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Personal growth: Having faith in our innate abilities May 9, 2014

Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Concept of personal development, Self-Esteem.
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One of the key outcomes we seek in a program of personal growth and development is that of acquiring the ability to have faith in our own capabilities and potential.

In terms of self-awareness and self-knowledge, we want to achieve greater self-confidence, and greater self-assurance regarding the creativity, originality, and validity of our own individual thought process.

And, as a large component of our work on developing this confidence, we turn to the experts on personal growth.

What do they have to say about how we should move forward?

We can, however, become over-reliant on the experts to the point where we begin to doubt our own abilities to make decisions about the strategic path we need to take in constructing a self-improvement program tailored to our individual circumstances and needs.

There is reluctance to believe we can absorb the advice of the experts, and yet have the confidence to design a self-directed growth program based on selecting the appropriate (to our personality) component elements suggested by those experts.

And so, because of these inner doubts we may choose to follow a particular program in its entirety without making the necessary adjustments our specific situation may require.

Combatting this reluctance to trust ourselves will take some serious work, because it is rooted in our inborn sense of insecurity.

Eric Hoffer has commented on this conundrum:

“We have more faith in what we imitate than in what we originate. We cannot derive a sense of absolute certitude from anything which has its roots in us. The most poignant sense of insecurity comes from standing alone; we are not alone when we imitate.” (1)

(1) Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind

Personal growth, self-awareness, work that matters May 7, 2014

Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Concept of personal development, Personal Development Potential.
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In our personal development work we will encounter a lot of information about our immense potential for improvement and the need to have a plan for realizing all that we are capable of.

The hidden danger in this is that, if we are not careful, we may subconsciously make the mistaken assumption that much what we are currently doing with our lives is somehow inadequate.

Our increased self-awareness may actually lead us to believe that we are not doing work or activities that matter.

Well, what we are already doing does in fact matter, even if that work or activity is not fully reflected in the appreciation of and approval of others.

It’s great to be seeking ways to make our work more meaningful, but everything we do does not have to change the world in order to have value.

Our contributions in a variety of roles such as mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, employees, employers, bosses, students – each of these roles has meaning and worth. But too often we interpret a lack of positive feedback from those in our circle of influence as a negative indicator of our contributions.

It’s important for our self-esteem to remember that our work would be missed by those in our circle, if we stopped doing it – regardless of whether we are receiving a constant stream of positive reinforcement.

Speaking of “work that matters”, here is an extreme example of  a vital and responsibility-intense life mission; that of the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico, as related to C.G. Jung in 1924, by one of the Pueblo leaders, Ochwiay Biano:

“We are the people who live on the roof of the world: we are the sons of Father Sun, and with our religion we daily help our Father to go across the sky. We do this not only for ourselves, but for the whole world. If we were to cease practising our religion, in ten years the sun would no longer rise. Then it would be night forever.” (1)

(1) As quoted in Gerhard Wehr’s book, An Illustrated Biography of C.G. Jung, p. 61