Lessons Learned and Unlearned

Stephen R. Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People have helped millions of people since its publication in 1989 to improve their relationships, their businesses, and their lives in general. Each of the 7 habits alone is powerful enough to really change one's life, but all 7, when applied in order, will lead to success in life. My personal favorite of the habits is number 6 which is "Synergize". The ideas behind synergy is that 1+1=3. Now at face value, that doesn't make sense. But, what he is saying is that the whole of a synergistic, interdependent relationship is greater than the sum of the parts. When two people who are independent decide to form a relationship, whether casual, romantic, business, or whatever the nature of that relationship is, they can do far more together than they could ever do apart, even when added together. When we join forces, we are more capable to accomplish what we set out to do than we could ever do separately. I love these ...

Ultimate success in this mortal journey we are on comes from our ability to master ourselves. At the root of self mastery is the ability to control our thoughts. For if we control our thoughts, we control our desires. If we control our desires, we control our actions. If we control our actions, we control our destiny and our ultimate success. Controlling one's thoughts is a lot easier said than done. It requires diligence, dedication, sacrifice, humility, and a plethora of other values. But, even thought the price is high, the results we gain from learning to control our thoughts are immeasurable. True freedom and peace come from the ability to prevent unhealthy or promiscuous thoughts, to stop worrying about things outside our control, and to consciously trust in the Lord in all things. In order to truly control what we think, we need to first have a desire to change. That desire comes by our searching for it. Prayer, scripture study, and church and temple attendance will help us ...

This week, as part of the study material, I watched a video entitled "A Hero's Journey" which was a devotional given at Brigham Young University-Idaho by Jeff Sandefer. I learned many important lessons from this devotional, but the thing that stood out to me the most was the importance of making our lives meaningful. The details of what we actually do in life really aren't all that important in the long term. I could be a professional athlete, an entrepreneur, a grocery store clerk, or whatever else I could possibly think of. The details don't matter. What matters is that I love what I do, and it gives meaning to my life. As a result of this point made by Sandefer, I have pondered what things would give my life meaning. I have realized even more that my biggest focuses in life are my church and my God, my family, and my personal improvement. Luckily for me, I can fit those priorities into almost any field of study and any career. My challenge will be using whateve...

This past week was the General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and there was a theme that I feel God was showing me throughout many of the talks given by the leaders of the church. That theme was preparation. I have been guilty of letting myself get behind the ball on a lot of things over the past few weeks. With work, school, family, relationships, and other commitments, I was becoming quite overwhelmed and stressed out. I wasn't managing my time very well, I wasn't eating healthily or exercising often, and I was allowing myself too much time to sit back and relax when I could have been more productive. During conference, two talks in particular really seemed to speak to me. Elder David A. Bednar and President Russell M. Nelson both spoke about the need to be prepared in all things. I was immediately reminded of how much better I could be doing, and how the Lord expects me to be ready for things like marriage, a career, having kids, receiving chu...

 This week I learned a lot about the importance of self-esteem and believing in yourself in finding success in life. I had many experiences this week that challenged my belief in myself. They differed in nature- some challenging my confidence in my abilities, my values, my relationships with others, etc. For example, there was one day at work this week where a lot of things just weren't going my way. There were multiple unhappy customers, my boss was upset with me and my coworkers, and I kept messing up little things that I do very frequently and rarely mess up. I was really frustrated with myself, and  started to wonder if I was good enough for the tasks put in front of me and good enough for the people I work with. I struggled for a long time that day, but I finally found a cure to my worry and anxiety. There were may other similar experiences this week, but there was a common thread in overcoming each of these struggles. If I based my confidence in my God and trusted in Him...