Where to start with personal growth? Methods for developing personal growthReviewed by https://plus.google.com/u/0/106316628551306822086 on Sep 6Rating: 4.5
Greetings, dear colleagues and friends!
Do you often wonder about the relevance of personal growth? Have you already realized the importance and necessity of constant (daily) development of yourself as an PERSON?
Are you observing life or living it? Do you clearly know in what way and with what help you are going to make a breakthrough towards improving the standard of your life? Answer these questions for yourself so that you can compare them with what I offer below.
Development and methods of personal growth
The choice in this case is not too wide (which is good). You either find the path yourself and a convenient way to go through it, or read thematic literature, which to a certain extent will teach you some techniques that help stimulate the development of personal growth and measure the results obtained. You can also turn to a professional who will walk along this path with you, monitoring the correctness of the direction and pointing out mistakes. This is called coaching (an expensive pleasure, by the way :).
You need to do personal growth and self-improvement yourself, and not pay money to cool guys who will pull your ears
All this, of course, is just a theory. Practice is much more interesting and fun! When engaging in personal growth, you need to try to accept not only the prospects for a better life, but also those hardships, and most importantly, the changes that will affect you in one way or another. After all, any, even the most useful, change in your life will require correction of what has been improved. You agree with me?
If you are not ready to accept a new way of life, if everything suits you and you think that you have achieved complete perfection, then urgently close this article and go to your favorite sofa to warm your f... I meant your tummy. What did you think?
Currently, self-improvement, personal growth of a person
and
self-development
have become very popular. A person increasingly turns inward to solve problems and issues.
This is the only sure way to change and improve your life.
A person lives in poverty not because “the state is bad,” a woman cannot get married not because “there are no normal men left.” The whole problem is in a person’s head, in his thoughts, beliefs, stereotypes and principles.
Today I will share with you O-O-Very simple and effective techniques for personal development
.
Our subconscious
You need to change and rebuild yourself. It is not enough to read smart articles, books on self-development and personal growth. What happens in most cases? - the person read and forgot. It is important to practice what one has learned. This takes time and effort.
It is not enough to change your status on a social network page. In the hope that these words will reach the desired addressee, the person wrote the same thing and forgot.
People expect changes, but do not change themselves. This is internal work, working with our subconscious.
The subconscious is one of the main keys to self-improvement and personal growth. By changing your subconscious, you change your habits, behavior and relationships. This is possible through visualization, affirmation, meditation and based on the analysis of behavior and habits.
From words to deeds
What techniques
can you use to
develop
your
personality
? I answer this question through the prism of personal experience and my own results. I began my journey of developing myself as a person and as a woman by learning to recognize myself.
I benefited from the behavior and actions of people around me - at work, at home, on the street and everywhere. I did this not for evaluation or criticism. It was important for me to learn how to act, react and behave in a better way.
Communication with successful, educated and highly spiritual people increased my knowledge of how the mind and thoughts affect human behavior and action
I present to you simple but effective techniques for personal development
. This is where every person who has decided to increase their personal effectiveness and develop themselves can start.
Be observant
Look around you and pay attention to how people behave in different situations. Analyze the behavior of those you meet at work, in the store, on the bus, train and on the street.
Watch and learn from the people you see on TV. On this issue, little is taught today. Again, what matters here is what you watch and whether it has any benefit to your development.
Imitation experience is also useful
Try on yourself the way they speak, behave in society, and even the way successful people walk, or people with whom you would like to have similar traits.
Life contrast
Notice how you feel when people shout or speak quietly. Observe how people use their voices, as well as facial and body language (non-verbal communication tools).
Conduct a deep analysis of your environment
What happens to people who are upset or irritated, and what happens to those who are calm and relaxed.
If you notice something in people's behavior that you find unpleasant, pay attention to yourself.
Most likely, these negative traits are also present in you. Every time they appear in your character, say the following words to yourself (an example of a negative trait is irritability and grumpiness): “I live consciously and I understand that I am very irritable and grouchy. I am aware of the presence of these undesirable traits in my character, and I will do everything possible to avoid their manifestations.”
Start changing your habits
A habit is a pattern of behavior. Behavior is a set of actions and reactions. If you start changing habits and forming new ones, this will take you to a new level of life.
Mechanical reconfiguration
Visualize over and over in your mind how you would like to act and behave. But every time you act on your old habits, for example, transfer the bracelet from one hand to the other, thereby reminding yourself of your decision to change and improve, and act accordingly. This way you will learn to “switch” yourself and soon you will do without bracelets and other devices.
The result will be, and success will come into your life, but not immediately. For this, I repeat, you need strength, patience, desire to change and time. Let you manage to make an effort on yourself every once in a while - that’s good. The main thing is a firm intention to change, develop yourself and systematic, albeit small at first, victories over your old habits.
I'm glad if you liked the article! — Write comments, we will discuss your questions.
We know everything, but we don’t fly!
Surely many of you, reading various articles and watching videos, are convinced that you already KNOW EVERYTHING! That the topic of personal growth has been covered far and wide...
In fact, that's pretty much it.
The reason is that those people who want to grow and develop, before reading literature, turning to professionals and taking other steps, have already spent dozens of hours thinking about how to accept their weaknesses, how to turn them into dignity, how to develop talents and yourself as a person. That is why most of the information on this topic seems familiar to us, and in some cases even banal. And this, oddly enough, becomes one of the main reasons, one of the most serious barriers to self-improvement.
It seems to us that life experience will better suggest and help us make the right decision, that no book, no coach will help us as much as our own considerations. Alas, the majority of those who have already begun to take steps towards personal growth have not gotten rid of the erroneous and often destructive belief that outside help is good, but experience is still better.
The point is not to devalue the priceless. NO!
Experience is, of course, a very important mentor on the path to solving most problems, but you must admit that it often tells you what not to do, rather than what you should do, especially when it comes to a direction in which you have never gone before.
It is at this stage that many people mistake ordinary intuition for experience, which, as we know, is not always objective in its clues.
All of the above meant that before you start taking any actions regarding personal growth, you need to get rid of excess confidence in what you have not done yet and have never done before! Only after this can you count on the success of your chosen path or individual technique.
Without ridding ourselves of this obstacle, we can spend years distorting with our personal opinions all the tested methods, and calling those who could really help us mediocre!
Those who have gone a long and successful distance on the path to personal growth were able to do so, first of all, because they approached each new barrier like a child approaches a new toy that is worth exploring, solving and moving on. They did not act like gray-bearded pseudo-sages who try to write their name in the place that is intended for a period! Everything is much simpler than we sometimes think.
Remarque
*This text, as well as the entire topic of personal growth, applies to those people who are over 16 years old, to put it mildly. There is no point in asking the question of personal growth too early; it makes no sense and can even do harm by introducing unnecessary anxiety into the thoughts of too young people.
Personal growth through self-development
Every person constantly undergoes a process aimed at developing and improving certain qualities or character traits. This is self-development, which allows a person to form adequate self-esteem and make the right decisions in any life situations. In the course of self-development, a person constantly analyzes himself, creates new strategies that, from his point of view, will help achieve individual goals.
Personal growth , as a process, is closely related to a person’s independent work on his personality. We can say that this is precisely the main meaning of the life of every individual. During the course of their earthly existence, all people develop; this becomes possible thanks to these two, inextricably linked processes. In the case when self-development and personal growth stop regardless of the reasons, the process of degradation begins.
Self-development is a constant process; its uniqueness lies in its infinity. As a result, a person gets the opportunity to expand his horizons, gain new knowledge and skills, develop his thinking, etc. This makes life more interesting and rich.
The effectiveness of methods for developing personal growth
The importance of the method that you choose as the main source of learning techniques is difficult to overestimate. The speed with which you will assimilate new information, literacy in the sequence of application of various techniques, and, of course, the final result directly depends on this.
Alas, almost all of us are hostages of circumstances, and we cannot afford to devote too much time to one direction; this will lead to problems where this time has become less. This means that all the useful ways of studying techniques can stimulate your personal growth, alas, cannot be combined into a complex, but with a competent approach, even using them in pairs can bring you a lot of benefit. If we break them down into basic single methods, then as efficiency increases, we get something like this:
1. An effect that can only be obtained from reading books.
The benefit from such study of techniques and advice is very insignificant. You cannot ask again, you cannot check the degree of progress you wanted to get. The main drawback is the lack of support! Moreover, the topic of personal growth is too relative and multifaceted to trust only one source, which, in this case, will be a book.
2. Self-development using books, video lessons and individual tips.
The benefits of such study are somewhat higher; more precisely, the likelihood is higher that you will be able to find a technique that suits you and get the desired result with its help. But it is worth noting that this will be more luck than a natural course of events. The main drawback, as before, is the lack of support. There is also a possibility that advice on using any personal growth technique will be taken from a random source and will turn out to be not only ineffective, but also harmful.
3. Attending various courses or trainings on personal development.
First of all, it is worth noting that this method is not affordable for everyone (good training costs from 20,000 rubles). However, if you are lucky, you will be able to find support and a coach who, albeit partially, will still help you correctly prioritize the methods being performed and the goals set.
The main disadvantage is the lack of an individual program and the trainer’s distracted attention. You will have to adapt to the already partially formed team and, most importantly, to the course of the topics being discussed. Of course, you can and have the right to raise an issue that concerns you, but keep in mind that the rest of the group members also have it, and that the time of the lesson, unfortunately, is not unlimited. You will have to distract your attention from group visitors and spend energy searching for a convenient time to solve your questions, which can significantly affect the overall quality and effectiveness of this method of training. To be fair, it is worth noting that there are real professionals who can work efficiently even with a group of people, but there are not many of them, so it is still worth taking into account the factors described above.
4. Personal coach
You probably already guessed that this method is the most expensive and most effective! But if you make a successful choice, you will have the opportunity to completely switch from the issue of implementing planned actions to implementing methods and nothing more. Your coach will take care of all the calculations and analysis of the work done. It will be the indicator of your successful, or not so successful, work on yourself. He will make adjustments, add and subtract techniques, and give useful advice.
The main drawback is that your decision will not always be yours alone, regardless of the amount you are willing to pay the coach, he will require you to fulfill certain points that will definitely require adjustments to your plans, since time plays an important role. They go to a psychologist whenever they want
Immediately, the time of the training will be jointly assigned in order to comply with the settings of the program compiled by your trainer. There is also a possibility of making a mistake in choosing a coach; this is a very delicate issue and there is no objective framework for assessing competence in this matter. You should rely solely on your own experience. But, as practice shows, if you are not a naive child, you can easily distinguish a real professional from a fake
It's not always a matter of the teacher's theoretical literacy. First of all, your coach is the personification of the essence of your goal. If we are talking about personal growth, then the coach must be a very strong and confident person who not only disseminates knowledge, but also helps, as gently as possible, integrate inevitable changes into your usual life. My idol in this niche is Radislav Gandopas! This man has incredible charisma and the ability to “ignite the crowd.” I will definitely write a separate article about it, subscribe to blog updates so as not to miss it.
If you still try to be more down-to-earth and start from the minimum, then even on the Internet you can find good trainers or a good group in which you can share your thoughts and receive useful information from others. It is very important that the source of nutrition is one resource, so that if you make a mistake in using any technique, you can safely return and discuss it with the trainer or with those who used this technique. Thus, you will have the opportunity to analyze everything that has been tested, listen to advice and, based on the conclusions drawn, build your own development plan. This option is good for those who are not inclined to face-to-face trainings and consultations, as well as for those who do not have enough free time or funds to visit a trainer.
Mechanisms of personal growth
Despite the fact that each person is unique, and the process of his development will have individual characteristics, psychology has identified the mechanisms through which personal growth and development occurs:
- Appropriation implies the formation of personal qualities in close contact with the environment. In a sense, this mechanism is the imposition of principles accepted in society on a person.
- Isolation is manifested in the subject’s reluctance to accept the rules of behavior and the desire to stand out from the crowd. This mechanism contributes to the formation of individual qualities that make it possible to isolate a person from society. Isolation can pass through the internal, that is, temperament, character traits or intelligence, or the external direction, which includes gender, nationality, etc.
- Identification is the most complex mechanism of personal growth. We are talking about a person’s attempt to become like the object of sympathy. Copying can affect the physical and emotional level.
Knowledge of the mechanisms and laws of personality development allows us to create training programs used by teachers and psychologists. These same laws help psychoanalysts in their work with patients.
Experiments
At the beginning of the article, the emphasis was placed on the importance of understanding that your knowledge about personal growth at the beginning of your journey, despite how much you were interested in it, is not at a sufficient level to make important decisions. If you are at the readiness stage, but have not yet tried to delve into the details and nuances of the techniques. If you have not yet consulted with a trainer or at least with those who have already begun to study the topic, then any creative solutions or mixing and modification of methods will not only not bring results, but will also hinder your future progress. It's like learning a foreign language without a teacher and not having any opportunity to check the correctness of the material you have mastered. Trying to learn letters and individual words, we still won’t be able to figure out for ourselves exactly how to pronounce them all, how and where they can be used. It is much easier to learn than to relearn! This truth is perfectly suited to the topic of personal growth! The right start is perhaps the most important thing in the process of learning and further using techniques.
Another thing is if you have already gone some distance, if you have already been able to find a suitable method or several methods for developing personal growth, and you see that with small corrections the result obtained can be higher than before, then feel free to act! This is a completely different case. Here you already know what is good for you and what is bad, and what needs to be done so that the technique you need brings results. In part, the very fact of such experiments will be one of the indicators that you are on the right track! It's doubly good if the adjustments you make can be discussed with a coach or person with goals similar to your own.
Experimenting with personal growth techniques is not just an option, it is something that you will inevitably come to on your path to self-improvement. Ready-made models of action will be good only at the initial levels of cognition. When you already feel confident in your actions, feel that you have become stronger, then it’s time for you to build your own model for further growth.
Psychology of Personality Development
The psychological approach to this topic is that it is a process of personal growth that allows you to improve your skills and knowledge to improve your self-esteem and personal skills.
This is because when you know yourself, you can use your abilities, potential, or work to overcome your fears.
To achieve this, you must follow a number of basic steps, which are discussed below.
Improve your self-esteem
This is why it is so important that you strive to understand the skills and virtues that have helped you achieve the most valuable achievements in your emotional, work or personal life. But you must keep in mind that this value does not remain unchanged, it can transform very quickly, mainly due to difficult experiences or due to the impact of the environment on your own existence
But you must keep in mind that this value does not remain unchanged, it can transform very quickly, mainly due to difficult experiences or due to the impact of the environment on your own existence.
Manage your emotions.
Although you may not believe it, emotions and feelings greatly influence the way you behave and the decisions you make - whether positive or negative - and this directly affects the quality of your life.
In this sense, it is necessary that you take care of getting rid of everything that causes pain, as well as cultivating and protecting those feelings that bring you well-being and allow you to adapt to reality.
The most advisable option is that you should develop a high level of emotional intelligence so that you can recognize your emotions, express and control them in a healthy and wise way, learning invaluable psychological skills.
Development of the emotional and personal sphere of a person
Feelings are one of the most striking manifestations of a person’s personality. The content of feelings consists of a person’s stable relationship to what he knows and does. To characterize a personality largely means to say what a given person loves, what he hates, despises, what he is proud of, what he is happy about, what he is ashamed of, what he envies. The subject of an individual’s stable feelings, their intensity and character reveal to others the emotional world of a person, his feelings and, thereby, his individuality. Differences in the sensory sphere leave a deep imprint on the entire structure of a person’s spiritual life. Here it should be said that we judge a person not only by his thoughts, actions and deeds, but also by his emotions and feelings. Depending on the development of volitional qualities, difficulties and failures cause different feelings in different people: for some - a feeling of dissatisfaction with oneself, activity, vigor, combat excitement, for others - a feeling of helplessness and frustration, despondency, apathy.
Unique individual manifestations of a person’s emotional appearance develop throughout his life and are associated with the development of the personality as a whole. The most important directions in the development of emotions and feelings are the formation of higher positive, moral, intellectual and aesthetic feelings and the formation of the ability to control one’s emotions.
Intelligent
feelings are formed in the process of cognition of phenomena and relationships in the surrounding world and are associated with the joy of discovering something new, satisfaction from solving a difficult problem.
Moral
feelings develop as a person acquires social experience, experience of communication and interaction with people and society as a whole. By resolving ethically difficult situations, a person accumulates the necessary practical experience of moral behavior in a team and experiences a sense of moral satisfaction from fulfilling ethical standards.
Aesthetic feelings develop through the perception of works of art, musical education, and communication with nature. The culture of feelings presupposes the ability to control one’s emotions.
Any person has the power to regulate his emotional state, to be the master of his emotions.
A mentally normal person is emotional in any activity, he does not do anything indifferently and indifferently, but frequent and strong emotional experiences exhaust the nervous system, reduce the efficiency of his work, and complicate interpersonal relationships. Whether a person experiences intense joy, intense anger, or experiences severe grief - all this affects his well-being, performance, and affects his loved ones.
In a state of passion, a person loses the ability to make rational, deliberate decisions, strong emotions become a barrier to communication with other people (and regardless of whether these emotions are positive or negative). At the same time, any business requires a certain level of emotional intensity necessary for the goal to be achieved.
To optimize the emotional state, psychologists offer the following methods: various neuromuscular relaxation techniques (relaxation), breathing exercises (breathing regulation techniques to reduce excessive stress), various self-hypnosis techniques, autogenic training (AT), meditation, yoga, etc.
Everyone can choose the method that suits them most and, using it, make their life more fulfilling, emotionally vibrant, and optimally use the energy of emotions to achieve their goals.
The concept of will and its meaning in human life
Any human activity is always accompanied by specific actions, which can be divided into two large groups: voluntary and involuntary. The main difference between voluntary actions is that they are carried out under the control of consciousness and require certain efforts on the part of a person aimed at achieving a consciously set goal. For example, let’s imagine a sick person who with difficulty takes a glass of water in his hand, brings it to his mouth, tilts it, makes movements with his mouth, i.e. performs a whole series of actions united by one goal - to quench his thirst. All individual actions, thanks to the efforts of consciousness aimed at regulating behavior, merge into one whole, and the person drinks water. These efforts are often called volitional regulation, or will.
Will is a person’s conscious regulation of his actions, aimed at overcoming external and internal difficulties in achieving his goals.
The most important feature of volitional behavior is its connection with overcoming obstacles, regardless of what type these obstacles are - internal or external. Internal, or subjective, obstacles are a person’s motivations aimed at not performing a given action or at performing actions that are opposite to it. Internal obstacles can include fatigue, the desire to have fun, inertia, and laziness. An example of external obstacles could be, for example, the lack of the necessary tools for work or the opposition of other people who do not want the goal to be achieved.
The main function of the will is the conscious regulation of activity in difficult living conditions. In accordance with this, it is customary to distinguish two others as a specification of the general function - activating and inhibiting.
1. An activating function : the will encourages a person to overcome difficulties and achieve set goals, encourages a person to be active, even if the results of the activity will be noticeable in the distant future.
2. Inhibitory function : will manifests itself not only in the ability to achieve a goal, but also in restraining unwanted manifestations of activity. For example, when there is a conflict between social norms and those of a person.
Pavlov considered will as an instinct of freedom, i.e. manifestation of vital activity when it encounters obstacles that limit this activity. Without will, any slightest obstacle would interrupt the flow of life.
The most important feature of volitional actions aimed at overcoming obstacles is the awareness of the significance of the goal that must be fought for, the awareness of the need to achieve it. The more significant a goal is for a person, the more obstacles he overcomes. Therefore, volitional actions can differ not only in the degree of their complexity, but also in the degree of awareness.
Will is associated with mental activity and feelings.
Will implies the presence of a person’s sense of purpose, which requires certain thought processes. The manifestation of thinking is expressed in the conscious choice of a goal and the selection of means to achieve it. Thinking is also necessary during the execution of a planned action.
The connection between will and feelings is expressed in the fact that, as a rule, we pay attention to objects and phenomena that evoke certain feelings in us. That which is indifferent and does not evoke any emotion, as a rule, does not act as a goal of action.
Will as a process of conscious regulation of behavior and activity
Will is a person’s conscious regulation of his behavior and activities, expressed in the ability to overcome internal and external difficulties when performing purposeful actions and deeds.
Functions of the will
The main function of the will is the conscious regulation of activity in difficult living conditions
. To specify this general function, it is customary to distinguish two others - activating (incentive) and inhibitory.
Incentive function
will is ensured by human activity. In contrast to reactivity, when an action is determined by a previous situation (a person turns around when called), activity gives rise to action due to the specific internal states of the subject, revealed at the moment of the action itself (a person in need of receiving the necessary information calls out to a friend).
Braking function
will, acting in unity with the incentive function, manifests itself in restraining unwanted manifestations of activity. A person is able to inhibit the awakening of motives and the implementation of actions that do not correspond to his worldview, ideals and beliefs. Regulation of behavior would be impossible without the process of inhibition. In their unity, the incentive and inhibitory functions of the will ensure overcoming difficulties on the way to achieving the goal.
The importance of will in human life
Not a single more or less complex human life problem can be solved without the participation of the will. No one on Earth has ever achieved outstanding success without possessing outstanding willpower. Man, first of all, differs from all other living beings in that, in addition to consciousness and intellect, he also has will, without which abilities would remain an empty phrase.
Structure and psychological mechanism of a volitional act: motivation to perform an action, understanding the purpose of an action, making a decision to act, struggle of motives, volitional effort, external or internal volitional action
An act of will consists of stages, i.e. consistent and planned actions. In any volitional action, one can detect motivational and intellectual components, and also distinguish four stages:
1) actualization of motivation with awareness of the goal (emergence of motives for activity);
2) discussion and struggle of motives;
3) decision on action;
4) execution of the decision made.
Often the 1st, 2nd and 3rd stages are combined, calling this part of the volitional action the preparatory link, and the 4th stage is the executive link.
At the first stage, the goal is the desired or expected result of an action aimed at an object with the help of which a person intends to satisfy a particular need.
At the next stage of the volitional act, a struggle of motives arises as specific stimulants of action - one desire is opposed to another, collides with it. A situation may require a person to master his behavior and force him to make appropriate efforts to comprehend it. This struggle of motives is sometimes painfully experienced, sometimes it passes calmly and consists of a selection of reasonable arguments for and against.
According to V. A. Ivannikov, the main mechanism of volitional behavior is changing or giving additional meaning to an action when it is already being performed, not only for the sake of the original motive, but also for the sake of a person’s personal values. The more morally educated a person is, the easier it is for him to carry out volitional action. The stage of the struggle of motives and the choice of ways to achieve a goal is central in a complex act of will. Indecision, as a volitional property of a person, is often the result of a delay in the act of will not only at the stage of implementing the decision made, but also at the stage of the struggle of motives.
After weighing various motives, the situation and the possible consequences of his actions, a person makes a decision about action. At the same time, he sets himself a specific task and draws up an action plan. This stage is characterized by a decline in internal tension that accompanied the struggle of motives. Volitional action ends with the execution of the decision made.
The stage of implementing the decision made, however, does not free a person from the need to make volitional efforts, and sometimes no less significant than when choosing the goal of an action or methods of its implementation, since the practical implementation of the intended goal is again associated with overcoming obstacles.
It is important to emphasize that refusal to practice is not always an indicator of a person’s lack of will. If a person stops striving for a goal due to reluctance, inability to cope with the tension that has arisen, or suspends practical activities without sufficiently compelling reasons, this is an indicator of weakness of will. If a person has serious reasons to stop striving for a goal, he cannot be characterized as weak-willed. Also, a strong-willed person must be able, when necessary, to abandon the intended action and make a new decision, otherwise it will no longer be a manifestation of will, but meaningless stubbornness.
The duration of each stage varies in different cases, and there are no clear transitions between them. The results of any volitional action have two consequences for a person: first, it is the achievement of a specific goal; the second is due to the fact that a person evaluates his actions and draws appropriate lessons for the future regarding the means of achieving the goal and the effort expended.
Execution of the decision made, as the last stage of volitional action, can receive a twofold expression: in some cases it manifests itself in external action , in other cases, on the contrary, it consists in abstaining from any external action (such a manifestation is usually called internal volitional action ).
