Most people will not automatically admit that they are a selfish person. Usually it is up to your friends and family member to inform you that you are being a bit on the selfish side.
• When you begin a conversation with someone who or what is the first thing that you mention?
• Do you automatically begin talking about yourself?
• Do you always end up being the topic of conversation?
You may not have realized it before but you may end up always turning the conversation back to yourself.

This is yet another reason why it is important to think before you begin to speak.
Another thing that may indicate you are a selfish person is being nasty when things don’t go the way that you want them to, or in your favor.

Obviously we all want our days to run as smoothly as possible, and we all know that there are plenty of days when things don’t go exactly right.

However if you are one of those people who gets so upset if you don’t get exactly what you want, and you end up taking it out on other people you may just be selfish.

So the bottom line is sometimes no matter how hard you try you cannot pick out your own flaws. If you really want an honest opinion the best thing to do would be to talk to your family members and see what they think. They also may be able to point out certain situations where you are selfish. This can definitely help you to work on the problem.

Do you sometimes feel indifferent if someone talks to you about something they have gained: new job, new car etc. Do you sometimes feel that you need to convince others that you are better than them by using insults or bad jokes? Are you snooping around about someone’s life to know every details of his/her life in an attempt again to compare yourself to them and feel that you are better? You hate this behaviour?  Can’t help this behaviour?  Wants to get rid of it?

Envy is about coveting something you don’t have. The person you envy has what you want. The more unfair you think the situation is, the more you will find ways to demean the person you envy. Then instead of working to achieve more, you justify the reasons for staying in an inferior situation.

“Envy is the art of counting the other fellow’s blessings instead of your own” (Harold Coffin)

When we compare ourselves to others and then find ourselves wanting more, we get sucked into the powerful delusion of envy. Envy oppresses and depresses.  It sabotages friendships.  It divides us from our true self.  It alienates us from God. It imprisons us in a world of competition, accumulation of possessions, and frenzy to prove ourselves. Envy is an emotion we all feel from time to time. But if we allow it to become dominant in our lives, it can wrap our perspectives, keep us from realizing our personal potential, and in some cases can lead us into destructive behaviour. Without question, envy impedes our growth to spiritual maturity.

The love of money and material things is mentioned in the Bible as “the root of all evil”.

It is one of the major causes of suffering in the world is greed. It can destroy both your work life and personal life.

The person may become overly preoccupied why work or trying to achieve a selfish gain and forgets about everything else that matters in their life.

Why are we so greedy? Well, possessions can bring us pleasure. And pleasure can become addictive. If we mistakenly associate pleasure with happiness, it’s not surprising that we pursue it without end.

For as Chuang Tzu wrote,” He who considers wealth a good thing can never bear to give up his income; he who considers eminence a good thing can never bear to give up his fame. He who has a taste for power can never bear to hand over authority to others. Holding tight to these things, such men shiver with fear; should they let them go, they would pine in sorrow.”

Isn’t it true that if our desires are endless, our cares and fears will be too?

“Failure is not our only punishment for laziness; there is also the success of others” Jules Renard

Mental – Instead of investing the time and effort required to develop rational thinking skills, they choose to allow external authorities to do their thinking for them

Physical – Many allow themselves to indulge in physical laziness in certain situations.

• Pressing the snooze button when the alarm clock sounds in the morning,
• Watching too much television at night,
• Taking the elevator instead of the stairs during the hours in-between

“In reality, everyone is good in bed. Close eyes. Shutdown brain. Pause as necessary. Restart brain. Open eyes. What’s there to not be good at? Bed is the one place where laziness is rewarded” John Dobbin

-      Laziness will prevent you from ever being able to dominate your life

-      Make it possible for others to dominate your life for their own benefit!

-      On average 70% of our thoughts are negative or redundant. What a waste of mind power!

-      How can we expect our collective experience to improve when most of the times we are immersed in negative thinking?

-      Can cause boredom, anxiety, stress, and so many other negative states

-      Not living to our potential. We are held hostage by our conditioned subconscious mind – accustomed to I can’t, there is no way, ain’t gonna happen and so on

-      We have different unique talents. Unfortunately, the majority of us choose to stick to the limiting thoughts and excuses.

How can we strengthen our conscious thinking?

1. Observe your thoughts.
2. Question the persistent thoughts. As you continue to observe your thoughts, you will notice the ones that keep coming up. If they are negative, question them.
3. Do one thing at a time. Do one task at a time and give it all your intention, attention and effort.
4. Get clear about what you want in life. Nothing scares people more than intentionally thinking about what they want and what they can be.
5. Reduce escapism activities. It is OK to escape and enjoy entertaining activities to renew and relax. However, if you become obsessed with entertainment and heavily rely on it to feel good, you are numbing your mind and avoiding your life.

Fortunately, the solution to physical laziness is quite simple – schedule your day to include a period of physical exercise and then be sure to move your body whenever you notice yourself becoming sedentary for an extended period.

PRIDE

• Do you think you’re always right?
• Do you feel that you are better than the average person because you embellish yourself with gold, name brands or flashy car?
• Are you always busy trying to get others to recognise you?
• Do You need people around you that are in a lower social position to make you look much bigger?
• Have you realised that you refuse to share the limelight with anyone else and people need to recognise your brilliance, intelligence, competence, spirituality, sense of humor, good looks?
• Do you stand up for your opinion to the point of verbally or even physically abusing others?
• Do you systematically cut off offers of help from family, friends or professionals?

If you Check YES to most of these questions you may make some issues with “PRIDE”

“Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real” Thomas Merton

Do you lose your temper and wonder why? Are there days when you feel like you just wake up angry? 

Some of it may be the changes your body’s going through that can cause mood swings and confused emotions. Some of it may be stress: People who are under a lot of pressure tend to get angry more easily.

Part of it may be your personality: You may be someone who feels your emotions intensely or tends to act impulsively or lose control. And part of it may be your role models: Maybe you’ve seen other people in your family blow a fuse when they’re mad.

“In a recent survey for the Mental Health Foundation, 28% of adults said they worry about how angry they sometimes feel, and 32% have a friend or relative who has problems dealing with anger.”

]]> http://successlife.tv/?feed=rss2&p=450 1 http://successlife.tv/?p=443 http://successlife.tv/?p=443#comments Mon, 02 Apr 2012 15:06:48 +0000 TV_UCKG http://successlife.tv/?p=443 Presenters: Frank Rathebe and Maurice Medeiros

The heart knows its own bitterness – in other words, deep down, we know where our bitterness comes from. If we seek to understand our own way, we will discover the roots of our problems. What makes it hard, unfortunately, is the pain of recognising these roots. Many times, we don’t want to give in and admit our bad roots. We find it more convenient and easy to simply blame others for our failures, and use circumstances as an excuse to justify our problems.

When the Lord Jesus taught that, “A tree is known by its fruit,” He pointed to the root of bad fruit, which is the human heart. The heart is the symbol of emotions; it’s where feelings and emotional debris reside. The heart is our soul. Our spirit is linked to our mind, where God enables us to reason. Our soul, on the other hand, is linked to the heart, which cannot think, does not do the intelligent thing, ignores reason and values emotions.

What is useful about this is that when you observe any problem, in any person, you will invariably
see that that problem has as its origin one or more of these principal roots.

Your job is now to understand which one of these roots has caused your problems. Then, you will need to expose them. Be sincere, acknowledge all the bad roots in your life, and bring them to light.

Every week we present a different ‘Bad Root’ that can affect Your SUCCESS.

1. Anger – Anger causes behaviour problems, destroys relationships, makes a person difficult to get along with (leading to loneliness), aggression, and health problems related to stress.

2. Pride – Pride does not allow a person to recognize his own errors, and makes him stubborn and arrogant. He cannot ask for forgiveness, is overly self confident, and keeps friendships at arms length, etc. No one can stand a proud person. He ends up alone.

3. Laziness - This makes a person disinterested, relaxed and slow. This person starts but does not finish, and is not dedicated, zealous or active in what he does. They tend to accept things as they are. Many suffer financially because of physical or mental laziness.

4. Greed – The love of money and material things is mentioned in the Bible as “the root of all evil”. Can destroy both your work life and personal life. The person may become overly preoccupied why work or trying to achieve a selfish gain and forgets about everything else that matters in their life.

5. Envy  - Bad feelings at the success of others. Gossip, grudges, inferiority complexes, insecurity, low self-esteem, enemies, etc.

6. Selfishness – This gives rise to individualism, feelings of ungratefulness, abuse, and makes a person indifferent to the needs of others—self-centred.

7. Hypocrisy – Pretence and false behaviour that cover all the other roots. It empowers all the other roots. Like the earth covers and feeds the roots of a tree, hypocrisy strengthens the bad roots in a person’s life.

While in are in prison take all opportunity to get educated – training

Eliminate jobs that automatically reject those with criminal record

Maybe start your own small business – but keep working even if it is a low paid job

Be honest about your history

Sell yourself to the employer – allow them to see that you have come a long way from your days in prison – you are now looking for a fresh start.

Finding the courage to pursue a career – don’t put negative thoughts in your head telling you, you can’t – you are only putting barriers in your own way

Are you bored with your work or your life in general? Boredom is a complex process.There are lots of reasons that one might be bored.

The most common one is that you no longer have an interest in what you are doing. But other reasons might be you feel lazy or tired and just don’t want to do the things that are available for you to do. Have you lost that drive you once had for your job, do you drag yourself out of bed miserably because you no longer see a purpose of going to work. It is time to make a change… changing YOUR future… creating a new picture of your life… opening up the first brand new chapter of your life