5 Steps to Personal Greatness

1. Self-Awareness

Knowing your strengths and weaknesses is not as easy as it sounds. To understand our personal surpluses and deficits is not an option on our journey to personal greatness. If we want to drive our performance, then we must be able to manage our emotions in ways that energize and direct that drive.

Be self-aware instead of self-conscious.

2. Self-Affirmation

We know it’s not healthy to speak against or gossip about others. It becomes even more destructive when we use words to speak against ourselves. Self-affirmation is a matter of choosing what we focus on. If others talked to us the way we sometimes talk to ourselves, we would avoid them. It can become easy to degrade ourselves, sometimes subliminally. Instead of letting other people and circumstances decide what you will focus on, make it your choice.

Be self-affirming instead of self-degrading.

3. Self-Motivation

If you are waiting to be motivated by someone else, personal mastery will elude you. Always giving your best is an inside job. Some days are better than others, but give your best every day. Anything less than that leads to a thin life and ultimately, regret.

Motivation is the underlying reason why a person does or doesn’t do something. The stick and carrot incentive is not nearly as powerful as a person’s innate interests. This raises the level of personal productivity and individual engagement. It’s about knowing how you are hardwired and drawing on your natural sense of intrigue.

Be self-motivated instead of self-absorbed.

4. Self-Differentiation

Knowing where you end and others begin is the key to healthy living. You have to understand that when people get together, they create an emotional force field. This force field is powerful. It can cause people to get enmeshed with others and fall into group think,or what some refer to as the herd instinct. On the other extreme, it can cause them to disconnect from others and lose important feedback loops, which are the keys to learning. One extreme leads to a sense of helplessness, blame, rationalization, denial, co-dependency and victim hood.

Practice self-differentiation instead of self-pity.

5. Self-Love

If we are to “love our neighbor as our self,” then I will submit that your love for others cannot and will not exceed your love for yourself. To love others without loving yourself is often an act of desperation to seek someone’s approval. As a result, it says more about the sender’s needs than the needs of the receiver. Sometimes wanting the best for others can involve pain. And wanting the best for yourself includes telling yourself the truth.

Be self-loving instead of self-serving.

SOURCE:success.com