Most people want to improve and grow. We see people who navigate and perform at a higher level and wonder how they got there. Was it luck? More innate ability? Destiny? A better education? Someone who gave them a break?

Any of these possibilities could have played a role but they were not the most important underlying factors. Some people who have never been blessed in such a way have grown and made it to the top so we know that there has to be something else involved.

Success is a science and not a fluke. People who have succeeded leave clues as to how they did it. Those clues are easy to find and most people know what they are but most of the time we refuse to see the evident and prefer to look for more esoteric and complex explanations.

There are two major elements essential for personal growth. These are: hard work and meeting challenging experiences. Of course, there is more than that involved but these two factors are absolutely essential. Without hard work and accepting challenges that somewhat extend beyond our present abilities, very little real personal growth is possible.

As previously said, the fact that success and growth require hard work and taking on major challenges is very well known but since it’s a hard road to follow, many people will waste their life looking for an easier option. That’s too bad because the easier option simply does not exist.

To grow and succeed hard work is absolutely essential. No one ever made it big time or made quantum leap in personal growth by sticking the forty-hour week. All that is needed to validate this hypothesis is to read the biographies of the world’s achievers.

No one has to be committed to excellence. But anyone who contemplates making that commitment should know that there is a price to pay and that price is total implication and dedication. Anything short of that will simply not work.

Hard work is essential for growth and so is meeting challenges that surpass one’s present ability. We cannot grow by repeatedly doing things that we are comfortable with. To grow we must face challenges that demand that we reach down to the bottom of our soul and come up with resources that we don’t even know that we have.

It is rightly said that we only use a fraction of our brain’s capacity witch is to say that we only use only a fraction of our available resources. Those resources lay dormant deep within us just waiting to be discovered and exploited.

An athlete grows by continually challenging himself to go where he has never been before. The same principle applies in our professional life. It is by demanding more of ourselves than we believe that we can accomplish that we eventually acquire the ability to do it.

There is nothing esoteric about self-growth, about reaching the next plateau or the next echelon in our professional life. The technique can be found in the stories of all those who have made the leap from ordinary to outstanding.

To grow and become what they needed to become in order so succeed and achieve, the winners of this world had to work hard and face challenges that seemed beyond reach. It’s a time tested technique and the only one that really works.

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Tags: Personal Development