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Personal development: The need to implement what we learn December 24, 2017

Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Personal Development Potential.
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The eminent historian Arnold Toynbee warns obliquely that, for most of us, it is important to convert the knowledge we are gaining, into action; otherwise we are doomed to be constantly frustrated.

In Toynbee’s case, he found he was becoming frustrated in the world of academia by constantly acquiring more and more knowledge for its own sake. His irritation ended when he realized that by using his knowledge for the writing of history, he could be more creative and productive.

Similarly, in our efforts towards personal growth and self-actualization we tend to acquire a lot of knowledge, theory, and opinions, but if we do not put that knowledge and information into practice, it does us little good.

Toynbee found that when he applied the action of writing to his knowledge of history it enabled him to be more focused and selective about what future knowledge he chose to acquire.

Toynbee wrote, “Instead of going on acquiring knowledge ad infinitum, I had started to do something with the knowledge I already possessed, and this active use of knowledge gave direction, for the future, to my acquisition of knowledge.”(1)

(1) Arnold Toynbee, from his memoir, Experiences. Toynbee is best known for his ten volume work, A Study of History.

— Dennis Mellersh

Taking ownership of your personal growth program May 3, 2014

Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Concept of personal development, Concept of personal growth.
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In our self-improvement work it’s important for us to set standards for measuring our progress.

And, as we learn more about ourselves through our self-directed program, our increased self-awareness and self-knowledge will help us to set realistic measurement posts for gauging our success.

But, even more important, it’s vital to establish these standards as our own individual and personal “measurement-markers” or guidelines for evaluating our achievements.

We should not allow our satisfaction with our progress to depend on the standards and/or approval mechanisms of others.

To allow the validation of our internal work to be dependent on external approval sources significantly reduces our ownership of what should be a highly personal undertaking.

And, worse, caring too much about external approval or seeking validation through external sources can become a dependency – a dependency which can erode our self-esteem.

We all want to be noticed; we all want to be respected; we all want to be appreciated; but in the case of approval or validation, the most important thing is that we approve of ourselves.

Genuine self-esteem is, above all, an internally-grounded attribute.