You are tormented by depression, you hate life and are looking for the culprits of failures: do you blame greenhouse education for your spinelessness, for your picky boss, for loneliness, for selfish friends who are not interested in your problems? And in general, for every incident do you always have a million culprits, besides yourself? But in fact, the source of all your failures is you, only you and no one else. And only you can fix it.
To change your life for the better, change yourself first. It is for this purpose that self-development of the individual exists. To begin with, we will understand what, in fact, this concept means.
What is self-development?
Self-development is a conscious process that a person carries out without any external support, using exclusively his moral and physical resources in order to improve his potential and realize himself as a person. Self-development is impossible without:
- setting specific goals;
- the presence of beliefs;
- creating installations for action.
Identity and inextricably linked with self-development is personal growth. This is a person’s self- education, during which he improves his positive qualities, his actions become more effective and, as a result, his personal potential significantly increases, which helps to achieve success in all areas of life.
What does it consist of?
The concepts of "self-education", "personal potential", "success" sound pretty abstract. All this can be achieved only through specific actions. And personal growth and self-development are processes that give positive results, both moral and material in nature, only subject to constant painstaking work on oneself. Let us consider more specifically what actions are required of us in order to change for the better.
Self-development is undoubtedly a big and important step, but you also need to make an action plan for yourself to achieve your goals. Do not think that your life can change in one second or in a day. In order to accomplish great things, it takes a lot of time. But if you try hard, the result will certainly meet all your expectations.
Self-development of a person can be divided into five stages, which are inextricably linked:
1) awareness of its necessity;
2) study of needs;
3) self-knowledge;
4) drawing up a strategy;
5) actions.
The self-development program requires a careful approach to each of its points. Let's consider them in more detail.
Step 1. We recognize the need
Before proceeding, you must clearly understand why you need it and whether you really want to change something. At this point, the subject of your annoyance does not play a significant role. Either you are not comfortable with the income level, or you want people to perceive you differently, or you need some kind of appearance changes ...
All these and any other desires have something in common: they must be based on a powerful irresistible desire for change and complete readiness to use the maximum of one’s strength to fulfill assigned tasks.
The goal of self-development is to overcome the fear of leaving the comfort zone and stop being afraid of changes. If you are ready for this, you can start rebooting your life.
Step 2. We study the needs
To change your life for the better, you need to decide which aspects of it require refinement and improvement. To understand and state what you want, do the following exercise.
Take a piece of paper and divide it into two parts. In the first half, list in a column everything that does not suit you. In the other - the ways to solve these problems and the results you want to achieve.
Then number the points from the second column, depending on the possibility of their implementation: from simple to complex. This will help you formulate your short-term and long-term goals and draw up an action plan to achieve them.
After compiling this list, you do not need to grab onto all the affairs at the same time. Such a strategy often leads to the fact that, performing immediately a bunch of tasks, a person is very sprayed and can not solve any of them qualitatively. Act gradually, first paying attention to simpler problems and smoothly moving on to complex ones. Only following such a system can you achieve maximum results.
Step 3. Knowing Yourself
Having decided on the goals, deal with what is happening inside you. You must clearly understand which of your qualities will help in achieving your goals, and which, on the contrary, will interfere. Everyone has the ability to self-develop, but not everyone can use it because of his other character traits.
Try to assess your capabilities and abilities as objectively as possible so that on the path of self-development you will be ready for the steps that you yourself (often unconsciously) will substitute.
In self-digging, a written exercise is also useful to you. This time it is necessary to state on paper your positive and negative character traits. Be as objective as possible: you should neither praise nor humiliate yourself. Just describe what is. And to get more accurate information, ask someone close to compare the features you listed with the real situation.
So you will not only learn what indifferent people think of you, but you will also be able to compare how you position yourself, with how it looks from the outside.
Step 4. Draw up a strategy
Self-development is not only knowledge, but also planning. When you have decided what you want and understood what qualities will help in achieving your goals, it is time to draw up a plan of specific actions.
The self-development program cannot give a universal answer to the question: “What needs to be done?” Each has its own priorities and desires. But we all have something in common: we want to be happy. But how - everyone decides for himself.
You choose what you need to do to achieve your goal. In this case, you must adhere to the following rules:
1. Assess your capabilities objectively and set goals that you can actually achieve at this stage of your life. If you want more, take on its achievement a little later, when you reach a new level. The path of self-development cannot be called simple and short, but your efforts will certainly bring you pleasant results.
2. Remember: even the smallest victory is a step taken up the stairs. The more steps you take, the higher you will advance.
3. Set yourself specific deadlines to achieve each goal. When everything is painted according to dates (or at least for approximate periods of time), working on the result is much easier than on an abstract desire.
Do not be discouraged if something does not work out the first time. Belief in yourself, your dreams and positive thinking works wonders. If you have already decided to do something, then go to the end, and personal growth and self-development will help you with this.
Step 5. We act!
All that was mentioned above is a dry theory, and practice should begin right away. No need to say that you will change something tomorrow or next week, or from the first day. Do not put off until later what you can do now, because the sooner you start, the sooner you will achieve results.
The tasks of self-development seem uncomplicated in theory, but in reality you will find many obstacles. Whatever happens, do not doubt your dreams, forget about the failures of the past, because the future is what is happening right now, and it depends on you what it will be.
What is stopping us?
On your way to achieving goals you will meet with a mass of obstacles. But all external barriers are nothing compared to internal ones. Only by defeating yourself, you will be able to subjugate the surrounding reality and reach your destination. You must know your main enemies in person, because self-development is a constant struggle. So, get acquainted ...
Doubt
Inside each of us is an evil censor who criticizes any of our decisions. Even if at first glance it looks the most correct and rational of all possible, we still ask ourselves the question: “Or maybe not?”, “Are you sure?”, “Let's better not risk it?”
A voice of doubt ... In some cases, it really saves us from erroneous rash decisions, but sometimes it makes it difficult to make a jerk towards the dream. How to deal with it? His main enemy is desire. Only in it is the strength sufficient to defeat any doubts. No wonder they once said: "If you really want to, you can fly into space."
Desire gives us an inexhaustible source of energy, it inspires and inspires us, makes us fight for what we really need, kicks everyone out of his comfort zone. Only armed with a genuine sincere desire can any doubt be overcome.
Laziness
Laziness is another problem of self-development. But it does not exist, it is a kind of placebo, a fiction. But wrong desires and dreams are quite real. They poison our life, forcing us to sit still and not strive anywhere.
If you have no incentive, then there will be no desire either. And how can you change something if you don’t want it with all your heart? No way. Dreams are the gasoline of our self-development. The nourishment they give us is equivalent to their scale. And if the dream is useless, then refueling from it really will not work.
But when you have a really worthwhile goal, you don’t even want to remember any laziness. After all, we are ruled by a great desire for change.
If you don’t have a truly inspiring dream, find it. If it doesn’t work out, change the circle of communication, reach out to people with ambitious goals, and you yourself will have the same. Fight for your dreams. And you can certainly defeat laziness!
Habits
Habits are an invaluable feed for laziness. They appear as a result of actions that are constantly repeated. Habits are both good and bad. But, regardless of the level of their benefit, we all bring them to automatism.
Where do they come from? When a person for a long time performs the same actions, he gets used to them, and they become an integral part of his life. A lot of people fall into a catastrophic dependence on their habits, and it is they who prevent us from moving forward.
That is, if we need changes, we must start to do something new that you have not done before. If you do not act, then get stuck at the zero point of reference, without moving forward. Remember: changing habits entails global changes in fate.
Ignorance
Another obstacle in your path is ignorance. Its essence is that a person does not perceive new information and condemns it in advance, not knowing any facts.
As a rule, people suffering from ignorance take changes very painfully and do not want to notice anything new. They do not trust anyone or anything, and the saddest thing in their situation is that they themselves drove themselves into a dead corner.
But they can still fix everything if they change their perception of the world around them. If you belong to this type of people, you must fully realize that everything around is constantly changing and moving forward. You will either have to keep up with the progress, or hang in the past for an indefinite period of time.
Change - and the world around you, and your life will certainly change for the better!