50% Chance of Becoming GREAT - Will You Do It?

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Dear Readers,

Thank you for coming here!

French priest Nader Ransom has as his epitaph "If time can be turned back, half of the people in the world will be great!"

That is 50% chance for everybody. 

Considering what the real world is like, that chance is extremely high.

Only if we could turn back time.

Wouldn't that be nice? 

We can go back and rectify our mistakes and optimize our achievements, kind of like playing a video game.

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Well, the only problem is that we cannot really do it.

Then what is the next best alternative?

For me, that is self-reflection. With that, we can find the "better" ourselves.

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1. With self-reflection, we can reduce our mistakes

If I thought about my past experiences, so many mistakes could have been prevented if I was only "me" at that time. 

Unfortunately, some of those mistakes could never be undone and will stick with me for the rest of my life. And frankly, I have been suffering from them ever since I made them.

Take my career decision last year for example. 

To go from having a good job and two other "even better" offers to becoming unemployed till now, I had to make a series of mistakes. If any one of them could be avoided, I would have avoided the "near-catastrophic" situation I am now.

Thinking back, the normal "I" would not have made those decisions. The normal "I" would have been more prudent and rationale.

Self-reflection can put us through the necessary thinking process which eliminates whatever illusions we may have and ensures that we do not lost ourselves and we will be "us" when needed.

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2. With self-reflection, we can prevent repeated mistakes

While mistakes might be inevitable, wise man never make the same mistake twice.

Well, if you have made the same mistake twice or trice or more, like me, let's not make it one more time.

Self-reflection allows us to understand clearly our mistakes and then learn from them. That is an invaluable source of growth.

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3. With self-reflection, we can accelerate our growth

Self-reflection not only allows us to learn from our mistakes, but also enables us to learn from almost everything in life, something we have done or not done, something other people have done or not done etc etc

It is critical that we go deep enough into our thoughts and challenge ourselves to find the rules that world run by.

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With so many benefits, how do we self-reflect?

I wish I could give you, my readers, a tested and proven way. 

I only have decided to start daily self-reflection. And I searched around and did not find any method that really clicked.

I hope, in the not-so-distant future, I could write a post describing the self-reflection method that has worked for me, based on my own experiences.

If you have or know of any self-reflection methods or related books/materials/courses, please share with me. I would deeply appreciate that!

Till next time!