Personal growth and self-development: what does it give to a person. Difference between want and feel

There is a lot of material on the Internet about the development of personal growth. Everything seems to be normal, but “nothing happens” that would make us wake up every day with joy and go “with a feeling of flying” to do our favorite thing. And this happens because “life on autopilot” does not suit you, but you don’t know a clear strategy for moving, and where to move. And all because there are no goals and a plan for personal growth when you know “what, why and why” you need to do.

On the walls of the Temple of Apollo in Delphi, an ancient inscription has been preserved: “Know yourself” - this is nothing more than personal growth.

Developing personal growth in the head and body

The time “X” comes and we begin to engage in personal growth and self-development.

Very often we are faced with the fact that we want to change everything. To do this, we begin to take care of ourselves, read a lot of books, go to trainings. And we don’t understand at all why changes in our lives are in no hurry to happen.

There is an expression among psychologists that “the internal tightens the external.” We can only agree with this if we actually do something for these changes.

Self-development always occurs at all levels: in the head and in the body. In other words, the inner always draws out the outer, and not vice versa. Self-development occurs in all areas of life:

• Physical
• Spiritual
• Intelligent
• Emotional
• Creative

What pushes us to change everything that is familiar to us. Yes, exactly, stressful situations that smoothly move from one to another and sometimes do not end at all or end in neurosis. Therefore, this is another reason to think about changes.

And some never come to change. They decided, for example, to reduce weight by 20 kg, but they do nothing at all, they just want to. And so they “waddle” from holiday to holiday, only having the desire to lose weight. Even diseases that are a consequence of excess weight do not stop a person. And he does not strive to start doing something, even in the name of his “health.”

Self-development is still a comprehensive work on oneself. And you need to have the willpower to start doing it.

Learn - keep up with the times

Any working person can say that many times they are faced with an unknown task at work, when they had to learn something new in order to complete and implement it. After all, our world does not stand still and development, both technological and informational, occurs constantly. In this regard, we must keep up with the times in order to keep up with it.

A prerequisite of our time is that in order to grow in your society and succeed in your business or at work, you need to constantly develop , learn something new and unknown. But the trouble is that we constantly do not have enough time, the very time with which we are supposed to keep up. There’s not enough, even for the most important and serious things, so where does the desire for such nonsense as constant study come from? Or maybe this is where our problem lies, that we consider the process of development and self-improvement insignificant? I fell behind the progress - I didn’t master the computer - I didn’t have time to finish the report at work - I arrived home late - I only had time to go to bed. And tomorrow everything will start again. Perhaps, in order to be on time everywhere and always, you need to change your attitude towards studying.

Time is a very touchy entity, at first we kill it, then it kills us, and somewhere in the middle, we simply sorely lack it, but it flies and does not want to stop, you might be interested to know:

• Why do we always run out of time?
• Problems of lack of free time

There are many reasons that will not allow us to stop learning, and we will improve constantly. Let's think a little about what else is worth constantly studying.

Why don't people want to develop?

It's not that simple at all. Therefore, people who spend a lot of time reading literature, or endlessly attend trainings, but do nothing on their own, or do not study personally with a coach, remain in their original positions. What are the reasons for all this:

• Lack of willpower

Procrastination or constant putting things off, or simple laziness, prevent a person from moving towards his goals. In some families, parents raised willpower in their children, while in others they did not. But this does not mean at all that you cannot raise her yourself. It's like a muscle, the longer you train, the better the results.

There are two approaches to training willpower: Do OR Don't. Our body will find thousands of reasons not to do it, since it does not want to leave the “comfort zone”. But as we wrote earlier, “if you do everything as always, then you will get the same result as always.”

Start training yourself with daily, constant actions: exercise, church fasts, daily 40-minute walks, maintaining a family budget, monitoring expenses and your free time. You need to make plans and carry them out. Otherwise there will never be a result.

Willpower is a spiritual quality, and it is cultivated by people with very high awareness.

Just by developing this quality you can achieve dramatic changes in your life.

• Lack of motivation

A person needs a very strong desire to motivate himself to change. And as a rule, our inner voice often tells us: “Well, why do you need this? And so good!” And everything remains in the same place. Therefore, a person will never lose his extra 20 kg. Because you need to seriously deny yourself something, spend time on sports, count calories. To limit yourself means to deprive yourself of “sweets”. Who, the one who loves him, would bring himself to this?

In order to have motivation, you need to set the right goals, clearly see and visualize the result of what you want. And only then with willpower and overcoming yourself can you get results. The proverb: “Without labor, you can’t catch a fish out of a pond”... that’s what it’s about!

• Lack of time management

This is another reason that slows people down on the path to their goals. There are plans, but there is no exact time when they will begin to be implemented. And this is a big mistake. Many people try to start “on Monday”, “on New Year”, etc. and they never start. Time is the most valuable resource. So years pass, but “things are still there.”

It’s not enough to plan, it’s also worth tracking the implementation, and giving yourself pluses for completing it, and be sure to encourage yourself.

• Lack of discipline

Here you only need to write one thing: if you have started, then for at least 21 days you should do it every day, without days off, and without excuses. The body “will not help you in any way”; it will even “invent” a disease. But you still try and do it. This is the only way to get results.

Who has big eyes?

Almost everyone has fought at some point in their lives; everyone has seen it on the street or on the Internet. How, in less than a minute, a person can be beaten to death. How at one moment they can interrupt with one shot all your plans for upcoming trips, all the books you read or the piracetam you took. How a car hits a man, leaving him in rags.

At such moments you clearly understand that, really, why all these dreams and goals, you need to live in the moment and not plan anything like some kind of animal. You can think about a lot when you find out that there was some person you knew and now he’s gone.

Moments like this don't happen often. It’s not every day that you are threatened with pistols on the road by various individuals who imagine themselves to be some kind of god-like people, although their mince may soon lie somewhere under the truck. Such rare shocks are a terrible demotivator for changes and plans, for goals and the meaning of life. Agree that there are few serious stresses in life, but they unsettle you for a long time. Sometimes, even after reading, having seen enough negativity around, it’s difficult to even go to a banal workout, not to mention making long-term plans.

What is personal growth and self-development?

American psychologist Carl Rogers in 1959 answered the question of what human personal growth is. He identified the general “law of personal growth” based on the “if-then” formula. It sounds like this: if the necessary conditions exist, then the process of self-development is actualized in a person, that is, changes aimed at his personal maturity.

• It is a constant and never-ending process of learning something.
• Thanks to this, a person grows and develops both qualitatively and quantitatively, noticeable changes occur
• Knows yourself better and improves your personal qualities
• Gains new skills and finds his purpose
• Improves quality of life and lives more consciously and interestingly
• Life becomes more harmonious, and this makes it joyful and happy

This is, in fact, the most profitable investment - an investment in your self-development, personal growth.

Growth is always quantitative changes that a person can track himself, and development is qualitative changes; as a rule, the environment takes part here.

What gives a person personal growth?

• Get out of stress
• Financial stability
• Recovery from depression and nervousness (from illness)
• Relationships normalize, it happens that people next to you begin to grow or leave
• Getting rid of addiction
• Marriage
• Feeling good

The development of personal growth first of all changes a person’s consciousness. If, for example, he wanted to lose weight and couldn’t, then first of all he changed a lot of existing attitudes in his head to others (psychological ways of influencing his body). Physically changed my habits, started eating healthy and adjusted my lifestyle. Time needs to pass. And only then can you count on results.

How psychology affects physiology

The starting point is always in your head. Analysis of events can be carried out independently or better with a psychologist. Each time you delve into “adverse events,” you can become completely bogged down in them. And not only fail to pull yourself out of stress, but, on the contrary, get even more bogged down.

Therefore, it is better to do all this with a psychologist who will competently guide you through all the labyrinths of your memory and help you correctly adjust these settings.

Self-development

The main duty of every person before God is to find himself, his own path, to live his own destiny, and not someone else’s.

Boris Akunin

Do you know, dear friends, that one of the most sublime human needs is self-development?
I’m sure you know, or at least feel it, and that’s why you showed interest in this topic. Yes, this is indeed a very strong need, inherent in all people without exception from birth. It is thanks to self-development that many people find meaning in life and achieve simply outstanding results in a variety of areas. And this is not surprising, because self-development is a person’s work on himself, with the goal of making himself better, if not in all, then at least in many respects. And the better you become, the more you can do in this life to achieve success in what is important to you. And in general, self-development is very interesting. Friends, I want to confess to you that I have deep respect for people who show interest in such things as self-development, self-improvement, self-knowledge, self-education, self-training, self-discipline and other similar topics. I am pleased to work with such people and for such people. Because I also want to become better than I am now. I always wanted this and always worked in this direction. Let's do this together now. And for this, let’s look at how you can and how you should engage in self-development in order to receive not only benefit from this process, but also great pleasure. First of all, I want to say that the very fact that you are reading this article is already a great achievement for you. The point, of course, is not the article itself, although I will try to make it very high quality and useful for you, the point is your interest in this topic. After all, self-development begins from the moment a person pays attention to himself in order to identify himself in this world, to realize his strengths and weaknesses, in order to decide what he wants to become. This is a process of self-knowledge, the purpose of which is a person’s search for himself in this world. And you have already done this, you, firstly, found yourself, and secondly, you decided that the one you understand as your own “I” needs to change, and not just change, but improve. This is a good start, this is the right beginning - this is the beginning of self-development. Any person, if he pays attention to himself, sooner or later can discover in himself some, not so much shortcomings, we all have plenty of them, but, let’s say, not very well developed qualities that he considers bad developed because they compare themselves with other people. After all, everything is known by comparison, or almost everything. We cannot know how developed we are without comparing ourselves with other people.

But you don’t have to tell yourself that you are somehow worse than other people in order to want to develop yourself, if this does not so much motivate you to work on yourself as it suppresses you and forces you to give up. All you have to do is want to become a better person, being inspired by the merits of other people, without thinking about your own shortcomings. Let them, other people, especially successful people whom you sincerely admire, serve as good examples for you of what a person can become in general. This will give you faith that you can become like that, and even better, because you are human too. And at a certain stage of his development, a person begins to compare himself not with other people, but with himself in the past, using this as motivation for self-development. So it all starts with you paying attention to yourself and thinking about what kind of person you are and what kind of person you want to become. You did it by starting to read this article. But we need to move on, we need to understand the meaning of self-development, so as not to engage in this business, so to speak, blindly.

The meaning of self-development

Let's ask ourselves a question - what is the point of engaging in self-development if ultimately we will all come to the same end, regardless of the level of our development and the results achieved in life? I know this is a question many people ask when talking about their lives. In fact, there may not be any such pronounced meaning in self-development, as, indeed, in everything else that we do in our lives, if we proceed from the above position. We all really have the same ending. But if you think about it, then most likely the whole point is that we simply do not know about this meaning. How can we, for example, know why our Universe exists at all, why we appeared in it, and how our existence will ultimately end? All these are questions that any person can run into when discussing the meaning of anything. Therefore, I cannot tell you with complete confidence why you need to engage in self-development, and what is the point of it, if we proceed from the idea that sooner or later everything in this world will cease to exist, at least in the form in which it exists now.

But I believe that self-development itself can become for you the meaning of your life, precisely in this life. Why not? Why not use this life to get the most out of it that you can? After all, there may also be no point in not doing this. Right? What's the point in not engaging in self-development? What is the point in being lazy, going with the flow, being mediocre, afraid of everything, dreaming of nothing, doing nothing, striving for nothing? You don’t know this meaning either, right? But nevertheless, some people choose one path in their lives, while others choose another. And everyone lives their life as they see fit to live it. So maybe you can just make this choice - either in favor of self-development, or in favor of not doing it?

Desire to develop

Let's now think about another, also very interesting question - why do we want to do something, for example, engage in self-development, but don’t want to do something? Where do our desires come from anyway? Self-development is independent development, where independence is of key importance. But this desire to develop ourselves comes to us gradually. At first, any person learns and develops under the influence of external coercion, that is, with the help of other people who help him, so to speak, take the right path in life. If, of course, they help him with this. It is other people who serve as an example for us of how a person can live in general, showing us either a good or a bad example. A lot in our lives depends on this, you see, including the desire to develop.

If a person shows interest in the process of constant development, often thanks to other people, less often in spite of them, and becomes addicted to it, then he himself will be able to continue to teach and develop himself in the way he needs, and constantly, throughout his life. Therefore, it is so important, very important, to surround yourself with people as much as possible who can become good role models for you. It is their influence on you that will largely determine your attitude towards such things as self-development. Of course, we all have our own head on our shoulders, but what thoughts will prevail in it very much depends on our environment.

Let's take, for example, a type of activity such as reading, which very well contributes to the development of a person - it helps him gain new knowledge, develops his thinking, makes him more intelligent. You need to get addicted to reading, you just need to love this business, and then you will never stop doing it, you will never stop reading. You will always and everywhere try to read something to occupy your time, to learn something new. You will develop yourself through reading. The same is true with self-development in general. You only need to fall in love with this business, with this process, once, and then you will never stop loving it. Because developing yourself is pleasant and interesting. This process is much more enjoyable than, say, smoking, drinking alcohol, gambling and other, let's be honest, nonsense that some people engage in. So you just need to accustom yourself to self-development, just once make the necessary efforts to become addicted to this activity, if other people have not helped you with this, and then in the future the desire to develop yourself will only grow stronger in you. Even if the usefulness and interest of this activity is not yet obvious to you, and you do not yet feel pleasure from it, it is already taking over your consciousness, making you understand that you need to do this, you need to develop yourself. Because other people do it and they like it. So you might like it too.

At the initial stage, it is quite acceptable, and even necessary, for the reason stated above, to have someone help you fall in love with self-development. Some person whom you trust, whom you like, whom you will listen to if he begins to advise you something, should become your guide to the truly amazing world of people who with great pleasure engage in self-development and self-improvement and receive from this activities are a fabulous pleasure. After all, what is self-development, from the point of view of human activity - this is the acquisition of new knowledge, skills and abilities, this is the physical development of the body, this is the development of thinking, this is the ability to manage one’s inner world and everything else that is associated with the improvement of a person, or everything that is in a person, it will be more correct. It is quite obvious that for such work on oneself, a person may need a mentor, a teacher, an adviser who will help him take the first steps in this difficult task. After all, to engage in self-development means to use all the means at your disposal to improve yourself, including other people.

Motivation for self-development

Let's now look at what motivation for self-development can be in our lives, based on the influence that external factors have on us. I think the most important thing in self-development, from the point of view of motivation, is emotions. It is they, as a rule, who encourage us to this very self-development. Emotions release our energy, forcing us, at a minimum, to want something very much, or not want it, depending on what kind of emotion it is, and, at a maximum, to do something. And anything can cause them, even, as mentioned above, other people, even circumstances, even our own thoughts. And at the same time, it doesn’t really matter what emotions force us to take care of ourselves, the main thing is that, while under their influence, we actually do something. Pay your attention to what turns you on, what forces you to move, to learn something, to strive for something. All this can be a good motivation for self-development for you. So educate yourself. Something must worry you, something very good or very bad. Or both. You can either want to get something, achieve something, achieve something, or get rid of something - from work, from people you don’t like, from a hard life, from your own shortcomings that poison your life, and so on. etc. Sometimes, when a person has no desires at all, when he can’t even set any goal for himself, because he doesn’t know what he wants, it won’t hurt him to make his life a little worse in order, firstly, to stir himself up, and secondly secondly, to realize the values ​​that he already has and does not want to lose, and to preserve which he needs to meet certain requirements. In other words, look for opportunities to evoke strong emotions in yourself so that they motivate you to self-development. In general, life often throws us such problems that, as they say, you can’t relax, so it seems to me that many people have the motivation to become stronger, in the broad sense of the word.

We are constantly controlled by either negative emotions or positive ones, the only question is how we react to them. Some people are overwhelmed by negative emotions, so they do nothing, no matter how bad and uncomfortable they feel. And for others, even very strong positive emotions cannot force them to do something, because either it is difficult for them to cope with their laziness, or they simply do not believe in their own strengths, in the fact that they can achieve something. And there are also people who are simply indifferent to everything, who don’t care how they live. All these character traits have their own reasons - depression, laziness, and indifference to everything. This means that any of these problems can be dealt with. This is the task of a psychologist - to help you understand yourself. The main thing is that you are “alive”, that is, show great interest in life and be active. If you feel very bad, you should want to feel better. And don’t justify your suffering by saying that other people may have it even worse than you. And if you feel good, you should want to feel even better, you should strive for what will give you great pleasure. You need to train yourself to strive for victories in order to develop yourself with passion, with sparkle in your eyes, with interest. It attracts people - the high from success, from achievements, from victories - it is a very strong drug. And most importantly, it is a useful drug that does not kill, but improves a person.

At the same time, I want to emphasize once again that it is important to be able to use any emotions to motivate self-development. Some people move better when they are in pain, others when they really want something, that is, for some the stick is a good motivator, and for others it is a carrot. I recommend that you do not spend too much time studying all your psychological characteristics - fill your tank with exactly the fuel that allows you to work well and fly upward with all your might. That is, motivate yourself with what is closest to you. If bad emotions force you to do something with yourself and for yourself - let them be bad emotions, it’s okay - motivate yourself with fear, resentment, anger, aggression, whatever is more convenient for you. If it's greed, vanity, curiosity, then use it for motivation. Or maybe you just want to leave something behind in this world, something that will allow you to get great satisfaction from your life, as from a life in which there is meaning. The main thing is for you to see why or why you will develop yourself, make yourself better, learn new things, acquire new skills and abilities, get rid of your shortcomings and weaknesses. The main thing is that you care how your life turns out.

The benefits of self-development

In order to engage in self-development correctly and maintain sufficient interest in this process, you need to notice the benefits that you receive from it. Therefore, in self-development, recording the results achieved is very important when you notice real qualitative changes in yourself and certain successes in your life. Since we are designed in such a way that it is difficult for us to do something without seeing positive results from our activities for a long time, it is extremely important to notice even the slightest changes for the better in ourselves and enjoy them. Then you will not stop and will not stop engaging in self-development. Interest must be constantly fueled, a person must see the meaning and benefit in what he does. How to record results? This is not an easy matter, I’ll tell you right away. It all depends on what goals you pursue when developing yourself. Sometimes a person wants, well, let’s say, to get rich in a year, but after a year of actively working on himself, he may not have visible success in this area. No matter how many books he reads, no matter what he learns in a year, no matter what skills he develops, his financial situation may remain the same, or it may improve, but not significantly. Why? Yes for many reasons. Because it may take more time to achieve this goal, because the rest of the world also does not stand still and no amount of planning can be guaranteed to lead a person to the desired result, because, in the end, he may do something wrong, he may make mistakes and therefore not have the result he wants. And in general, not everything and not always in this life can be done the first time. Therefore, success does not come to people immediately and not to everyone, but mainly only to those who are persistent enough to be worthy of it. So if something doesn’t work out for you, then this is not a reason to give up everything and stop striving for your goal, stop developing yourself. It’s just that the results that you can achieve in a certain time may turn out to be more modest than you expected, but they will definitely be there.

I advise you to keep a diary and regularly write down in it all the changes that you observe in yourself and your life - this will help you see many positive changes in your life that will occur thanks to self-development. If you are learning something, studying something, training something in yourself, then any changes in this direction must be written down or otherwise recorded. Suppose you want to lose weight and go on a diet for this - start writing down in your diary how many kilograms you have lost in a week, a month, two months, six months, a year. Also, try to describe your emotional state in as much detail as possible in order to notice progress in this direction. Let all your work on yourself be before your eyes. In other words, write down, photograph, videotape all the changes that occur in your life thanks to your work on yourself. Usually we do not change very quickly, so we do not always notice these changes and it seems to us that we do not receive any benefit from self-development. For example, if you start actively reading smart books and articles, you will not immediately notice changes in yourself. It will seem to you that you are still the same person you were before, when in fact you will become smarter, more knowledgeable in some important issues, more flexible in your behavior, more effective in solving various problems and tasks, you will become make fewer mistakes and you will make the right decisions more often, and so on. All this is very difficult to notice, but it is possible and most importantly it is necessary, very necessary. After all, the trouble with many people is that they want everything at once, without even realizing that if they get everything they want, they will quickly lose all interest in life. This is why it is so difficult for some people to notice their progress. They notice only very strong changes, and these happen very rarely. So keep a diary and write down everything that happens to you in order to see the results that you have achieved through self-development.

But here’s the question: does it follow from the above that self-development must always have a clear and clear goal? No, friends, you shouldn't. There may not be a clear goal, for the simple reason that a person may not know about all goals, developing certain qualities in himself, receiving certain knowledge. But at the same time, he can be close to them, engaged in self-development. There are many examples in history of how some activity that initially seemed meaningless made the person doing it, if not great, then at least somewhat successful. It may be the same in your life. You can study something without fully understanding why you are doing it. And then your knowledge can be very useful to you. Well, let’s say you’re learning a foreign language, without the explicit goal of going somewhere where you can communicate with other people in it. But one day you may see an advertisement in the newspaper that says that a very large company for a highly paid job requires a specialist who, in addition to a good knowledge of his profession, also speaks the language that you studied. And at this moment your knowledge can be very useful to you. That is, I want to say that it does not always make sense to gain some knowledge to achieve a certain goal; you can do the opposite - adjust your knowledge to some interesting goal that you recently learned about. Therefore, the main thing, I believe, is that you have an interest in self-development, that you devote enough time to it, and that you can always find an opportunity to benefit from what you have gladly studied, mastered, developed in yourself.

Of course, you need to plan and set goals; life should not be chaotic, otherwise you may get confused in it. But understand one very important thing - when planning and setting goals, you are following a path already trodden by someone, because you are striving for what you already know and using methods that have already been developed by someone. This is good, but it may not be enough for a person who is not interested in everything known. Some people need a different meaning, a different motivation, in order to develop themselves, and in order to gain this meaning, they need to engage in self-development for the sake of self-development itself, without any plan or specific goals. You can combine self-development for the sake of a set goal with self-development for the sake of interest, when a person learns about everything he wants to know about and what he needs to know about, thereby maintaining an interest in working on himself. In other words, figuratively speaking, you need to maintain the fire of passion for self-development by any means. Because even though I wrote at the very beginning of the article that once you fall in love with this business, you will never stop doing it, but you can still lose your taste for an active life if you initially worked diligently on yourself not of your own free will, but out of necessity, or in other words, because of the impact other people have on you.

Self-development results

What could be your results in self-development? In fact, very different, from outstanding to barely noticeable. But at the same time, believe me, they are always there. And these results will definitely make your life better. I know a lot of people who are engaged in self-development and adhere to different strategies in this difficult, but extremely useful task. They pursue different goals with varying degrees of success. And I can say for sure - they all receive a certain reward for their efforts. Someone simply begins to think better, more efficiently, more practically, someone learns a new skill and, having acquired it, changes their job to a more interesting and profitable one, someone becomes a very good specialist in their field and people begin to value him highly, and someone... then you become healthier and more cheerful by working on your body. We always have room to grow. There is something to strive for. There is something to achieve success in.

I believe that one of the important goals of self-development should be a person’s desire to make his internal picture of the world as consistent with reality as possible. After all, the better we understand the world around us - its structure, functions, laws, the greater opportunities we will have to make it more perfect. For example, an engineer, understanding the laws of nature, can use them to create various devices that will make people's lives better, easier, more interesting, more fun, and more comfortable. And a specialist who is well versed in the psychology of people can help them become happier and more cheerful, he can teach them to love themselves and life so that they receive satisfaction from it. And other specialists create medicines that save many people's lives. And so on. In other words, by learning about this world, thanks to development and self-development, we get the opportunity to change it. And even if we don’t always change it for the better, there is still no doubt that this needs to be done. So the more developed a person is, the greater the master of his life and even of this entire world he feels.

So, friends, self-development is really great. By doing it, you will not live your life in vain. Therefore, do not waste time - develop, learn, acquire new skills, set ambitious goals and look for ways to achieve them, the whole world is at your feet - live in it as a person, that is, be active. I don’t encourage you to do anything specific, for example, study psychology or anything else, I can only offer it to you. And you decide for yourself what you want to succeed in, what you want to learn to do, what you want to know, understand, realize. Self-development is self-development because a person decides for himself how and in what direction to develop. The main thing is to improve yourself, guided by the principles I described, and everything in your life will be wonderful. I invite you, friends, to develop together - I will write interesting articles for you on topics that are useful, from my point of view, and you will read them. And in this way we will explore this world, mainly, of course, from the perspective of psychology, after all, I understand more about it, but we will definitely touch on other topics. What do you say, do you agree?

How to change yourself

• You need to change your thoughts.

Reading books and working with a psychologist, you can remain in a state for a long time that “everything is clear.” But you also need to take and take action regarding these changes yourself. You don't need to think, but do everything physically.

• You can't do without positivity

Everything you do must be done with a positive attitude. If every time you say that “I can’t”, “I can’t do this”, “this is hard”, then you will never move forward. A positive attitude and desire are required. Be sure to monitor your negative thoughts and change them into a positive mindset.

However, we should understand that not everything will work out the way we want. Something will not go at all as we planned. But even in this case, you shouldn’t despair and give up everything. We need to move on.

What do I want to change by engaging in self-development and personal growth?

It's worth asking yourself a few questions:

• What do I want to start doing?

For example, learn to swim or ride a bike. Or maybe learn to set goals and plan.

• What do I want to stop doing?

For example, working at a job you don’t like, or maybe smoking, engaging in idle pastimes and watching endless TV series.

• What would you like to buy?

Some people want to acquire new skills, others want to find a new job and improve their income. Or maybe you want something material. It is worth thinking carefully about this issue.

• What do I want to change in my life?

For example, place of residence, or maybe country of residence. Lifestyle, gain financial freedom or monetize your hobby.

The desire and awareness of the need for self-improvement

Self-improvement is knowing yourself, your own personality, developing your potential and bringing your plans to life. Every person strives to change for the better, proving to himself his ability to do better. Such awareness and the desire to improve oneself are inherent in nature. Motivation driven by social needs, readiness for change and awareness of the possibility of development is aspiration. This is not only an incentive to action, but also a certain combination of the concepts “I can” and “I want,” the merging of which can do everything that a person is capable of.

The aspiration of the individual generates self-realization, perceived in positive terms, bringing pleasure to the department. It is important to find within yourself the desire to act, which provokes the embodiment of your potential. This is the main engine of an established personality, guiding in the right direction. Awareness of the need for human self-development gives a psychological impetus to moving forward.

The value and semantic base of a personality consists of several motivational factors, having realized which we understand the need for personality development:

1. The desire for self-improvement makes a person better.
2. Awareness of the spiritual world of the individual.
3. Regulation of behavior in society, the process of self-education.
4. The desire for art and creativity - poetry, music, painting.
5. Building a stable life, starting a family.

That is, awareness of the process of self-improvement is the basis of human psychology and culture, giving rise to motivation to achieve a goal and the path to achieve it. The desire for self-improvement, as a fully conscious action, means the individual’s readiness to become better and more successful. At different periods of our lives, our understanding of life, as well as our desire for goals, differs. In childhood, a person strives to get a toy, in school years to understand the structure of the world and society. During our student years, our personality is formed, and when we reach adulthood, we strive to become better than others, filling our lives with comfort. It doesn’t matter which side of life you prefer - spiritual or material - it is important to develop yourself.

Neural connections and self-talk

New neural connections do not appear immediately. You need to work on them. Therefore, there must be new skills and new knowledge to know how to change everything. Physiologically, the body and head must get used to these changes.

And to understand that they are good for you, you must be calm and happy. And here, too, you can use the technique of “talking to yourself.” About the fact that “it’s like this for now, but everything is moving towards a better, more profitable and more fun life.”

Any habit takes root within three weeks or a month. Therefore, do not sabotage, but simply gradually introduce this habit into action. Soon it will become your reliable support on the path to change. For example, repeating a new habit over and over again will reinforce it in your brain.

Talking to yourself

Knowledge is the road to the world of discovery

It is clear that we cannot know everything, but there is never a limit to perfection. After all, knowledge opens up a wonderful world for us, the world in which we live. Knowledge allows you to see all its splendor. There is a very good and well-known proverb: “Learning is light, but ignorance is darkness.” So let’s not plunge into the darkness of the heresy of ignorance, let’s remain in the rays of light all our lives, because if we just stop for a moment, the cold hands of illiteracy pull us to the bottom.

Remember that it’s never too late to learn, you just need to want, and as soon as you start implementing it, you won’t be dragged away by the ears. After all, every new book, every new discovery, observation and thought brings you a whole step closer to a happy life - a life of pleasure

Please note that books, even paper ones, still remain in great demand, they are bought and given, loved and respected, only because they contain a piece of knowledge:

Why books are still considered an excellent gift

Good luck in the struggle for knowledge and light.

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Advice from a neuroscientist

The famous neuroscientist Wendy Suzuki (her book is on our RECOMMENDED page) suggests changing psychology by reinforcing it with physiology. To do this, she and her students engage in sports exercises during a lecture on neurobiology. For example, the following interesting conclusions can be drawn from her work:

• Any physical exercise, and especially its repetition, increases the release of positive neurotransmitters (pleasure hormones in this case) in the head. These hormones immediately improve your mood, and last two hours after training, and even your reaction time improves. The same can be said about race walking at a speed of 4.5-5 km per hour.
• Once you begin to exercise regularly and physically train your body, your memory improves and new neural connections appear. This means that the rest of your brain cells undergo these changes. Of course, treating Alzheimer's disease and memory loss is difficult. But it is possible to improve the consequences of senile dementia.
• You don’t have to go to the gym; you can walk in the park at a sporting speed 3-4 times a week for just 30-40 minutes to train your heart muscle. In addition, if you add useful affirmations, your well-being will improve significantly.

And then you will definitely understand the difference between the word I want and the word I really feel. Summing up, in order to see changes when practicing self-development, you need to do everything consciously and physically, and then there will definitely be personal growth!

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And now the statistics! (based on Rosstat data 2013)

We will round the numbers a little. Well, what do you think is the probability of being killed if in total 1 million 871 thousand 809 people died in 2013? The total number of people killed (intentional, unintentional, careless...) is about 14,500, yes, many deaths are not registered, even if this number is tripled, then the probability of BEING KILLED is LESS than 2.5%! At the same time, there are 28,000 suicides in the Russian Federation! You would rather kill yourself than have someone do it for you. There are about 20,000 people killed in road accidents. Now you understand the absurdity and stupidity of the expression “You will be killed by a goof on the street!”

A few more points. They like to talk a lot about terrorism, “... if you see a forgotten package, tell the police,” they talk about the fight against terrorism and drugs more than about alcoholism and cigarettes, meanwhile, 14,500 people died from alcohol poisoning alone, while only from drugs 3000, and from terrorism, attention, 139 people! Although, of course, there are many times more alcoholics than drug addicts.