When you come to realize that thoughts decide your future, what you allow your mind to think about and dwell on will shape your personal destiny.

By gaining clarity on what we really believe about the world, we can then take effective action to change our results by taking responsibility for what we choose to think.

Positive or Benevolent World View

This group is one that lives with the view that the world is perfect the way it is, in a constant state of growth and evolution towards a better state of being. Instead of seeing problems and injustice, they see opportunities to serve and help other people. Instead of believing that they cannot do anything, they take responsibility for themselves, their thoughts and their actions.

When they are wronged by others, they understand that no one is perfect and that each and everyone of us are trying to find our own way to a better life. They may not stand for being taken advantage off, but they are willing to forgive the other person and move on with their own life.

Negative World View

This group of people tends to see problems, injustice and oppression everywhere. They see guilty and evil people everywhere. Instead or opportunity and hope, this group of people sees limitations and unfairness. This group, with a negative world view, tend to be very critical and tends to live life under a cloud of fear and darkness.

This group tends to blame any and everyone else for the state of the world, their personal lives, and everything bad that happens.

What Does This Have Got To Do With You?

While there are people who fall into both extremes, most of us live somewhere near the middle with tendencies to lean towards either the dark or the light side. What you believe about life affects everything you do. It also shapes the person you are and determines what you contribute to this world through your very existence.

Taking a closer look at both sides of the story.

Whether the world is coming to an end, whether there is injustice and problems everywhere, the fact is that complaining and bitching about it isn’t going to change it. In fact, you would be adding more negativity to the mess.

Just imagine a whole group of people sitting together bitching about the entire world coming to an end, bitching about how horrible the world is, and just plain out trying to drag everyone else into their view of the world so they can be one big mess of negative people bitching about everything.

By their actions and results they produce, you can probably tell that nothing good is going to come out of it. In fact, if allowed to grow, more and more people would get sucked in and the world may very well become what they have bitched it to be.

Result = More Negativity, Hope Killer and Ineffectiveness

On the other hand, if you choose to be in a group of people who understands that while there are problems in life, there are places where injustice still occurs, and there are people who do abuse their power to keep others down, you have the personal power and ability to take charge of your own life.

By taking responsibility for your thoughts and actions, you bring as much good into the world as you can. You meet each problem with the faith that you can and will do whatever it takes to overcome it. You take responsibility for your life and actions, knowing that what you do does have an immediate impact on you and perhaps even the people around you.

The thing is, even if everything the negative group of people bitched about were true, spreading the negativity isn’t going to make the situation any better. By taking responsibility for yourself and what happens to  you, you become more positive because you realize that you do have some degree of control over what happens to you.

You start to see possibilities, and start to see the world in more benevolent terms. You become a happier and more effective person because you have taken charge of your life.

Result = Feeling Happier, Taking Action To Create A Better Life, Increased Effectiveness

What there is to realize about positive or negative world views isn’t about who is right or wrong. It is about which is more effective for you to achieve your goals and live a happier life. By adopting the right mindset and perspective on life, you can create your own destiny.

If you are wondering where all the posts starting from 2007 went, they’re gone.

Kaput.

Finished.

Erased from the history and archives of Darbright.com.

I’m starting Darbright.com from the zero line.

Why I’m Starting All Over From The Zero-Line

The simple reason is I was messing around with an FTP program that corrupted the files on Darbright.com. It wasn’t the fault of the program. I was simply figuring out how to use the program and entered the wrong settings.

Talk about “Let’s click Enter and see what happens..”

:-p

Of course, I could always upload my backup files to restore the old blog posts. But I figured that since I’m going through a “zero-based thinking” review of my life, I might as well start Darbright.com from the ground up.

Zero-Based Thinking for Personal Growth

What is zero-based thinking? It’s one of the concepts in creating a personal strategic plan for your life, where you essentially call a time-out on your life and work to examine your current activities.

Once you have a list of your current activities, imagine yourself starting all over again. Ask yourself, “Knowing what I know now, is there anything in my life that I would not get into if I had to do it all over again?”.

Why?

One of the biggest problems that many people face is attempting to make something work that you wouldn’t even have started with, knowing what you know now. If something isn’t working for you, struggling and forcing yourself to make it work can either be seen as a virtue to triumph over adversity, or simply sheer stupidity.

It’s not as if you didn’t learn the lessons and gained from the experience, but knowing what you know now, would you even start it all over again?

Would you continue to invest time, money and emotional energy into a path that just isn’t working out for you? If you were the CEO of <<insert your name here>> Inc, would you continue pursuing a path of action that leads nowhere or would you revise your strategy for your life?

If you were the CEO of <<your name>> Inc, would you continue with a service or product line that is costing you resources with low or even negative ROEI (Return on Energy Invested)?

Or would you just kill it and go with something that has potential for greater results instead?

Knowing When To Persevere, Knowing When To Quit

Of course, there are times when you have to stick it through the tough times to get out on the other side. In many cases, the saying “It’s the darkest before dawn” holds true. Sticking through the tough times can lead you to incredible results when they blow over and you are still there.

And at other times, it’s knowing when to quit a pursuit that just isn’t going to succeed so you can invest your resources elsewhere. Many successful people have failed numerous times before they hit their jackpot. They knew when to quit when things weren’t going to work out and try their hand at something else instead.

So how do you know when to do what?

In all honesty, I don’t have a crystal ball to tell me the future. As far as I know, no one has it. We can predict or anticipate the likelihood of an outcome, but everything is still open to change based on the decisions and actions that we take today.

I’d have to say, it’s part and parcel of getting to know yourself, going through the experiences of life, and mostly maturity. It also helps when you have good people around you to advise you, or if you have gained enough insight and knowledge to realize that you are on the wrong path.

It can really seem overwhelming to realize that your life truly and only rests in your hands, but the truth is no one can decide your life for you. They can only share their experiences, thoughts and perspectives on your situation. Take their perspectives into consideration, keep what is relevant, and dump out the rest.

Ultimately, you have to take stock of what you are good at, what activities you most enjoy, and where you are currently in your life. Based on everything that you know, should you continue on your current path or do something different?

While it seems like perseverance is a good character trait to have, it’s also important to know when to call it quits and pursue something else. Getting to understand what you are good at and what you aren’t is an important element to knowing if you should stop or continue plugging away.

It’s time to get honest with yourself. If you’re never going to be that good at what you’re doing, then you can either decide that this is what you are going to settle for in life or take that risk to pursue something different.

When You Should Apply Zero Based Thinking

A zero-based thinking approach to reviewing your life is useful when you reach a crossroad in your journey. When you are at a decision point, you can use this approach to review your current activities to see if you should be continuing what you are doing, or if you really should be doing something different.

Once you have decided, you can still continue applying zero-based thinking as you move forward. This time, instead of doing a major overhaul of your life, you can apply this concept to the “mini-projects” that take you closer to your life goal.

For example, if your goal is to become financially free, then you can review what you are doing financially for their ROI. If they are performing according to the set expectations, then continue with your savings or investment program. If they aren’t, or if you realize that you don’t have the other resources of time or energy to manage them, then perhaps you need to consider a different approach.

This concept can also apply to your business if you are an entrepreneur. Each project that you do to take your business forward can be reviewed on a regular basis to see if they are delivering results. If you are selling a product that is losing you money, the best thing you can do is to kill it off and replace it with something else (unless it is a loss leader).

But once you are on something that is delivering results, then stick with it. Don’t jump on the “next best thing” unless you are capable of handling it. It’s been said that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, and you don’t want to be chasing the wind when you already have a pot of gold in your own front yard.