Not responsible for your childhood

I was picked on…I was poor….I was from the wrong side of the tracks….my parents did this or that to me…

We all have our story, and we made it part of who we are, and replay it over and over – even now.

Well, guess what – your story is not unique.  Most of us have reason to say our childhood was crappy in some way.  But here’s the thing – you were a kid, and you were not in charge.  You are not responsible for your childhood.  But you are responsible for your adulthood.  And you can decide what your childhood means to you now.

You’re going to be an adult a LOT longer than you were a kid.

Is it time to reframe what happened, and move forward a free woman or man?

You're in charge of you

Who is in charge of your life?  Who can call the shots?  Who designs your future (or not)?

That fact is you are in charge, and since you’ve been an adult you have been calling the shots and making the decisions – or letting someone else make them for you.

What you see around you and what you do each day is a result of what you decided.

How’s that going for you?

Here’s the good news – You’re still in charge.

Incombustible

Some of us spend our days being annoyed by one thing after another.

What if you could get to a place where nothing angers you?

What if (almost) nothing upset you?

Peace and happiness are not found anywhere outside of ourselves.  

Is anything more important than your own peace and happiness?

Animals can't decide who they want to be.

An animal can’t be anything but that animal, and act on their own instincts.

People can decide who and what they want to be.  And if people don’t like who they have become, they can rip up the script and start again.

People are flexible, creative, and powerful.  

People like you.

Television 1928-2015

Do we really need television anymore?

I don’t ever turn mine on. With the hours I save, I can do much better things.

Do this experiment; no TV in your house for one week.

Do you talk more? Read more? Do more? Sleep more? Feel better? Think better? Think more?

Where does a personal vision come from?

We are at the source now, and it comes in various forms.  In our formative years, we need to experience and be exposed to a number of the following factors – 

– Have a role model – someone who shows us what is possible.

– Have someone who believes in us and tells us “you can”.

– Get an education  – the “how” – see at least one of many road maps to achievement.

– We may be exposed to others being successful and achieving, whom we can pattern after.

– Being in environments where people are progressing around us.

– Having people who expect us to achieve.

– Having someone who loves us and encourages us.

– A lack of people who tell us we are inferior and unable.

All these things combine to form our BELIEFS about ourselves.  If our beliefs are negative, we will not create a higher personal vision and have little ambition, small desires, and weak motivation.  If our beliefs about ourselves are positive, we will advance our situation with one over-arching quality – courage.  The courage to act, even if we may fail.

Let’s review “Janesky’s Human Motivation Chain” – Personal energy for a task comes from motivation. Motivation comes from desire.  Desire comes from ambition.  Ambition comes from a higher personal vision, and a higher personal vision depends on what we are exposed to that creates our beliefs about ourselves.

This is my own model.  Does it ring true with you?  Tell me with the orange comment button!  And thanks for trusting in me, and exposing yourself and your friends to Think Daily.

 

Where does ambition come from?

What sparks ambition?  Now we are getting closer to the source of human achievement.

Ambition comes from having a higher personal vision for yourself, your possibilities, and your life.

Believing you can do more, be more and have more is necessary for you to strive, rather than stay where you are. Believing in your own abilities, and having faith and self-confidence that you can navigate what is necessary for you to advance your situation is needed for you to even try.

It all starts in what you think about yourself. 

But where does such a vision and belief of what is possible for you come from?

There is one more step in my hierarchy of personal achievement characteristics.  And we’ll talk about that, next.

Where does desire come from?

Let’s go upstream of desire.  What makes us want something we don’t have yet?  Ambition.

When we are ambitious we want to improve our situation, and that involves the desire for the things, steps, actions, needed to fulfill our ambitions.

But where does ambition come from?

That topic next…

Where does "motivation" come from?

Let’s go upstream of motivation to see its source.  This is what I see; motivation comes from desire.

Desire is the feeling that accompanies an unsatisfied state; when you want something you don’t have yet. That’s desire.

But where does “desire” come from?

I’ll tell you where – tomorrow.

Where does personal energy come from?

You know that feeling when you have to do something you don’t want to do?  You don’t have a lot of unconscious voluntary energy for it.  But when you are doing something you want to do, you have boundless energy.  Where does that energy come from?

Here’s my take after studying this for a long time – it comes from motivation.  If I am motivated to do a thing, I have energy for it.

Where does “motivation” come from?  We’ll talk about that tomorrow…