Where do I start in self-development?
Life, circumstances or a feeling of meaninglessness of existence often lead a person to the idea that it’s time to finally take control of yourself and start doing something. This suggests that the time has come to engage in self-development. In fact, this is a great idea, worthy of a standing ovation. But such a decision is often followed by a stupor, when you have no idea which end to grab and where to go.
If you go the wrong way at the very beginning, you can lose precious time. You’re lucky if you come to your senses in a day or two, but if you’ve spent half a year or a year on it, it’s a shame it took so much time. And if you roll up your sleeves and look like a superman and start trying to become an idol of your generation on Monday, by the weekend you’ll probably be at the TV remote and will be looking for something to get into.
We’ve talked about self-development and its importance in life more than once, but we decided to write an article about where to start when you don’t know what to do. No, we’re not going to shower you with advice like read these ten books, don’t do these eight things, learn to set goals, cultivate positive thinking, etc.
That’s all well and good, but only a first grader wouldn’t know that. In addition, not always books and simple tips on correcting your habits give the desired result. Below we, of course, also will not reveal America, but still try to touch those things that are not often spoken about.
So, with what should begin his self-development?
Stop wasting time.
There are things that ruthlessly waste our most precious resource – time. They are procrastination, chronophobes, distractions, or other similar phenomena. They are present in everyone’s life, and many people simply do not pay attention to them – so firmly they have become ingrained in everyday life. In the meantime, all of these are serious enemies on the path of self-improvement. By themselves, however, they do not mean anything, but here the desire to give them time can erase all the good work.
There can be several reasons for this desire:
- Lack of motivation to do important things
- Indulgence in their weaknesses, habits, instincts
- Victim syndrome and self-pity
- Laziness
- Show-off
To overcome them, do not need to be a spanner in the head. It is enough to show maturity and apply intelligence. Think about it:
- Which is more important: taking a few exercises to train your brain or watching another episode of Home 2? Exercise, of course. So take it and do it!
- Which is better: to get up early and get more done, or to sleep in until 12 and then sweat it out trying to make up the time and get everything done? Get up early, of course. So, get up and get things done!
- What is more correct: to complain and be in the image of a victim or take responsibility for your life, albeit through “can’t”, but get up from your knees and start acting? Of course, take action. So, pull yourself together and go for it!
- Which is more literate: “I don’t want to! I won’t!” or “Decide, do, get results”? Of course, the second one. So, what do you do? Work and get results!
- What makes more sense: to endlessly reread motivational phrases and throw all sorts of demotivators on the wall, or to take a self-education course, go to training, go to India to live in an ashram for a couple of weeks? Of course, what is the real benefit! There’s your course, you can find training, you can save up for tickets!
You just have to cut off everything unnecessary. You want to develop – develop, if you really need it. Stop giving in to people who are losers, excuses and bad habits.
Winner – is the one who does not feel sorry for himself and do not blame all in their difficulties and problems. If you are more comfortable sitting in a chair, waiting for a miracle, then you do not need to go any further – keep it up.
If not, forget about laziness and stop wasting time. Start developing and stop doing nonsense. But work honestly with yourself, not for the likes and opinions of others.
Make time for reflection
We are convinced that we know what is good and what is bad, what people’s behavior is right, what is well-being, what success means, what happiness means, how to become happy…
To ponder is to think deep into something, that is, to really think about and put a certain question in front of ourselves. We live as if we already know all the answers.
We all live our lives according to certain principles, don’t we? We are all in a constant search for the same thing: comfort, that is, a state of mind in which we will feel a stable feeling of happiness, longing for the unknown, excitement, and love.
Don’t you find it interesting that most of the people who come our way, including ourselves, don’t feel the satisfaction (gauge your level of life satisfaction) that everyone usually strives for? Have you ever wondered why this is so?
If we don’t take the time to really think about these issues, we’ll never get to them, and it’s worth starting to do it sooner rather than later.
As soon as we open our eyes in the morning, our mind and attention are already filled with the things we must do throughout the day. Our day begins by literally making our commitments.
Taking the time to just ask yourself where you’re going and whether you’ll end up where you want to go is the most important thing you can do for yourself.
What is self-development worth without knowing where your desire to improve comes from and how it will affect the quality of your life?
Make learning a habit
Make learning a habit – a second technique for starting personal growth
It is necessary to get useful habits, for example, to start learning something new every day.
Not being influenced by other ways of thinking, avoiding new information and not having a different perspective on the world, the quality of our thoughts will not change.
Unless we find a way to transform our thoughts, our entire existence will be limited to the framework that was originally set. If we do not change anything in our lives, and it will remain so until its end, we can say that we are already dead.
So what does it mean to feel alive? A living person is attentive, active, engaged.
When our attention always follows the same path, our actions in any situation are automatic and not directed toward growth and development, then we cannot consider ourselves active and involved.
Stop wasting energy and rest
Stop wasting energy and rest is a method to begin your self-development
If we do not sleep, what do we usually do from 10 pm to 2 am? We especially want to ask this question of every teenager.
It’s one thing when we spend time with friends or family and enjoy it, and quite another when we watch TV or wander the expanses of the Internet.
We often suffer from a lack of time, but have we ever really thought about how much we spend on completely useless and meaningless things? Take some time out of your day to evaluate the usefulness of your daily activities.
Agree that if we stopped spending our nights so uselessly, we could get a good night’s rest and then wake up fully prepared to create our day according to our own rules, instead of bemoaning the lack of time for ourselves.
We all have certain commitments and we all have some desires.
Stop wasting time and take control of it so that your responsibilities don’t take up all that precious time that you could have spent pursuing your desires.
Know your desires.
Where to Start Self-Development – Know Your Desires
Why do you do certain things? What motivates you to make certain decisions day in and day out?
Why do you want one thing now, but after a while you want something completely different?
Let’s say, why do you now have a strong motivation to be strong, to exercise, to stick to a proper diet, but in 5 minutes you find yourself making excuses not to do it?
And this question is posed not only for girls, who in principle tend to change their desires often, but it is relevant to absolutely everyone.
We are all convinced that we know ourselves perfectly well, that is, we understand who we are and why we do certain things. But don’t forget that you have to be able to relate to yourself objectively and look at yourself from the outside.
Learn to notice the inconsistency of their desires. The most effective way to at least a little closer to the possibility of personal growth – is to become a master of his inner contradictions.
Take care of yourself physically.
The surest way to begin personal growth and self-improvement is to take care of yourself physically
Physical capabilities undoubtedly play a very important role to feel happy, to feel a better quality of life.
When we feel bad or hurt, we can’t help but get upset about it, feel sorry for ourselves and justify our idleness with it.
To get rid of this problem, your physical condition has to be at a level where you don’t even think about it. You do this by exercising, eating a healthy diet and getting plenty of sleep.
Without good oil, water, fuel, and systematic maintenance, your car can’t drive properly. Its parts begin to break down one by one until the whole car falls apart.
It’s the same with our bodies. Take care of your body. Give it a chance to act in your best interest, not the other way around.
Set priorities.
Prioritize is an effective technique for starting a girl or woman’s growth spurt.
Instead of trying to rebuild everything at once, focus on a few things first. In some cases, it’s even better to focus on just one area first.
Focus on a few things, but not all at once.
Let’s look at some simple examples:
- First, you dive deep into a personal life issue. Example – you finally approach that girl you’ve been wanting to meet for a long time.
- And, once you get that under control, you move on to your health. You exercise in the morning, go to the gym, buy healthy foods, finally make a doctor’s appointment, etc.
- Then you work on your productivity (get up early in the morning, stay on task throughout the day).
This way you are not overwhelmed, and you have the opportunity to focus all of your resources on successfully changing one area of your life.
If you are successful in changing one area of your life, you will gain the confidence you need to change the other areas as well.
Determine Your Focus for Beginning Self-Development
If you try to take on everything at once, it will only lead to a lack of time, focus, and energy, drastically reducing your chances of success. When your initial enthusiasm wears off, it can all become a depressing task rather quickly.
Thus, choose one to three areas and focus only on them. Only then move on to improving other areas of your life.
Choose a few self-development books or courses that will help you improve in your chosen area. Extract from this the necessary knowledge and immediately begin to take large-scale measures and realize your desires.
Many people in our world are “knowledge junkies,” they like to only gather more knowledge but then not take real action, which creates a false sense of personal development.
We all live at a fast pace. There are several things to do, and even more at once. In the evening, our head is spinning, we don’t want to do anything, and some people have children who also need attention. And it turns out that the daily routine: wake-up-take a meal, work-do eat, sleep (for more forces are not enough). But people need to develop themselves, and when? I don’t have time! Smerdova Anastasia Vyacheslavovna, a specialist in social work at the family center “Khoroshevsky” also faced this problem and decided to give some advice on how to deal with it.
1. Make your own schedule for the day.
By creating your own schedule for the day, you will realize that you have plenty of time for self-development.
2. Don’t spread yourself thin.
Choose one area of study rather than several, because by delving into one area of study, you will go much deeper into the subject of what you have learned, and you will achieve success in that area faster.
3. make the best use of your time on the road.
This is the very time when you are in traffic, on the subway, on the bus. Many spend it watching Instagram feeds, clips in TikTok. Try to change that: turn on an audio book, or read literature at that time. You can do the same when you’re cooking, walking the dog, etc.
4. Time before bedtime.
The hour before bed…one of the wasted hours in your day. Before you go to bed, you relax, you sit on social media as-is. Discipline yourself at all times! Study something new before you go to sleep, this way the information is even better absorbed – you give “food” to your brain before you go to sleep.
5. Make social networks a tool for self-development.
Let’s go back to our favorite social media again. Make them no longer your recreational tool. Instead of groups with memes and funny videos that make up most of a person’s subscriptions, subscribe to communities with educational content.
Now you know where to start self-development and exactly how to prioritize self-improvement. Don’t forget these 6 simple rules that will help you achieve success in your self-development.