Everything we need in order to become the person we were born to be and to fulfil our highest potential is right within our reach. The major reason that so few of us actually attain to becoming all that this means can be summed up in one simple word: NEGLECT.

Neglect is like an infection. Deliberate neglect leads to guilt which leads to an erosion of our self confidence. This in turn lowers our level of activity which then diminishes results which then of course depresses our general attitude….which of course then erodes our self confidence – and we repeat the above cycle.

So, you may ask yourself, what are the antidotes? Responsibility and persistence are two character traits that readily spring to mind. But how do we make these palatable and not boring? The answer is that we have to learn to associate both of these with good emotions and ultimately with passion.
There is an obviously strong connection between responsibility and success. It is always in your best interests to take responsibility for everything you do. Ask yourself the question – ‘what would be different for me if I did this?”. Accepting responsibility is one of the highest forms of human maturity. Done so with eagerness and confidence, knowing that it is producing a higher good, it becomes a thing to be enjoyed and not a thing to be dreaded.

A second major trait that combats neglect is that of persistence. Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. And what keeps persistence from being boring? The answer, as always, lies in the way you think about it. Persistence is really about giving yourself a chance. It’s about deciding in the face of resistence, to ‘break free’ – which sometimes means withdrawing, re-grouping and trying another approach. A practical and pleasant strategy for trying another approach would be to turn ‘have to’s ‘ into ‘choose to’s’. Ask yourself what would be different if, instead of saying “I have to….” you said ‘I choose to…make the bed, write the assignment, organise the budget’. Notice the difference in the feeling produced for you by these two statements.

Failure is not a single cataclysmic event. Generally speaking you do not fail overnight. Instead failure is a few errors of judgement repeated every day- for example, the choice to indulge in the habit of neglect every day. On the other hand, responsibility and persistence pay dividends.

All of the above can be summed up in the thoughts of somebody who once said “Life is like a field of newly fallen snow – where I choose to walk, every step will show” – either reflecting the steps of neglect or the steps of responsibility and persistence.