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Imagination, persistence, and courage in personal development March 11, 2012

Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Self-Discipline.
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In our efforts towards self-improvement or personal development, discouragement, and even fear, may set in periodically as our personal growth goals are not being realized as fast as we would like.

In this case persistence and courage are two of the personal development traits that we need to develop. While doing some research on various approaches to goal setting and self-realization, I came across the following statement by Winston S. Churchill, in which he speaks of persistence and courage in trying to stay true to our guiding principles: “Never give in; never give in, never, never, never, never – in nothing, great or small, large or petty – never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense.”

For sensitive and introspective people who are working on a program of self-improvement or personal growth and development, however, our personalities can sometimes produce fears and self-doubts and thereby interfere with our efforts towards our personal growth goals. Our imagination, can lead us into periods of intellectual uncertainty and fearfulness.

However, as Churchill points out in another comment, these fears are normal for sensitive, imaginative people: “You cannot tell from appearances how things will go. Sometimes imagination makes things out far worse than they are; yet without imagination not much can be done. Those people who are imaginative see many more dangers than perhaps exist; certainly many more than will happen; but then they must also pray to be given that extra courage to carry this far-reaching imagination.”

These quotations are from a speech Churchill gave in 1941 during the 2nd World War, a talk that has become known as his “Never Give In” speech.

Controlling the ego means controlling our mind March 7, 2012

Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Ego Management.
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Managing the ego as part of our personal development process need not be an overly complex psychological process if we look at the ego in a less clinical way than is often done in psychological writings on the ego.

Although there are myriad definitions of the ego and the  sub groups of ego components, we can best manage areas of our ego, such as anger, if we think of the ego as the mind, rather than a deep-seated area of the brain that is difficult to access, such as the workings of the subconscious.

Our efforts towards personal growth will seem more attainable if we realize that for the most part we are in control of our mind or ego, even though in many cases, trying to convince our mind or ego about something can be tough work. But it is do-able.

From a common-sense perspective we all have a good idea of what constitutes our mind. It is that area of our person, which, for example, decides to embark on a program of personal development or self-improvement, or any other conscious course of action.

Here is one definition of the ego which I think illustrates the point that ego management or ego control involves our free-will and is not bound by mysterious inner physic workings: “The ‘I’ or ‘self’ of any person; a person as thinking, feeling and willing, and distinguishing itself from the selves of others and from objects of its thought.”(1)

In this sense we can use our minds to successfully embark on any personal growth efforts requiring thinking. This makes matters of controlling the ego, or managing our ego, just that – matters of using our mind to control what we are thinking and to control how we are reacting to our thoughts.

The power of the mind can sometimes make it seem like an entity independent of ourselves. This is demonstrated by a number of experiences we have all had which show the power of the mind to almost have a will of its own:

“I just can’t get his rude comments out of my mind.” “That song keeps running around in my head.” “I can’t stop thinking about my financial problems.” “My mind keeps jumping from one thing to another and I can’t settle it down.”

However, with work, we can gain greater control of our mind, and thereby realize our potential through our efforts in personal development.

(1) Source: Dictionary.com