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Personal growth: A process, not an instant solution April 27, 2014

Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Concept of personal development, Personal Development Potential.
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As we work on our personal development and growth programs, we may reach a stage at which we feel we are not moving along fast enough with the changes we would like to make in our lives.

At such a time, we need to remember that the concept of personal development is an ongoing process. It is not meant to be a discipline whereby we read something inspirational and at that point we are immediately transformed.

Part of the process involves studying a lot of printed and online material on the topic of self-improvement and choosing from these materials those ideas and examples which will be the most helpful in each of our individual circumstances, and thereby gradually reaching our potential.

A complex time-intensive process

Critics of the self-actualization movement sometimes say, “If personal development works so well, then why is there always so much new material available and why do people keep reading such information year after year?”

The answer is because the quest of bettering ourselves is complex, and does not lend itself to formulaic packaged, “one-size-fits-all“ solutions. It takes time and a lot of effort to achieve the improved results we want to bring into our lives.

The Chinese sage Confucius reminds of this in the following:

“A boy from Ch’ueh Village had been hired as the Master’s messenger. Asking about him, someone said: ’Is he making progress?’
‘I’ve seen him sit and walk among his elders,’ replied the Master, ‘as if he were already their equal. He has no interest in making progress. He wants it all right now.” (1)
(1) Confucius, The Analects, as translated by David Hinton is his book, The Four Chinese Classics

Self-awareness and choosing personal growth goals April 6, 2014

Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Concept of personal development, Goal Setting and Realization.
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The process of choosing our goals needs to be an integral part of our overall personal process of self-actualization if we are to reach our potential in our personal improvement efforts.

In conscientiously and regularly working at a program of self-improvement or personal development, two results will usually occur: we will increase our self-awareness, and we will improve our self-knowledge.

This acceleration in our understanding of ourselves in turn will help us in identifying our strengths and talents and in clarifying our areas of lesser strengths – aspects of our personality in which we may want to increase our effectiveness.

It’s important that our goals be ones that we choose or decide upon after this process of introspection.

As you have probably already discovered, the need for having personal goals is one of the most common recommendations in the literature of the self-empowerment movement.

But the goals must be “ours”, not ones which we think, from our reading, “should” be our goals.

If the goals are not ones we feel passionate about achieving, if they are “should do” goals instead of “want to” or “personally need to do” goals, then failure is a strong probability.

Thought for today

“People are not lazy. They simply have impotent goals – that is, goals that do not inspire them.”
– Tony Robbins