Personal Development and the Well-Ordered Life

The following article is from the new book, Getting Personal: A Guide to Personal Development by author and speaker, John Patrick Hickey.  To read more from John Patrick Hickey or to get his books, training and book him to speak to your church, business or group, visit our website at www.johnpatrickhickey.com.  

It is not unique to success-minded people to want a well-ordered life. Many people spend far too much of their time running here and there, trying to bring all the loose ends of their lives together. People suffer from being overwhelmed, stressed out and feeling like they are spinning their wheels and getting nowhere. A bit of order in our lives is the desire of many people today.

Success-minded people understand that there is a difference between having an orderly life and a balanced one. The truth is, success-minded people do not seek a balanced life. When things are “balanced”, they stand still. There is no action, no movement and no change. It is only when things are able to move and we embrace life’s ups and downs that we can enjoy the thrill of living.

Think of it this way: if you balance a board on a fulcrum, once it is in balance, it stops moving; it is still. So it is with our lives. Once we get them in balance we stop moving and, therefore, stop growing. Just because a life is never fully in balance, it does not mean that it is not orderly. Order is the ability to plan, take action and go forward in the direction you wish to go.

Order is one of the great benefits of personal development. When we strive to grow and be our best, things naturally come into place. It is the power of knowing what you want in life and how you will get it. I know that many do not know, or have not decided, what they want in life and thus do not know where they are going or how to get there. This causes us to run here and there, and to play a game of hit-or- miss with our daily activities. A focused purpose brings order because you will then know what is necessary to do and what is not.

There is another quality of order that success-minded people know and strive for that is in the area of cleanliness. Not just keeping clean and neat, although we will talk about that, but in several areas of life. The three areas of life that one must work to keep clean and orderly are their mind, behavior and body.

To discover how you can achieve the dream you have believed was impossible for too long, read Getting Personal: A Guide to Personal Development by John Patrick Hickey.  You can get a signed copy for yourself and get one for a friend, by going to http://www.johnpatrickhickey.com/it-is-good-to-set-goals-better-to-achieve-then/.  Now available on Kindle, Oops! Did I Really Post That? Online Etiquette in the Digital Age by John Patrick Hickey.

© 2016 John Patrick Hickey. No part of this may be reprinted or published without permission of the author.