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Personal growth 101: The Importance of focusing on action November 14, 2017

Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Concept of personal growth.
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One of the traps inherent in good personal development programs is that they are interesting media in themselves — they are entertaining — and if we aren’t careful, we can end up doing a lot of “research” on them but not implementing much of what we are learning.

This is especially true when we first start out on our deliberate path to develop our personal potential. But study should be an adjunct to growth, not a replacement for action and implementation.

So we need to make a decision on what program or philosophy we are going to implement.
Perhaps it will be a single system of ideas from one of the many recognized experts in this field.

Or an effective program can be one that we put together and systematize ourselves, choosing the best elements of different expert approaches that we feel will work best for our personalities and circumstances.

Another less programmed approach to implementation is to read, listen to, watch, and ideally make notes on the work of a variety of self-improvement experts, and then draw on this knowledge when situations in your life call for a little extra help beyond your intuitive resources.

There’s no absolutely right way to begin the journey of self-actualization.

The important thing is to be taking some form of action whenever possible and as soon as possible.

— Dennis Mellersh

Personal growth: Carl Jung and the “aimlessness” of life November 14, 2017

Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Concept of personal growth.
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Carl Jung (1875-1961), the famed psychologist, psychiatrist, and psychoanalyst, once noted: “About a third of my cases [patients] are not suffering from any clinically definable neurosis, but from the senselessness and aimlessness of their lives.” (1)

This statement leads us to wonder whether the troubled patients led lives that were: (a) actually aimless and senseless; (b) just perceived to be so by the patients; or (c) a combination of both.

Whatever the cause of the patients’ discomfort, it’s a troubling emotional space for anyone to be in.

Perhaps the patients of Dr. Jung’s most active consulting period would have been better able to cope with many of life’s circumstances if they had been able to access the wide variety of quality self-help materials available to us today through modern media and technology.

We have now come to appreciate that one of the key potential emotional and psychological benefits of involving ourselves in the study and practice of personal development is that we can, in most non-medical instances, develop an improved focus and enhanced sense of purpose and appreciation in our lives.

So, if you’re working on a personal program of improvement and do not feel that you are making enough progress, stop fretting.

You’re probably growing emotionally and intellectually faster than you realize, and are actually better able to cope with life’s inevitable ups and downs better every day.

(1) Neurosis as defined by dictionary.com:  “a relatively mild mental illness that is not caused by organic disease, involving symptoms of stress (depression, anxiety, obsessive behavior, hypochondria) but not a radical loss of touch with reality”

— Dennis Mellersh