Changing Yourself

If you want more respect, respect others more.

You can be whatever you want to be. It is possible to change your future by changing your ‘self’. If you cannot or do not decide to change your 'self', nothing will change. Your present will be your future. However, the only thing that ever really remains the same is change. So, you have two choices. Either, inevitable change controls you, or you control the change and mold yourself into what you want to become.

When training others in martial arts I noticed two things. Some people can turn aggression on and off at will. Others have less or even no control. They turn it on and it stays on afterwards in lingering resentment in loss or glee in glory. These are the types you need to watch out for, and they are not limited to people who do martial arts - they exist anywhere and everywhere, in the proverbial tinker, tailor, soldier, spy. If these people are wound up by a boss or relative or something beyond their control, they typically 'release' their tension on others, and that might mean you.

Tempered Resolutions does not aim to change these people - there are simply too many of them. You should not aim to change them either. Rather, your main purpose here is to learn to deal with them. And the first step to take is to look for change in your 'self'.

What does it mean - to change your 'self' ?

If you wish to change something it is usually because you have determined that you are not happy with the way you are. Next, you need to make a decision to change something (quitting smoking / being too passive). And finally, you need to see it through to completion. Just making a single decision is not enough for most people. For example, if you want to quit smoking you need to decide to quit, decide to not meet others who smoke for a while, not visit places where people smoke, and so on.

The only way to change is to first realise that it can be done, and to then set about making choices and doing things that lead to future benefit (quitting smoking) rather than future harm (visiting a casino).

Changing the self means:

Changing your attitude towards yourself and others

Becoming more aware by watching and studying what happens around you and in the world

Working harder for yourself and others

Knowing everything there is to be known about your interest or job

Setting goals and achieving them

Doing things to the best of your ability

Following the positive and avoiding the negative

Moving forwards - always

Training the Self

Many people start a programme of physical training because they feel insecure with themselves or when around others. After some time, they naturally become more secure in themselves but not necessarily for the reasons they would imagine. Simply, a decision to change yourself for the better will change you in a positive way. You will not change suddenly, but you will become much more confident over time, and others will notice the change and react accordingly, whether they realise it or not. If you train hard, so your body will change, but the most important change comes from deep within. For example, Asian philosophy states that only 10% of your persona* is based on direct experience. The rest of what makes you who you are is based on how you internalise and relate to that experience.

In order to feel better, you need to build up positive experience. For example, in order to improve your skill in a particular area you need to test yourself. If you play table tennis, you will not improve by beating people who are of inferior skill. Nor will you improve if you play against people who easily thrash you. You will automatically know this and you will want to play people at about or just a little beyond your level. This provides natural progress, but requires a positive go-forward mind. In this way, positive builds on positive and this makes clear the adage that every challenge you face is an opportunity to develop yourself.

This logic can also be applied to dealing with people. An awkward customer, a rude person in a restaurant, an unkind colleague, the ungrateful child - all these present an opportunity to learn if taken in the positive. And that is precisely what we must do if we are to become more self-secure.

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* persona - a person's perceived or evident personality