Since it’s our attitudes and beliefs that power our hooks to each of the seven stages, let’s take a look at exactly what they are and how to gain mastery over them, so that they don’t control you.
How to Climb Through the Stages of Life with Maturity
The world is a virtual classroom and simply by living in it you’ve learned practically all you now know about life. But sometimes along the way you may need a little “tutoring” to get to a higher “grade” or stage—especially when your organic or natural process becomes stuck or you are anticipating a major life change.
As a psychologist, I have yet to meet the person who does not have to help their natural maturation process along to some extent in order to stay on the path to their potential, in an area of life.
Virtually all of us have difficulty with something that to them may seem so easy for everybody else. For example, some people are generally happy and fulfilled career wise, but leave much to be desired with respect to their love relationships or their degree of self-confidence. In your case, perhaps these things are okay, but you often find yourself worried about how others perceive you, feel disconnected spiritually, or you are now even bored with hobbies you once considered fun.
If there are people you look up to for what you perceive as their ability to master an aspect of life that’s difficult for you, chances are you merely perceive them (whether or not with accuracy) as operating from a higher stage than you are. The same can be said for those you may look down upon as being representative of a lower stage in some life area or issue.
How can you determine what’s holding you back and climb to a higher stage? One way is to understand how we mature. Most of us at times have experienced the notions of success, happiness, fulfillment, and even spirituality; as paradoxical and confusing. But remember, our capacity for achieving those things develops within us – or matures – in stages, very much the way we physically mature in stages.
Each of us is born with certain seeds that give us an innately unique potential, along with talents and such things as emotional, spiritual, and even creative specifications. As we evolve through our interaction with the world, it becomes our nature to find and then manifest all of our distinct preferences. This process is what psychologist Erik Erikson (1963) called “finding ourselves”; and it is the essence of maturity.
Just as optimal body maintenance (barring death, disease, or accident) will ensure physical maturity, and learning will promote intellectual maturity, the psyche has definite needs in order to mature as well. However, as we grow, certain parts of us are slower to develop than are others, and may need to be helped along.
To do that, you need to find ways to recognize those less-developed parts of you, while optimizing your natural process so that you can reach your highest potential. And that can be done in each and every life area that you choose to pursue. In Stage Climbing: The Shortest Path to Your Highest Potential, I outline many strategies to identify the problem that’s holding you back and resolve it in the shortest time possible. The first step is to recognize that this process is in your hands. That is— the ball is in your court to make your life exactly what you want it to be—regardless of what your life has been up until now.
This realization is true freedom; and each time you experience it with something new, you are changed forever!
Seeking Answers, and Finding Them in the New Book Stage Climbing: The Shortest Path to Your Highest Potential
I’ve always been a seeker and I have followed many paths towards becoming enlightened. I studied yoga because I thought it would help me find some of the answers to life’s biggest mysteries. I took a meditation course wanting to tap into my highest state of consciousness. I went to hear the Dali Lama speak in New York City to learn from this wise and holy man. And I’ve read his teachings and those of many others including self-help gurus Deepak Chopra and Stephen Covey.
I’ve read many wonderful words of wisdom that helped me to find inner peace and happiness. But as a seeker, the journey is constant and so I’ve sought out more readings to help myself grow. One of the books that’s had the biggest impact on my quest for knowing myself is Stage Climbing: The Shortest Path to Your Highest Potential by Michael S. Broder, Ph.D.
Benevolence is Your Calling: Find More Meaning in Your Life by Giving Back
If you have achieved a high level of accomplishment in your career and personal life, you may have found that you’ve become a victim of your own success— by realizing that things which used to motivate you no longer do. If this situation speaks to you, then giving back may be the answer.
Something more may be needed to bring meaning back into your own life; and there’s no better way than to shift your focus to the needs of others. The perfect starting point is often a place of gratitude for all the good things you have been able to manifest and enjoy in your own life, or even simply gratitude for life itself.
Michael Broder is Away
Michael Broder is away this week but will continue posting next week.
Thank you.
Out of Work in a Down Market? Base Your Next Move on Your Passions and Desire, Not Fear
Career change has become a natural choice for many at some point in life, but it’s an entirely different situation when you’re forced to make a change, while the U.S. jobless rate is hovering at over 8% and you’re part of that statistic.
Instead of being desperate to take any job that comes along in this difficult market, now may be the time for you to finally make your career about whatever is your true passion. Many people have discovered— even in this economy— that they could successfully do this with much less difficulty than they thought. You only have to look beyond your fear!
Hooks: Obstacles To Your Target Stage—Part 2
As noted before, in Stage Climbing, hooks are your thoughts, feelings, and/or behaviors that are characteristic of stages (other than your default stage, which is the stage that you tend to identify with currently) in a given life area. Hooks are anomalies to the way you normally function. And in order to be considered a hook, it needs to be identified with a specific stage.
Hooks: Obstacles To Your Target Stage
As you Stage Climb, you’ll encounter hooks – parts of yourself that act as
obstacles standing in your way of living life at your target stage.
Hooks are anomalies to the way you normally function. Think of them as your
connections to stages other than your default stage, which is the stage that you
tend to identify with currently.
I use the word “hook” as a metaphor, because these lower-stage hooks do keep
you hooked to a lower stage. You might also call them your “hang-ups.”
Typical reasons for making Job or Career Changes:
You may be aware that a job or career change is necessary for you, but feel stuck. If you currently are nowhere near a Stage Six default with your work (as discussed in last week’s blog), but wish you were, take this opportunity to ponder what you really want to be doing with this part of your life. Make a list of all the excuses that are holding you back and deal with each one separately, or, for the sake of this exercise, pretend that your excuses simply don’t exist.
Your Best Attitudes about Your Career and the Work You Do
Let’s start the month of May by looking at your typical career outlook by the stages:
- Stage One―“It’s safe and provides me with feelings of security.”
- Stage Two―“It’s an easy way to find lots of opportunities to feel powerful by manipulating and bullying others as well as (perhaps) to make easy money.”
- Stage Three―“It is the type of work my family/ ‘tribe’ does (or always did) or values most.”
- Stage Four―“It gives me prestige and/or a steady stream of good people contact.” In addition, “It pleases the people in my life whose approval I value most.”
- Stage Five―“It’s lucrative (or pays the bills) and/ or gives me something to do and/or nice contacts and perks.”
- Stage Six―“I love what I do … It’s what comes easiest to me, feels most flowing and natural … I wouldn’t want to be doing anything else … I feel fulfilled irrespective of the financial and other extrinsic rewards I get … I get pleasure from the challenge of it … If I never again had to work, I would still choose to be doing this.”
- Stage Seven―“It’s an excellent way (or the best way I can) to make the contribution I want to make the most.”
If you cannot identify with the target stages Six and Seven careerwise, you may want to consider this a wake-up call.