If you want to achieve something amazing in your life, then you must believe that you are amazing. Nobody has ever achieved anything amazing if they didn’t believe in themselves and didn’t believe that they were amazing.

Did you know that when something happens to us, and we react or respond to it, we are able to stop ourselves and decide on how we react or respond? I was in my thirties when I learned that we had this ability, and it made a huge difference in my life.

It may not seem much of a difference maker right now, but stopping ourselves from just reacting to things that happen in our lives, and deciding to change our reaction or response is huge.

1. Decision Making

It may seem a small thing on making this decision, but this decision can have a huge impact in our own lives and the lives of others.

In 2018 I was in a job as engineering technical manager working in a train operator in London. I had been in the role for about a year, and I wasn’t having a good time with it.

DOWNLOAD MY FREE E-BOOK “INSPIRE YOUR PEOPLE”

I wasn’t practicing my leadership principles in the right way with my team, I wasn’t dealing with issues within the team in the right way, I wasn’t increasing my influence throughout the engineering department, and with my boss, the head of engineering.

I wasn’t handling things well when things went wrong, which was a lot of the time. So, in 2018 I had to resign from that job and take some time out because I was not leading myself well.

I took 3 months out, and I decided to make these 3 months a time to transform myself. I started by reading “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” written by Stephen R. Covey. A few people had suggested that I read this book because they had gotten a lot out of it, so I decided to read it too.

This article is written to inspire you to make a transformation. It is written to make you think and motivate you to take action on your thoughts.

2. Character Development

I believe that we focus too much on our competencies and need to focus more on our character. I didn’t learn this until 2018, and I realised that the transformation I needed to make should be based on my character and not my competencies.

Most people throughout the world when it comes to developing themselves, they deliberately focus on what they know (competency), and they hardly spend any time deliberately developing who they are (character).

When we focus on what we know, we spend time looking outwards and judging others rather than spending more time looking within and judging ourselves.

If we focus on developing and transforming who we are then we must spend a lot of time looking within ourselves and judging ourselves. When we do this, we must reflect on who we really are.

When we develop who we are (character) we will start to multiply what we do (competency). Our character is what serves our competency.

It is up to you to make the decision to change your values, along with the following decisions to work on your behaviour and align them with natural principles and values that are already proven, timeless and tested.

3. Transformation

You cannot wait for your character to develop by accident because that is what most people throughout the world do. It is the minority of people all over the world who deliberately experience a character transformation.

As we have just discussed, your character transformation happens because of the decisions you make, not by accident. So, let’s make those right decisions.

I first learned about our reaction and our response to things when I read the book by Stephen R. Covey “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.” When I first learned about this it changed my thinking, and it was one of the first times that I had ever read something that had hit me like a freight train.

It was one of the first times that what I read in a book, I learned and was excited to learn more about and practice.

This was in 2018 and I read this part of the book repeatedly. I even shared it with friends and colleagues to see what they thought. They were not as excited about how we react and respond to things as I was, but I didn’t try to convince them because I was making this all about my transformation and not theirs.

The words in Stephen R Covey’s book really resonated with me, and it was like he had written the book just for me.

As I am writing my articles and books, I am thinking of this article, and I am getting excited that I keep practicing the principles I learned 6 years ago. Even within my other books and materials I think of how the book had such an effect on me.

It wasn’t until I started reading Stephen R. Covey’s book that I had ever thought about a transformation, especially one based on my character. I had never really thought of my character or what it really was, and neither did the people I surrounded myself with.

I thought at the time that my career was going well as I had moved around the UK a lot and been promoted. But none of those promotions had anything to do with me deliberately growing my character.

4. Success

I thought I was a successful person and that I was working alongside many other successful people. To me back then, success was to have a good job with a good salary and be in a leadership or management position with the title of “manager.”

It is a low number of people throughout the world who think that success is developing their character (who they are) and being able to master themselves. When we are able to develop our character to the highest level we can, and we are able to master ourselves will we be fully and truly successful.

Everything else in our lives is a by-product of us being the master of ourselves. To really live our lives, we must create a life built on a solid foundation of a fully developed character.

DOWNLOAD MY FREE E-BOOK “INSPIRE YOUR PEOPLE”

In 2018 I was 36 years old and after reading Stephen R. Covey’s book, my thinking changed. I stopped looking outwards to others, and I started looking inwards to myself.

I was proud that I had gotten so far with my career and how far I had gotten, but I knew I had to change how I thought about success, and what success to me was now.

I knew that my character growth had always been by accident, and I didn’t even know how it had grown. I knew that I had to start focussing on developing my character if I was going to be truly successful.

I believed in myself that I could develop my character to the highest level I could. I knew it wouldn’t be easy and that it wouldn’t happen overnight. But I believed and I still believe I can reach that level of character.

It is how and what we think that determines whether we are going to be truly successful or not.

I welcome hearing how this post has influenced the way you think, the way you lead, or the results you have achieved because of what you’ve learned in it. Please feel free to share your thoughts with me by commenting below.

Check out my other articles by Clicking HERE

All the best,

Tom (Lead, Grow, Influence)