Developing personal character with consciousness
Get Quality Self Improvement Articles Every Week, No Spam, No Ads.
Thank you!
You are added to the community of Basicideaz.
So, I typed how to develop personal character in google.
I got some tips like- having self-discipline, be accountable for our actions, have a strong burning desire, write down our dreams and thoughts, etc.
I started doing the same, and to be honest, I started feeling good about myself for a few days.
My productivity increased, I became more disciplined, and I started talking with everyone with great energy.
My life seemed to be flying.
The reason I tried to develop my character is because of a simple belief.
I believe a person can never achieve success more than his character.
So, once my character started to build, I started achieving success every single day.
But, of course, I didn’t fly for long.
The fuel of motivation is limited, and once the motivation went off, my engine shut down in mid-air.
I crashed on the ground hard and broke my fake self-esteem, happiness, and progress rate.
It was then I realized that personal character doesn’t develop from external sources; it develops from within us.
This article will tell us how.
The wandering Mind
If you pay attention to your mind, you will notice that it is constantly chatting.
We make decisions every single day without realizing who is making the decisions in the first place.
The constant chatting or our unconscious thoughts never stops, and if we try to stop them, it’s like pouring fuel into a dying ember.
“You have a board meeting this afternoon, and you have prepared your presentation after a month of hard work.
You are all ready and confident, but suddenly there is a voice inside you who is saying, you will screw it up again, you have done it last time.
No, I don’t. I am prepared.
Last time you were prepared too.
You don’t know anything about me, shut it.
But, what happens if you make mistakes. You will be fired.”
And, just like that, you are now worried about the upcoming meeting.
So, why does our mind do this? Is it our enemy?
No, it’s not. It is a wonderful tool we have that no other life form possesses on this planet.
The voice only tries to protect us from future harm; it only wants to secure its position on this earth.
It constantly searches for threats and tries to warn us if there are any.
Though, most of the thing this voice says is meaningless.
“Your future seems dark, do something.
Study hard, you have to fulfill your responsibility, you have to work hard, and if you play video games instead of working, then you should feel guilty so that next time, you work.”
But a person can be aware of his thoughts.
He can know what the mind is thinking and what the voice is suggesting, and instead of taking decisions because of the voice, he makes decisions by himself.
He does what feels right at the moment, irrespective of the voice.
It is his consciousness that makes him aware of the voice.
Consciousness
Awareness is consciousness.
When you go to sleep, you become unaware of this world and yourself.
When you wake up, you are aware of your existence, surroundings, breath, and thoughts.
But, we give very little attention to our breaths and thoughts as these happen on their own.
Similarly, we don’t give much attention to our heartbeats.
They will function on their own, irrespective of our awareness.
But, thoughts can decide your actions, and actions develop your character.
What if we are unaware of our thoughts?
If we are unaware of our thoughts, we will be unaware of our actions and unconsciously build a personal character.
Again, if we can be aware of our thoughts, that means we are not our thoughts.
If we can watch our thoughts, that means our true self is something else and not the person we think we are.
The character or the person you think you are is just the portrait of your mind, the ego.
The true self, the being, is in you, and when you understand your true being, you start your journey to enlightenment.
Mind and True self.
As mentioned earlier, our mind is a wonderful tool.
It is the source of creativity, relationships, solving complex problems, overcoming hardship, etc.
The mind always scans for threats to protect its identity.
Therefore, we become worried about the future, unfinished tasks, our health, etc.
To secure its position in this world, the mind wants us to achieve success, money, fame, healthy relationships, etc.
These are all the good things we can hope for a better life.
If these are the things that our mind wants, then why do we lose our way to our goals?
Why do we become addicted to drugs, games, pornography, and other habits that cause us failure in life?
This happens because of our attachment to our gaols.
Attachment or desire makes us love the end result more than the present self.
You become so attached to the future; you forget to enjoy the present you already live.
You do something, only to reap some kind of benefits from it.
If you miss a day of practice, miss submitting your project on time, or couldn’t get your promotion because you work so hard, you feel discouraged, heartbroken, and hopeless.
So, to deal with this pain, you go for short-term gratifications like alcohol, smoking, or anything that can cause further shame and guilt.
You don’t do work just for the sake of enjoying the flow; you do it because you want to reach a destination that you love.
If you see any hindrance on the way or any kind of disturbance, you cannot handle it and go back to your old bad habits again.
You cannot handle a present hindrance because you are not in the present; you are in the destination that you love.
You also cannot handle the hindrance, because you don’t enjoy the work, you only work to get somewhere else.
To enjoy it, you have to be present while working.
All the above examples are the work of our minds.
The mind always lives in the future or past. It is connected with time; always try to eliminate all the threats of its existence.
The true self lives here, in the present.
It is timeless because the future and past are just the illusion of our minds.
It is only this moment we have, and we will always have this moment.
All your thoughts, actions are taken place in the present.
No matter what you plan for tomorrow or next month, you are planning now.
Remember, clock time and psychological time are different.
Here we are talking about psychological time, which doesn’t exist except in our minds.
Get Quality Self Improvement Articles Every Week, No Spam, No Ads.
Thank you!
You are added to the community of Basicideaz.
Developing personal character
Our character is just a representation of our minds.
Again we are not our minds, which means we can develop our character according to our will.
Personal characters are developed through actions.
You become what you repeatedly do; that is the nature of your mind.
Here are three ways in developing personal character for success and happiness in life:
Basic and Priority
My friend asked me what is my priority in my life.
I said to become a novelist.
How is that going?
It’s not going that great. I haven’t written a single page for a month.
Oh, why is that?
I don’t know; maybe I am not that passionate about writing?
What are you passionate about?
I don’t know; I don’t feel like doing anything.
So, my friend sat there on the red plastic chair, cupping his hand on his chin and ponder for a moment.
Perhaps, he was thinking what a waste I am.
What about your basics?
What basics?
Your fundamentals, for example, you live alone in this big house, do you make your bed in the morning?
Sometimes I do if I feel like doing it.
There is no point in lying; he is already looking at my messy bed.
What about cooking your food, washing your cloth, taking care of your health, cleaning your room, doing the dishes, etc.
I remain quiet for some time because he can already see the dirty kitchen where the dishes are clustered from the last two days, the untidy room, the disorganized clothes on the shelves, and my big belly.
I feel ashamed of myself, but a person like me cannot do all this everyday. I have more important work to do than cleaning my house.
I do the dishes, and also clean the house, but I have other important works to do, you know.
I can’t waste time on minor things.
I know what he was going to say, doing the dishes will take 5 minutes, cleaning the house will take 10 minutes, and bla, bla, bla.
I was about to roll my eyes because I knew he was going to laugh at me.
But instead, he looked at me as if confused and told me something that completely changed my perception.
Bro, how you will work on your priority if you don’t work on your basics in the first place? If your character likes working, how can you work on something else by skipping the fundamentals?
It’s like you have two characters at the same time and that’s not possible.
The realization hit me hard.
The day of a person starts from the bed.
If he doesn’t make his bed in the first place, the first and most fundamental thing, how come he will do the big things?
A person who has the character of completing his fundamentals, the basic, can do anything in life.
His life will be disciplined because that is what his character is.
There are thousands of examples where people from the military achieve success in other areas once they retire.
Start fixing your basics today; priority will be taken care of on its own.
And don’t try to fix your basics by thinking of the benefits; no, that’s a trap.
Try to fix it, thinking it as of your duty without the expectation of any results.
This is basics; you don’t need any motivation to do your basics at least.
It is a way of life.
Core values
Core values are the set of beliefs we have that guide our lives for success and happiness.
Once a person starts to live against his core beliefs, he starts his journey towards suffering and unhappiness.
A person’s core values may be his morality, productivity, achievements, integrity, etc.
Once a person with morality cheats someone, he finds disturbance inside him.
Once a person with productivity starts wasting time on unproductive works, his life becomes measurable.
But, the problem with most of us is that we don’t know our core beliefs.
Some say you should write down your core beliefs in a paper because once you become clear about your core beliefs, you can run your life more smoothly.
I am not a big fan of writing something and running my life through some points on a paper.
Core beliefs are an integral part of you.
If some action makes you unhappy while performing it, you should know it is against your core belief.
And that is enough for me to stop there.
Again, to do this, you need awareness.
Once you are aware of your activities, you will automatically run your life according to your core beliefs.
But, we don’t live that way.
Most of the time, we end up wasting time, cheating someone for greed, and lying to our parents or relatives for some selfish benefits.
Most of us live against our core values, and this is where our personal character gets broken.
So, how to do the right thing?
How to live according to our core values?
How to stop all our bad habits and focus on our work, become productive and happy?
If you want to know, read the third point carefully.
Inner Energy
The universe runs on energy, and so do we.
It’s not only the physical energy we are talking about but the inner energy as well.
Every thought, experience, and event consumes energy.
For example, if a thought pops up in your mind that you want to play a video game, but you have work to do.
So to avoid or suppress the thought of playing video games will consume inner energy too.
If you want to create something, write something, work on something, etc., will demand inner energy too.
When the flow of your energy is constant, you feel happy and unattached to this world.
You achieve happiness and success without striving for them, but the problem occurs when our inner energy flow gets stuck.
Let’s understand this with an example.
Roy likes playing video games.
But he has works to do that will help him progress in life.
But, the urge to play video games was too high, so he played the whole day.
Once he finished playing, he cursed himself for wasting one more day. He felt guilty and unhappy.
Once Roy completed the event of playing video games, he didn’t let the energy to flow.
He resisted.
Once he resisted, he blocked the inner energy, and his joy reduced.
This is why guilt, shame, cursing yourself lead to unhappiness.
Once you show compassion to yourself, the inner light starts to glow again.
We resist everyday.
If things don’t go in our way, we complain and become unhappy.
The earth is 13.8 billion years old, and the universe has its own way of unfolding reality.
The reality was unfolding before our birth, and it will keep unfolding after our death.
Our wishes and desires have no effect on it.
We start to block the inner energy once we start to deny reality.
This is the cause of suffering.
Let the reality unfolds on its own, and you flow with it.
You have your free will and use it to progress with reality instead of opposing it.
Once you accept the truth, the inner energy starts to flow again.
This inner energy is the source of creation, your happiness, and your connection to God.
Get Quality Self Improvement Articles Every Week, No Spam, No Ads.
Thank you!
You are added to the community of Basicideaz.
Conclusion
You can change your personal character with consciousness.
Becoming aware of yourself is consciousness.
Pay attention to what your mind is constantly talking about.
You don’t have to stop it or force it; you just have to watch it.
Again, you can tell a lot about the character of a person by watching his lifestyle.
If a person makes his bed in the morning, dresses properly, cleans his room, and puts things in their proper places, you can assume that he is doing this not because he wants to achieve success or greatness, but that’s how his character is.
These ‘basics’ will also be reflected in his works because his character demands him to be organized.
So, if you want to build your character, start making your bed in the morning.
Best
Ahbab