A creative hobby can help improve your personal growth program May 10, 2018
Posted by Dennis Mellersh in personal development ideas.Tags: achieving goals, creative process, creativity, inspiration, life, personal growth program, philosophy, psychology, self-actualization, writing
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For anyone who is putting a lot of effort into their personal development program, the process can involve a lot of work, and take on the feeling of a job or chore; all of which can have a depleting effect on our physical, emotional, and mental energy reserves.
One way to help overcome this and keep our energy reserves in balance is to add a creative hobby component to our self-improvement routines.
A creative hobby could involve many forms; arts and crafts, such as painting or drawing; making pottery; or learning a musical instrument; creative writing; studying and doing woodworking.
If you Google “creative hobbies” you will find hundreds of suggestions that you might want to investigate.
If you find a find a hobby that you really enjoy it can help put your mind and emotions into a different zone or plane…one where you are so absorbed that you forget for a while the problems and challenges that each of face every day.
Hobbies have a physical and emotional restorative power, and that attribute can inject more energy into our self-actualization work.
The key: Don’t turn your creative outlet into just another “I have to do this” routine; don’t make it a work project.
PS: There’s an interesting article on the mental and emotional restorative value of hobbies, and in particular the dangers of turning a hobby into yet another productivity-oriented chore, in the New York Times:
— Dennis Mellersh
Four ways you may be defeating your personal growth efforts May 9, 2018
Posted by Dennis Mellersh in personal development ideas.Tags: achieving goals, goal setting, inspiration, life, personal growth program, philosophy, procrastination, psychology, self-actualization, writing
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Personal development, like any other sustained objective we are trying to reach, requires some discipline and guidelines, otherwise our efforts will be ineffective and counter-productive; especially if we fall into certain habits and practices.
(1) Too much theory, not enough action
Because self-improvement is such an interesting subject we can easily become over-absorbed in the research and study of various materials, to the point where we are not putting into practice what we are learning. The action steps are as important, and perhaps more so, than the theory.
(2) Scattering our efforts
Instead of picking a self-improvement program and sticking with it, we try to incorporate too many different ideas or concepts into our program, with the result that our action steps lack focus, leading to frustration with our goal-directed activities.
(3) Working in bursts
We have all probably “crammed” at night to pass a test, but if we try this technique with self-actualization, the result will be disappointment. Any long-term goals require what Seth Godin calls the drip-drip-drip approach for success.
(4) Procrastinating with the hard stuff
Reading the books and expert blogs, watching instructional videos, and listening to podcasts are all helpful, as are all the appropriate action steps. But often with personal growth, the hardest part can be the internal work we need to do to achieve attitudinal change. And that’s the part we often put off doing, because it’s probably the toughest part of personal development.
— Dennis Mellersh
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