Where to start self-development - how to quickly develop yourself as a person, what you need to develop yourself and work on self-education every day: methods and ways

What to pay attention to

The term has a fairly broad concept. Everyone sees in it their own, individual meaning, depending on their worldview and value system. Some believe that this is about improving business and improving financial condition, others about relationships with people, the ability to communicate and be happy, and still others about becoming more beautiful, losing weight, and changing your appearance. We do this every day if we feel changes for the better, even the slightest.

How and where to start properly developing yourself? The starting point is that you firmly decide to go down this path. Soberly assess the current state of affairs. It will be difficult to admit that there is a certain problem, but it is necessary to do this at least in order to come to a solution.

As you move forward, you may notice that your priorities and goals change. For example, it was decided to study English. But as you improve your knowledge, it suddenly turns out that you want to speak French.

And one more caveat: during the process, many people who are unhappy with their lives will hinder your success, discourage you and try to lead you astray. Don't let them behave like that.

Now let's move on to actions that promote self-improvement.

Decide what you are trying to achieve

Everyone loves to dream, but not everyone has a specific, conscious goal. The reality is that if a person does not decide what he wants to achieve, someone else will do it for him. After all, there are people nearby who are trying to impose their own opinions and vision of the world.

Remember that you need to make a decision yourself: in which direction to move, where to start self-knowledge and whether it is worth listening to other people’s advice.

Such persons include everyone around you, but to a greater extent, the influence is exerted by parents, based on experience, and friends who can lead you astray.

But generally speaking, it’s worth listening to the recommendations of your friends. Just remember that you are the only one in control of your life. Which means the choice is yours.

Remember that thoughts materialize. The basis for self-improvement is focus. If you dwell on the negative, the result will be negative. And vice versa: if you concentrate on positive thinking, victory will sooner or later be yours.

Therefore, sit down and think carefully about what your inclinations are. What do you love and do best? And what do you want to achieve? This is what we need to build on in the future.

Identify problems and shortcomings

At this stage, you need to think about what points in your life you want to improve. This could be smoking, frequent drinking, low salary, excess weight, and so on.

Try to honestly compile a list of negative properties, based on your self-awareness, and not just on the observations of others. After all, before you understand where to start working on yourself and how to develop yourself as a person, you should know what problems to pay attention to.

For all items, write down a plan and indicate why it is worth fixing. For example, for those who are losing weight, it is the desire to become more beautiful or increase self-esteem. In the correction column, you can mark going to the gym, jogging outside, or exercising at home.

The human brain rationalizes any thing. Therefore, by outlining the state of affairs and explaining the tasks, we will find a faithful assistant in our endeavors.

Asking ourselves questions

To set an accurate goal, ask yourself:

What would I like to change? Buy an apartment, change jobs, improve your relationship with your boyfriend or get rid of stress.
What do I want to receive? Close friends, career advancement, love, happiness.
What should you give up? Cigarettes, alcohol, fast food, social networks, temper.
Am I doing what I like? Start planning your life, find a hobby, prioritize your tasks.
Do I want to change? Raise self-esteem, become more erudite, overcome laziness or dependence on others.
Am I fulfilled?

How to develop yourself and improve yourself every day: planning

We know where we are now and where we want to go. The next step is to describe in detail the scenario for completing the task. It's not an easy task, but it can be done. After all, the most difficult thing has already been done - life guidelines have been set.

Psychologist Daria Milai

Make an appointment

Take paper and pen and let's get started. Imagine that the desire has been achieved. Look back in time and think: what tools were used to accomplish this? The explanation of the method is simple: when a goal is set in the head, the mind independently looks for an easy way to achieve it.

Being in the imagination of an experience that does not yet exist, you clearly understand that it could not arise from emptiness. Start “remembering” what preceded it, starting from immediate events and going deeper into the past. Write down the resulting chain.

What to do for self-development: start taking action

So, the goal and the path to it are defined. Now take actions that bring you closer to success. At this stage, it turns out that there are other qualities that require changes. For example, by changing the style of clothing, a person will understand that his hairstyle also requires updating.

The process of improvement is not an easy task. Many are conservatives at heart, so any innovation causes confusion. People are accustomed to one way of life, and changes lead to another. The main thing is to focus on the end point and not attach importance to the rest.

Do not stop

Motivation is a short-lived factor. The resulting charge of energy tends to run out. Therefore, it is necessary to look for new things that can force action.

If at a certain moment a person decides to take a break and stops developing due to his own laziness, it will be quite difficult to return to the previous track. So stay moving and continue your personal growth no matter what.

Drawing up a work plan

How to change your life for the better and where to start

There is nothing difficult in drawing up a plan to work on yourself. It implies constant improvement of oneself, changing life for the better. To begin with, you should start either a diary or a notebook, where the amount of work and the result will be recorded.

A diary is the best assistant in making plans and goals

Note! The path of self-development is thorny. Therefore, work is built not only with interfering external factors, but also with the inner “I”. From different equally important pieces, a single puzzle is assembled, forming a new unique personality.

Work plan:

Choose a direction for development,
Firmly believe in the result
Find motivation for personal growth,
“Awaken” willpower,
Stop established habits, remember the importance of new aspirations and a healthy lifestyle,
Movement towards the goal must be progressive, but continuous.

Directions and benefits of self-development

The process has extremely positive qualities, so rest assured that everything is not being done in vain.

Improving strengths. Personal development helps not only to acquire new skills, but also to strengthen old ones. By focusing on what already exists, a person will begin to do his job not just well, but perfectly.
Self-confidence. When you complete another intermediate task, you will feel a new surge of energy and become more self-confident.
Gaining awareness. The factor will help you look at things objectively and understand which aspects need to be “tightened up.”
Stepping out of your comfort zone. To develop, people need to do things that are unusual for them. Usually the process is associated with a specific level of pain - this way you can feel progress and improve further.
Work on yourself throughout your life. Once you start today, you won't be able to stop. The result obtained will become a starting point for other aspirations.
Self-development opens up new opportunities. You have to learn and implement them.
Improving the quality of existence. Internal changes contribute to the fact that everything around will also change. You will begin to do what you love, relationships with your environment will improve, and reality will take on brighter colors.

Where to begin

Self-development - where to start, what it is and why it is needed

What does working on yourself consist of, where to start, what steps to take initially - to realize and accept the fact that the process will require time and effort. A famous quote from Oleg Gennadievich Torsunov, a Vedic doctor, “Working on yourself changes relationships, changes fate, changes life,” shows the importance of self-improvement. Any person always learns new things on his life's journey. With every movement he learns about the world: the further he goes, the more he manages to learn. Therefore, learning new things is natural for a person.

How to start working on yourself - take responsibility for your development. Motivation should be internal, not external. You need to do it, try it, and not wait for changes and criticism from others.

In any business, the very first step is to write down your goal and plan.

Structuring your goal

Important! For some individuals, working on oneself is vital. Thus, psychological help for people with diseases of the nerves and psyche consists not only of special therapy, but also of the patient’s ability to engage in self-analysis and self-improvement. As a result of fruitful work, neurotics find a calm life, psychasthenics become less anxious.

Self Improvement Plan

Planning is a guide to staying on course, taking control of your own destiny, and making rational decisions. Scheduling includes several points:

Setting goals. They can be associated with career advancement, acquiring knowledge, starting a family, etc.
Prioritization. There are many tasks, so think about which ones are the most important? Focus your attention on this point.
Setting a deadline. Without deadlines, the desire will remain letters on a piece of paper. Set time frames and make sure they are realistic. For example, if you want to learn to speak English fluently at a beginner level in two weeks, then it is unlikely that you will succeed.
Track progress. The best motivation is to see what has already been achieved. Even if the victory is small, a boost of energy and pleasure from the result are guaranteed. Also draw conclusions from the work done and think about what can be improved.

Advice for men and women

How to work on yourself and improve? Working on yourself is a long and daily process . You can’t do something today and roll back to the previous level tomorrow.

There must be constant movement. This doesn't mean you shouldn't rest. A reasonable alternation of work and rest is necessary.

What to do:

Act no matter what. Your wishes are your wishes, and you have the right to fulfill them.
Understand that every person is free in his choice . You can't be told where to go, but you don't have the right to force other people to follow you.
Look for like-minded people - those who want to develop, who have similar interests as you. They support and stimulate development. Working together and moving forward is much more effective.
Give yourself a change schedule. Plan what you want to achieve, by what point, what stages to go through.
Stick to a daily routine , make a plan - it helps develop willpower. In addition, the regimen is good for health. You know when and what you need to do, which means you plan better and are less nervous.

For self-development, it is useful to engage in education, attend courses and trainings.

The main thing is to throw away all fears and uncertainty. This is not easy, so it is useful to work with a specialist in psychology, or better yet, turn to a professional coach.

What you can do for self-development: skills

Meditation. This is the practice of contemplation, which occurs through concentration of attention on a specific subject. It is a fairly simple and at the same time difficult skill for many individuals. But it is not the action that is of interest, but its result: the person becomes calmer, the degree of awareness increases, and a deep knowledge of oneself and the events taking place around occurs.
Time management. This is about organizing time and increasing productivity. It's easy to waste your day if you don't have a clear plan on how to effectively complete your tasks. The process will help improve punctuality and professionalism.
Clothing style. Good taste in appearance ensures that the first impression when meeting people will be excellent. This is necessary to find a partner for a love relationship, meetings with a future employer or clients.
Optimism. Positive thoughts and a view of reality are a huge source of internal energy. This is where you need to start, but how to educate yourself is a secondary question.
Healthy eating. Eating healthy food will improve your well-being and give you strength. There is no need to go on a strict diet. Just include vegetables and fruits in your diet and try to eat less junk food.
Reading books. Literature is a storehouse of knowledge that you can absorb if you devote enough time to the lesson.
Ignoring toxic people. We are strongly influenced by our environment. Wherever we are, there will always be negative people who generously share their negativity. This makes you give up, so try to limit communication with such acquaintances.

Recommendations

Do not stop

Once you take a step forward towards change, try not to stop. After all, it’s easier to move by inertia than to gather your courage and try to move. It is especially difficult if you have spent quite a lot of time on it, in which case you will feel that you have become “grown” to it. And this causes such a strong fear of change that it will be easier to tolerate something than to take the risk of doing it differently.

It is for this reason that many victims of domestic violence do not leave their abusers. But, if they begin to take care of themselves, learning and realizing, then the moment will come when internal changes will occur and entail external ones.

Motivation

As we have already found out, human psychology is such that it is easier for him to sit in one place, even if it is not comfortable, than to get up, fall, get up again, and so on. To move, you need good motivation, then you will have no time to think about how to force yourself to act.

Do you know what you want to achieve, what you live for? If you haven’t decided yet, take this article into account.

Responsibility

Realize that the responsibility for your life and its quality rests only with you, therefore everything that happens to you is a consequence of your choices and actions. Therefore, if you don’t know where to start working on yourself, give yourself an iron rule: rely only on yourself and always be responsible for your actions, even if you really don’t want to.

I am not calling for giving up support and help, but I just want to convey to you that you do not expect it as a matter of course. Someone may or may not help you, so always rely only on your own strengths.

It is when you stop sitting and waiting for miracles that someone will notice you so good and give you a bag of money - you will have a chance to earn it yourself, turning your dream into reality.

Performance

To realize that in some ways you are not ideal, and in some nuances you are not at all up to the norm, you need to be brave and strong in spirit. It is also important to understand that if you give it your all, you can achieve almost everything you want and cope with any difficulty.

Therefore, instead of being upset that you fall short in something, gather your will and get to work. Yes, it will be difficult, sometimes it will seem fruitless and useless, but believe me, your work will be justified and bear fruit.

Planning

Plan your activities, this will make it easier to understand when and what to do. And there will be fewer temptations to relax, because every day will be scheduled, even rest. If you don’t know how to do this, and you’re used to living without setting clear goals, everything can be fixed.

Use the recommendations from the article “How to create a plan for every day: 12 fundamental tips.”

Balance in life

So, let's say you've tuned in and realized the full level of responsibility, but what next? And then you need to determine which area in your life requires attention and correction. A technique such as drawing up a life balance wheel will help you with this.

Then you will know exactly what you missed and by what percentage: personal life, health, professional activity or recreation. Or maybe the spiritual component of your personality has suffered a little?

To better understand what I’m trying to explain to you now, look at the detailed description and instructions in the article about the life balance wheel.

Reading

Read every chance you get. This way you can not only replenish your knowledge, but you will also involuntarily train your memory, thinking and attention. And I recommend starting with books on the topic of self-development.

For example, such as “Get Out of Your Comfort Zone” by Brian Tracy, which, by the way, is a bestseller and a leader among books on this topic. Or “This year I...” by M. Ryan, which will help you cope with bad habits and teach you how to keep promises, even those addressed to yourself.

You can look at this list of books, there are 15 books on the topic of self-development and personal growth.

Health

By the way, how can you change yourself if you have bad habits? And even if it is not alcohol addiction, abuse of foods that are harmful to our body also relates to this topic.

Self-discipline and maintaining boundaries are an incredibly important factor, without which success cannot be achieved, especially when there is a need to change habitual styles of behavior and character components. It is important to achieve harmony by taking care of both physical and psychological health.

So, if you know that you are “sinful” to yourself in some way, that you are causing damage to your well-being, be sure to start implementing the recommendations indicated in the article “How to properly start a healthy lifestyle at 30 years old: TOP 10 fundamental rules.”

Phased

Constant work on yourself is possible only if it is gradual, otherwise, by giving yourself an increased load that does not correspond to your capabilities, you can quit the race halfway, without having time to achieve the desired changes. Therefore, be sure to take this moment into account, it will allow you to notice reality and not be fascinated by fantasies.

Let's say you want to lose excess weight - plan activities to combat the hated kilograms so that the body does not experience stress from unexpected, overwhelming changes. Take care of yourself.

Stages

Self-knowledge. A person must have a clear idea of his own life priorities and ideals that force him to move forward.
Setting goals. They can be long-term or short-term, but must be flexible and not contradictory.
Achievement options. Self-improvement is a rather personal process. Articles for self-development will not give precise advice on how to obtain the desired result. You can look for the answer in smart books, rely on fate, or sit down and think carefully about how to get what you want.
Actions. Dreams will remain so if you don’t put effort into them. By taking just one step, you are already closer to what you want.

Self development concept

Self-development is a process of personality building, initiated by the individual himself, aimed at acquiring new knowledge, skills, and abilities. Self-development involves increasing the intellectual level, improving emotional response, mastering properties, acquiring character traits that were not there before. The structure of self-development includes interrelated components:

Self-affirmation is the process of adapting to information or experiences that threaten an individual's self-esteem. An individual convinces himself and others that he has certain qualities. The desire of the individual to strengthen certain character traits, to make them unshakable and not subject to influencing factors. For example, by constantly increasing the degree of complexity of the intellectual tasks that an individual sets for himself, he becomes convinced of his high mental abilities.
Self-improvement is the process of controlled acquisition of new qualities and abilities in accordance with set goals.
Self-actualization is the identification and awareness of one’s own capabilities and abilities with the subsequent accumulation of acquired experience.
Self-realization is the use of personal potential, the use of knowledge, skills and abilities to implement plans.

The result of the self-development process is personal growth. Self-improvement in the works of some psychologists is considered as a search for adequate, optimal ways to achieve goals. The individual aims to satisfy needs by actively interacting with the outside world and revealing potential. Self-development involves independent learning aimed at changing thoughts, ideas, feelings, and behavior.

The process of self-development is based on an understanding of one’s needs, an adequate assessment of one’s potential, and the search for options for expanding one’s own capabilities within a certain activity. To begin to develop oneself, a strategy is formed, taking into account the motives, needs and life goals of the individual, for example, such as improving the quality of life, increasing income, increasing self-esteem and social status. Strategies for self-improvement include:

Adaptation is an adaptation to the surrounding reality in accordance with the norms and laws adopted in society.
Imitation is the repetition of manners, habits, skills, behavioral models of authoritative individuals who have achieved success.
Self-education is a strategy that allows one to maintain individuality to a greater extent, involves improving character traits, and acquiring skills in accordance with intended goals.

In order to effectively work on oneself and improve, a woman or a man needs to decide on the direction of activity, considering the process of personal growth as an opportunity to fulfill one’s mission, achieve spiritual harmony and moral satisfaction. Examples of self-development include activities such as participation in an intellectual or creative competition, playing sports, training volitional qualities, developing and implementing diverse projects.

The goals of self-affirmation vary significantly and depend on the motives and needs of the individual, as well as on the area in which the individual is trying to demonstrate extraordinary abilities. In some cases, the goal is to gain self-confidence, in others - the desire to experience a sense of superiority, to justify to oneself and others the right to lead other people. Often similar motives are identified among executives.

Self-improvement begins with working on oneself, when all the body’s resources are subordinated to a goal - the formation of certain qualities, the acquisition of properties. Some people need to use willpower not to put off studying until the next day and until better times. An individual moving towards a goal needs to realize the need for changes that will help cope with assigned tasks faster and more productively.

Methods

These universal tips will not solve your problem, but will make it much easier:

Prioritization. Choose the direction that is most important to you and do not waste your energy on secondary goals.
Awareness of the brightness of life. Due to the fast pace of life, a person sees reality in gray tones. But to feel the fullness of the moment and the diversity of the world, you just need to stop and look around.
Concentration of attention. Increasing the level of self-control allows you to “tame” your brain. He will stop wandering from one thought to another, and you will be able to concentrate on a specific subject.
Write it down. Ideas on paper become more tangible. This way you won’t forget about them and won’t lose sight of them.
Environment. Communication with positive, successful people has a huge impact, inspires and gives strength to move on.

Introspection Diary
Relationships with others
Self-improvement plan

Chapter 1 Preparing to change your own life

Introspection Diary

To change your life, it is important to see the difference between the skills and behaviors you have now and what you want to achieve in the future.
...
? Rule 1.

In order to move towards your goal correctly, it is important to understand where you are now and where you are going to go.

To do this, it is necessary to determine what and how I am doing now and what the improvement will be, what is the difference between the actual and the desired, the real and the ideal.
Moreover, determine not theoretically (thinking about it), but practically, through your feelings. This process comes down to tracking yourself: what do I have? What am I doing? how do I do this? how? How do I feel about this? What's stopping me? What's stopping me? ...
? Rule 2.

A person has no other obstacles except himself.

If you decide to change and take this book as your travel companion, get ready for a fascinating experiment. If you treat life as an exciting experiment, as a game, many things look simpler: a loss is no longer a loss, but an opportunity for maneuver.

Changing your internal and external models is like going to the gym: if you don’t work yourself, don’t get tired, don’t master new boundaries, changes won’t happen.
...
The main life task of a person is to give life to himself, to become what he potentially is. The most important fruit of his efforts is his own personality.

Erich Fromm

In this curious and unpredictable adventure, you will need a self-observation journal. The diary is your own therapist. By contacting a real therapist or attending a training, you give the responsibility of monitoring the process to the facilitator and pay him money for each hour of work. Here you can do it yourself - as fruitfully as you are interested in the results. The diary is the main witness of your changes.

Buy a cute notebook with a picture on the cover that reflects or symbolizes your change process, and line it like this:

In the first column you will write down the date, in the second - events that happened during the day that puzzled you (communication with someone close to you, with work colleagues, a boss, or even with a salesperson in a store). Describe the event in detail, writing down everything you remember: your words and actions, and your opponent's words and actions. In the third column you will write down the steps that you managed to do in a new way, in the fourth - what you have not yet been able to change. In the fifth column, it is useful to write down those resources: feelings, thoughts, external circumstances that helped you do something in a new way. And in the fifth (perhaps this is the most important column!) you will write down your feelings, thoughts and external circumstances that stopped you.

In addition to these entries in the observation diary, you will reflect your experiments, which will be discussed in the book, and their results.

A diary will help you more closely monitor the processes that happen to you and learn how to manage them. And when you finish the process of working with this book, you will be able to leaf through the diary and see the dynamics of your changes. This is great support for continuing to change on your own. In addition, journaling helps you develop the habit of effective self-observation, which will serve you invaluable in all areas of your life. After reading the entries in a few months, you will definitely be surprised, touched and happy.

It may be useful for you to use a voice recorder for many exercises to record your dialogues with others and then analyze them using the exercises and diagrams proposed in the book.

Relationships with others

We all, consciously or unconsciously, learn to live, solve problems, and interact with other people. This continues as long as these methods are effective. Usually up to 15 years. Then we are faced with the fact that other people behave differently than is customary in our family, and that we will have to learn a lot all over again. This is where everyone (some at 15, some at 50) comes a moment when there is a need to reconsider their habits. And then we carry out an audit: leave this and get rid of this.

The process of getting rid of ineffective behavior patterns is to constantly monitor how they turn on and make a choice: will I continue to do this or will I do something else?

This difficult task is aimed at changing the results of years of training to live automatically and tastelessly.
Our loved ones also face problems: over the entire history of their relationship with us, they have become accustomed to our certain behavior. And when you begin to change, they are surprised, puzzled and even shocked, because they do not understand what is happening to you and how to react to it: all your life you have been understandable, known, studied to the core, amenable to habitual manipulation. ...
? The pet should be quiet, calm and not cause trouble to the owner. Here, for example, is a stuffed owl...

Now what? Now you are unpredictable, unusual, not manipulated and doing something that was completely impossible to expect from you. Make your wishes come true, not other people's!

This is very difficult to accept and understand for people who don't expect it from you. Therefore, in the process of working on yourself, you will definitely encounter the fact that people will react completely differently to the changes that have happened to you.

You and your environment make up a single system.
If changes occur in one element, it affects the entire system. Your family and friends can either accept the changes that have happened to you or begin to resist them. This is a natural process. ...
? Rule 3.

Confidence is about respecting both yourself and your changes, as well as other people's reactions to your changes.

.
…
It’s in vain that when we judge our loved ones, the court is merciless and dashing.

We must live by forgiving people for our opinions about them.

Igor Guberman

In order for communication with people to satisfy you, you need to develop the skill of talking about yourself

in a way that is clear to others. And the first step to changing this dialogue is to first learn how your normal interactions with others work.

So, our first exercise.
During the week, whenever you have any contact, verbal or silent, with another person, try to notice your reactions to him.
For example, a communication partner asks you a lot of questions - what is your reaction to him? Are you puzzled? Confused? Are you irritated? Are you angry? Are you embarrassed? Or: someone close to you tells you how dissatisfied he is with you. What do you feel: humiliation? Offense? Anger? Disturbance? Fear? Or one of your employees tells you about his relationships with others - what feelings does he awaken in you with his story: sympathy? Indignation? Boredom? Embarrassment? Want to help or support? Or: someone sat too close on the subway, causing you discomfort: what exactly do you feel? Reactions can be very diverse, there are no right or wrong reactions, they are individual for each person. Record your reactions in detail in your observation diary. At the same time, notice: how do you behave in these situations? How do you respond to your interlocutor? What specific words do you say, what do you do? Write it all down in a diary. When doing this exercise, do not try to change behavior. The purpose of the exercise is to see in as much detail as possible how your contact with others works, to study all the details with the gaze of a curious researcher. This exercise will accompany you throughout the course of change, since it is our main source of information about what exactly needs to change in your contact with others.

The main difficulty in doing this exercise is being honest with yourself. Usually, when reacting to some situation, we explain our reactions to ourselves in terms of their “correctness”: “I’m not angry that you! - we say to ourselves. “No, I was just at a loss.”

The difficulty is that if we are honest, we will learn a lot about ourselves that may be unpleasant at first glance. For example, you may learn that you sometimes get angry when you “should” be generous, or want to cry when you “should” show equanimity, or have difficulty hiding your laughter when you “should” be grieving. In your self-observation diary, write down your honest reactions: not those that are “necessary”

experience, but those that you actually experience.
...
? Rule 4.

If you are honest with yourself, you will make your path to confidence straight and easy.

There is another difficulty in performing this exercise. Usually, when we come into contact with people, our reaction is a thought chain,

in which we
describe
another: how he acted towards us, what he did, what he is like because of this.
For example, if someone stepped on your foot on the subway, you might think, “Whoa!!” - this is your assessment, a description
of another person.
Communication based on such descriptions
usually does not lead to effective communication. This can be seen from the response we receive: “You’re a boor!!”

In our exercise, it is important to keep track of not the descriptions

another that arises when you make contact, but your own
emotional reaction
that stands behind this description.
In the same example, such a reaction
could be: fear, pain, humiliation, anger, envy, irritation, bewilderment, excitement, gratitude, joy, a sense of self-importance, and so on - for each individual.

The third difficulty may be assessing yourself

instead of discovering your
reaction.
For example, in the situation described above, you may think: “How did I get up so that everyone bumps into me?”
- whereas your reaction
here could be embarrassment, shame, gloating or something else.
...
? Rule 5.

At the heart of ineffective communication is sharing descriptions of each other. The basis of effective communication is awareness of one's own reaction, the associated need and the choice of actions or words that most effectively satisfy this need.

For example, if you were called an ugly word, you may feel insulted and realize the need

restore your personal boundaries and self-esteem and choose words or actions that will help realize this need, and then say these words or carry out these actions.

The described exercise helps you learn to monitor your own reactions. We will talk about needs, as well as actions and words aimed at their implementation, a little later.

The exercise can be considered well done when you can determine your reaction in less than 1 hour.

The second important exercise will accompany you throughout the path of change and consolidate the positive effect.

The essence of the exercise is to evaluate the result of your work on yourself. Every time you evaluate how you lived a particular situation, you need to abandon the usual divisions of yourself into “bad” and “good”. Surely you notice how you usually evaluate yourself: “What a mediocrity!

Well, as always! Well, as usual! Dispute such nonsense! Well, who was pulling his tongue?!! Why did you stand there like a pillar?!” Alas, you will have to leave this sweet habit in the past, kissing it goodbye. You will need another skill in your new life. When you give yourself a debriefing, you will now tell yourself the following: “I managed to do this and that; here I have advanced one more letter; and here, here and here is my area of further development.” And all “leftist” thoughts, expressed in swearing, self-denial, or, more culturally speaking, self-criticism, eating oneself alive, will have to be thrown into the trash can as unnecessary. If they don’t want to go to the landfill of their own free will, just send them to three letters.

Self-improvement plan

1. For three months you will need to monitor your reactions to other people when communicating with them.

2. Starting from the third week of independent study with this book, you will learn to present your needs to other people. The main task of this period is to learn to pronounce formulations that are new to you. During this period, there is no goal to get others to fulfill your desires; it is important to simply learn new ways of expressing these desires. Simply put, you will practice forming words and letters and train your mouth to pronounce them.

3. After mastering new ways of constructing your own messages to others, you will learn to build contact with other people, that is, no longer a monologue, but a dialogue that takes into account the interlocutor’s reaction to your words. During this period, you need to learn to combine previously trained skills of introspection and self-presentation with attention to another person.

4. Having mastered the art of dialogue, you will expand the range and direction of your communications.

This is the general plan within which we will consider the secrets of confident behavior and train its individual aspects, which I will describe below in the next chapter.

When doing the exercises, take your time: it is not useful to read the entire book and then do the exercises. It’s not even useful to read the entire exercise and only then start doing it. Do all the exercises sequentially: first read the first paragraph, complete it, then the next one, and so on. To better understand exactly how to do them consistently, stop reading as soon as you come across the words “after you do this...” and start doing what you read. Effective learning is based on practical experience: only by performing an action and comprehending it, we gain experience, which allows us to effectively perform the next action.

Good luck, dear reader, I will be with you in moments of doubt and anxiety on the new path of your life, but all changes depend, first of all, on you.

Table of contents

What is self-improvement?

Everything that is described below is an attempt to systematize the three-dimensional form of a complex process that can be described by the words: “working on oneself.” Of course, this is not an exhaustive systematization and not the only possible one, but this is exactly what I managed to come to as a result of my own practical work on myself and working with other people in the same direction. If I had come across such a systematization ten years ago, it would have significantly reduced time and made it easier to achieve my goals; it would have been clear what needs to be done and in what direction, where there are “gaps,” and why some things stall and don’t work out. The essence of this systematization is simple: four main directions in working on oneself, what they are in general. Then - four rules, without which these four directions are unlikely to give any tangible results and recommendations on how to implement these rules.

Of course, these are not the keys to all questions and not recommendations from the “help yourself” series, but this is a definite map that can help you navigate this not the easiest path.

I'll start from a little further.

We are born and live this life for a reason. It makes sense. Everyone has their own - this is their purpose. Due to circumstances, we humans almost always miss our meaning and, as a result, do not get the results in life that we would have had if our lives had this very, our own meaning - our destiny. Instead, we get results that are thoroughly imbued with some other, not our, meaning. As a result, we live to the death not our life, not our destiny, not our destiny and get results that we do not need, and this is at best. At worst, it brings us illnesses, insoluble difficulties, insurmountable obstacles, difficulties and wanderings that seem to be about to be resolved, but year after year not only are not resolved, but, on the contrary, become thicker and worse.

This is the most important question that each of us faces in life. Many people don’t notice it, don’t even know that it exists - this means that it’s not yet “hot enough” to ask questions and look for answers. Some people are familiar with this question, but they lack the desire and enthusiasm to find real answers that lie outside their comfort zone. Someone takes a road that can lead to its own meaning, he asks questions and looks for answers, wherever they may be. This is the most difficult thing, because here you need to work with yourself, with your life, your feelings, your thinking, your reactions and perceptions... with your pain and your value system, with your beliefs and your experience, with your fear and your motivations... with everything that makes you up as a person, as an individual, as a person. It's like fixing a car at full speed. But this is the only way to get out of the “default settings”. This is our life.

One Eastern wisdom says: “Only death happens by itself.” Life is a continuous movement. No movement means no life. At different moments in our lives, different movements occur. There is a movement that is directed outward, to search for resources, to attract a partner, to protect and adapt. There is a movement that is directed inside our life, first of all, this is a learning process that begins from the moment we are born. The task facing this internal movement is to make the external movement as effective as possible, and at the simplest level, almost everyone copes with this; we master the skills of interaction with the environment and society. But this is not all, a person has deeper and more complex needs than “earning money for food”, “continuing one’s family” and “being more significant than others”, and ninety percent of the real “good” depends on these deep and complex needs. However, where exactly this “good” can be found, and what these deep-seated needs are, everyone must understand in their own life; this is not taught anywhere - neither at school, nor at college. So it turns out that we are faced with these very questions already when our personality has been socialized, basic life skills have been consolidated, and in general we have somehow formed.

Thus, when we are ready for external action, we again need to go inside ourselves, starting the learning process that has already subsided. This is where what can be called “work on yourself” begins. A difficult, often confusing, and sometimes very abstract area of human activity. Especially if we talk about working on oneself in relation not to any particular area of life, but specifically about working on the essence of one’s existence...

But let's talk about everything in order. First of all, what do these two words mean?

Well, firstly, the concept of “working on yourself” can include a huge number of all kinds of actions. You can work on yourself by improving any skills, for example, in sports or art. You can work on yourself in the area of improving or developing any psychological qualities. You can work on your health, on your relationships, on your appearance, on your habits... in general, you can do a lot of things, and it will all be described in two words - work on yourself.

In a general sense, working on oneself implies purposeful, systematic activities to develop, optimize and improve one’s own existence.

I'll decipher it. First of all, it's work. Work is something that is done systematically and has a specific purpose. That is, if you go for a run once in the morning, then it can be anything, but not work. But a system without a goal is also not work, but simply a pastime without a clear meaning and clear criteria. A goal is what gives meaning to any activity , but we will return to this below.

Go ahead. Work is an activity . The very concept of “activity” means “the active interaction of a subject with an object, during which the subject satisfies any of his needs and achieves a goal . ” Active interaction that achieves the goal is a very important point. Just sitting in one place and not really changing your being, you can see a very convincing dream about some kind of personal development, a change in attitude towards the environment, about the ongoing comprehension, but all this will have very little connection with a completely material and tangible reality.

The next point is that working on yourself primarily affects your own life. The subject and object here are ourselves. That is, not the life of your neighbor Tolya, not the life of your cousin Klava, and not even the life of your children or wife-husband, but your own life, and you do this for yourself, and not for someone else. Otherwise, it will be difficult, perhaps noble, but absolutely meaningless work to create yourself as a victim (you are doing this for the sake of someone) and a persecutor (and the psyche of any of us is so structured that for this you will inevitably demand compensation, albeit without realizing it, in the form of gratitude, loyalty, attention or something else like that).

And finally. By working on ourselves, we develop ourselves. Development is when there was one thing, and then something else grows from it, just like a plant grows from a seed. At the same time, we optimize everything that our life consists of. Optimization is when what was there before remains, but begins to work more optimally, in accordance with its natural characteristics, like a car in which all the bolts are tightened, oil and good gasoline are filled, the driver of which, moreover, chooses good fuel if possible. road surface and avoids dangerous situations on the road. And besides, we improve our entire existence. Improvement is when the goals achieved in the process of development and optimization lead to changes for the better.

Below I would like to present a detailed summary of the main aspects that allow work on yourself to be effective. I approach this issue not entirely from the traditional perspective, be it traditional Western psychological schools or Eastern traditions of spiritual self-improvement. First of all, I rely on rational empirical experience, which is based on sober reason, observation and openness to new things... However, first things first.

Review of four directions in working on yourself

The very first thing is the direction of “intention”. We are accustomed to seeing ourselves and our lives in a kind of vacuum, isolated from the world around us. However, even if we use simple logic, we can see that we are not only closely connected with the space around us, but are also one with it. At a minimum, we are inseparable from the air we breathe, from the planet that gave life to all living things, from the Sun, without whose energy this life is impossible... not to mention interactions, for example, at the level of electromagnetic and gravitational forces... We are connected to this universe not only by our external actions, but also by internal actions, with our whole being. This property of our life has received the name “law of attraction” in popular psychology, very colorfully described, in particular, in the film “The Secret”. Yes, we can ask the Universe for help in the matter we need, and eventually receive this help. However, this “law of attraction” has a lot of nuances, without which it is possible to use this “law” literally at one hundredth of its original potential. These nuances include, for example, how to use intention when the pain program is working. Or how to use intention so that life does not give what we supposedly need, but takes away what we are holding on to. And how to do all this environmentally, so as not to harm yourself or anyone else. The issue of ecology and safety is generally one of the main ones here. There are a lot of nuances that determine whether the use of this tool will be momentary entertainment and cheerful self-deception, or whether it will become a natural part of life, just like our writing and walking skills.

We are part of this world. And by approaching your life correctly from this position, you can not only and not so much get something in the short term, but, above all, get a new quality of your life.

Intention is what allows us, moving in the chaos of all kinds of events, to come to our ordered system of life, to our destiny. In other words, the intention is the architectural plan of the house being built, allowing everyone involved in its construction to coordinate their work. Imagine what will happen to the building if the plan is made somehow or if there is no plan at all, how will this building be built? It's the same with our lives. If intention, as a tool for coordinating our consciousness and our unconscious with the entire moving world around us, is not used, then our life is built completely randomly. And if you live by the will of this chance, then you should not be surprised when you receive results you don’t need from this very life.

The second is “purpose.” This is the most important meaning, and that says it all. The topic is broad and deep in itself. Destination is not just an abstract inner potential, not some mystical image and not a calling in any particular matter. This is a very specific direction in which a complex set of qualities and properties of a person’s individual nature can be realized. It is not difficult to formulate a definition and explanation for this concept: everything has certain qualities and properties. The combination of these properties and qualities determines the nature of an object or phenomenon. This nature interacts with the surrounding space, thereby realizing its potential. This very potential of natural qualities and properties is the purpose.

Purpose can be conditionally divided into higher, lower and actual. The highest is how natural potential could be realized under ideal conditions conducive to this realization. The lowest destiny is the probable line of how the development of natural potential could go if the conditions in which a person found himself from the very beginning of life turned out to be as strong as possible and the person did not have the strength to respond to them. Actual destiny is the line between the highest and lowest destiny, showing where a person really is at the moment.

Purpose, in addition, is multi-layered, it has three planes: an explicit plane (the purpose of a person as a person, gender purpose, social), a deep plane (emotional, mental and personal purpose) and a quantum plane that is not subject to determination (what is called “ purpose of the soul").

To illustrate the concepts of “lower,” “higher,” and “actual” purpose, we can give a simple illustration: the most initial level of the explicit plane of purpose is physiological health. The lowest destination here is death. The highest is absolute health. The actual line fluctuates somewhere in the middle, which indicates normal health, which, with some degree of probability, can be worsened by a non-fatal disease, for example, a cold.

The whole point of working on yourself is to come to your purpose and realize it in its entirety . All the directions we are talking about now intersect with each other in one way or another, but they intersect most strongly with the direction of destination.

The third is “programs”. They are also called “engrams” or “scripts”. Programs are the reasons that make the realization of a goal impossible by 70–80 percent. Programs are a painful experience in your own life, which begins to take shape from the period of conception; it is also the experience of many generations preceding your birth. At the same time, programs are also tasks of the soul, which, if not realized, create huge zones of tension and systems of side compensation for these tensions. There can be a lot of different programs, thousands. They form multidimensional planes, entire false universes in the inner world, often not only depriving them of the opportunity to even get closer to the vision of their destiny, but making it unattainable for a person in principle. Working with programs is a very painstaking and troublesome task, but the importance of this area in working on oneself is difficult to exaggerate.
The fourth is knowledge and mastery of your internal “energy”. Internal energy is everything that determines your ability to do anything in your inner world and your objective reality. Internal energy is what is called “energy flows”, and the energy of sensuality, and the energy of physical action, and the energy of interest in life... It would take a very, very long time to list what this energy is. Internal energy, no matter how general this formulation may be, is what fills life in addition to actual actions and physical movements. These are processes that are hidden from direct observation from the outside, but which are objectively present in the body, in emotions, in the mind, taking a direct part in the formation of perceived images, their processing and the implementation of corresponding internal or external reactions.

Each of these areas includes many techniques that cannot be called inaccessible or secret. Many of them have been well known for many, many generations, others are being discovered and developed to this day. However, quite often they are considered rather superficially, as required by the market for quick results, which subsequently leads to disappointment: “I know all this, I tried everything, nothing works, life is what it was, and it remains the same...” In order to in order to get results, it is important to know a few rules, without following which any undertaking, even one filled with pure enthusiasm and sincere interest, will be multiplied by zero.

The four most important rules:

Regularity.
Understanding the goal.
Sober mind.
Observation and openness to new things.

On the first and second points. Actions shape our lives. Their quality, direction and regularity determine the kind of life we live. It’s not for nothing that they say: habit is second nature. One single action in the “right” direction will not outweigh constant action directed “nowhere.”

If you have performed the technique once or even twice, you will certainly gain a lot of new impressions. But if you are interested in impressions, it is better to go to the movies or read a good book. The presence of impressions, as well as their absence, does not mean anything. The main work that produces a high-quality result is not done at once. Quality cannot be achieved with a single “approach”, no matter what you do: sports, art, science - everywhere you need diligence, work, effort and time. This is important to understand.

Here it is important to decide for yourself what you need, what your goal is and how you will understand that this goal has been achieved. Do you really need results, or do you just want fun? How responsibly are you ready to approach this matter? Because in reality it won't be easy. You won’t find the buzz here, as in many trainings and seminars. In many ways, you will have to work with the most painful and unsightly sides of your essence. This is important to understand, because otherwise the movement will only continue until difficulties arise.

Regular practice and understanding of why you are doing it are the basis, the foundation. And if it doesn’t exist, then everything else doesn’t exist either.

Sober mind . Turn off your imagination, no matter what exciting pictures it paints for you. And don’t trust your emotions - they lie, it’s been proven. There is a place inside you that is not influenced by the elements of emotions, and the imagination does not play first fiddle there. Find him. It is important that you not only feel, feelings are a whimsical thing, it is important that you know and understand what you are doing, why and what is the meaning of it for you. Only in this case will you be able to remain faithful to your action. A sober mind is like walls, and if they are not there, then the foundation will grow with weeds and rot in the rain.

But don't hide behind those walls. Complement them with windows and a roof - observation and openness to new things. Do not confuse sober reason and denial of what does not fit into your picture of the world. Trust experience, but don't overestimate it. Live in the present moment, but without forgetting the past and what happened. Watch, think, draw conclusions and watch again. Try, make mistakes and try again.

Observation is windows that bring in fresh air, open the house to sunlight and allow you to see around you.
Openness is the crowning glory of the building. This could be a leaky roof, from which the plaster of past experience is crumbling, or it could be a good-quality roof, or even the dome of a temple, under which every word turns into a chanted prayer. In other words: if there is openness, then this indicates a healthy and flexible psyche, capable of being in constant contact with the environment. If there is a problem with openness, then this is a roof from which scraps of past experience are constantly pouring down and there is a constant struggle with leaks, when the outside world still destructively seeps inside the house.

But these rules are not enough to be understood; they must be followed.

A few recommendations that can help implement the above rules into practice

You can live by action, I already spoke about this above. Then it has a chance to bring something into your life. But how do you know whether you are living something or not? Very simple. If you do this every day, if it takes up a significant part of your active life, then the answer is obvious. If some action occurs from time to time, then it concerns your life superficially. It's simple.

One person gets up every day and goes to training, and gives himself all to this process. Through “I can’t”, through “I don’t want” and through “I have many other important things to do.” And it achieves results. The ones he needs. He stands on a pedestal, becomes a champion, improves his health, and discovers something new in his direction. Why does he succeed, but others don’t? Is it because in one case diligence and labor brought their natural results, but in another they turned out to be insufficient for the same results?

When working on ourselves, results are also important to us. If you understand why you are taking this course, then this should automatically include determining the result. Have you encountered any problems in your life and want to solve them? Do you want to reach your destiny? Or do you just want to learn something new?

In each of these cases, just by posing the question itself, it is clear what the result should be.

What question are you looking at these lines with now? What result are you looking for? And how important is this to you? It is these three questions that determine which direction you will go, and whether you will go at all.

So, first task. Answer these three simple questions sincerely:

What do you want to get from working on yourself?
How will you know you got it?
Are you ready to sacrifice your existing lifestyle, your habits and your current way of life for the sake of the above goal?

These three questions will help make your goal clearer and more tangible.

Fine. The target is visible. But what to do with regularity? This is one of the easiest questions, but that is why it is often very difficult. How many endeavors in your life could you have reaped if you had put more time, effort, and perseverance into those endeavors?

The difficulty lies here in the fact that any irregularity, any postponement for later or simply delaying action is not seen as somehow prominent in life, they are always smooth and gradual, accordingly, we cannot distinguish a threat in them, such as, for example, from some or sudden action. Graduality and smoothness have greater power than periodic sharpness and selective pressure. If the pulling and putting aside are gradual and smooth, they will prevail. Anyway. Any goal you set will not stand a chance. Even if it lights you up from time to time, aimlessness will still win. What to do? How to bring regularity and consistency to work on yourself?

The answer is simple: it should become part of life. This requires three components:

Understanding that there is always something to work on in life . You are not perfect. And not from the point of view of social standards or philosophical concepts. You are not perfect from the point of view of your original nature (in our system we say “higher purpose”), from the point of view of the potential with which you came into this life. If you were ideal, then you most definitely would not have any conflicts, problems in life, or any emotional or mental discomfort.

To put it bluntly: you always have problems to work through. Is there an end to these problems? Theoretically, it exists. In practice, I repeat once again: in life there is always something to work with.

So what's the point if it may never end? The point is that if you don’t work, the problems themselves will not resolve, this has been verified. If work is being done on them - on one problem, then on the next, then on those following these first ones, and so on and so forth, on hundreds and thousands of problems, then this will give results. This will mean that there will be one, two, a thousand fewer problems in your life. And even if there is an infinite number of them, which, in fact, is not the case, they are finite, although much more numerous than we would like to think about it. But even if they are endless, then it is by working with them, working with problem areas that prevent our nature from being truly realized, that we make our lives better (more perfect, healthier, more optimal, more conflict-free, more effective - underline as necessary). Well, why this is needed, everyone decides for himself.

Constantly changing perspective. This is a cure for dullness, and it is necessary in order to always be able to implement the first component from this small list - constant work on problem areas. The areas that need to be worked on are 70-90% programs, and only ten percent skills that need to be developed, refined or regrouped. What are programs - in short, this is the result of the work of the adaptation system, which can be transmitted through many generations of the family; in the overwhelming majority of cases, people do not have enough conscious energy to ensure that these programs are formed somehow optimally in relation to their own nature and the nature of the world around them, this leads to the fact that 99.9% of programs are focused on fear and pain, which are not the optimal response to any events in life, but are the simplest and easiest answer for a person. It costs almost nothing to be offended and close down; to go to resolve the conflict and sincerely see your goal - it costs a lot of real effort, this is just an example.

So here it is. Programs in their original nature exist to protect and protect us from all sorts of dangers of this world. Our adaptation system is “sure” that we need them and without them we will die (a practical example: during the war, my great-grandmother was abandoned by her husband and went to the front, never returning from there. Then, as it turned out, he changed his last name and started a new family ". His wife hated him with fierce hatred and made him in her worldview system responsible for all the sorrows and misfortunes in her life. Naturally, the children absorbed all this. And already in their children, namely their granddaughter, a catastrophic fear of relationships, unreasonable hatred of men and rejection of oneself as a woman (after all, women are weak, defenseless, etc., something from which my grandmother suffered so much. Why? Because a man is a threat that will plunge your life into suffering and torment. This is how the program works.) Accordingly. , when we look at programs and the problems they generate, we first of all come across the fact that they will resist. And they do this with the help of our own mind. And so that there is an opportunity to still deal with the problem, and not get stuck in it , you need to remember that you need to constantly change your perspective on this problem. In practice, this means a continuous change of approaches and tools to the problem being solved; if the solution does not move, you must always ask questions like: “what else can help in the solution”, “is this the right direction for me to solve”, “what else have I not taken into account” “,” “What could be the mistake,” - and think, think, think, without getting hung up on dead-end thoughts, like “I don’t know,” “I’m tired,” “I’m tired of everything,” “I’m right.” Always ask the question: “What, what else could be here, from what side can we look at it, what could be missed.” All attention here should be paid to the internal and external components of life, you need to teach yourself to analyze them and perceive them critically.

It should also be noted that such an approach to solving problems inevitably forms a flow of intention, if, of course, you ask these questions to yourself sincerely, the intention allows you to find the right answer: thoughts will come together in the right way for the solution, or a hint and solution will come from the outside, but a sincere desire will always find a way to be realized, which means that these questions to the problem being solved will always bear fruit.

So, regularity implies consistency. And the fact that the process of working on yourself becomes part of your life means there is already a certain system in the approach to this process. And another key component on which it depends whether regularity will be possible and whether it will become a part of your life, not in words, but in deeds, is uncompromising .

And finally, third:

No compromise with internal problems. This is another key component on which it depends whether regularity will be possible. An internal problem is something that prevents us from living in accordance with our original nature. If we have identified such a problem (one of a series), then we should not leave it any chance to exist. We simply do not have the right to lose sight of this, even if now is “reluctance”, “wrong time”, “wrong problem”, “the other is also to blame”. By agreeing with an already actualized problem (actualized means that it exists and works, and we have fixed it with attention), refusing to look for a solution or postponing it until later, we not only push the “final” result away from ourselves, but also multiply all previous ones by zero effort made. Even if the problem has taken over our states, actions, thoughts, consciousness must constantly look for a solution, then sooner or later it will appear. Otherwise, we will most likely return not just to the point of our “starting positions”, when we carried all these problems within ourselves, but much lower. Inattention and irresponsibility in action carries much more danger than inattention and irresponsibility in inaction.

Well, as for what can help to implement in life the rules regarding sobriety, observation and openness to new things, here everything is simpler, but at the same time more complicated. These three things can be considered as some initial qualities of consciousness, the use of which is a matter of freedom of choice for the person himself. In order to look at things in the surrounding reality impartially, you must first of all want it, experience such a need, and this need can often be reached by becoming convinced of the powerlessness of the logic mechanism in the face of dynamically changing life. A very precise definition of logic and its role in life was given by Hans Selye, the founder of the theory of stress, in his book “From Dream to Discovery”: “... I believe that logic is for Nature what a guide is for a zoo. He knows exactly where the African lion is, where the Indian elephant is, and where the Australian kangaroo is, since they were captured, brought to the zoo and put on display. The hunter who tracked these animals in their natural habitats does not need such knowledge. In the same way, logic is not the key to the secrets of the orderliness of Nature, but a kind of “art gallery catalog” in the human brain, where his impressions of natural phenomena are stored.”

There is no recommendation that would really help you become more observant, more open, or clearer in your mind. You just need to understand how much and why you need it.

Well, in conclusion, I would like to add this: working on yourself gives real results when you need them more than anything else in your life. If these results determine whether you will live or not, then there will be enough motivation to achieve a real result. As they say, the one who walks can master the road. And in order for this to be a movement forward, and not somewhere sideways, it is important not to forget what a dream is... but this, however, is a completely different story.