Developing Personal Depth
Copyright 2005 Mark Myhre
Everyone seeks personal depth to one degree or another. Personal
depth stands as *the* way to add richness and beauty to our
lives.
Nobody wants to be considered a shallow person. Still, the
concept of becoming a 'deep' person turns many people off. We
have this image of a deep person as someone who spends a little
too much time stroking his beard and smoking his pipe, lost in
thought way beyond us mere mortals.
They ponder too much. They're smarter than us. They go to the
opera -and actually know what the fat lady is singing about!
They're just not normal.
Fortunately, personal depth exists as something else altogether.
Achieving greater personal depth (and not coincidently, greater
success at anything you pursue) involves taking specific
actions. You can achieve greater personal depth starting today
by working with the seven characteristics listed below.
1. Develop and use the generating energies of trust and value.
Trust: Even though you don't have all the answers, you know
you'll get by. You're 'enough' and you know it. You can count on
yourself. You can rely on your power, strength and talent.
Whatever happens you know you can face it: you know you'll make
it. Even though it may not be perfect, you'll handle the
situation at hand 'good enough'. That's trust.
Value: You might not be highly visible in the world, but the
role you play in life *is* highly valuable. You know you are
valuable in your way - to yourself and to those who love you.
Also, you recognize, respond and act upon your value.
2. Develop and use the sustaining energies of life such as
discipline and ownership.
The discipline that's self-imposed: You decide on something and
then you *follow through*. You follow your own plan, your own
rules - that's discipline.
Ownership: Own your thoughts and feelings. Own your emotions.
Own your failures - so you can change them. Own that you're
responsible. And own your successes - so you can keep them.
Ownership gives you the 'right' to change.
3. Continuously create new meaning, new destiny, new
personality, and new self-image.
People with personal depth never settle for the way they are.
They may be satisfied, but they always seek to become more. More
meaning in their life. Higher destiny. Greater complexity of
personality. And new self-image.
4. Develop and strengthen character.
Character: By knowing your ideals and your principles, and
living by them.... by having ideas and opinions and standing by
them.... That's how you build character and thus increase your
personal depth.
5. Continuous expansion of your power, strength, responsibility
and creativity.
You look for ways to be more powerful; to act, to get involved
in the world around you. You look for ways to take more
responsibility from the most minute to the most magnificent. You
know your strengths and look for ways to use them. You work on
expanding your creativity. (Creativity is anything you do that
inspires you or inspires others.) Just taking a walk can be
creative!
6. Sustained actualization.
You're in touch with your thoughts and feelings, and you're not
afraid to put them into action. You always think and feel.
You're aware of that thinking and feeling. And you act upon
those thoughts and feelings.
7. Generating spirituality.
You don't have to separate yourself from the mundane of life to
experience your spirituality. Rather, you seek the spiritual
*within* the material. Your spirituality eventually becomes your
number one priority.
You come to realize everything you experience is a manifestation
of your spirituality. There is no separation between the
spiritual and the living of life - that's the goal of the person
seeking or having personal depth.
***
As you can see, personal depth is not something you check off on
a to-do list. Let's see... walk the dog, take out the trash, and
oh yeah - achieve personal depth. No.
It's an ongoing, never-ending, always-expanding endeavor.
Basically it all comes down to becoming more of yourself.
There are no limits, and that's the good news. You can always
experience greater personal depth.