Raising the Bar

I was just reading a book about PR, and there was a section about raising the bar; improving yourself and becoming better and better as you go.

People who've talked to me about this before knows what I always say. It doesn't matter if you're 'not as good' as your competitor or your peers or whoever when you start off, as long as you have the attitude of improvement.

What I mean is, you could be the last in your class, and everyone could be well ahead of you, but if they stay where they are, while you keep on moving forward, pretty soon, you'd be well ahead of them!

Life isn't stagnant, it keeps moving, everything in life is progressing, and when it comes to technology and science and those kinda things, we all know it because it can be so clearly seen. But it also applies to personal development, and the problem with most people is that they don't realize this.

How many people you know never grow personally, even as a child to an adult? You see the difference in them as they become less childish and more serious, but that doesn't mean they've grown up. In fact, it probably means they're more immature than ever.

There's a difference between being childish and immature, by the way. You can be childish and yet very mature, and being serious doesn't make you a mature person. I personally, will never stop being childish, because OMG, life is fun! As it should be. =D

Anyway, I digress again.

As I was saying: personal progress, raising the bar, being better than you were before...

Nobody's perfect, and nobody could ever be perfect, and if that's the case, then that means that we can always improve. Everyday, all the time. I've said this before also, that my own personal goal is to be better today than I was yesterday, and be better tomorrow than I am today. It doesn't matter how little I improve, or in whatever department or aspect of my life, as long as I am better than before.

And with this attitude, even if I compare myself with millionaires my age, I know eventually I'll catch up to them, unless of course, they improve too. =)

As I've said, I don't really compare much, just sometimes it's necessary to compare to know where you are, but I never let it get me down if I think I'm not doing as well as others, because I know for a fact, that I will get better.

Some people reach a certain level and they believe they're so good that it's not necessary to improve anymore, some people don't even know it's possible to improve. So they stagnate, and fall behind when others move ahead, but they still believe they're the best because they've fostered their beliefs for so long and it's hard to accept anything else.

I know a couple of people like that. People whom I used to respect, and whom I learned so much from because they *were* the best. Years ago, they were my teachers, my masters, my gurus, my sifus. But I've continued growing, and they've stopped, and as a result they've actually moved backward. So the student has become better than the teacher. But the problem with the teacher is that they are no longer teachers but they can't accept the fact because they've been the teachers for so long, it's hard not to teach anymore.

My problem with them is that I wouldn't mind them continuing to teach, if they had something new to teach, but they don't, and they don't want to improve either, while the world around them is improving.

Imagine that you're using the latest, newest, highest technology computer, and the manual you got with it is for those old computers we used to use 10 years ago. Imagine if the technician insisted that you learn to use your new computer with the old manual.

Things change, the world is moving forward, you need to change and move forward with it, or else you're going to be left behind.

So... raise the bar, keep on growing, keep learning, keep improving yourself, it's a never-ending lifelong quest.