One of my biggest passions and obsessions in life is consistently working on being the best version of myself. Learning as much as I can about who I am so that I can be someone I am proud of. In doing so, I want to help inspire my daughter to be better than I am and have the tools to navigate through her life and struggle less than I did. And if I can help someone else along the way, that would be a blessing.
My personal development journey began when I was 15 years old upon being introduced to personal development through my mum. She gave me and my older brother the 30-day personal power tapes by Tony Robbins. This was the first time I was introduced to the whole concept of what personal development and human psychology was about. I remember listening to him thinking he was loud and very enthusiastic. I kept listening to him day after day and I was introduced to a new way of thinking and what human psychology and human behaviour was and why we did the things that we did. He talked about achieving our goals and giving a step-by-step guide to achieving them. I learnt that there was a formula for success and I was fascinated and got hooked on learning more about how to implement these principles and tools in my life.
After finishing the programme, I became obsessed with learning as much as I could. So I went to two of the public libraries in my area to read as many books I could get my hands on. I went to the library down the road and spent one year and two months going through all the books on their shelves on human psychology, personal development and the self help sections. When I was done there, I went to the larger library and read all of their books which took me one year and seven months. After that, I started toggling between both libraries because people had returned books or they had new ones in. I absorbed as much as I could and I started to learn so much about myself and why I did the things that I did. Sometimes I didn’t understand what I was reading but I kept trying to learn.
I learned about my own trauma, why I repressed emotions, identified some of my defense mechanisms I created, how habits were created and why I hid behind my weight. I discovered what introverts and extroverts were. I found out I was an extrovert and started identifying who was introverted and who was extroverted. I read books about auras and started seeing them. I learnt about the 7 personality types, the four temperaments, processing emotions, quieting the chatter box, affirmations, meditating, mindfulness, the art of flirting, vision boards, body language, the art of communication and more. I read Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus by John Gray, Mirror Work: 21 Days to Heal Your Life by Louise L. Hay, Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kawazaki, Chicken soup for the soul by John Canfield, Feel the fear and do it anyway by Susan Jeffers. I read anything and everything that could help me understand myself more. During this 3.5 year journey I read over 300 hundred books.
Then I went though free online content, seminars, conferences, master classes, audio, and podcasts when they became available for free online. I again absorbed all that I could about areas I was interested in. I listened to Les Brown, Napoleon Hill, Earl Nightingale, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Oprah Winfrey, Brain Tracey, Bob Proctor, Tony Robbins, Gary Vee and tons more. For me, there was no excuse not to learn about myself and improve. Is it an easy journey? Absolutely not! But when you are open to knowing how to be better and do better then we should do better and become better.
Whenever I identify an area I need to work on, I start learning as much as I can about this area. Then, I work on learning how to implement it in my life. I learned that I was beautiful when I was 21 years old after reading the book called Mirror Work: 21 Days to Heal Your Life by Louise L. Hay. Before doing that self growth work, I thought I would be beautiful if only I had longer hair or if I were smaller or had those particular clothes. It was during this time I learned I could be beautiful just as I am. I have known without a shadow of doubt that I am beautiful ever since. And why should I not see my own beauty? It is not the world's duty to dictate my beauty and worth in the world. Another example was in the beginning of 2019. I realised that I did not have the best relationship with money. I had money, I had savings, I knew I could find and have money but I didn’t believe I could have lots of it or financial freedom and wealth. I wanted huge success and financial freedom in my life so I had to change. I knew that in order to be successful and grow a successful business I had to improve my beliefs around money.
So I began that journey learning to have a different relationship and change my mind set around money and how to accumulate it. I started off by identifying what my set of beliefs were, what I believed I was worthy of and how much I believe I deserved. Then, I did the Marissa Peer hypnosis masterclass around money and abundance. I was able to identify through hypnosis three major childhood experiences where my relationship and beliefs around money stemmed from. Since then, I have been able to create new habits and mindset around what I want. Now, I have no doubt that I will be a millionaire. I don't ever think about the lack of it and I move forward in faith that the money is there, it will come when I need it. This is of course something I have to work on relentlessly.
This last year, I have 12 alarms that go off to repeat my hourly affirmations "I have so many financial and career opportunities pouring into my life". I have been repeating this 5 to 20 times every time my alarms go off. My latest affirmation is now "I have all the money I need in the world to achieve financial success". The way I feel about money now and the ease in which I accumulate money has changed so dramatically over the last 3.5 years. I could have blamed all the outside circumstances for my relationship with money but that would not have gotten me anywhere.
As with many areas of my life, I am willing to put in the work to learn, improve and grow. It is not always an easy road but it is so much better to do the work on ourselves then struggle living below our means, living a subpar life and not doing the things we love. We are in a world where access to so much information is at our fingertips to help us learn and grow. There is so much joy and happiness when we decide to have full control over building our dream life.
'I learnt more about myself than anyone else because this is my journey and I want ownership of how I live it. I learnt more about myself so no one else could try to tell me what I was capable of or my worth unless it was to my benefit. I learnt more about myself so when other people judged me and lacked faith in me, it had no affect on me. The more I have learnt about myself and how I feel, think and respond to the world, the more I have been able to achieve. It is our responsibility to live our lives for us and work on being the best version of ourselves'.
Photography Credit: Puutanga Waitoa
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