“Learn to work harder on yourself than you do on your job. If you work hard on your job you’ll make a living, if you work hard on yourself you can make a fortune.”
That’s the tone that I want to set off for this week’s message.
In the last (24) hours, I have realized just how powerful we are as human beings, I put an emphasis on that word “being” for a special reason because we are all being or becoming who we truly believe we will become. I wholeheartedly believe that you become what you believe, not what you want or desire, but what you truly believe about yourself.
Believing something does not start when we actually “see” the manifested evidence but believing starts in the mind way before we can actually see something. Our minds are the pinnacle of what makes us human beings so darn special and tremendously different from any other living species in this universe. We have the power to think and shape our worlds with our minds because every thing, every action and every successful venture was first manifested in the mind.
I am learning that in order to achieve true success then you have to change what is on the inside of you and that will be the catalyst to change what’s going on outside of you. Instead of trying to change your circumstances, I want you to start thinking about how you can change yourself.
We put so much hard work into our jobs and careers, spending years on educating ourselves, spending countless hours working harder at our jobs, getting up early and leaving late and doing all that is in our power to change our outside circumstance; instead of turning that same energy inward and work on our being, our character, our way of thinking, our way of looking at our circumstances, our philosophy, our attitudes or our gift of communication.
I want to encourage you to make a commitment to start going to work on yourself. How can you become better? How can you become more valuable? That is the major point that I want to stress here – in order to have more, you are going to have to become more. We are all on the journey of becoming and embracing our unique purposes, which we were each beautifully gifted for. I want us all to focus on becoming more – working harder on ourselves that we do on our jobs.
“Maria, so how do I do that?” I am so glad that you asked!
- Make a choice to no longer become easily offended and allow conflict to interrupt your circle of peace. If someone else’s action or lack thereof are interrupting your peace then, my dear, you are giving away too much power. Whatever conflict is going on in your world, community, family, business or job is not to interfere with your inner peace. If someone offends you, then make it water off a ducks back and let it slide off of you. When we focus our energy on being upset with others then that is energy that we are wasting when we can apply that same energy to our personal development.
- Develop a plan to make yourself more valuable. There is a reason someone can make $52 million a year at a company and another can make $20,000 a year. We are not paid for our time; we are paid for our value to the marketplace. I am not saying our value to God, our loved ones or purpose; I am strictly speaking in fiscal terms. Think of ways that you can make yourself more valuable to your company, if you can make your company $1 billion dollars, then you better believe that you are valuable to the marketplace and your salary will be an example of that.
- Be patient. Whether you are stuck in traffic, waiting on the subway train, or waiting for your success to physically harvest – I need for all of us to have a little more patience. Instead of looking at a circumstance with your “impatient” hat, then try to look at it from a different perspective. Perhaps God could be saving you from a fatal accident; that’s why you’re stuck in traffic. Or perhaps you are not ready yet for the success that is in store for you, maybe there is something that you are supposed to learn in your season of “waiting.”
- Don’t wish for less problems, wish for more skill. Instead of wishing or praying the problems away, ask God to give you a strategy or skill set to triumph over and learn from your challenges.
- Check the doubt at the door. The way someone else or a circumstance can have control over you is to instill doubt over you. If you are in a situation where perhaps your business is not making as much money as you thought it would then you may begin to doubt if you are doing the right thing and begin to question yourself. Doubt is another way to control you and fuel negative thinking. Eliminate the doubt from your mind.
- Get a personal development daily routine going. What you do in private determines public performance. Have a routine in place to help you work on yourself daily. It can prayer, exercise, reading motivating material, journaling, learning a new word – whatever it is, get a routine going.
- Define, set and achieve personal development goals. Enroll in leadership training, read a book on a topic that facilitates your personal growth, enroll in a coaching program, study effective communicators. Strive towards investing into yourself to become your best self.
I want you; yes YOU, to become more! Become better and become more valuable. This is an essential factor to defining your one-of-a-kind legacy and attracting the success you desire. You can make a living but you have the potential to make a life that is so great that it impacts generation after generation to come. Which will you choose?
Always embrace your legacy 🙂
XOXO,
Maria I. Melendez
@embraceherlegacy
