and content with where you are you can then begin to create the future of your dreams.

Although you cannot change anything that has happened in the past you can change how your past experiences affect your future. The first step to releasing the past is to accept that it happened. No matter how traumatic the experience or how distasteful the memory is you must acknowledge here and now that it occurred. This is what we call entering a state of Acceptance. Many people live their entire lives wanting to change the past. They moan that if only things had been different their life would be so much better. The past is gone. It happened. There is no way to change the past so there is no point wishing that it never happened or that it happened differently. You cannot change it so accept it!

After acceptance you can enter a state of peace when you realise that the past, all of it, good and bad experiences alike have helped to form and mould the person you are today. All the knowledge, desire and love that are in you right now are a direct result of the past experiences that make up your life.

Next realise that the past has some powerful lessons to teach you. Have you learned anything positive from your past experiences? Use your past as a learning tool. See where you went wrong and make the changes you need to make today so that your future becomes a bright and welcoming place. Never use your past as an excuse to stay the way you are or to tolerate circumstances and situations with which you are currently unhappy! Realise that the past has been and gone. All you have is this moment and that is all you need to make changes.

Many millions of people throughout the centuries have overcome their own personal adversity to achieve great things. You can do the same. These people refused to accept what life had handed them. They never moaned about their past nor allowed it to interfere with their present and thus they created their future the way they wanted it to be.

You should never use the past an excuse for staying stuck in your life. Your power is always in the present moment. Use your past negative experiences as a motivational tool to spur you on. It is all about your perception! It is your perception of the things around you that determines your reality. What you focus on expands. This means you get more of what you focus on in life. If you chose to focus on the mistakes and hardships of your past then that is what you will experience more of.

But if you decide to put the past where it belongs, in the past, and fully embrace the present moment and where you are you will find yourself in a powerful creative place. Only revisit the past to learn from it not as an emotional trip. Although much of your current mental conditioning originates from childhood and early life experiences it can be changed. By making the decision now and holding the intention now that the past will no longer affect you, you can free yourself from your own self-imposed bondage.

From this place of freedom you can make decisions based upon current situations and circumstances instead of being the slave to reactive emotional thinking and acting. The evidence is everywhere that people with painful, damaging pasts have overcame them and gone on to achieve high levels of success. Look at the business world, sports, creative arts etc. There are rags to riches stories everywhere you care to look.

You may encounter past experiences that are very difficult for you to realease. At these times you should seek professional help in whatever form you feel appropriate, even if it is just a subliminal or hypnosis recording. Do something now to release your past – make the decision that it will no longer rule over your current life. Intend to be free of the past. In your own mind decide now that no matter what you need to do you will release your emotional issues. Even though you may not know how you are going to do this yet hold the intention that you will do it. When you do this and begin to live in the now you will be more content and at peace while you wait for your marvelous future to unfold.

To start effecting a change in your life within the next 21 days, you will need to get a pen and paper. Write down a list of the things that you want to change in the next 21 days. Ensure that you are specific! For instance, you can jot down:

• Want to lose weight and maintain a health body weight
• Want to have an additional $1,200 in the bank
• Attract my soul mate
• Work on getting a promotion at work
• Work on starting a new business or getting a better paying job etc.

The question is, how can we change our habits in just 21 days. Experts say that “Psycho cybernetics”, is what helps us to achieve the goals that we have set for ourselves. It can also take you towards the things that you do not want.

One’s life is guided by the body’s psycho cybernetic mechanism towards the direction of one’s set goals. This is because the goals that one has set becomes the target, the path and the set point in which this mechanism will guide one’s life and arriving straight on target. By investing in personal development, you will be preparing yourself to always look on the sunny side of life and to effectively handle any situation that life may throw your way.

Once you have set your goal, by law, you must arrive straight on target. As soon as a goal is set, because the human mind is known for its teleological ability and also because of the human’s psycho cybernetic mechanism, you must arrive at that set goal.

By honing your personal growth skills, you can easily program your goals in the part of your mind (known as the psycho cybernetic mechanism) in order to move towards achieving that specific objective. In order to program your goal when installed in the psycho cybernetic system, the unconscious mind will need to be accessed, then the goal will be installed into this part of the mind. Once your goal is in the psycho cybernetic system, it is virtually impossible not to achieve it.

When you take the time to invest in personal development, you will notice that every other thing will come naturally to you – this includes your career, relationships, your total sense of well-being and your home life. This does not mean that you might not face obstacles and challenges – there always will be. Having personal development skills helps you become better equipped to handle them.

The first thing to realize is that, in endeavouring to better yourself and your lot in life, you never ever end up back at base camp – it just feels that way. Once you’ve even open your mind to the possibility that life can hold so much more for you than the normal dead-from-the-neck-up person could ever imagine, there is no going back to the old life. Despite the apparent fact that you’re not making any progress, you always are – there is no step, however small, wasted on the journey towards self-fulfilment.

More importantly, however, you must understand that, in trying to open your mind to what psychology calls flow, you are up against it. You’re up against millions of years of psychological evolution that has rendered your very own normal mind a powerful foe. The normal mind is hard-wired to believe the worst. Psychology tells us that the subconscious mind is ever backward looking, obsessed as it is by its ‘stored knowledge’ – that body of learning which we all imbibed during our so-called formative years. This is your default state of mind and, no matter how hard you try, every morning when you wake up, your mind will have reset itself to these default settings.

Worse than that, research also tells us that, in looking backwards, the subconscious is predisposed to focus on our negative stored knowledge – the bad stuff is easier to believe, we are always more likely to look at the worst. It is this negative tendency that leads to the ubiquitous curse of worry. It is this self same negative focus that leads to feelings of self-doubt, inadequacy and low self esteem. And, remember, these are your default settings. Not only that, they are the default settings of all normal minds – they are all around us – so there is comfort to be gained in belonging to a herd of mindless idiots.

The problem most of us face is that we end up blaming ourselves for our own tendencies. But there is no merit in playing the blame game. You are not to blame for your default state of mind – it is simply the norm of the adult human condition. Nor are you to blame for the feelings of inadequacy that plaque your mind. These feelings – and your consequent day-to-day behaviour – are not your fault. They do not relate to anything that you have done – they relate to what was done to you or for you during those formative years. They are irrelevant to who you are now and, more importantly, who you could be now.

Faced with these obstacles, it is little wonder that we feel that we continually end up back at base camp. But these are obstacles that, in even exploring the possibility that you could get more out of life, you know you can overcome – and even do from time to time! The trick is not to become discouraged on your journey. The secret is to soldier on. And the true warrior is one who is prepared to persevere and, ignoring the passing trials and tribulations that today will inevitably throw at us, will pick oneself up, dust oneself off and start over – every single time he or she slips or falls.

In soldiering on, you must realize that your default state of mind will never change – as I’ve said, that’s the way you’re wired. You must also realize that your stored knowledge is well stored under the lock and key of your subconscious mind. Your formative experiences are part of who you are, they will not change nor will they ever go away. But that should not be an ongoing obstacle because, as one who is seeking to better themselves, you must understand that you have a choice as to whether or not you will give these out-dated subconscious snapshots your energy and attention.

This is a choice you must exercise in your favour – and exercise it daily, in fact, moment to moment. It is only when you fail to exercise this choice – and allow your subconscious mind make its default choice for you – that you slip and slide down the slippery slope. In other words, you must not just wake up but stay awake. You must be constantly on your guard, constantly aware of your state of mind and whether you are feeling deflated as a result of giving your energy and attention to useless and negative thought. You must maintain a constant awareness of whether or not you are present – in other words, focused on what you are doing and where you are in reality in the here and now.

In essence, the personal development journey towards self fulfillment is a lifetime’s occupation – and it is a journey without a final destination. For the normal mind cannot understand just how abnormally and effortlessly happy and successful we can truly be.