Personal growth training - does an organization need it?

Why do we need personal growth training?

personal growth training

Personal growth training (psycho-training) appeared in the 60-70s of the last century in the USA. Gradually they expanded their geography throughout the world, and somewhere in the early - mid-90s they reached Russia. Today, information about personal growth training is quite contradictory. Reviews and opinions range from enthusiastic calls for immediate, constant attendance at all kinds of trainings as a means of solving all your problems, to sharply negative comments that such psychotrainings are just a useless and sometimes actually harmful means, used only by “scammers” to take money from the population. Let's try to find the “golden mean” and properly understand what “personal growth training” is, who and when it can help, and how to protect yourself from ending up in organizations offering dubious psychotraining of inadequate quality.

Choosing a personal growth coach

There is no universal recipe for development; this process is always fraught with difficulties. If you choose the right coach, you can greatly simplify the process of achieving your goals. How to do it?

To understand what a specialist is, you need to analyze:

For a coach to truly lead to development, he must have the following traits:

Important! A lot of men and women go to personal growth trainings without real intentions to develop. They are looking for a magic wand that will instantly improve their life. But that doesn't happen. Nothing can replace constant work on yourself. All psychological concepts are based on this.

What are personal growth trainings?

First, a little theory:

Personality is a set of developed habits and preferences, mental attitude and tone, sociocultural experience and acquired knowledge, a set of psychophysical characteristics of a person that determine everyday behavior and connections with society and nature. Personality is also observed as manifestations of “behavioral masks” developed for different situations and social interaction groups.

Personal growth is the development of a person and his accumulation of diverse experience and knowledge in the process of life. In order to adapt well to new conditions, a person needs to constantly change and work on himself. This includes the formation of an adequate and sober view of things, the acquisition of more convenient forms of behavior.

The concept of “personal growth” in training practice:

This definition is formulated in an applied way, according to which personal growth is qualitative changes in personal potential that successfully solve life problems and open up a rich life perspective.

According to definitions, personal growth trainings are designed to encourage an individual to form and develop such qualities that will allow them to acquire an adequate view of the world around them and the mechanisms of interaction in society. And as a result, quickly reach a new higher and more promising standard of living.

Motivational training

Motivational trainings are classified as personal growth trainings, although they are most often used in business to increase staff motivation.

Principles of motivational training (according to O.V. Sidorenko):

1. Metaphorical biologization - the use of living energy of natural motives;
2. Motivating force - increasing motivation to participate in the training;
3. Paradoxicality - the use of play and experimentation with paradoxical patterns;
4. Imagery - in-depth understanding and assimilation of material through the use of images;
5. Balancing comfort and discomfort - using discomfort as a motivating force;
6. Focus on using the results in management (increasing the practical significance of the training.

Why and who needs personal growth training?

You can ask a completely reasonable question: “If certain life experiences are acquired in any case throughout life, then why force events by undergoing personal growth training?”

But this can also be answered this way: “Who needs a toy train at 50 years old?” Let me explain: the most active development of personality occurs in so-called “crisis situations” that require a prompt solution. In real life, we gain the most experience in moments when circumstances develop in such a way that, often, the consequences of a decision fit the phrase: “What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.” As a result, we gain invaluable experience, but at the cost of prolonged post-stress and doubts about the correctness of the choice made. And during the training, under the guidance of an experienced teacher, situations are simulated artificially and options for their various solutions can be played out more than once.

Therefore, it is much easier, when certain problems arise, for example, in family life, to come to the appropriate training and understand both the current situation and the origins of its occurrence in your life (which can stem from distant childhood/adolescence) than years later “ ...twenty" to realize through trial and error, relationships destroyed more than once, that "everything was wrong and it was my fault, my misunderstanding of such simple, but unknown at the right moments, mechanisms and tactics." An alternative example: you are working, your job is not what you dreamed of, but, in principle, you are more or less satisfied. You have gained some professional experience, but this is not the first time that a well-deserved promotion has eluded you, and the relationships in the team are “so-so.” As a result, a situation arises where everything seems to be fine, but something is sorely missing. Attending a training in such a case can also “shake you up” and lead to an understanding of where the catch is? In the place of work itself or in your attitude towards it? Otherwise, you can sit in the same chair until retirement and leave “not appreciated.”

You may ask: “Why go to training and not to a professional psychologist?”, but one does not negate the other, only the good thing about training is that in a group you feel that you are not alone with similar problems. Well, together it’s not scary. However, even if you bring together people with very similar problems, the nuances will still be different for everyone. But this is also good precisely because it helps to consider more different options, their causes and methods of overcoming.

So personal growth trainings are optimal for anyone who wants to work through and solve problems such as:

• Inadequate understanding of some events
• Negative attitudes
• Low self-esteem
• Difficult life situations in the past and present
• Lack of necessary knowledge

To acquire the necessary qualities and skills for:

1. Achieving success
2. Possessing endurance and perseverance in life
3. Providing for one’s own (and family’s) needs and needs
4. Gaining the opportunity to be open to professional changes and new life experiences

What are self-development trainings?

Ideally, these are classes led by an experienced psychology specialist or even a team of trained specialists who can help those who seek help overcome childhood or recently developed complexes, unpleasant character traits, and teach proper communication with any interlocutor.

And, naturally, after such training a person should be able to establish and protect his emotional boundaries and be confident that he is a person capable of achieving his goals, worthy of respectful treatment from anyone.

In other words, personal growth training is the development of a course of special classes for people who have problems with self-esteem, self-realization, communication due to errors in upbringing, working in a toxic team, illness, injury, domestic violence in the past, etc.

Types of popular trainings:

• to develop skills for specific actions in certain situations - a kind of training that allows you to gain the ability to perform some manipulations in the desired algorithm;
• to develop communication skills, the ability to conduct presentations or speak in front of large audiences;
• to increase motivation for mastering a new profession, skills, knowledge;
• to harmonize internal dialogue and establish an adequate self-perception of one’s gender identity, race, and physical characteristics.

Personal growth coach - who is it?

When this is a real coach, then his responsibility is to help a client experiencing psychological difficulties in identifying the main reasons that led to living in uncomfortable conditions or suffering from a lack of confidence in his ability to achieve important goals.

By default, it is assumed that the support provided during trainings should be professional , not aggravating a person’s existing psychological problems and not contributing to the development of an inadequate perception of the world.

Therefore, when deciding to get help in developing your own personality from a person positioning himself as a coach or personal development trainer, it is extremely advisable to make sure that he is a professional and not an impostor who loves to defraud people of money and further aggravate their problems with self-esteem.

Progress of classes

Psychological trainings are often carried out with a team of several people who want to improve their personal qualities, so the first lesson begins with a superficial acquaintance of the participants with each other and the work of the trainer to set the team up for a trusting attitude towards the coach.

If the lesson is individual in nature, then only the latter is relevant.

In the future, the specifics of the classes depend on the main topic of the classes as a whole , but imply the following stages in any case:

1. Performance Mindset: Explaining the purpose of an upcoming short-term task.
2. Placing emphasis on necessary actions on the part of trainees.
3. Direct study of the current task with the obligatory monitoring of the general mood, cohesion or other features that may appear when working on the next problem. When inappropriate behavior on the part of individuals is identified, work is required to reduce the intensity of emotions by focusing the attention of the group or problem individuals on the artificiality of modulating the situation or using other methods.
4. Analytical work on unexpected or expected results and explanation of the reasons for what happened.

Exercises

Examples of exercises:

1. Example 1. To overcome internal constraint, fear of speaking, even short-term, in front of the public and to increase the cohesion of the group members before classes, the coach invites each member of the team to come out in front of the group and say aloud a greeting to everyone present.
   Moreover, it must differ in form from what was said by the previous participant in the meeting.

   Then those gathered take turns describing their feelings from the exercise, which gives the presenter the opportunity to understand how everyone is tuned in to the work and is internally open to gaining new knowledge.

2. Example 2. If you suspect that the group is a little tired from the workload and the attention of individual participants has already been switched, the coach suggests playing a game with a ball. The entertainment conditions are as follows: the person who received the ball voices his name and changes his pose, and the others immediately try to copy it. And so on until everyone not from the group does the same manipulation. As a result, participants get the opportunity to warm up a little and stop thinking about abstract topics that prevent them from focusing on the tasks of the training.
3. Example 3. Searching for a hidden or for some reason deliberately ignored reason that prevents you from achieving the desired goal. To complete the task, the participant must imagine that he has already reached the desired level, and then see which of the external or internal factors will try to level out the achievement or at least somehow counteract it.
   Moreover, the sabotaging factor can be either the person performing the exercise or a real or fictitious character.

   As a result of such a hoax, the coach and his student receive information about who the person blames for his existing problems.

4. Example 4: The group goes out onto the field and each participant tries to overcome shyness or a similar problem by asking anyone they meet about the current time or some other question.

When and where to go for personal growth training?

Primary personality formation is completed, on average, by the age of 20-25. Of course, there are exceptions; a person can be almost completely formed by the age of 18, and remain psychologically immature, prone to suggestion and incapable of analysis and making independent decisions by the age of 30 or even older. However, processes that influence professional and personal growth, called the general concept of “development,” are possible at any stage of life and do not depend on age.

The only point: up to the age of 20-23, it is worth choosing the venue and teaching staff especially carefully, because an incompletely formed personality can easily fall under the influence, and instead of self-development, get carried away by copying the behavior of the coach and “group leaders”. Which not only does not contribute to self-knowledge and personal growth, but is also fraught with unsuccessful “trying on other people’s masks,” self-deprecation and depression.

However, the location and experience of teachers are extremely important not only for young people. Psychotraining is different from psychotraining. Training can turn out to be either a joyful and rainbow bridge into a new promising life reality, or a dull waste of time, or even, God forbid, a source of depression and mental confusion. If you saw a bright, catchy advertisement “THE BEST PERSONAL GROWTH TRAINING!!!!” and made an instant decision to immediately attend this first training that came across, then this is by no means a guarantee that you will actually get to a quality event. You are much more likely to fall for an advertising “lure”, in which you will be offered only empty calls from incompetent but pretentious “pseudo-specialists”, instead of real personal growth and development. Everything is possible... Therefore, competent people, before making a decision about the need to go to a certain training, first collect detailed information about this training, then think about it, and if doubts arise, look for the opportunity to consult with people who have certain competence and experience in this areas. In order not to make a mistake when choosing personal growth training, you should pay attention to such points as:

• A clear and detailed description of the main tasks and topics of psychotraining, set out in the advertising booklet or on the website of the organizers of the personal growth training. It is necessary to read all the information carefully in order to be sure that this is exactly the format and topic that suits you, is relevant and interesting.
• Experience, fame and authority of the training leader. At the same time, it is important if the presenter has the appropriate specialized education and the necessary certificates.
• The period of existence of the center where personal growth training is conducted. Beyond the reliability guarantees that long-established organizations provide, there's more to it than that. Despite the fact that the most relevant and interesting programs, as a rule, are offered by recently opened centers, alas, most likely, they will have to face such difficulties as: amateurish quality of delivery, poor organization of the training process and material resources, and hence not very comfortable conditions, etc.
• Feedback from participants who have already attended this training. At the same time, it should be taken into account that it is personal impressions that should be trusted, and not what “someone, once, either himself, or one of his friends, or went to, or told someone ..." And, precisely for the same reason, you should not trust numerous reviews from the Internet, both overly enthusiastic and sharply negative (as a rule, these are written to order by the centers themselves or their competitors).

And further:

• Run “sparkling your heels” from those centers whose classes are based on the complete destruction of your past personality, with the transformation of all participants in the training into “unified positively charged robots”, whose “energy reserves” will only be replenished in the process of completing more and more new trainings. Competent and professional specialists will help you DEVELOP your individual personality, and not reject all your experience, replacing them with their directive opinion and vision.

Communication training

Communication is one of the most important functions of a person, both in the professional field and in all other important areas of life. Communication training, or communicative, is one of the most common socio-psychological trainings. His goals:

• mastering knowledge, skills and abilities of effective communication;
• overcoming communication barriers;
• correction and formation of attitudes necessary for successful communication in various life situations.

The success of communication depends on the willingness to focus on the other person, recognize the value of his personality, and take into account the interests of the partner. The most important factor in the effectiveness of communication is communicative competence. For its development, perceptual-oriented communicative training is used

The most important factor in the effectiveness of communication is communicative competence. To develop it, perceptually-oriented communicative training is used.

How many trainings do you need to complete to solve all the problems?

If anyone else is worried about the question: “So how many trainings will provide me with an easy, problem-free life, a sea of ​​friends and a stress-free brilliant career?” - please read the article very carefully again from the very beginning, because such a formulation is doomed to failure in advance and is tantamount to asking: “How long do I need to run in the morning to achieve the figure of Claudia Schiffer/Antonio Banderos and stay in good health until I’m a hundred years old?” At the same time, everyone understands that to maintain beauty and health, a comprehensive and regular approach to your body and appearance is necessary. The human psyche and personality development do not contradict this rule. Personal development throughout life is no less important than caring for the body. In addition to the trainings themselves (which can really give a wonderful “kick in the ass” for a creative attitude towards oneself and the formation of oneself as a harmonious and positive person), the process of personal growth is also a huge independent work on developing one’s positive qualities and adequate (not derogatory) relationships to those aspects of one’s personality that have yet to be understood, accepted and improved.

Each person is individual, for some, 1-2 courses and further independent studies will be enough, for others, they will attend several courses and then take a break for a while, and some will attend trainings that are relevant to them as often as they deem optimal for yourself. Various options are possible, the most important thing is to realize one simple truth:

No one will ever solve all your problems for you, without your direct participation!

Good luck to you on this long and thorny, but certainly fascinating and useful path of self-discovery and development of your personality!

Simple actions that promote personal growth

• Learn to get along with yourself. Finding mutual understanding with yourself is the first prerequisite for getting along with others. You need to learn to value and accept your skills, experience, philosophy, aspirations and limitations. This right focus and your more grounded personality bring inspiration and charisma.
• Stop procrastinating. It is necessary to understand that the tendency to procrastinate is not a character trait, but simply a habit. And since it’s a habit, it’s 100% possible for you to unlearn doing it, just like you learned it in the past. Strive to use your time as efficiently as possible and avoid procrastination at all costs.
• Wake up early in the morning. Develop the habit of waking up early. There is a good old saying: “He who goes to bed early and gets up early becomes healthy, rich and wise!” It arose not in vain, but due to the great benefits of being an “early bird”. You get the opportunity to watch and admire the sunrise, perform morning physical exercises to get a good tone for the whole day, you can work on a project simply because it is important to you, despite the fact that the official working day has not yet begun, and so on. In addition, research shows that people who wake up early feel happier, healthier and more productive than their fellow late risers.