Your Better Self Study Manual

The creation of your better Self won’t just happen. It will require, as its first prerequisite, a quality that is ALREADY INSIDE YOU called commitment. But what is commitment, and how can you activate it, so that it becomes your personal commitment, and will begin to guide you on your journey? First, you should know precisely what the word means. According to the Oxford American Dictionary, it is described as “the state of being involved in an obligation” and is defined as “an obligation or pledge.” But in the everyday parlance of speech, it can mean several very different things when it takes the form of an action word, or verb. People are said to “commit” crimes or sins, to be “committed” to institutions, to “commit” to relationships, to “commit” atrocities or adultery. When you are committed to a bad practice, you set up problematic patterns for your future relationships with others – both casual and intimate. Conversely, committing yourself to positive practices yields healthy patterns that result in deeply satisfying and mutually fulfilling relationships, enabling you to accomplish more than you ever could alone or while in the midst of a stressful relationship. The common thread of all the forms that the word “commitment” takes is to decide, to make a decision, and then to comport your behavior accordingly. Your actions flow from your decisions such that the resulting outcomes make your commitment a reality. Few ideas, plans or dreams ever become realities without committing yourself to making them so. In the context of Your Better Self, another consideration immediately becomes: am I worthy of committing? You may consider yourself unworthy, undeserving, because of decisions you have made in the past. But do bad decisions you’ve committed to once actually disqualify you from committing to begin the construction of your better Self NOW, in the current moment, as you’re reading this? Before you commit to anything, you should know precisely what you’re committing to. The “better you” is not a “best you,” because the word “best” implies a limit that is self-imposed, and which assumes that you have reached your zenith, the peak of your aspirations, of what you can be. If you achieve a “best” you before you die, that doesn’t leave much room for improvement, does it? Still, you will need to form in your mind’s eye some grand vision of this “better you” – a precise “picture” of what you would like to become and how you would like to consistently behave. For any of us, this type of envisioning is a project – something you will have to assemble piece-by-piece, bit-by-bit. It doesn’t just happen. It will happen one tiny commitment at a time. When you begin any job, it takes the right tools. Recently, I was attempting to change the ink cartridge in my favorite pen. I firmly shoved it into the pen’s casing only to discover that it was too big. No matter how hard I pulled, I couldn’t remove the cartridge. I tried twisting, yanking . . . yelling! Nothing worked. Then I thought of using pliers. That was it! I needed the right tool for the job. I retrieved a pair of pliers from a drawer in the kitchen and grasped the cartridge while pulling with my fingers on the end of the casing. After several futile attempts, all I succeeded in doing was to dent the cartridge. I had about given up when it occurred to me to use another pair of pliers instead of my fingers. With two pliers I gently pulled the cartridge from the casing as easy as you please. Sometimes, what you commit to requires multiple tools to make it happen. Not just any tools – the RIGHT tools. The most effective tools for the job of becoming – and remaining – your better Self are mental in nature. They are the ways you think, reflect, remember, choose and imagine. To find your better Self you will need a probe or mirror to see inside yourself. We call that mirror “introspection.” So your first tool will be using introspection to examine the inner recesses of your soul – to explore not just what is, but what was – as the “you” that you are at this moment came to be. For many people who are not used to using this tool to see inside themselves, this first tool will have to be sharpened. Developing Introspection Most people are not introspective while they’re living their lives. They think, although this is not really true, that they are “too busy living their lives” to “get lost in introspection.” Some of you might “think back” and get lost in retrospection, ruminating about the past, and wishing that if only you’d done something different way back when – then your life would be “just peachy” in the present-tense. While retrospection can be an aid in finding your path to introspection, it is NOT the same as introspection. It is very unlikely that you, as a child, especially as a small child, could have done anything that might have, in and of itself, created their “better Self.” But many of us feel guilt over such “what ifs, could haves, and should haves.” Sometimes that guilt can be crippling, like a wound oozing pus inside your mind. What wounds have been oozing their poison into your mind over the years? Who inflicted those wounds on you? Who is doing it now? If the wounds are still oozing, why haven’t they healed yet? Remember what you’re mother told you: “If you don’t stop picking that scab, it will never heal!” Retrospection, if used singly, is not a road to introspection. Too often, it becomes a one-way path to negative emotions, such as guilt and remorse, which can stifle any hope of replenishing your energy and desire to create and experience a “better you.” If you look backwards, you should have some idea of what you’re looking for. More follows . . .