Personal growth and development does not have an end. You can't point to a place on a map, or a chart, or a test, and say that once you've gotten to that point, you're done. Rather, it's a journey, that you're on whether you like it or not. The choices you make determine where you may go, but once you get there, you get to look around and say to yourself, "Where next?"

 

"Who we want to be tomorrow is someone who is good at what we strugle with today. However, we must realise that they are good at it BECAUSE we struggled with it today."

 

Learning, developing, growing, is a struggle. You don't look at a piano and intuitively and instively know how to play it, to know every nuance and facet of the power of emotional evocation of music. Rather, you begin the process of learning how to strike notes in a meaningful order and tempo, learning what you and the instrument are capable of, learning how the sounds the piano can make cause impact to the listeners.

 

This is the process that applies to all aspects of your life. Yom, Ons, Sni working together, what are they capable of, what are their limitations, what tricks can they do to get you where you want to be.

 

What do you want to struggle at today, so that you can achieve tomorrow, and then what new struggle do you want to undertake tomorrow to continue your growth?

 

All development of oneself requires active engagement and choice by oneself. Without your eager, active participation and desire to grow, no one else is capable of teaching or changing you.

 

Accepting who you are - does not mean being content, but it means seeing yourself as worthy of putting in your own work to improve.

 

 

“If you want something you've never had you must be willing to do something you've never done.” ― Thomas Jefferson

 

A great quote, but why here. Through most of life we hide, who we are, what we think, what we want, who we would like to be - out of fear for what others may think, out of fear for the consequences. We tread cautiously with our family, our friends, our coworkers, and most often even ourselves. We tell little lies through life, to hide our real thoughts in socially acceptable ways.

 

In order to really grow, you must be willing to do something you've never done, to be completely, unreservedly, open and honest. Imagine now, what it would be like to be able to be so completely open and honest with yourself, with someone else. Developing in the Yomonsni method requires a level of openness and honesty that can only be called radical.

 

This radical openness also applies to being open to all the new thoughts, ideas and experiences that are needed for your growth.

 

 

 

The purpose of a journal is multilayered. Not only is it a good way to keep track of what your doing toward or against your development, but it's a good place to record and analyze your own thoughts on a daily basis about all the things going on in your life.

 

In and ideal world, your journal is shared with your Yomonsni practitioner, as you write it. As yet Yomonsni doesn't have the facilities for this, but we'll get there. So working with a physical journal, you bring it with you to each appointment.

 

Each day as you wake, the first thing into your journal would be your daily goals. For your development, pick something simple for Yom, Ons and Sni. Add in whatever else you need to accomplish as tasks for the day.

 

At the end of the day, part of the reflection for you will be to review the days goals and figure out whether they were too easy, too difficult, and how the day played out.

 

 

 

"The unexamined life is not worth living" - Socrates

 

While aspects of this show up in journaling, but this is a much deeper thought worthy of it's own space and explanation. These concepts are mostly applied to yourself for development purposes, but you can apply them to the world as well.

 

Detailed observation means you need to pay attention to everything going on. What do you do, how do you sleep, what do you eat, etc, and what are the outcomes. What happens afterward, whether one day or three. Are there consistent patterns between the things you do and the things that happen?

 

Rigorous examination requires that you question yourself, your believes, your views, your fantasies, your actions. Why are they there, are they something you want to keep, something you want to explore, or something you want to leave behind? What's the next level to the answer rather than the first easy answer?

 

Rigorous examination requires analysis of all knowledge and sources of information for validity and suitability. Understand the statement, and the conditions under which it applies and doesn't before you accept it and integrate it into your knowledge, or utilize it in your development plan.

 

Your Yomonsni practitioner will help you with this, asking questions, helping you to discover, explore and observe.

 

"Experimentation -- TRUE experimentation -- means that you push yourself until you fail." Failure is not only a possibility, it's a requirement, so that you learn where your limits are, so you can address them and try again and next time push yourself beyond the point where you failed the last time." John Michael Strazinski, creator of Babylon 5, talking about a quote from the US Marine Corps Commandant.

 

Think about that, failure is necessary. So rather than trying to avoid it or hide from it, welcome failure with open arms, embrace it and appreciate the lessons it provides on your limitations and the feedback it gives.