Me, Myself & I

"The self is not something ready-made, but something in continuous formation through choice of action" - John Dewey

Painted Picture

In order to be successful, the first thing anyone MUST do, is have a vision of what that success looks like. It's difficult to achieve anything, without knowing which direction to take. And as part of an exercise from the book entitled Maximum Achievement: The Proven System of Strategies and Skills That Will Unlock You Hidden Powers to Succeed by Brian Tracy, I present to you my Painted Picture, my Vision for success:

I am personable, intelligent, distinguished and charismatic. I continue to set goals for myself, and challenge myself in new and exciting ways. My success has brought me financial independence, without sacrificing my relationship with my family.

At home, I am a leader, responsible, loving, nurturing and supportive. I enjoy a loving relationship with my wife and family. My children are well, and have become good contributors to society. I take my family for a yearly vacation abroad, to see the world.

At work, I exude a silent confidence and lead by example. My knowledge and experience shows in everything that I do. People come to me for help and guidance. I also derive supplemental income from other activities such as teaching and music.

I continue to delve in music, playing with my own band on weekends. I write songs for myself and others. I am known for my versatility and occasionally co-produce music with friends. I share my music with my children, teaching them how to play and enjoy music.

My entire family is a perfect picture of health. My wife and I are both fit and healthy, and looking fantastic. We run for a charitable cause every year. I enjoy sports with my kids, encouraging them to pursue excellence in everything that they do.

I have many close friends, who enjoy my company and that of my family. I am close to both my parents, my siblings (and their families) as well as with my wife's parents and siblings (and their families). We occasionally have outings which we document in a blog!

This is it for now. Vision subject to change! Now to put my plan into action...

Jack of All Trade, Master of None

I've always considered myself a 'Jack of All Trades'. After all, I've always found it easy to excel in many things. But does that mean I'm Master of None? Well... logically speaking, if you don't devote enough time to any ONE thing, how can you become a Master? It's all about allocation of resources. If you like doing many different things, and eventhough you do them well (better than the average Joe), if you keep moving around from skill to skill, then you'll never master any ONE skill.

As I continued to read Brian Tracy's book, I discovered that this is a LIMITING BELIEF. My second exercise (for Chapter 2) is to look at myself and my history, and figure out what I would do differently, based on what I believed at the time. This is one thing I've always thought true for myself. Based on this belief, I felt like I could venture into anything, and that I'd be really good at it, but not good enough to compete with the Best of the Best. And that is a load of crap!!! If I want to compete with the best of the best, then all I need to do is put in that extra effort and become a master, which I can be.

So looking back at my attitudes and beliefs, about my relationships, my health, my career, my financial achievement, I have to stop waiting for something to happen, and start doing something about it. And there's so much information out there, in books and in the internet, there really isn't anything you can't do if you put a little effort into it. That's why I put up my resolutions for 2007 in the first place. I'll have a complete book review completed this month of February 2007.

Okay... so this is my exercise for Chapter 2. The Painted Picture was my exercise for Chapter 1. Let's read on and see what else Brian Tracy has to say.

It's All About Me

Last Updated: 2 July 2007