It is necessary to go back to the roots of personal development by helping my readers reinforce the understanding of how the weaknesses in our thinking are the major obstacles in our paths to success. Success may mean a financial goal for some, it may be the surviving the shame and ridicule of a determined enemy, perhaps overcoming a serious health problem, it may be holding a family together, being a good father, a good mother, a good leader.
As the winds increase in force and the seas break into white caps, are your sails set to weather the storm? Will your ship flounder, capsize or be smashed into pieces upon the rocks? Or with bold determination can you drive sharply into the gales… failure be damned!
Source: rashapictures.com
A detailed view on Jim Rohn’s “Set of the Sail” as written in his book “The Five Major Pieces to the Life Puzzle” (1991):
We all have our own ideas about the things that affect our lives, based on the information we have gathered over the years. Each of us has a personal view about government, education, the economy, our employer, and a host of other issues. What we think about these issues adds to our emerging philosophy and causes us to reach certain conclusions about life and how it operates. These conclusions then lead us to make specific value judgments, which determine how we will act on any given day and in any given circumstance. We have all made and will continue to make decisions based upon what we think is valuable. Whether the decisions we are making will lead us toward inevitable success or unavoidable failure depends on the information we have gathered over the years to form our personal philosophy.
.
Personal Philosophy Is Like the Set of the Sail
In the process of living, the winds of circumstance blow on us all in an unending flow that touches each of our lives. We have all experienced the blowing winds of disappointment, despair, and heartbreak. Why then, would each of us, in our own individual ship of life, all beginning at the same point, with the same intended destination in mind, arrive at such different places at the end of the journey? Have we not all sailed upon the same sea? Have we not been blown by the same winds of circumstance and buffeted by the same turbulent storms of discontent?
What guides us to different destinations in life is determined by the way we have chosen to set our sail. The way that each of us thinks makes the major difference in where each of us arrives. The major difference is not circumstance, but the set of the sail.
The same circumstances happen to us all. We all have those moments when, in spite of our best plans and efforts, things just seem to fall apart. Challenging circumstances are not events reserved for the poor, the uneducated or the destitute. The rich and the poor have children who get into trouble. The rich and the poor have marital problems. The rich and the poor have the same challenges that can lead to financial ruin and personal despair. In the final analysis, it is not what happens that determines the quality of our lives, but what we choose to do when we have struggled to set the sail and then discover, after all of our efforts, that the wind has changed direction. When the winds change, we must change. We must struggle to our feet once more and reset the sail in the manner that will steer us toward the destination of our own deliberate choosing. The set of the sail, how we think and how we respond, has a far greater capacity to destroy our lives than any challenges we face. How quickly and responsibly we react to adversity is far more important than the adversity itself. Once we discipline ourselves to understand this, we will finally and willingly conclude that the great challenge of life is to control the process of our own thinking.
(Thank you, Jim for your timeless wisdom).
Please share, like and comment if this is the first time you’ve heard about “The Set of the Sail” or if you are well familiar with it.
.
I’ll see you… on the next page
Challen Yee