Growth & Reflection is Diagnosis and Alleviation

As humans, we have evolved our capabilities to recognize, react, and reflect to the choices we make. Our ability for growth differentiates us from all other forms of life. How does one go about shaping his or her life in a manner that is of excellence? What is excellence? Excellence or virtue describes a framework that encompasses extraordinaire attitudes, beliefs, and habits.

Develop Personal Power

As individuals, we’ve got a spec sheet of responsibilities. Whatever those may be for you, take a moment and imagine what they are. After doing so, you realize that you’ve got no time to squander and a real road map to taking action needs to be put in motion so that growth can occur. Ray Dalio, author of Principles, details a method to go about recognize, react, and reflect:

  • Set Goals – the why, the what, the how.
  • Problems will be encountered, it’s natural
  • Diagnosis of problems must occur to overcome adversity
  • A plan must be designed and acted on to overcome those problems
  • Action must be taken to implement said plan
  • Repeat for ultimate growth

Along the way there will be people that do not align with your higher version of self. These people are referred to as idle minds. To keep the bar high for yourself, you must surround yourself with other like-minded people who are players of or greater than your caliber. This will force growth onto you, or leave you to wonder what you are doing with yourself. This ties into what people and personality types are self-driven, self-motivating, proactive, doers versus thinkers, etc. Each person has an ability to excel. Life will continue to present challenges and opportunities for those who expect much more out of their abilities because they realize they have a higher calling in life. As individuals faced with our own problems, we shouldn’t compromise our excellence.

These questions are often times at the forefront of our desire to achieve, or failure to achieve a desired outcome. This requires tremendous amounts of growth. How is my life affected if I either fail/succeed, how are the lives of others affected if I fail/succeed, what happens if I fail/succeed, what happens if I don’t fail/succeed? One might be over-analytical of a desired outcome for fear of missing short, therefore will never take action. Growth will never happen without stress which happens as a result of massive action. Whereas one might just jump into action and later refine the methods, figuring things out along the way. It isn’t until a recognition of a desire is met with action to shape the outcome can one now react and reflect to the choices made. Once that sequence happens you now have a realistic gauge of what worked and what didn’t. Pain plus reflection equals progress.

Put in motion, growth is the process of enduring the journey of ups and downs that exist in life. If we spent majority of our time in life being over analytical of things that have yet to happen, trying to control every outcome from the start, would we ever make progress? You get feedback from putting things into motion, not from being idle. So, gear up and take ownership of your life.


Austin Peaks
Austin Peaks

Listen, I know we've got struggles in life we want to overcome. To do it, you've gotta do things that may seen daunting. Just keep intact your ethics/morals/values of course, and embrace the change. The world depends on it, so SOAR!