How can you become Awesome?
How can you be the Best You?
Maybe from where you are standing right now these may sound like rather tough, if not impossible to answer questions? But there are a few simple steps you can take to begin your journey and increase your Personal Resilience, Emotional Intelligence & take your Social Skills and Positive Self Regard to a whole new level — And I’m not going to suggest anything fancy, and certainly nothing crazy!
Many of us through life, work experiences, parental upbringing, social conditioning or just plain resignation, accept and certainly never challenge the incredibly durable myth that some people are born with special talents and gifts, &, the potential to truly excel in any given pursuit is largely determined by your genetic inheritance. So, why bother?
Well, I’d like to say, “It ain’t necessarily so”!
I teach and have written about ‘How To Be An Awesome Public Speaker’ on other social platforms in the past, but some of the suggestions I make have a far wider application to help in how you may feel in any given situation — where you plant your feet & how you act, fully aware of the outcomes you want to achieve.
It all comes down to one word and a clutch of underlying principles. The word is Confidence and these principles include Self Believe, Personal Mastery & Resilience.
There is a whole science around High Performance which informs much of what I and my company The Mudd Partnership does, and how we do it to develop High Performing Individuals, Organisations and Teams.
The notion of Resistance Practice as put forward by Robert Greene in his book,“Mastery” (& do check it out if you haven’y already) is set around giving yourself challenging goals and taking the hardest option — It’s about challenging and stretching yourself repeatedly, moving outside your comfort zone, becoming anti-fragile & involves Practice, Practice, Practice!
Similarly, Personal Mastery also involves Practice, Practice, Practice and is what Peter Senge would understand as continuing to expand and develop your ability to achieve the results you want.
Of course, there is nothing really new in any of this! Aristotle is quoted as saying well over 2000 years ago as the Crows fly that, “We are what we repeatedly do” and research underpinning the science of High Performance can unequivocally demonstrate that it is possible to build any given skill or capacity — Things ranging from hard/Technical Skills through to the softer Adaptive Skills such as empathy, creativity and mindfulness — in the same systematic way that we build a muscle.
Anders Ericsson, who is regarded as one of the foremost researchers into High Performance makes the case that it is not inherited talent which determines how good we become at something, but rather and quite simply, how hard we are willing to work and practice!
Whilst Malcolm Gladwell among others also makes the point that it takes around 10,000 hours of practice as a minimum necessary to achieve expertise, or unconscious competence, in a new complex skills area.
Of course that requires dedication — 20 hours a week, 1000 hours a year over 10 years! It’s a big big ask of commitment and resolve, but it is also quite empowering to think that almost anything is within your grasp! N’es Pas?
The poet Robert Browning wrote, “What is a heaven for, if a man’s grasp cannot exceed his reach?”, &, Anton Chekov did rather nail it in his play, ‘The Seagull’ when he identified not the fame, nor the glory, but simply stamina as being the greatest thing.
I would simply say, ‘Make A Plan’, ‘Keep It Simple’ & ‘Be Content To Take Small Steps’ — Don’t do anything without those three things to the forefront.
And Keep the thing the thing, Do start small, But first and foremost, Do Start!
Start because you have the Power to influence your own outcomes and the ability to achieve the results you want!
It may be a long and winding road, but that’s life and life must be grabbed by the collar and wrestled to the ground on your terms! Just try to be clear what you want and join me on a rather exciting journey — Coz it’s your Life and it’s your time to Thrive!
Paul Mudd is the author of ‘Uncovering Mindfulness: In Search Of A Life More Meaningful’ available on Amazon and www.bookboon.com; the ‘Coffee & A Cup of Mindfulness’ and the ‘Mindful Hacks For Mindful Living & Mindful Working’ series. He is also a Contributing Author to The Huffington Post and a Contributing Writer to Thrive Global. Through The Mudd Partnership he works with business leaders, organisations and individuals in support of change, leadership excellence, business growth, organistional and individual wellbeing and well doing, and introducing Mindfulness. He can be contacted at [email protected] and you can follow the continuing journey uncovering Mindfulness on Twitter @TheMindfulBook and at @Paul_Mudd
Originally published at medium.com