Well, here it is again – New Year!
So often we create a list of resolutions at this time of the year – so often they represent a super-to-do-list – and so often we lose passion for our commitments as the year progresses.
As all readers familiar with my work will know, a cornerstone of Higher Ground Leadership® are The CASTLE® Principles – an acronym for Courage, Authenticity, Service, Truthfulness, Love and Effectiveness.
So here is a suggestion – rather than promising that we will “DO” something, perhaps we might make an even bigger difference by committing to “BE” something – and the something I have in mind is to live The CASTLE® Principles in 2008, by being more:
Courageous: Being brave enough to reach beyond the boundaries created by our existing, often deeply held, limitations, fears, and beliefs. Initiating change in our lives, of any kind, is only possible when we are courageous enough to take the necessary action.
Authentic: Committing oneself to showing up and being fully present in all aspects of life. Removing the mask and becoming a real, vulnerable, and intimate human being, a person without self-absorption who is genuine and emotionally and spiritually connected to others.
Serving: focusing on the needs of others by listening to them, identifying their needs, and meeting them. Being inspiring, rather than following a self-focused, competitive, fear-based approach.
Truthful: Being truthful in all thoughts, words, and actions, and listening to the truth of others and refusing to compromise integrity, or to deny obvious or universal truths, even when avoiding the truth might, on the face of it, seem easier, especially in testing times.
Loving: Embracing the underlying oneness with others. Relating to and inspiring them in ways that add to who you both are as persons.
Effective: Being capable of, and successful in, achieving the physical, material, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual goals we set in life.
If we all lived this way – we would change the world. How’s that for a New year’s Resolution?
May 2008 be a year filled with many blessings for you and may the CASTLE® Principles guide you to a more fulfilled and loving life.
Before reading this, I was compelled to pick up my copy of ONE and glance through it again as the old year ended and the new one began. With an important political year looming, it strikes me that using the CASTLE Principles to assess the suitability of candidates for the presidency is perhaps more useful than studying their policy statements and white papers.
I can’t think of a better New Year’s resolution than to breathe new life into my own resolve to stay true to the truth that lives in them.
Need to add this to those of Lance:
Being healthy; I’ve had a fever of above 39 during 31st of dec and stayed the night in the hospital. None of my plans for the 31st did work.
Thus the most important thing you need to be is to be healthy. The rest follows this.