Personal development, self-help, self-development…it’s all the same thing. I’ve chosen the phrase Self-Development because it fits me better personally. Self-Development is the phrase I will use on JSOhlander.com to refer to what I am talking about in this article.
What is Self-Development?
It’s human nature to want to continually improve one’s life and one’s self. Those who don’t seem to be interested in the field of self-development are not stagnant, they are just developing at a slower rate than those who are conscious of their self-development.
In order to be successful at self-development, one needs to focus on continuous and conscious self-development.
Let’s look at each of these separately:
Conscious Self-Development
To be conscious of one’s self-development is the first step to living The Best Life Ever. If you are not conscious of where you are and where you want to go, you cannot consciously direct the flow of your future and thus you will seem to “stagnate”.
So once you are aware of your own self-development, and you make a conscious choice to improve your life, you have much more control over where you want to go and you can lead yourself to better and better life experiences.
On JSOhlander.com, I am assuming that you (the reader) are already conscious of your own self-development. If you are not, I suggest that if you want to remain a regular reader of this site, you start becoming conscious of your own self-development.
A very simple exercise will get you flowing in this direction:
- Sit down quietly where you can be undisturbed for at least 30 minutes with a notebook or a computer, which ever one you prefer to use for writing.
- Write down where you currently are in your life in all areas: physical body, financial, relationships, career, etc. Don’t judge as you write, be honest and aware.
- Write down a simple list of where you would like to be. Stretch it as far as you consciously can. The most important part is to be in touch with what you truly want, not what society tells you you should want. Do your best to determine a sort of “ideal life” scenario.
- Once complete, sit back and read over both lists. Know that you can move to where you want to be (your “ideal life”) over time. Become conscious that your life is under your control and acknowledge this important realization.
That’s all there really is to it. You now have a conscious awareness of your own self-development. Take this awareness into your daily life. In other words, watch your daily actions and thoughts and see if what you are doing is moving you towards your ideal life or not. Make daily notes if you need to. Eventually, you’ll be able to be self-aware or conscious of your own development automatically.
Continuous Self-Development
Just like in a role-playing game, your life is like your character. You live in a world that gives you endless opportunity and multiple directions to flow your energy and attention towards. Which paths and opportunities will you choose? Each choice will lead to growth, whether you like it or not. Even if you believe you are “stuck” in the same place, you are growing more stable in the place that you believe you are stuck in.
Being conscious of your self-development, you are different than most people. You actual know that you are growing and you have an awareness of where you want to be. Now your task is to find every conceivable way to improve your life, even if it is just one small step forward.
Don’t be swayed by those who claim you can make big changes quickly. If you really dig deep into the autobiographies of truly successful people, you will find a long gap between where they were and where they wanted to be. It took a lot of hard work, many trials, many failures, and many small successes before they ended up there. Society will want you to believe that success comes in some sort of random, “big jump”. Like the street rapper that went platinum overnight. It doesn’t, if rarely, ever happen like that. Society wants you to believe that your destiny is out of your control and is under the hands of “blind luck”. It is not.
But I am not saying that struggle is necessary. It is not. Time is necessary.
Work for the small successes and watch them unfold into the large successes. Do not overestimate even a small change in your life. These are the changes that will net you extremely large results over time.
The time will pass anyway, and just like in a role-playing game, you can’t jump from level 5 to level 20 overnight.
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On JSOhlander.com, I am assuming that you are conscious of your own self-development and are aware that it takes continuous and conscious change to make things happen in life.
With that awareness, I will give you as many examples, tips, techniques, stories, and other methods to help you move that one small step forward in as many areas of your life as possible, as often as possible.
That, in essence, is what true Self-Development is all about.
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