I’ve gone long enough without pursuing a challenge for myself, so I decided to construct another one for myself: I’m calling it the Pure Heart challenge, as it’s designed to, well, make me “pure of heartâ€.
I’ve realized, over time, that I need to work on a few aspects of my personality – that is, even though I ‘know’ what I should do, I’m not doing some important things. These flaws are, among others:
- Judging others and things negatively
- Giving sarcastic, damaging criticism, instead of providing something constructive
- Not being truly authentic; telling ‘white lies’ and hiding my true personality
- Feeling defensive and closed to prevent others from truly connecting with me
The Pure Heart Challenge is going to address those flaws by trying to make behavior opposite to them a habit.
For example, I’m going to be nonjudgmental of everything and everyone else when I can as a part of the challenge. The idea isn’t to label my previous behavior bad – ironically, to do so would be to negatively judge my past behavior and thus resist any change from it – but to simply try out these new behaviors as a thought experiment. If they’re useful in living my life, as I think they will be, I’ll keep them, and if not, I’ll return to my past behavior.
I do want more from this challenge, though: I want you to join me.
New Behavior
You’ve probably figured out what I want to do with this challenge by now: I want to reverse my flawed behavior and impulses. More specifically, this is what I’d like to do:
- Become nonjudgmental to all situations, states of mind, and people
- When in a position to give criticism, adopt the position of a teacher rather than a critic
- Be truly authentic and open with everyone, no matter how I may be judged
- Give true gifts, every day – even if it’s hard for me to do
- Live more in the now and stop concerning myself with the past or future, which I have no control over
I feel like I’ve spent enough time being judgmental and negative in specific circumstances where my impulse is triggered and I feel like I ‘have to’ give a negative response. Those situations usually are when I’m around other people, hence the objective for me to be more pure of heart; I want to become better around others, simply put. I want to be able to share the positivity I feel with other people, in “real-life†situations. It’s easy to do it digitally, since your words are the only things that communicate your emotion, but, by my own admission, I think I’m much, much too reactive and quick act impulsively in the real world. I’ve gotten into the bad habit of not sharing who I am – everything, from my “true†personality and gifts to my positivity – with others, and I think that’s the most important thing I need to correct.
That’s why the Pure Heart Challenge will push me to the next level of my development, I think – I’ve done enough self-development work on my own and have changed a large part of my personality. However, I’ve found I’m still using the same ‘personality imprint’ that I’ve always used around people in school, which means I’m acting pretty close to the same way I did years ago, before I got into self-development.
However, I don’t intend on being super-serious about this challenge. I’m not going to try and force things at all, except at the beginning of the challenge, when my resistance to the new behavior will be the highest. I plan to be disciplined, but I will stay away from having an iron fist of punishment come down on me if, for example, I’m judgmental of others: I think I’m finally learning that punishment is not a very effective mechanism for learning. If I make mistakes, I’ll make mistakes, but this is just a thought experiment that I plan on continuing for a very long time. To punish myself for doing wrong would be against the principles of the challenge; namely nonjudgement and being a teacher.
Speaking of which – I don’t know when I’ll be able to give the results for this challenge. My timetable for posting the results is this: when I feel like my personality has changed enough so the Pure Heart principles are automatic for me, I’ll call the challenge a success and let you know how I did.
In the meantime? The principles I outlined above are great things for you to implement too, no matter who you are. The world needs more authentic people who bring the best out of others – and being nonjudgmental and serving as an example of authenticity is precisely how you do that.
Plus, taking the challenge will be an adventure – a true test of your ability to rewrite your behavior and produce some personal growth. Anything is possible – even if you’re the most negative, judgmental, and fake person in the world, you can still change by deciding to take the challenge.
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Take that step, and keep those feet moving by becoming pure of heart in all situations.