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The Nine Day Class
An Exercise in Attainment
Lesson 7 - Building Strength and Reducing Problems
You have already accepted your new strengths. Now is the time to build them. Your goal is the make them even better than before. This is a gradual process. You need not rush. You will not get complete results overnight. While some things come from effort, others come with time. It is as if you release them when you take positive control of your life. These dormant abilities awaken and grow, slowly and inexorably. No effort will hasten them. The other type improve with conscious effort on your part. Those can be urged along, but even they can only go so far, so fast. Patience and diligence are required.
People tend to get bored when things do not come quickly. They lose interest. You cannot afford to do that! You need to be patient. You need to be gently persistent. The results are worth the effort. By now, you should already have had a few appreciable results. Let them be your proof that there is more to come if you persist.
Opposing our strengths are our shortcomings. People have weaknesses. You probably know at least one or two people whose lives are dominated by their weaknesses. Are you one of them? Even if you were one, that is no longer true of you. You have already begun to appreciate your strengths. Even at this early stage, they are overshadowing your weaknesses. If your weaknesses did not control your life, all the better. Either way, you are now on a path where your strengths will be the overwhelming factor in your life.
Though they are not in charge, shortcomings can still cause you grief. Weaknesses have hindered the great and small. Obviously, the thing to do is to minimize your weaknesses while maximizing your strengths. This means an effort to change, to improve, and the eliminate bad habits. As habits begin in the mind, so you must make a conscious effort to change your thinking.
Many people are so used to bad habits that they regard them as part of their personality. They excuse them by saying that in indulging these flaws, they are being themselves. No wonder such negative traits persist! How do we convince people that their lives would be better without their shortcomings? That is hard!
Before people change, they need to be willing to make the change. It may take time to become willing to face and eradicate a bad habit. You might need a while to see how uncomfortable it really is. Invariably, you want to get to the point where the discomfort of indulging the habit is greater than the comfort of keeping it. Before the habit can be handled, you must become willing to tackle it. Sometimes it can be done by seeing how much a habit hurts. Other times, it takes a while to acknowledge that it is burdensome.
How are habits cured? The way to eliminate them is to replace each bad habit with a healthy one. Out with the bad, in with the good! Let your strengths fill the places evacuated by shortcomings. Through conscious effort to build strengths while minimizing weaknesses, you become a more balanced, healthy and capable individual.
Exercise from Yesterday: Look at your list. See how your strengths and weaknesses tend to bunch up on one or two elements, and be spares or nonexistent on the others. Using the Elements, you can see the underlying truth about strengths and flaws. You can use the Elements to help get them in balance. You will know which area needs work. The Elements make it easier to determine causes and to implement solutions.
Meditation: Imagine yourself in a flow of pleasant energy. As the energy flows into you, it flushes bad things out. Feel the energy pulling out the negative thoughts, that oily heaviness of negativity. Feel yourself being filled with a new, bright, strong force brimming with vitality. Think of your shortcomings as a dark sludge that is being washed away, replaced by the healthy, brilliant energy. Know that as your strengths go, your weaknesses shrink and fall away. Relax and let the brilliance fill you.
Though for the Day: I grow stronger and wiser. My strength is such that I can confront my shortcomings. Each day, I become more willing to make the changes that improve my life.