Business, Lifestyle, Uncategorized
Is Self Development Important?
Is Self Development Important?
Something that has been debated for generations, is how important is Self Development.
It is a question that has many different answers depending on your geographic location, culture, age, and many other different factors.
We decided to do some research to see what people are saying when it comes to Self Development.
What are their thoughts and feelings about the importance of Self Development?
Does developing self have any benefits?
How and why?
In this post, we will go into more detail and share our findings about Self Development and whether it is of importance.
Definition of Self Development
A lot of people say that Self Development is pointless, it’s not worth the stress and that we have done most of our developing growing up.
Some people argue, that it is important to keep developing throughout life because that is what life is about, GROWTH!
I kind of agree with both sides of the argument. Yes, it can become very stressful at times. Yes, we did do a lot of developing growing up BUT being aware of what changes in our lives and how we can become a better version of ourselves is what life is about.
I say that finding your purpose in life is very important and in order to do that, we need to take a step back daily and take a look at one’s self.
A lot of people are too busy comparing themselves with others and the only person we should be competing against is the person that we were yesterday!
When talking about Self Development, it can also be called Self Improvement, Personal Development but they all basically mean the same.
Our research suggests that Self Development, Self Improvement, Personal Development, or whatever you want to call it, can not only help enhance strengths but can also improve mental health and even heal relationships…
…Including the relationship that we have with ourselves!
Having self-awareness goes a very long way and benefits many areas of your life. By observing your thoughts, emotions, and responses or reactions and deciding to make self-improvement a crucial part of your life it will open many doors to a better life.
As stated previously, Self Development can become stressful at times but that’s life and you probably already know that nothing lasts forever. So it’s always helpful to remember that the stressful moments will pass and it’s all a part of the process. It builds strength!
As long as we remember to take time to reflect and pay attention, we will notice the results and realize that continuing to learn on our journey goes a long way.
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It’s very important to keep learning and growing. It’s even been said that, those that fully retire and do nothing, feel that they no longer have purpose and things start to deteriorate.
Think about muscle building for example, to build muscles there are certain principles that we must follow. Place, cost, routine/plan, duration, strength training, and nutrition to name a few are things that we need to bare in mind when wanting to build muscles.
Now imagine, you decided to spend £19 a month for a gym membership, where you will train for 1 hour, one day on and then 2 days off each week. You write up a meal plan and prep the food. We all know it takes roughly 90 days to start seeing results from new habits, so you plan to stick to this plan for 6 months. Unfortunately, you end up losing your job, and due to unforeseen circumstances, you can no longer stick to your plan. You are 4 months into the plan. Stress kicks in and you start to binge eat, lounge about and watch daytime TV all day long.
What’s going to happen?
Your health starts to decline, not just physically but mentally too. The muscle has turned into to fat and you feel like complete s#*t!
Like I mentioned earlier, Self Development comes in many forms. It’s not just about who you are now and how you are as a person though. It’s also about who you want to be as a person in the future.
What some people are getting wrong about the ‘ Be You ‘ and ‘ You Are Enough ‘ movement is that, yes be you and you are enough but if you stay in your comfort zone and don’t aim to grow you will never be the best version of you!
Life is about making decisions, there is no wrong or right way, as long as you take a path there are always lessons and blessings along the way. That’s why setting goals and having a mission in life is beneficial to maintaining a more fulfilling experience as a human being on this planet.
Find more artwork here
One thing that I learnt on my journey is that once we start to fully take responsibility and accountability for ourselves then our perspective changes and we begin to understand ourselves and others much more.
There are lots of ways to develop one’s self.
Below is a list of ways that have been tried and tested, confirming great results.
Reading
Reading is a great way to start to develop yourself. We are never too young or old to learn. Learning plays a very important role in life.
When we spend time to develop our skills and talents it keeps us motivated to achieve more!
Not only does learning new things or expanding our knowledge help us mentally but also gives us more opportunities when it comes to work and relationships.
There is a wide range of self-help books and biographies from successful people out there!
We have read and listened to quite a lot of audiobooks over the years and they changed my perception of life massively.
You can take a look at my top 25 reads or audio for lifestyle and business here.
Some of the stories are absolutely mind blowing but very inspirational at the same time.
You get to hear the story of how others hit rock bottom and then how they bounced back up.
Below is a video from Life Hack with some book recommendations. We found it interesting that they had named some of the books we recommend to our followers and clients. So we thought we’d share it with you.
Do you love life hacks!?
Check Out This Post here
Avoid Negativity
I know it can be easily said than done but avoid negativity as much as possible.
That includes your own negative thoughts!
Sometimes we can be too hard on ourselves. It can be hard to remember that our thoughts are not who we are. We are not our thoughts.
The ego can be very cruel at times and that’s when getting to know yourself and being aware of our habits can help.
Not only do we have to sometimes deal with our negative self-talk but we sometimes have to deal with others’ negative talk. Ok, don’t get me wrong…we can’t always be positive in every situation but what we can do is acknowledge it and not stay in the negative thought or environment. We can leave. It is about choices!
We stay there or we can go. It’s your choice.
Meditation & Visualization
Meditation!
I didn’t have a clue what it was 5 years ago but I wish I had come across meditation a lot earlier in my life. I learnt about meditation when a became a Entertainer. After that, it just kept popping up everywhere I went and looked. That’s when I decided to have a look what all the hype was about!
After doing some digging I gave it a go, along with my little one. We started having mediation music playing while we did art or doing chores.
We noticed a massive shift in our mood daily.
Meditation is known for a wide range of science based benefits. You can find out more here in the article written by Healthline.
Visualization skills are also key! Having visualization skills can help you to visualize where you would like to be in the future.
Can you imagine…there actually is benefits of daydreaming!
If they are not telling you that your dreams are too big, you are not aiming high enough!
Samantha Nicole
Visualization keeps you motivated!
Another handy tool to do with visualization is vision boards. I’ve created 2 so far over the last 5 years and it has my wallpaper on my phone.
Guess what, all my goals on the first one I completed within the first year!
So I created a new one…
I still have a few more goals to tick off but I am quite surprised that I even managed to reach any of the goals because of how out of my league I thought they were!
The strangest thing was, I didn’t really put in a great deal of effort to achieve what I visualized.
Post it’s are a good tool too. Especially when it comes to positive self talk and affirmations.
Competition
I touched briefly on this earlier. Who are you competing with? When we compete with others it only wears us out! We are all on different levels.
Focus on your own goals!
Yes, you can watch others grow and learn from them but remember that the only competitor is you today against the you from yesterday. As soon as we do this, it makes it more fun and interesting with better results.
Challenges & Risk Taking
It takes courage to take risks. So not many people take them. Sometimes we never know what we missed out on by not stepping out of our comfort zones. If we take risks it can build our confidence.
It can even be a small risk or it can be a massive risk. A risk is a risk. Take one occasionally.
The more you do. The more you’re life will change. I have seen social experiments where a wealthy individual walked around a park in London with a mystery box! He went round for awhile trying to sell the box but no one would take the risk. Not even £1!!
Do you know what was in the box?
It was something life changing!
Can you guess? Let us know in the comments. We will do an update soon.
When we saw this, we thought…we have to give this a try!
So we did, we spent the whole day going around Nottingham to see if anyone would buy our mystery box for £5.
It was very exhausting but we stuck to it and kept asking people. A couple of people said yes but didn’t have cash.
(I wish we had took the card machine)
We asked about 150 people that day!
NO ONE BOUGHT OUR MYSTERY BOX
We even dropped the price to £1
This is what was inside…
Some of you might think it’s worthless but this is a real rose that is preserved in 24 k gold produced by Gold Genie and comes with certificate the lot!
Gold is a valuable asset and so is Art.
Even if they paid £5 it would still be a great return on investment.
The most they’d of lost was £5 and 2 minutes of their time. Money loses value anyway.
So take risks! Not everything that sounds too good to be true is a scam. There are some genuine and generous people out there and maybe they just want to help you step out of your comfort zone.
There is a difference between risk-taking and gambling though, so be sure to know the difference. If you do gamble. Please remember to do so responsibly.
Challenges
Set small challenges, when we achieve our goals or overcome challenges it leaves a positive feeling. Which will help you to keep pushing forward and stay determined.
It also strengthens our discipline to get things done more effectively and efficiently.
Always remember to reward any accomplishments or goals achieved because it will also keep you motivated. It doesn’t need to be a big reward. It can be as small as your favourite chocolate bar or spending an hour reading one of your favourite books or as big as a holiday away or a night out.
Whatever it is, you deserve it! No matter how small the achievement of accomplishment is. Everything counts!
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