This is Day 1 of “Be a Better Me in 30 Days” (30BBM) August 2011 Challenge.!
This month of August is going to be a month of change and conscious action. For the next 30 days, we are going to be working on a series of tasks to build our character and work towards our ideal persona. I want you to bear in mind that August is the month to Be a Better YOU. This means that regardless of what you do, people you meet, situation you’re in, I want you to challenge yourself on how you can make something better (even if you’re handling everything very well). Then, apply that insight right away. Because being a better us happens every moment, every second – not just limited to doing a specific task on a specific day from a specific course (30BBM).
I want you to commit yourself fully to 30BBM. Chunk away redundant, less important tasks you have in August right now and dedicate yourself to the daily tasks in 30BBM. Don’t even give yourself any excuse or reason to skip any day’s task. Know that no matter what happens, all of us are here to support each other, so share everything openly in your daily post.
30BBM is meant to be a “Live”, community-driven challenge, so don’t just read the tasks quietly every day and disengage from the community. You’ll experience little like this. Rather, share your results. Read what others have to say (We have a huge group of participants and you definitely don’t need to read all the comments – just a small handful is fine). Reply to the ones that resonate with you. Post a helpful note to 1-2 fellow participants if you can. If everyone of us does this, we’ll take away so much more from this experience. The more we share, the more we’ll be able to learn.
Imagine all of us inside one, large, beautiful, magnificent room right now, basked in glorious, golden light – all eager to be a better us, all yearning to push our growth to the next level. The passion each of you have for your growth is overwhelming me, truly. I’m incredibly touched by your never-wavering commitment towards betterment, and I’m very honored to be here with you on your growth journey.
If you haven’t yet, set aside an hour every day (in August) for the daily tasks. I recommend to set it first thing in the morning, such that you can read the task at the start of the day, and you have the rest of the day to do the task.
That said, this is exactly what I relish in (publishing personal boundaries and what is “defined” by others as possible), and this is what I invite all of you to do in 30BBM as well. Because it’s precisely when one is made to do what he/she is normally accustomed to do where real growth occurs.
Day 1 – Assess Your Personality
Today’s task will take about 30-45 min.
“Men of genius are admired, men of wealth are envied, men of power are feared; but only men of character are trusted.”Alfred Adler
As you know, 30BBM is to be a better us. It’s created so we can develop our character, to weed out our bad character traits, to build new, desired traits, to cultivate universal values, to re-discover ourselves – so that we become the highest person we can be proud of.
When I was in university, I didn’t like myself very much. While I was very good in what I did and put my 110% in everything I was a part of, be it in my studies, in my fashion design work , my extra-curricular activities, my project work, and was overall a very well-rounded, high performing, and highly accomplished individual (compared to the peer group), there would be often times when I wasn’t happy with how I was, on the inside.
For example, I hated how I was always so critical of others. It was great in that this part of me pushed boundaries and created the best results each time, but I often ended up having a strong distaste for people I worked with on projects (usually people who were not as committed, did things at the last minute, etc), even though I really just wanted to make pure, unadulterated connections with everyone, regardless of who they were or how they were like.
I hated how I had such a hard personality – that as much as I wanted to be a kind, pure, warm individual, that I would come across as rude, brash, masculine, critical, pinpointed, against my better wishes, because I deemed these as repulsive traits.
I hated how I was selfish – always thinking about myself and my needs in life, rather than for others.
I hated how there would be times when I would be negative and complain about every single thing, rather than get a grip of myself and get a handle of the situation.
I hated how I was such an emotionally stingy person, always looking for positive affirmations and emotional displays from others, rather than doing that myself.
I remember at that time thinking – If there were things about my personality that I didn’t like, why not work on it directly as a goal? For if there was one thing I was good at, it would be setting goals, identifying action steps, and achieving them.
And that I did. I started assessing my character. I identified the things I liked about myself, and the things I didn’t like about myself. Thereby, I thought about the ideal traits I wanted to possess – the ideal persona I wanted to achieve. I then created a plan plan to integrate these traits, one after another, and set off to make them a part of me. Every day, I would make a commitment to live through to my ideal traits.
For this week, we’re going to be working on the series of steps above – one at a time. For today’s task, you’ll be assessing yourself.
Your Task: Assess Yourself
The first task of 30BBM is to assess your personality.
Take out a pen and a piece of paper, and answer the following questions:
If you were to rate yourself on a scale of 1-10 (in terms of your personality), how much would you rate yourself? Would you give yourself a 1? Would you give yourself a 10? A 3? A 5? A 7?
Be as honest as possible. You know yourself the best. While people can only know you by how you behave and what you choose to say, you know all the thoughts that goes through your head the whole time. Are you the person others think you are? Or are you someone else? No body knows the real you better than you.
Many people think that giving yourself a score of 1-2/10 means you dislike yourself. That’s complete bullshit and it can’t be further away from the truth. Your score merely indicates how far you see yourself from your potential, ideal self (which is a 10). The bigger the gap, the higher you see your potential for growth.
So if you put yourself as 1/10, that means you see huge potential to be better – which makes it easy to be a better you. On the other hand, those who rate themselves as 9/10 or 10/10 often don’t grow much – because they already think they’re good enough. Which is fine by itself, but I believe most of us who joined the challenge do so because we recognize growth is transcendent, and there can never be an end point to how good we can be.
Why did you give yourself the score in Q1?
State down specific reasons why – At least 3-5 points to explain your score.
Elaborate as much as you can. The more you write, the better.
Now, write down 5-7 traits about yourself you want to work on.
These can be traits you don’t like about yourself, or traits you are okay with but you want to eradicate because they serve no value to you.
Remember, elaborate as much as you want. The more you write, the better.
Question 3 is actually a lead-in for Day 2′s task. Tomorrow, we will be delving into the character traits we want to work on (ergo looking deeper into your Q3 answers) – so stay tuned.
Day 1 Reflection for 30BBM
For each 30BBM task, we’ll have a quick reflection session. This is to identify and collect our learnings and reflections, rather than just do the task for the sake of doing it.
Is there anything you learned today? (Be it about yourself, or about other things.)
If so, what is it? Write it down.
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