Self-development an interesting journey at the best of times and a hard journey at the worst. But a journey one the less that once you embark on you cannot exit.
I vividly recall asking my dad one day, why did you ever tell me I’m responsible for my own actions? I want to be like people who blame everyone else for their life and not themselves it feels like an easier path. His repones was it feels easier now but not in the long run the only way to make a good life for yourself is to take responsibility and understand you are in control. I think I was about 13 when I helped my Dad with the timing and the admin on a Dale Carnegie youth leadership course. That when the message came though about responsibility.
Gorette and I ran and facilitated many personal growth courses back in the day when we were involved with LifeLine. It taught us so much about other people but it also taught us about ourselves. At every stage of your life, you deal with different aspects of yourself and others and so learning about yourself is a life long process. The good news is when you have some life experience to pull from you realize that you already have the tools to deal with things, you are looked after, and this too shall pass it makes for a less stressful life.
So let’s unpack self-development what is it? It’s a process of self-awareness, self-reflection and having some actions to get what you really want, creating accountability for yourself and learning to celebrate the small wins.
From early childhood we are taught to get our gratification and acknowledgment from others, we cry so our mother can tend to us, we communicate to get our own way, we build relationships to receive love and validation. Then we grow up and we realze that everything needs to be embodied within us, we can’t look to others for this we need to give it to ourselves and so the unlearning begins and the learning starts. Its difficult even for those of us who have been in this for so long to fill our own cup before we give away to others. In essence that’s what self-development requires. We need to know ourselves and accept our authentic selves’ acknowledgment is key.
How do we do it? Unfortunately, we as human’s navel gaze this means when things are internal they are hard to look at objectively and so we need to talk, have you ever talked about something and just felt instantly better? We often need another person to firstly hear us but then also to offer understanding and maybe a different perspective on things. This is why we run our courses, we create a safe space, one of confidentiality with people you don’t know and who don’t have pre conceived ideas about you. We facilitate processors that allow you to look at things and to remember who you are and to work and tap into your potential.
The process is empowering, it can be challenging but its always worthwhile.