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Where to start to. Self-development and self-improvement: where to start working on yourself

Where to start self-development? Before looking for the path leading to achieving your dreams, and most importantly, to personal happiness, you should first understand what self-improvement is.

Definition of self-development

When a person wants to realize himself - to achieve his goals, explore his inner world, reveal all his hidden potential - he begins to consciously acquire new knowledge, hone his skills, and engage in introspection. This is self-development.

But for the term “self-development,” the definition often does not include a critically important point: self-improvement means being prepared for pain. Any system of self-development requires work, because the material in it is one of the most complex and still not fully explored - humans.

Understanding this, we will analyze in detail the basics of this science in order to have all the tools for self-development necessary for real and sincere work on oneself.

Three types of self-development

Although it is possible to identify the main types of self-development, it should be remembered that they are intertwined and dependent on each other, and therefore, ideally, you need to know how to develop yourself in all these directions.

Of course, these are only general directions for self-development. We can also talk about material self-improvement - the desire to achieve financial self-sufficiency. Social will increase communication skills, will develop empathy, because a person is a social being, and his position in society and the attitude of others largely shapes and helps determine his place in the world. Creative self-development pays attention to the desire to create new things and self-realization. In general, it is appropriate to recall Maslow’s pyramid: a conscious attempt to achieve a goal at any of its stages will represent a type of self-development, but, of course, it cannot exist in a vacuum and will require other work on oneself.

Five stages of self-development

There are many typologies and classifications. Some reduce the whole process to three main points: knowledge, action and being. But to consider the situation in more detail, the psychology of self-development can be presented in the form of the following structure.

The first stage is self-knowledge. A person looks into himself, both through the eyes of others - what he is in the minds of others - and with his own. It is very important to understand what he likes or seems worth it. Often, the erroneous ideas of other people, as well as the erroneous ideas about the erroneous ideas of others, can “distort” your whole life. The art of introspection, reflection and introspection is not a matter of a moment; it is learned over many years, as a result of long practice.

The second stage is self-acceptance. As a result of an honest look at one’s inner world, one’s strengths and weaknesses may appear before a person, and at this moment it is important to remain completely honest with oneself. The search for excuses, worse examples from the surrounding life, incorrect distribution of priorities can interfere with the education of the individual, or even worse - mislead that self-improvement and self-development continue, while they have long been at a dead end. Loving yourself for positive sides, having come to terms with some negative ones, because no one can be perfect, and having chosen the goal of self-development, a person moves on to the next stage.

The third stage is cognition. After becoming familiar with the inner world, a person turns his attention to the outer world. It is necessary to draw up a self-development plan in order to understand how to maintain and improve the current positive aspects of the personality and correct the negative ones, how they can help in achieving various goals. At this stage, both the entire diversity of world cultures is included - literature, cinema, other forms of art - as well as other people’s examples, historical or from the person’s environment. For greater effectiveness, some courses and trainings may be required that focus accumulated human knowledge and allow it to be absorbed in a more effective manner. short period in concentrated form.

The fourth stage is action. It cannot be said that this is the most important stage, since everyone is equally important. But it is a fact that it is very complex. Many gather strength and study their inner world for a long time, but in the end they never decide to act, and there are many reasons for this. Just think: in the world around us, the vast majority of people, day after day, for one reason or another, tell themselves that self-development and self-realization are not for them. An alarming number of people remain unhappy for the rest of their lives because they were never able to take action. To break out of these gloomy statistics, all human strength is needed.

The fifth stage is one that is often forgotten or not given due importance. At the beginning of the typology it is indicated as “being” - meaning consolidation and future life with the results achieved. Very often, having completed his self-development plan, or rather, having “grabbed” a little of everything in a fit of enthusiasm, after six months a person again slides back to his previous life. Like an eternal student, he constantly does the right thing and accumulates a large amount of useful knowledge, but in the end does not know how to use it. This can happen for various reasons, which ideally should be tracked and eliminated in the early stages: a person’s general mental imbalance, or lack of courage to truly achieve a goal, or something else. Paulo Coelho wrote about one of the reasons: “We are all afraid to realize our most cherished dreams, because it seems to us that we are unworthy of them or that we will not be able to realize them anyway.”

Perhaps an analogy with medicine is appropriate: if you miss just one dose of medicine, the entire course will be useless. Let's not forget the popular quote from the book "Alice Through the Looking Glass" by Lewis Carroll: "You have to run as fast as you can just to stay in the same place, and to get to another place you have to run twice as fast." This is why this last stage was highlighted. Human self-improvement is hard work where you can't take a day off or take a vacation.

It is important to understand that the listed stages of self-development are not a specific guide to action. This is a cycle that anyone who has embarked on the path to self-improvement inevitably goes through, often even unconsciously, and this cycle will be repeated until the end of life, helping to reach new heights, because there are no limits to perfection. Once you get rid of one shortcoming or acquire a new skill, you need to return to the beginning, again carry out a spiritual and moral audit and again set a goal for yourself.

Five enemies of self-development

This negative point cannot be ignored either. If self-development were easy for everyone, then there would be no need to teach it and there would be no point in talking about self-improvement as a science or art, and the world around would be truly filled with happy people. Here are some common barriers that can prevent any self-development plan:

There are no proven or guaranteed ways to combat these enemies. After all, in the end, your main enemy is yourself. It would seem that any person is able to overcome laziness, reject fears, and not raise expectations of themselves. For this you need little - just tell yourself that this is nothing. And at the same time, how difficult it is, what a long training of willpower it requires. Let's consider methods of combating these enemies and ways of self-improvement.

Self Improvement Plan

So, self-development and self-improvement - where to start? Since the first stage of self-development is introspection and determining the main guidelines, the first step is to draw up a plan for self-improvement. It is best to immediately make it in the form of a diary that you will keep daily. More from school years we remember the famous diaries of Leo Tolstoy, which served as one of the tools for achieving his legendary impressive results. The classic wrote: “I never had a diary because I didn’t see any benefit from it. Now, as I develop my abilities, I will be able to judge the progress of this development from the diary.”

Such a “simulator” will help in several cases at once. Firstly, this is a regular diary that organizes the chaos in your head and your personal and work life. It's helpful to have a structure for your day at hand. Secondly, keeping it itself is disciplined and requires unexpectedly great willpower; in fact, even Tolstoy gave up keeping his first diary. But, as with physical exercise, constant repetition of the action will strengthen the spiritual muscles. A diary will allow you to devote a little time every day to your inner world and self-development.

And finally, in your diary you need to write down a plan for self-improvement and activities for the next day, week, month, and constantly adjust them. But you can also enter in it:

Literature and other sources necessary for development, create your own education courses.
Your budget and expenses, constantly monitor them. The path to self-improvement is long, and such actions bring tangible benefits almost immediately.
Various ideas, observations, thoughts. On the one hand, they can be useful, but how often do we forget by the evening, or even an hour later, any successful plan of action? On the other hand, even those not directly related to how to change oneself in better side, such sketches help you better experience life around you, notice previously hidden moments or cause-and-effect relationships that are useful to take note of. This fosters observation and attentiveness.
Creative experiments! Draw, write poetry, sketch out plans for novels - give yourself an outlet. You don’t have to devote a lot of effort to it or hope for serious results - even just a little art therapy will diversify your life and help you take your mind off particularly routine moments.
At the end of each day, mark 2-3 of your successes - this teaches you to analyze your own actions and clearly confirms that every day you become better than you were yesterday, and this is the main guideline for a person.

Here we must immediately make several reservations: yes, absolutely any reading will be beneficial. But for a person on the path of self-improvement, there are several types of books that are needed first.

Visualization

When we talk about methods of self-development, this is one of the classic and most important, but also one of the most difficult. The point is that you need to imagine in detail the goal you are striving for. Imagining it as often as possible or even printing out its image will form an understanding of how to achieve it, strengthen faith in your strength and in its achievability. But at the same time, visualization requires us to honestly ask ourselves the question: what do we want to become in a year? Five years? Ten? Such long-term planning is not only beyond the power of everyone, but it is often terrifying at times, because 5 years is a huge period of time, how can you plan it? What if force majeure occurs? What if it turns out that a mistake has crept into the planning basis and 5 years will be wasted? What if the goal is never achieved? And if?..

But it is important to understand that any goal can be achieved and that any person is capable of anything. All you need is a system of self-development in which not a single element is forgotten, and then doubts will gradually go away, and in their place will appear faith in your own strength.

Master time management

Time management, or time management, is not just the ability to carve out an extra 5 minutes for a cup of coffee, it is something more. After all, after reading various tips for improving your life, what often follows is a disappointed answer “there’s no time for this” and a refusal to take care of yourself.

But the art of time management will allow you to look at your daily routine like a clogged hard drive on your computer or a mess on your desktop. Once you remove the unnecessary things and rearrange things logically, you will begin to clearly see your goals, both in the short and long term, and how to achieve them, what to do for self-development and when. For example, take the same books: are you familiar with the situation when you have no time to read except public transport, but there are too many things to do at home? The answer is audiobooks. Combine different things in one, free up useful time. It will actually be easier for you to breathe.

Other ways to develop yourself

Play sports. This will be discussed in more detail later, but it should be clear that other aspects of personality fundamentally depend on physical development.
Find a hobby. Perhaps this is not even a strong enough word. Find yourself a new activity. And then one more thing. And further. It’s a stereotype that serious people devote their entire lives to one thing, because it’s strange to be a master of one thing when you can master many things at a good level. Learn to play the ukulele, jump from a tower, sculpt pots, shoot a bow - learn and quit, learn new things. All these are different methods of self-development, and all these are new facets of your rich inner world.
Leave the house. Namely, literally get out of your comfort zone, give yourself an emotional shake-up, discover new places and routes, see new things and, with the help of this, renew yourself. This general advice includes several:
- travel to neighboring cities or foreign countries;
- visit exhibitions, museums, concerts;
- just walk the streets in good weather.
Communicate more with people, or better yet, with those you want to be like. Sometimes you come across radical advice, for example, get rid of those who drag you down or are simply far from your role models. But before such actions, we must remember that every person can teach something, unless we are talking about extreme cases. In general, social activity is useful in many aspects. We need to get to know each other more, communicate more actively in in social networks, find not only new acquaintances, but also entire circles and communities where you can become a permanent and accepted participant.

Exercises for self-development

There are various exercises for self-development that will little by little help you gain strength and energy for more serious actions or at least maintain your current form. After all, it is not difficult to reason and reflect on what needs to be done, but putting thoughts into practice is a different matter. To begin with, small-scale actions will not hurt, which nevertheless help to accustom yourself to a new order and minimal discipline. Even if things don’t come to truly serious actions the first time, these exercises will be beneficial in themselves. After all, a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step—and so does the path of self-development.

Every evening, dedicate 5-10 minutes to something useful (except journaling). Anything - a couple of squats, an interesting article or a chapter of a book, some exercise. The main thing is to create a similar habit in yourself.
Get your home in order.
Learn something funny - roll a coin on your knuckles, ride a unicycle, play the pan flute.
Record yourself on camera. It doesn’t hurt to just look at your natural behavior in other people’s videos of any events. Look at yourself from the outside - it's not the same as looking in the mirror. Ask yourself whether you would like to communicate with this person, and in a possible case of a fit of hostility, stop and intelligently decide what you would advise to correct this stranger.
Train your memory - there are many exercises for this. This could be visual memory training - an attempt, with eyes closed, to restore in your imagination in the smallest detail the landscape you just saw; auditory memory - reading aloud every day for 10-15 minutes.
Wake up earlier. Set your alarm 1 minute earlier every day.

You can find a lot of similar useful small activities, and all of them little by little bring a person closer to self-confidence.

Self-development of men

We will pay special attention to how men and women can improve themselves, because men and women differ in characteristics, desires, affections and much more. However, their methods of self-development often agree.

The desire for the image of a breadwinner, a protector, an attractive handsome man - this is what a man’s self-development usually involves. Therefore, it is clear that men are primarily recommended to pay attention to the development physical side. There are many options for this, such as playing sports. And in fact, platitudes and clichés become platitudes and clichés because they are true and they work. And just by signing up for 3 months in a gym, after this short period of time, you can be amazed at how much your personality will change. And you will spend a small amount of money and only a few hours a week. It's not that difficult at all, you just need to have a truly sincere desire for self-development.

But this simple thing will immediately give a visible result. This is an immediate plus for your appearance: if you have not played sports before, you will be surprised at how you begin to enjoy the growth of your biceps and the appearance of your relief. Once you start, everything will begin to develop by inertia: thoughts about a proper diet, tougher training, and martial arts courses will naturally appear in your head. This is a plus for discipline: in the end, it’s worth overcoming laziness several times in the morning and creating new habit As self-respect increases, self-confidence appears.

Self-development for women

Among the important aspects that need to be emphasized specifically in the case of self-development for women, the first, perhaps, are independence and sensuality.

Despite the positive processes taking place in the world, often women still do not believe deep down in their souls in their self-sufficiency and independence, or prefer to think that they specifically do not need these qualities. But it’s enough to feel like an independent woman, and other qualities and life around you will change for the better. Often problems in this regard are related to the same crippling fear of society's attitude, the fear that society expects one to follow established roles.

But such a question as the ability to radiate sensuality and sexuality that attracts the gaze of men is more complex. It may even seem esoteric, and therefore there are many techniques of a mystical nature: various Taoist, ancient Indian techniques, all kinds of training of the “muscles of love.” You can find tutorials on body language, such as drawing a triangle on your interlocutor's face with your gaze. However, more accessible and inexpensive options are fitness classes, experiments with appearance, as well as basic self-care. One of the main problems of women who are intensely looking for someone who will love them is that they themselves do not love themselves very much and see shortcomings in themselves. Spiritual self-improvement, reading textbooks on psychology - this is what will be a faithful assistant in managing feelings. They can solve the problem and simple ways self-development is higher - just find an interesting hobby and be socially active, and a woman will immediately become interesting to any interlocutor. In addition, she will find a new circle of friends, which will also bring her closer to achieving her goal, if this goal is to find a soul mate.

Another interesting way to develop yourself, which is equally suitable for both men and women, is dancing. And again, you can be surprised how much this, at first glance, ordinary thought gives: in addition to strengthening physical fitness, and, sensuality and grace in communication and movements will increase, social skills will increase, barriers when communicating with the opposite sex will disappear, as in this case, and in the future, because the language of dance is universal for many occasions in life.

Self-development advice for women is in the same category as masculinity advice for men. In fact, if desired, both a woman can successfully and profitably engage in any sport, and a man can attend cooking courses. It is always important to remember that, first of all, a person must rely on his views about what is good or harmful for him, what shortcomings of his do not require drastic corrections, what dream to pursue. Every time you turn to the opinions of others or the supposed requirements of some social role, any methods of self-development will work for the wrong purposes and lead to a dead end, bestowing only disappointment in yourself instead of happiness.

Where to start self-improvement?

The answer to the question of where to start self-improvement is amazingly simple, because all this time you knew it yourself. Yes, they will really help you useful resources about human self-development, courses, textbooks and much more. But all this comes later. Then where to start? Close your eyes. Take a deep breath and exhale. And tell yourself honestly that you want to become better. Open your eyes. Get started. The rest will take care of itself. In reality, this is the whole technology of self-development.

There is a new road ahead of you, and it is calling.

With the growing number of motivational and developmental books and articles, not only the author’s personal experience in a particular issue matters, but also the presence of any practical evidence that these methods work. Let's talk today about in what areas we should develop.

Self-development of personality: experiment

Was held experimental study with a group of young people. They were given a condition - they had to spend 2 days alone. At the same time, any entertainment, including gadgets, was not allowed. They could still study, read ordinary books, write something, and so on - a set of ordinary everyday activities. Plus, each of the participants could stop participating at any time.

Experiment results

The results are, to put it mildly, shocking. About 100 people took part in the experiment, but only 3 reached the finals: 2 girls and 1 guy. Later they told how they occupied themselves. The young man devoted time to physical training, one of the girls plunged into the world of art and creativity - read books and wrote a diary, and the other - took up meditation.

The remaining participants simply could not stand the torture, saying that they decided to end their participation. But what's even worse is that each of them has changed internal state– they became more nervous, irritable and developed chronic diseases.

Conclusion

Modern youth are simply not fit to live without what they themselves are accustomed to. They cannot completely abstract themselves from the world and plunge into the abyss of their own consciousness, or even choose more traditional means of pastime.

Most young people devote themselves to watching TV, surfing the Internet and social networks, and texting about nothing. At the same time, the concept of “self-development” is either unknown to them or has no meaning.

Self-development - where to start?

You need to start, as always, with an understanding of what exactly you are doing. Development is the process of improving or changing everything that exists. Life, in essence, is a constant development, which, if it does not concern any qualities, necessarily passes through the prism of growing up, social relationships and different views on the world.

Based on these judgments, we come to the conclusion that self-development is purposeful actions, the main objective which to change or improve certain aspects of life, be it a career, communication skills or any necessary skill.

Understanding your own actions is the first step towards self-development. Now, specifically about where to start.

Set goals;
Plan your day;
Start reading;
Lead healthy image life;
Master communication skills;
Find a hobby;
Gain financial independence;
Learn a foreign language;
Become more confident in yourself;
Travel.

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Something is always happening in the world - it is born, grows, develops, goes away... Life does not stand still! Especially in our hyper-civilized times. All living things are filled with energy. Energy is movement. No movement - no energy, which means death. Movement is a sign of vitality, the basis for growth and self-development. Development (opening, unfolding), in the context of linear time, can only go upward. Accordingly, everything that goes up grows, develops, transforms its quality into higher aspects. Everything that moves down undergoes entropy, degrades, and gradually loses the ability to live. But, as they say, everyone has a chance as long as they can breathe.

When a person is born, he gets the bonus of the opportunity to live, grow, develop, change himself and space to one degree or another. Taking into account karmic moments, still not every Living being comes into the world precisely to grow. At the same time, it is quite capable of advancing in tamas (ignorance). And this may be the life lesson of such a person, as well as lessons for those around him (remember about alcoholic fathers, women of non-severe behavior, etc.). Such individuals, by their example in life, give others the opportunity to purify, enlighten the mind, humility, and accept the logic of the universal divine, and not the flat human logic, which perceives the flow of life in a dual way.

This article is about sattvic, blissful self-development, which carries unlimited potential for all subsequent lives of a person and his Kin.

As they say, don't worry about karma, rather practice dharma regularly. And dual perception here is not the best option for starting self-development. But nevertheless, the most common, if not “sewn into everyone’s default “Homo Sapiens” basic package.”

Only a few - the enlightened ones - are able to make an “upgrade” and achieve in self-development that very cherished point (state) called “samadhi”. Total presence everywhere, in everything, realizing oneself as a fractal of the universe and knowing this experience “here and now”, and forever.

We will consider the dual option of personal self-development. So...

Self-development - where to start: plan

And is a universal plan for everyone even possible? Where to start personal development?

It turns out it is possible. Despite the fact that personality is individual and unique. Moreover, the self-development plan can be scheduled by hours, days, weeks, months. It turns out to be a kind of spiritual time management.

Let's get started.

Spiritual self-development: where to start? Key parameters of self-development

Self-knowledge

Self-development is impossible without self-knowledge, this is a fact. Otherwise, how to move and where if you don’t know why and what the initial possibilities are? Self-knowledge in some cases is a little late before self-development, for example, a person under certain conditions showed his abilities, which he did not even suspect (swimmed a river, being afraid to swim; wrote a complex musical composition without knowledge of musical literacy; prepared a delicious dish when I stood at the stove for the first time, etc.).

In this case, we can say that human potential is limitless; all conventions and barriers are most often created by the mind and destructive patterns of the past. It’s good when the process of self-knowledge occurs regularly, consciously (yes, it is not always conscious, despite the absurdity of the phrase).

Unconscious self-knowledge- when a person demonstrates his abilities “by chance”, as a result of which he “gets to know” himself (like: “Oh, but it turns out I can do this too”), and on the basis of this he builds prospects for further self-development.

Conscious self-knowledge- the basis for conscious self-development. And this version of life is perhaps more interesting and productive than the previous one. Yoga is one such form of comprehending the experience of reality. For a conscious practitioner, life is comfortably systematized and structured, while allowing the individual to be himself in the most diverse version of self-realization.

Any system of holistic development (yoga, qigong, tai chi, martial arts, etc.) gives a person the opportunity to become the best version yourself, first of all. In order for self-development to become conscious, literally imprinted in DNA, you will have to work hard. Daily work above oneself is the base, the beginning of self-development.

The main “problem areas” of the mind-mind-body, with which it is necessary to build interaction regularly:

discipline (regime, necessary austerities),
cleansing (mind-consciousness-body),
studying relevant information (studying is not yet learning),
training from mentors (bearers of knowledge and experience),
practice to develop all of the above,
interaction with the world (the ability to fit into the general environment in an environmentally friendly and promising manner) world system life, to constructively model your reality, being as independent and autonomous as possible, is one of the skills of a self-developing personality).

Discipline

Discipline of the mind (formation of the mind - Wisdom), body, actions (activities). Compliance with the regime: sleep/wakefulness, nutrition, interaction with society. Discipline does not mean a soldier's routine of life, it involves ordering personal reality for the benefit of oneself and the universe. It's never easy at first. And who said that it would be easy on Earth?

There are many systems (in the context of a person’s spiritual, energetic and physical health) by which one can discipline oneself: yoga, qigong, wu-hsing, Ayurveda, etc. The choice is up to the individual.

We can say that discipline is the beginning of self-development.

Zeal. Repetition, gradualism, calmness. Only someone who can diligently practice the same action (movement) is able to achieve mastery. It doesn’t matter what - in planting beets, in driving an airbus, in the daily performance of pavan-muktasana (even in a train compartment).

Cleansing

Mind (in the understanding of intelligence, logic), consciousness (mind), body, emotions.

You can recall one well-known allegory that it is pointless to pour fresh water into a dirty pan in order to prepare a tasty dish.

Until the vessel is clean, there is no point in filling it with anything. The result will still be the same: the old (thinking, feeling-knowledge, habit, etc.) will not allow the truly new (new, more perfect quality) to manifest itself.

Only cleansing from:

unnecessary thoughts that interfere with the manifestation of pure consciousness,
habits that lead a person in a circle, inhibiting access to a new quality of life (spiritual, physical, material),
an abundance of emotions (both positive and negative. Everything is good in moderation. Let us remember the Tao system and balance),
general personal disorder (chaos of thoughts, states, actions, etc.),
social circle (stubbornly pulling you up and down with your good intentions).

In fact, the list is far from complete.

Purification is the process and goal of all (every) life, and at any stage there are “weeds” that you should learn to interact with for the benefit of yourself and the world. Moving on, thanks for the experience.

Study, training and practice

The topic of a separate article, therefore it is an overview: it is better to build training and study of the necessary information under the guidance of an experienced mentor, so that at the beginning of the path of self-development you have solid support and the opportunity to receive expert advice. feedback. Practice! We remember: theory without practice is incomprehensible and useless, like the taste of honey without tasting.

Who needs self-development, except the individual himself?

To the world. God. Absolutely. Rod. To all things, including a crow mercilessly pecking at a tin can.

Who/what can help in personal self-development

All. Every event contains potential for self-development. Who knows, maybe right now is the beginning of self-development.

What you have to do yourself

All. It’s like wanting to convey personal experience to another person. In the end, there will still be a new experience and a new path of life. There is only one thing in which you can shift responsibility onto the shoulders of other people - in your own conception. And even then, according to the version that a child chooses his parents 5 years before birth, the previous sentence loses its meaning.

Mistakes on the path of self-development

Staying in illusions, admiring your ego, mistakenly taken for spiritual growth or enlightenment. Chaoticness in the acquisition of knowledge, irregularity in practice, fears, focusing on those who “failed” to come / arrive / crawl to the Truth.

Criteria for self-development: how to understand that it is self-development that is happening, and not its illusion

Life will improve qualitatively (in the case of monastic hermitage, this parameter can be interpreted as “life will always be wonderful”), the worldview will transform and expand. Options for self-manifestation will be more and more global and unique (for example, a woman swimming at great depths, under ice, without clothes and insurance. The result of successful personal practice with consciousness, psyche, body).

Your social circle will change. It may become smaller, but it will be a circle of like-minded people, kindred spirits or, conversely, adherents of different ideological currents of a mutually developing nature.

The illusion of self-development - pride, the desire to surpass (not oneself, but others), encyclopedic knowledge, thinking without real practice, without long-term experience, without kindness, wisdom, without a state of inner fulfillment and happiness...

How to pacify the ego in the process of self-development

Asceticism works well. Different for women and men. For women, for example, serving the same people, being faithful, raising children, taking care of one’s beauty, maintaining a home, and accepting one’s husband is considered the highest asceticism.

For men, asceticism will be early rise, regular physical/spiritual practice, modest food, responsibility for one’s family, self-discipline, etc.

Especially to the egocentric (unconscious, ignorant) God (Higher Powers, Higher Mind, Absolute, Cosmos) gives illness - on the physical plane or on the spiritual. As practice shows, including medical practice, there are many egoists in the world.

The ego is well pacified by service. The topic is broad, so it will be brief: service to a spouse, parents, God, Teacher, the world, etc.

Is it necessary to visit places of power for self-development?

The place of Power is an accumulator, an eternal flame, manifesting in a person what he has “accumulated through backbreaking labor” over the entire period of life practice. The Place of Power, if without romance and shamanic magic with tambourines, is a certain geopoint ( crystal cell Earth, the place of intersection of meridians), saturated with powerful energy potential, in which a prepared (!) person receives an additional “charge” of strength, energy, insights, etc. An unprepared body, consciousness and psyche may simply not cope with the “pumping” and will receive (I just want to write “water pump”, but the format of the article has no place for humor!)... There are different options for the development of events. Truth does not need decoration. Therefore, you can develop yourself everywhere: at your grandmother’s in the village, in a noisy office, in a small apartment, in an endless line at a hypermarket on a weekend...

Places for self-development

All of the above, including places of power, as well as yoga studios, qigong, attending retreats, themed events/retreats, festivals, etc.

How to choose a Teacher on the Path

When the student is ready, appears. All that can be explained here is that what kind of student is what kind of teacher. Karma, personal qualities, etc. - everything has the nature of complementary attraction: if you have an angry disposition, you can receive a Teacher as a “gift”, with whom you will take the corresponding lessons.

Also with positive qualities: the true virtue of a student will manifest itself in the life of such a Teacher.

Who is he, Teacher

In fact, absolutely any person, living being, situation, time - everything is a Teacher. This is from a philosophical perspective.

In the context of the Teacher as a master who conveys specific experience and knowledge, a Teacher can be a person who has managed to achieve balance in life, silence in the mind, wisdom in the mind, kindness in the heart. In addition to practical results expressed in numbers, facts, reviews.

1 What is self-improvement
2 Self-improvement: where to start on the path to a new life
3 How to engage in self-development today
4 Which books to start self-development with
5 Tips on where to start working on yourself

In our ever-changing world, the worst thing you can do is stop developing. Successful people remain successful only because they never stop learning and developing. The path to balance and success always lies through self-improvement.

At any period of your life - at adolescence, in youth or maturity, a person wonders where to start self-development. Let's figure out how to answer this question.

What is self-improvement

Ushakov’s explanatory dictionary defines self-improvement as “the conscious development in oneself of some positive (primarily moral) qualities, abilities, skills.”

Here the emphasis is on the positive moral qualities that determine a person’s character. These include:

responsibility;
humanism;
honesty and openness;
love to motherland;
loyalty;
spirituality;
intelligence;
goodwill;
tolerance;
hard work;
respect for someone else's personality;
politeness;
sincerity and empathy;
culture of behavior.

The list can be made long; here it is determined individually what qualities a person wants to develop in himself.

Self-improvement: where to start on the path to a new life

Personal growth is a necessary aspect, change personal potential for better interaction with the world and opening up perspectives. From one point of view, there are three types of human relationships: relationships with oneself, with the outside world and people, and self-development.

Relationship with oneself allows a person to know himself and understand the mechanisms of interaction with himself, to realize the strengths and weak sides of your personality.

Relationships with the outside world will ensure the presence of connections necessary for development and self-realization.

Self-realization will raise self-esteem and change the individual’s attitude towards himself, will help a person realize the goal for which he lives.

To achieve success on the path to self-improvement, you need to upgrade and develop in all three directions.

How to start self-development today

If you are thinking about self-improvement, do not put it off until later. As they say, “later is a consoling form of the word “never.” Let's figure out how to engage in self-development today.

The first and most important thing is to start working today, and not put it off for a long time. Even if it is a small step towards the goal, it is better to do something than to do nothing at all.

Secondly, don’t try to be better than your girlfriend or boyfriend, neighbor or your idol. Compare yourself only to yourself. Your task is to be at least a little better every day than yesterday.

What is really important to a person (and not what he considers important) is achievable under any conditions. But sometimes, realizing your real purpose sometimes requires deep introspection.

The brain will reject false goals and will not implement them.

The most difficult thing is to determine your goal and start your journey towards it today. Make a sketch in a notepad, scribble a couple of lines in a notebook, write a block of code, read a few pages of a book, etc. The next goal is not to quit. Over time, this goal will become part of your life, and achieving it will become a matter of technique.

What books to start self-development with?

First, you should ask yourself the question “how to change your way of thinking in order to start changing,” and not the question “which books to start self-development with?”

Books are a treasure useful tips and psychological techniques (especially books written by professional psychologists and psychiatrists), but they are useless until your worldview changes.

There are no books that everyone should start with, because everyone’s goals are different: wealth, fame, recognition, satisfaction from activities, helping people. But we list some effective books for self-development below.

"7 skills highly effective people" - Stephen Covey.
"Buffettology" - Mary Buffett.
"Where's my cheese? » — Spencer Johnson.
"Black Rhetoric" - Karsten Bredemeier.
“How to Read, Remember and Never Forget” - Mark Tigelaar.
“Be the best version of yourself” - Dan Waldschmidt.
“Anything can be agreed upon!” — Gavin Kennedy.
“Get out of your comfort zone” - Brian Tracy.
"1 Page a Day: A Daily Planner for Creative People" - Adam Kurtz.
"A Life of Purpose: Key Skills to Achieve Your Goals" - Les Hewitt, Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen.
“This Year I...: How to Change Habits, Keep Promises, or Do Something You've Been Dreaming of” - M.J. Ryan.
“Speed Reading: How to Remember More by Reading 8 Times Faster” - Peter Kamp.
“Here and Now” - Osho.
“Tibetan Yoga of Sleep and Dreams” - Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche.
“The Sage and the Art of Living” - Antonio Meneghetti.
“Shaman’s Laughter” - Vladimir Serkin.
“Goal: Process of continuous improvement” - G. Eliyahu.
"Supertraining" - Mike Mentzer.
“Body language” - A. Pease.
"Games People Play" - Eric Berne.
“Critique of Pure Reason” - I. Kant.
“The Consolation of Philosophy” - Boethius.
"Strength of will. How to develop and strengthen” - Kelly McGonigal.
"40 Studies in Psychology" - Roger Hawk.
"Essentialism" - Greg McKeon.

It is worth noting that all books should be taken with a healthy dose of criticism. Books that encourage a person to constantly smile and be joyful can ultimately lead to clinical depression. It is human nature to feel sad, upset and experience failure.

Harmful self-development books teach you how to manipulate other people for your own purposes. The euphoria of everyday victory in any interaction with another person can become a dangerous barrier. A sense of false importance can stop the development process.

“Bad advice” that will help you sort information into categories and understand where to start working on yourself.

First, to begin to change, you need to determine which areas you should focus on. An important method of controlling the process is self-analysis, which should be given at least a couple of hours daily. This disciplines and helps you understand your strengths and weaknesses.

If keeping a diary helps, you should definitely take out a notebook and pen. Write down on a piece of paper those qualities that you would like to develop in yourself and those that you would like to get rid of, in two columns.

For each quality, come up with a description and outline a strategy for improving the skill. For example, I need to develop speed and agility, for this I need to run for an hour in the morning and evening. Or do I need to learn to remember more? English words, for this I need to memorize 10 new phrases or expressions every day.

As for spiritual qualities, they, of course, need to be improved continuously.

A useful habit would be to analyze the past day. On a piece of paper you need to write down all the situations that happened during the day and analyze your behavior in them. Did you manage to act in accordance with your moral and spiritual guidelines? If it didn't work out, then why? And what could be fixed?

It is important not just to write down, but to summarize every evening: what you have done to develop your mental and physical qualities, and note for yourself what needs to be adjusted.

When the goals are determined, it is worth drawing up a work plan. When you have clear deadlines, it will be easier to achieve your goals. There is no need to set yourself cruel, unattainable limits - for example, learn Chinese in 2 weeks. Agree that for the average person this is an unattainable goal. And the feeling of guilt experienced when breaking a promise to oneself can discourage all desire to move on.

Here again big role introspection plays. You can evaluate your strength in a test flight. If I can really reliably memorize 10 hieroglyphs a day (for example, since we started about languages), then I set this goal for myself. If five, then five daily. Exceeded the norm - great. The main thing is to develop your intended plan every day. This needs to be done day after day to form a habit. And the goal is “to learn Chinese before entry level in 5 years” will become much more real.

Gradually increase the difficulty level of the game. If at any point in time I realize that I can perform daily heavy load, with the same effort, I will raise my daily bar. Lowering your goals and giving yourself slack is a bad idea. Successful people distinguished by a strong will.

Make time for rest. Our nervous system, muscles, sensory organs are not configured to work 24/7, from a biological point of view this is impossible. In order to fulfill the planned plan for tomorrow, rest is necessary. Daily full sleep (everyone determines the required amount of time individually) will allow you not to give up what you started. If the daily self-development plan is depleting, the body will begin to sabotage, and even the most steely will will not save you.

Don't make too big a task list. First, accustom yourself to 2-3 daily rituals. For example, from the list of mental qualities, select the development of attention, physical - the development of strength, spiritual - honesty. And do the necessary exercises every day. It will take a little time, but it will make it easier for you not to give up what you started. When such actions become a habit, add 1-2 more points and continue working.

Come up with a reward for yourself. Rigid boundaries and restrictions do not contribute to the daily repetition of necessary actions. In the end, the body will break down and break all the prohibitions and the feeling of guilt will return again. For your success, you can reward yourself with something interesting. Man is a highly organized animal, and all activities are based on conditioned reflexes. The “carrot and stick” method works for us too.

Every day ask yourself the question: what will happen if I continue to develop this or that quality and what will happen if I give it up? Life priorities are changing, and we must also quickly adapt to changing conditions.

Learn from your own experiences, those of your friends and strangers. There are no two identical people, as well as two identical stories and ways of achieving goals. What makes one person successful may be another's failure. It is important to review, read, analyze and draw your own conclusions. There is no universal way of self-development - the point is to find your own.

Do not be afraid to violate the designated deadlines. You should not abuse this rule, otherwise there will be no self-discipline. And where there is no discipline, there is no development. Constant stress from missing deadlines will gradually lead to a state of denial and apathy, which will lead to abandonment of the development process.

The most difficult point is not to give up daily repetitions. Every day, analyze the significance and benefits of your goals, do not stop and always check the truth of your goals.

I am not a supporter of imposing my opinion on anyone, so this material is the result of a good spring morning and the inspiration that came to me.

I believe that you need to develop yourself at any age and constantly raise the bar with new goals and objectives: learn to sing, drive a car, earn a million for the first time, spend it, learn the language of the country where you are going for the winter, learn to relax and enjoy life... perhaps , everyone can add to the list for a long time. Therefore, the importance of developing yourself on your own and with the help of other people is difficult to overestimate - and more about this in more detail.

What does it mean to develop yourself?

Today they talk about the need to develop yourself as a person, starting almost from kindergarten. Moreover, what I don’t particularly like, many people tell what this development should be and what it should be based on only from their experience and from their own bell tower.

I am convinced that you need to develop yourself regularly and every age has its own characteristics of this process. Speaking about what it means to develop oneself, I would immediately like to point out that this is a complex concept that is based on the following fundamental points:

Development of yourself as an individual;
Develop yourself creatively, intellectually and spiritually;
Improve in a certain social area;
Developing yourself as a representative of a business or a certain profession.

Plus, your role in the family, in the social world, and even your reputation are taken into account.

How much does it cost to develop yourself?

Many philosophers have been and are looking for answers to this question, but they cannot offer us a universal recipe suitable for everyone. Maybe it’s for the better, since everyone’s comfort zone is different, and its boundaries cannot be contained within a certain framework.

It is important to understand that development is constant process, just at every stage there are new goals and tasks to solve.

I would like to emphasize that development at 3 years is no less important than development at 25 years. Many of our habits, inclinations and even creative moments are instilled from early childhood, so why not constantly develop and improve them. And here we are talking about hunger (in the good sense of the word), creative, spiritual, intellectual hunger, when, feeling thirsty, you strive to fill yourself with fresh water. At first you get saturated with a few drops, and then even one glass is not enough for you.

Types of self-development

Open any textbook on psychology or NLP and you will see such a huge classification of types of self-development that you will be surprised that such aspects exist at all. And let you call me a conservative, in some sense of the word, but I will focus on 5 main points that are important to me, and in which directions I try to develop myself every day. In this case, a useful addition will be material on how to find yourself, which contains the basic tools to help you find your true self.

Today it is often said that the learning process of a child and an adult (in particular at university) should be turned into a fun game, thereby triggering development mechanisms. It’s hard to disagree with this, because, remember, when we first took a felt-tip pen or a brush to draw - the masterpiece, to put it mildly, was so-so, but each time our skills improved and our skills became more conscious. Among the things that develop me, I can highlight the desire to discover new countries, because the local flavor, traditions, and residents have a strong influence and set me in a creative mood.

Professional Development

In order to develop yourself in this way, the main emphasis does not need to be on school, university, technical school or academy. The question is what certain skills and abilities they will give you, but how useful will they be to you in particular? further development? If you asked me how I developed myself from a professional point of view, I would say that I used the “5 Ps” rule (I came up with it myself, dear readers and investors. Enjoy it to your health)

Adopted the experience and knowledge of others;
Practiced and conducted experiments;
Traveled;
Enjoyed life;
She looked positively into the future.

This set of mental practices will help you develop yourself in different areas, because you must admit, you always want to be active person, who can support a conversation about music, and travels around the world, and studies new languages, and has information about what is generally happening in the world of finance, and knows how ether is mined, and how lagman is prepared.

Sports development

IN healthy body- healthy spirit! Therefore, I am convinced that along with intellectual, professional and creative development, we should not forget about its sportive form. No one wants to barely walk at 30 and feel like they are 50 years old, so from my own experience I will say that light but regular sports activity, frequent walking, swimming have not harmed anyone, but they have allowed them to noticeably improve both their appearance and their mood.

Intellectual development

I believe that a person does not have to know everything, after all, he is not Wikipedia, and no one forces him to be one. But learning new things, striving to learn something new is an important tool in self-development. That is why I always offer readers materials from various fields, starting from how to choose a miner for cryptocurrency mining to what remote work is, and how to completely reformat your life so that you can receive income and not be a cog in the office system.

Important: It’s never too late and never a shame to learn. Learning is fun and necessary throughout your life. Don't be afraid to ask questions; the answers to them are your bag of knowledge.

Meditation, relaxation techniques, rest, healthy, restful and regular sleep help to develop spiritually and enjoy life. Sometimes something has to happen in life in order to understand that developing yourself spiritually is just as important and extremely necessary as engaging in external or mental improvement.

Among the many people I know who regularly relax, practice spiritual practices, change places of residence and have a positive outlook on life, almost all of them are positive and optimistic people who give solar energy to the world, and the world gives them a hundredfold.

Among the main features of spiritual development are faith in the best and healthy egoism. You cannot become calm and receive joy from life if you do not receive it directly from yourself.

By combining all these types of self-development, you can live as a harmonious person who inspires others and also receives positive energy from others.

How much do you need to develop yourself?

The answer to this question directly depends on what you want to get from life, what small and global goals pursue and how well you have the tools to achieve them. I am convinced that this needs to be done throughout life and constantly increase the tasks, as well as hone them for a certain age and needs. At the same time, I am also confident that our close environment helps us develop ourselves and directly influences our harmonious portrait as a person.

That's why it's always so moving to watch the Academy Awards ceremony when the winners thank those who were there along the way. Although, it is worth noting that everyone in life has certain crises that require solutions, and sometimes, having achieved a certain, so alluring goal, one becomes lazy to develop oneself further and wants to fold one’s hands and do nothing. In this case, I give myself one day of complete rest - without work, the Internet, mobile and news - I enjoy the rest, and after a couple of days this depressive state suddenly goes away.

I think, dear readers of GQ Blog Monitor, you definitely love to develop yourself creatively, especially since there are a lot of ways to do this. One of them can be considered a series of webinars, which will start in May. Through these online practices, we will explore basic personality, character, and behavior types and how they impact our world and our investing policies.

Traditionally, when putting a period in the material from the “Thoughts” section, I would replace it with an ellipsis. I wish you to develop yourself from different sides and get indescribable pleasure from it. And since the material ends with an ellipsis - an open ending, your useful comments and valuable advice under it will help make it more complete and informative.