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Personal growth: Relying too much on self-sufficiency August 21, 2014

Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Concept of personal growth, Goal Setting and Realization.
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In our efforts towards self-improvement and personal development we can make the mistake of thinking we can achieve all of our goals solely by using our own “inner resources.”

Aiming at achieving increased personal self-sufficiency is an important goal in the overall process of self-actualization.

To get to that emotional and intellectual destination, however, the journey will be easier and more productive if we can learn from the experiences and knowledge of others.

Effective personal growth is a skill acquisition process, and like any skill, it needs (in varying degrees) to be learned from others who have experience and information about pursuing this particular path.

Consider this comment from the Chinese sage Confucius, as noted in The Analects as translated by David Hinton in his book The Four Chinese Classics:

“I am not one who was born with great wisdom. I love the ancients and diligently seek wisdom among them.”

We do need to be selective, however, in our choices of the personal growth experts we will follow.

So make sure the author/writer you decide to use as a guide/example is someone whose words truly resonate with your personality, circumstances, and outlook.

Don’t follow someone just because they are popular.

Personal growth: Achieving broad goals via specifics June 25, 2014

Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Concept of personal growth, Goal Setting and Realization.
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One of the traps we can fall into in self-improvement is in setting too many vague and overly broad goals without also establishing specific goals (within our general goals) that can be broken down into smaller tasks or projects.

Examples of vague goals:

Improve my knowledge of current affairs
Increase my understanding of personal development principles
Doing a better job of organizing my time
Establishing more quality time with my family

These are admirable objectives, but if not augmented with specific goals and sub-tasks, they can be a frustrating exercise and remain merely good intentions.

Wide/broad goals need to be (1) subdivided into specifics, (2) then quantified and (3) then be incorporated into a timetable.

For improving our knowledge of current affairs, for example, the sub-goal could be to read (on- or off-line) authoritative, quality newspapers, blogs, and magazines.

Then quantify by choosing a specific number you will read, and which ones.

Finally timetable this by establishing the time of day, week, or month that we will do this plus the amount of time we will devote to this activity.

We need to periodically remind ourselves that taking a systematic and specific-actions approach to our broad goals will result in less frustration and more actual achievement in our self-improvement efforts.

Our overarching goal is to better ourselves; but this can’t happen without an action plan.