Setting Your Sail

Forming and refining your personal philosophy of life is a process that never ends. It started way back when you were a child. The schools you attended, your parents, your experiences–all of these factors have played a role in developing your philosophy. Your personal philosophy is the major factor of your destiny.

I (Jim Rohn) used to think that circumstances ordered my life. If someone would have remarked to me when I was twenty-five, “Mr. Rohn, you’re not doing well–you’ve got pennies in your pocket, creditors calling, nothing in the bank. You are behind on your promises to your family. You live in America and have every reason to do well, yet things are going badly for you. What is wrong here?” It would not have occurred to me to blame my philosophy.

I found it much easier to blame the government, to blame the tax problem. I used to say taxes are too high. The top tax rate when I first started paying taxes was ninety-one percent. Back then, when your income reached a certain level, all the money you earned beyond that was taxed at ninety-one percent. Now the top rate is half that, and people are still saying that taxes are too high. But if they’ve decreased so substantially, how can they be too high? I threw all my old excuses away. It seems that some people have found them, though. And they’ve picked them up, dusted them off, and they’re using the excuses themselves.

I used to blame the traffic, the weather… all sorts of circumstances. I found it easier to blame the company than to blame myself. I used to say, “If this is all they pay, how do they expect me to do well?” I figured that my future was going to be tied to what was going on around me: the economy, interest rates, retail prices. I had a limitless supply of things to blame until Mr. Shoaff taught me where the problem really resided: in my own personal philosophy.

What makes us different than dogs and birds and cats and spiders and alligators? What makes us different than all other life forms? It’s the ability to think, the ability to use our mind, the ability to process ideas and not just operate by instinct. It’s the ability to form our own personal philosophy.

In the winter, geese can only fly south. Human beings are not like geese. We can fly south if we want, but we can also turn around, go north, go east, go west–we can determine the entire process of our own life.

We do that by the way we think. We do that by exercising our mind. We do that by processing ideas and coming up with a better philosophy, a better strategy for our life. We can set goals for the future and formulate plans to achieve those goals. All this comes from developing our philosophy.

A philosophy helps us to process our options. Is it possible to take the raw material we’ve all been given and turn it into something spectacular and unique that no other person can do? The answer is yes.

But you cannot even see all these options, let alone know what to do with them, unless you start using your mind to come up with ideas to strengthen your philosophy. That is a major challenge of life.

Each person’s personal philosophy is like the set of a sail. If you want to trim a better sail, you don’t need a better economy. If you blame the economy and the marketplace, the schools and the teachers, the sermons and the preachers, the company and its policy, what else is there? When some people get through with their blame list, there’s nothing left to blame but themselves. It is a colossal mistake to blame the only things you’ve got to work with. You know you can’t change the seasons; you’ve got to take them as they come. What can you change to make your life work better? You must start with your philosophy.

Once I got rid of all my old excuses and started examining the real problem–my personal philosophy–my life exploded into change. My bank account changed immediately. My income changed immediately. My whole life instantly took on a new look. The early results from making these philosophical changes felt so good that I never stopped the process from that day forward.

Once you set a better sail by refining your philosophy, your whole life’s direction can start to change from that day forward. You don’t have to wait until tomorrow. You don’t have to wait until next month. You don’t have to wait until conditions are perfect. You can start this whole process immediately. I recommend it.

* Source: Leading an Inspired Life by Jim Rohn