How important is having a self-development plan in general and especially for a mindful traveler? It depends on your inspirations of how to experience this life.
Perhaps it would be useful to understand how do we find ourselves in a middle of the kind of life we got. It didn't simply fallen on us from us by some chaotic freak accident. From perspective of therapeutic travel it is vital to take a long perspective on your life while on the journey being somewhat insulated from bombardment of distractions.
Most often than not in moments like this during our therapeutic travel journey we are gifted with frightening glimpses of inspiration or visions of how our life could become. It is important to pay attention to those, as they are signposts of your calling. Using self-development plan we can capture that fleeting allure and begin consciously and deliberately chart a path of manifestation to being fully alive.
From the moment we are born, we unfold our life stream experience by learning great many things by interacting with our environment. Depending on the environment where our life begins, we tend to develop and confirm our beliefs about life.
We naturally believe what we learn to perceive, whether it is accurate or not. It is largely depends on many opportunities or lack of them, but nonetheless we automatically learn to contain our reality through conclusions. Unfortunately for most of the people it happens at the time when they don't have the fully functioning capacity to access or reject faulty conclusions.
It is only natural that our habitual perception continues to tell us that the life is out there and we are separate beings reacting to what is directed at us. Upon close examination, we can detect that life is not separated from us and that our existence is really a hallow sphere existing in confluence between subjective experience and outer projection of it. It is a fantastic dance of life and our awareness is nothing but an ever- expanding, internally created collection of experiences held together by a thread of consciousness.
Once you decide to imagine what you would like with sincerity and consistent effort, you might realize that it could be the most difficult task that you ever attempted in your life. To develop this kind of clear attention of your mind to what you really would like to focus, could prove very challenging.
As you might already experienced how mind is bombarded by so much stimuli from the outside and by an incessant identification within. It is chronically prone to distraction. To help ourselves to stay focused we need some tools. Self-development plan is one of them.
When you return from travel where you experienced cultural immersion; adjustment to integrate back could be challenging. Ordinary life of routine may appear meaningless and you may experience a reverse culture shock. To have a smoother transition, bring your mind into active focus of co-creation by having a clear self-develpment plan. The benefit of having a self-development program is in its function of keeping you focused in the current reality of the physical existence.
Look at the template sample here or construct your own to support your intention to experience your life as you would like. This example includes giving to yourself and others, your personal experience as a human and fulfillment of exterior expression of your needs. You may find it useful as it is, or you can use it as a prototype and modify to your preference.
Nurture yourself on every level of your human experience. Consider what would you like to increase the experience of on each: physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. It is good to keep in mind that quality is more important than quantity. Consistently encourage yourself to give the best of your efforts possible at the moment in everything you do. Your best might change from one day to the next, but this is more about training the attitude of "best-ness". Cultivate a spirit of gratitude and appreciation as a part of self-dvelopment plan.
I would recommend a practice from Judeo-Christian tradition — to have one day a week of rest. One day a week dedicated to minimal mind activity — to practice open presence of non-conceptuality as much as possible, even daydreaming. It is proven to be beneficial method for recovery and adaptation.
Neouro-Science begun looking at daydreaming more approvingly, noticing that it can avail mind more to experience spontaneous creative insights.
Self-Nurturing after long travel.
Include any focus features in your self-development plan that you would like to be increased in your life. Take time to explore your desire, state your decision to give your full effort to it and take responsibility for visioning it in details. It is a project and you are the project manager of your life's expression. The more dedication you put into it, inevitably you give more to the world in terms of creative influence. The more you give, the more you attract and the more you receive, experience and participate. And your life increases.
Use self-development plan to manifest your inspired vision.
Even though self-development plan sounds simple, don't underestimate the effort required — it is a full time project, where you have to have a strong belief, powerful enough to change your old idea of yourself into the one that matches your inspiring life vision. Even though a habitual mind will be asking "how?", don't follow it, otherwise you will get the answer equal to your experience — your past.
When the vision is clear, apply faith — a faculty of a conscious focus to concentrate on it to become real on a level of the mind. It could be tough in the beginning. It could be like fighting a well trained pugilist in a ring, where the opponent is the reality as you perceive it. We "see" it, we believe it, we accept it.
But with faith in the vision, "Cheered" by consistency of focus, the strength of intimidating opponent will begin to diminish. Soon you will see it collapse — the seeing of the vision will permeate your consciousness and you will begin behaving in accordance with the vision, thus making it manifest.
You can do it alone, but the experience throughout history shows that having a mentor, guru, teacher or coach can increase the accuracy and speed of transformation exponentially.
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