Personal Growth Means Understanding

 

The most important lesson an individual must learn who is aiming at personal growth is a simple one; that no one particular formula will define one’s path to success. Each one of us has a different priority and goal. That implies that individuals must have different attitudes and activities that make them achieve that feel good factor. We at the same time also have weaknesses and strengths that come to us naturally as a package deal with our personality. 

 

Understand What's Important to You

 

Every kind of personality has a unique idea of what success means to them. Personal success can be achieved if the goal is self-knowledge. A lot of times individuals adopt somebody else’s definition of success and are striving to achieve it; in the process they are unable to detect what truly is important to them. Although there is no harm in having influencers and role-models in one’s life, it is of high importance that one must recognize and understand that the idea of that particular person or belief and an individual belief will have a difference in perspective. It is highly possible that an individual feels unhappy and exhausted when trying to achieve the definition of success someone else defined for him and ignores the message from their own psyche. The major step when trying to achieve personal success is to realize what is really important to oneself.

 

For example, are you an ISTJ (introversion, sensing, thinking, judgment) personality type? You will react differently than other personality types. 

 

The individuals who fall into the ISTJ type of personality are hardworking, analytical, methodical and serious. These individuals store the gained knowledge from past experience and then apply this to handle new problems and manifest new ideas. They work on a given problem till they find a given conclusion. 

 

They get uncomfortable if the idea is unknown to them completely and prefer theoretical solutions. When they have a new situation to deal with, they have no past experience to refer to and hence they feel lost. ISTJs usually make great managers and are very capable in their jobs. They are many times reluctant to bring in changes or new systems unless they have a past record that it would work. They value and internalize the structure and rules of the environment they reside in and do not approve of any behavior against the code of conduct. They believe in using their past experience to benefit the institution they belong to. 

 

So, you can see that you really need to find what is important to you and not go by some other persons view as it may not match yours. 

 

Personal Development Plan

So now you have finally made the decision to make changes in yourself completely and begin to alter life as a whole. When something deep within you stirs your spirit. That peculiar inner gnawing you feel that urges you to make a change in order to better the position of yourself in life increases to a point that you make a decision to take some action! You are completely ready with a list of things you need to change and have a plan on how you’d like to change these. Hold on! Are these thoughts properly organized? Have you made a note of the smaller steps that would lead you to eventually achieve that desired goal? 

 

You need to get in place, what in the commercial world is known as PDP, Personal Development Plan in order to get a blueprint on how to make changes and reach the desired goal. Get out a sheet of paper and first put down all your desires. Make sure you think carefully and note down all the changes you can think about. Once this is done get another piece of paper and write the following headings:

 

·       Personal Growth/Personal Development

·       Finances/Career

·       Home Life/Relationships 

·       Health

 

Below every heading list at least five desires from the first list you made and set them in priority. These would become your goals. 

 

Below is the example of goals a person working in a busy office might have: 

Personal Growth/Personal Development

1. Trying my best to stay calm in a stressful situation.

2. Gaining extra experience working with IT. 

3. Improving recall memory ability.
4. Learning to photo read or speed-read.
5. Boosting my own self-esteem. 

It’s necessary that every goal is not just realistic but also challenging in nature. Also necessary is that you set a time deadline for its achievement. Now get another sheet of paper and think and jot down techniques you could use to achieve the set goals in the calculated time frame. You will be pleasantly surprised at the amount of information that your brain can actually put onto that paper. 

 

Once you have a list of ways written, pick out the best ones. Now make a ‘to-do’ list for everyday for every separate day of the week. Make sure you include the smallest step on this list that it will take in achieving the goals you are setting. Make sure when you complete these small steps; you congratulate yourself and also measure your own progress at the end of the day. 

 

The Value of Spiritual Self-Discovery – 1

When people embark on a journey of self-discovery, they usually focus on the physical and emotional side of their personality. Rarely do people consider the importance of spiritual self-discovery, even if they identify as spiritual side to their personality. When we take the time to explore the part of our psyche that we sometimes call spirit or soul, we discover a unique and different aspect to our personality we may not even have realized existed. 

 

We are people made up of physical, spiritual, intellectual and emotional dimensions. We experience the world and the experiences we go through in the world, by looking at them through these dimensions. This is not new. We know that humanity has always considered these dimensions. Roman and Greek mythology, Roman astrology and ancient religions are all testimony to the very real role that spirituality has played in human development.

 

We perhaps identify best with the moment we see a magnificent sunrise, or an amazing act of nature that leaves us in a state of bewilderment and wonder, recognizing there are things in our life that are beyond our ability to control. We have a conscious or unconscious desire to know this power and it is what we can term spirituality. 

 

When people think of spiritual wellbeing, they usually think of God. Whoever or whatever they conceive “him” to be. Some consider him a supreme being and others consider him as “the man upstairs” a belligerent father figure. Still others reject the concept of any sort of being, and find their spirituality in the earth, or in nature. 

 

So how do we discover the spiritual side of our personalities? Some people discover it through embracing formal religion, others discover it through yoga or some other form of meditation that causes them to focus in on themselves and still others go on a journey of self-discovery and call this a religious experience. 

 

Some have compared this spiritual awakening with a heightened sense of experiencing. As we allow our inner selves to experience life at a deeper level than just what seems obvious around us, we begin to relate to things in a different way. 

 

In whatever we choose to embrace the spiritual side of our personality, when we do focus on spiritual self-awareness, we usually discover we come alive in our personality and this has an effect on how we relate to self and others. 

 

The Value of Spiritual Self-Discovery – 2

We have established that to embrace our spiritual side we need to acknowledge it exists. As we embark on a journey of spiritual self-discovery, we often find aspects of our personality and our character we didn’t know about before. Most people find it awakens something inside them that they describe as “completing them” or “filling a hole” in their lives. 

 

We subconsciously or consciously make bargains with “god” when we find ourselves in a position of need. For many people, this moment maybe considered a moment of spiritual awakening. This is for most people, the time when they stop asking for proof of a higher being and start talking or acting as if there is one. 

 

 Once the situation has resolved, for many, life continues without any more thought of “god” until another crisis and then the automatic response is to turn thoughts once again to help from something or someone outside our conscious control. For others though, that moment of self-awareness and spiritual awakening, stimulates something in them and they start to question reality, as they know it. People who go through a spiritual crisis or who choose to change religions often experience this moment in a different way. They may find themselves rejecting their existing and questioning relevance. The end of such questioning for some people may lead to the choice of a completely different spiritual path. 

 

Some people think of having faith or a spiritual awareness is like following something blindly without proof. Whilst in the early days of a spiritual awakening this may seem an uncomfortable place to be in for many people, once embarked on, most people come to accept there are many things in our lives we accept without proof. We know for example that humankind will live and die, or we will feel sleepy and need to sleep at night. Our experiences train us to believe that things happen and we anticipate them happening.

 

When we embrace spirituality, we are embracing something that enables us to find our place in the universe. We all ask ourselves, “why am I here’ and “where am I going.” Whatever we call our spiritual reality; these are two fundamental questions we ask ourselves. Spirituality helps us to discover the answers to those questions. Spiritual self-discovery can be a journey that embraces our true humanity. It provides us with a sense of personal “completion” and wholeness. 

 

Think of Yourself Achieving Your Dreams

Losing weight or improving your health is as much something that must happen in your mind and thought life as it does in your body. Many people commence a weight loss program and never follow through with it, even if in the early days their resolve is strong and enthusiastic. Others start a course with great excitement and wonder why they want to pull out of the course only a few weeks into it. 

 

Our thought life plays a big role in our successes. Researchers have said that the concept “we are what we say we are” is actually truer a statement than we often want to admit. The time we become a smaller size in clothes, is not when the weight is lost and the inches reduced, but when in our mind we want to be and we want it so bad it directs our actions. We achieve in life when we can visualize our success in university or winning gold at the Olympics. It is at this moment our resolve, determination and confidence kicks in. and we convince our self-talk that we can do this. 

 

Hold on the resolve that caused you to enter the writing competition or to study the hospitality course. Believe you will be 3 dress sizes smaller come the summer, or get that promotion at work you have been working so hard to get. Don’t let yourself spend time focusing on what you can’t do, but rather on what you are doing and what you can continue to work toward your goals and dreams. No one ever achieved anything without dreaming and determining to put the dream into action and succeeding. 

 

It cannot be emphasized enough that your thought life is your worst critic, but it is also your best ally. Your thought life is partially responsible for your actions and behaviors and most people trust their personal perceptions on things that happen in their lives. Channeling thoughts to bring out the best and reject the rest is essential to reaching personal goals. 

 

Surround yourself with people who will support your endeavors and ask them to help you challenge the negativity that can start without warning. Nip it in the bud before it has time to blossom into something that causes you to lose your focus. Think of yourself achieving your dreams and you are half way to success.

 

Project Based Self-Discovery

A great way to learn about yourself is to blog your way through a project. A recent popular film, showed a woman blogging her way through her project to cook a recipe every day from a cookbook written by a celebrity cook. As she blogged her thoughts, reactions, successes, and failures each day as she wrote her blog, not only did she amass a great number of readers following her adventure, she learned much about herself and her partner. 

 

Choose a project you have wanted to do for a while. Assemble all the resources you need to complete the project and create a blog online to record your efforts and your thoughts about them. If you prefer, use an offline journal you can write in. Reflecting is an important part of the road to self-discovery.

 

Blogging or journaling is about keeping a diary as a place to reflect on your thoughts, feelings and successes. As you look back on it in the future, not only will you learn a lot about yourself, it will also be a lovely way to remember the project, especially if you add photos to it regularly throughout the project. 

 

As you complete your project every day, take time to write down what you did, whether you were happy with your achievement, what you felt about you did and what difficulties you faced. Write down any solutions you created for the difficulties and how well they worked for you. Don’t be afraid of using honest words, especially if the blog or journal is for your eyes only. This is the place you can be truly yourself and express yourself without fear of rejection or ridicule. 

 

As you work on your project, try to experience a sense of excitement that this project so long put off is finally being given priority in your life. Then write how you feel about the things you did today and how satisfied you were with your efforts. Write about everything, you can think of that relates to the project... You may choose to write about whether you put felt some parts of the project were too difficult, or maybe very self-satisfying. Perhaps you realized that interruptions to your focus make you irritable. 

 

The lessons we learn as we complete this project and journal our responses, will be invaluable tools for identifying our personal strengths and weaknesses. 

 

Self-Discovery Is Learning We Are Responsible for Our Own Happiness

We spend a lot of time looking outside of ourselves for happiness. We might feel happiest when affected by alcohol or other mood changing substance. We might need our family or friends around us to feel happy or we might think that losing weight or becoming fit is the way to happiness.

 

Whilst these things may contribute to our happiness, our true happiness is within us and as we find ourselves, accept ourselves and embrace ourselves only then can we find true happiness that doesn’t rely on external forces to keep us happy. 

 

This can be one of the most freeing thoughts of all self-discoveries. Once we learn this fundamental lesson, we determine how we react when things are not going well around us. Until that moment, things happening around us often create the responses and feeling of sadness or happiness that accompany them.

 

 Many people think of happiness as positive emotions. We associate happiness with feelings and emotions can range from feeling contented to feeling pure joy. While to think of happiness being in terms of an emotional response is normal, happiness is something that transcends emotions. 

 

We put a lot of unfair pressure on the people and situations in our lives when we expect them to be the sources of those positive emotions. Unless we are happy within ourselves, it’s likely our relationships will never live up to our expectations. They may add to our happiness, but they can never be the source of it. Henry Miller said, “I have no money, no resources and no hopes, but I am the happiest man alive.”

 

How do we find our personal happiness? Happiness is, as much about an attitude of mind as a response to it, so to find happiness we first need to change our attitudes. We cannot be happy all the time, but we can learn to put strategies in place from within ourselves to create inner happiness despite external circumstances.

 

Perspective is the creator of happiness and it may also be the destroyer of it. Training ourselves to remain positive and content is an important life skill. Once learned it will help us maintain healthy emotional responses to every situation, we find ourselves facing. Alain-Rene Lasage once said, “I am happy and content because I think I am.” This is the state of understanding of self; we all need to aim at reaching. 

 

It’s Not What You Can’t Do, But What You Can

Do you find yourself focusing on the things you can’t do and lamenting the fact you can’t do them? Do you wish that you could do some things you enjoy doing better than you can do them? Most of us do have these thoughts and handle them in different ways. Some just continue to do them, whilst others do a course to improve the way they do them. Some people however have approached their thoughts in a different way.

 

Instead of focusing on what they can’t do, they focus on the things they can do, and work on doing them even better. Maybe you can’t cook a very good baked dinner, but if you can create a wonderful baked cheesecake then let the cheesecake become your signature dessert. If you can’t grow tomatoes in your garden, but you can grow flowers then create a beautiful garden and become known for the flowers you grow there, rather than the tomatoes you can’t grow. 

 

When we focus on perfecting what we are already doing well, we begin to feel good about ourselves. Every day we hear our self-talk telling us conflicting stories. Our friends may praise us for something we have done or the new clothes we are wearing, but we find it impossible to accept that praise graciously and without making an excuse for it. Our negative self-talk will often speak louder than the words of our friends. Focusing on the things we know we are good at, will help our positive self-talk to say things to us that we will believe and will help our overall self-esteem.

 

Take time this week to enjoy and appreciate the things you are good at, and particularly the ones you believe you can do well. Take advice from your partner or your friends if you are not sure where your strengths lie. Enjoy focusing your time and energy on helping the good become the best and then enjoy your achievements. Allow yourself to enjoy comments and appreciation of your work. 

 

You may feel uncomfortable about accepting praise about the good things you do personally, but to put it in perspective, remember how we feel when we receive a word of praise at work? Accepting praise for the things we are good at, with ease and sincere gratitude is an important step towards a strong and healthy positive self-image.

 

Successful Personality Development

Different people have different personalities which depend on where they are from, where they grew, lived, worked and who they associated with in their lives. There are personality traits that a person inherits from their family when they are born, and there are others the person picks during their lifetime. This is usually determined by the people the person grows to associate with and the environment to which the person responds. For instance, all factors held constant, a person who grew up in a violent family or environment will grow to become violent and constantly defensive than a person of the same traits that grew up in a secure and peaceful environment. 

 

There are different personality types that psychologists use to classify people, but there are four of them that are major. These are sanguine, melancholy, phlegmatic and choleric. These four personalities have different strong and weak points, and every single person has a combination of two or more of all these. As a matter of fact, it is rare to find a person who does not have all of the above personalities, even if it is in the smallest percentage. There is no one person who has only one personality type. The only thing that makes a person be called a choleric is because this is the most outstanding trait, say with 49%. One needs to be sincere in identifying what personality they are so that personality development will be possible,

 

Once a person knows who they are and what traits they have, the person can now list all the strengths they have and the weaknesses they have. Using this list let the person review themselves. This is why you will hear many personality development advisors recommend that one spends enough time with themselves. During reviewing, sincerely state what you want to see changed in yourself. Is it your bad temper, your forgetfulness, your impatience, your extravagance or your domineering attitude? When you have become honest with yourself and have listed all that you want to see changed, then you are ready to start on the personality development journey. 

 

You also need to believe in yourself for personality development to become possible. You need to have a positive attitude towards yourself even for the mistakes you have done in the past. Do not see them as a hindrance to your personality development efforts but as a catalyst. This way, it will be easier for you to develop yourself.

 

Tips on Personality Development

Everyone has traits that make them unique and that make one David totally different from the other David, though they share the same names. These traits that act as the trademark of every individual are the personality traits. Every person is born with specific traits that come through inheritance. Any other traits a person has that are not hereditary are those that the person picks along the way as they grow and live. The environment in which one grows in and the people with which one grows really shapes who we are. 

 

Every person has different strengths and weaknesses in their personality. This explains why every person seeks to do personality development so that they can build on their strong points and improve on their weak points. Personality development is very simple yet rewarding, and it makes your relationship with others quite easy. 

 

The first thing to personality development is to be honest with yourself. Study your character and honestly do an analysis of your traits. Being honest with yourself is necessary because it will help you to know your weak and strong points alike so that you can know what to do next. The other thing you ought to do is to develop your listening ability. Listen to others more than you talk to them, and you will be amazed at how much this will help in personality development. When it is time for you to talk, avoid having a “me” attitude. There is nothing as harmful to personality development as an attitude in which all you discuss when talking is about yourself. 

 

Learn to use the three magic phrases; please, thank you and sorry in your conversation. Personality development demands that you say thank you any time a person does any kind act to you. Be polite in every way to others, and this will work wonders. Do not laugh at other people when they make mistakes, because this will hamper your personality development efforts. Make a list of all your strong and weak points. For the strong points, find a way of making them even better. As for the weak ones, acknowledge them and write down what you want to see in them; this will be the beginning of development and improvement. If you have formed any habits that are not good, counter them by making deliberate efforts to pick up good habits. Also, try and develop your self-esteem so that you will not be put down by your weak points as you try to work on them. 

Why Developing Your Personality Is Something That You Cannot Ignore

We come across many people in life, and they are all different in how they behave, how they react and reason. These people are all made different by the different personalities they have. Therefore, personality is the combination of mannerisms and attributes that makes one person distinct and unique from the other. Personality is formed as a result of many factors. First, there are personality traits that one inherits from parents and relatives. No wonder you find some of your traits and your likes and dislikes similar to those of your parents or relatives. There are some personality traits that we pick up along the way as we grow and live our lives. As we grow and live, we pick up habits, values and beliefs that are dependent on where we grow and who we grow, live or interact with. However, the traits we pick up in childhood stick the most more than the ones we get as we grow up. 

 

It is possible to design and develop your own personality. It is not a sealed fate set for us to act out, but you can control it and determine how it is going to work out. In other words, you can redesign even the hereditary traits to be what you would like them to be instead of letting them be what they were set to be. 

 

If you want to have successful personality development, you need to be honest with yourself on your personality type. There are four main personalities or temperaments you can use to classify yourself. These include sanguine, melancholy, choleric and phlegmatic. These four temperaments are very different, and there is no one person who has 100% of one trait. When someone is called a sanguine, it means that this temperament is the most outstanding. There are many personality tests you can take on the internet for you to exactly know where you lie. Without being honest with yourself on your personality, then personality development will be impossible. 

 

After being honest with yourself, look at the strengths and weaknesses of your personality type. Do your best to build on the strengths. For instance, if you are talkative and confident, use this to your advantage and let this trait boost your career and ambitions. If you are very patient, use this to your advantage and to the advantage those that surround you. Also, identify your weaknesses in a very honest and open way. Work on your weaknesses by making deliberate efforts. For instance, forgetfulness can be improved by ensuring that you have phone reminders and lists on your notice board.

 

Importance of Knowing Your Personality

There are many ways through which you can know your personality type. Nowadays, it is very easy for you to know it because there are many tests for personality online that, if correctly done, can give you your personality type or temperament with pin point accuracy. 

 

Personality types are classified in many ways, but all of them can be generalized into four pairs of temperaments – the introverted and the extroverted, the one who thinks and the one who feels, the one who uses judgment to conclude and the one who uses keenness, and, finally, the one who prefers using senses and the one who uses discernment. These different temperaments usually determine how one will react to various situations and the choices one will make.

 

It is of utmost importance that one knows their personality type, because this will make them a better person, a better worker, a better parent, sibling, consultant, student, counsellor, coach et cetera. 

 

When you know your personality type, you get better understanding of yourself first. If you are an introvert, then you will stop being a cheerleader at school, because introverts become very irritable when they are in extroverted situations. An extrovert will stop hiding in the closet and will come out in the open to mingle and to cheer the world. You will also get better understanding of others. You will no longer get upset because your friend is not as spontaneous as you are, but he or she takes time to analyze his schedule before accepting your spontaneous invitation to a movie.

 

When you understand your personality type, you will communicate more clearly to others. You may be the thinker and the one who is very keen as opposed to the one who uses spontaneity and quick judgment. If you know this, you will kindly ask your spontaneous wife to kindly inform you in advance of anything she plans to involve you in. this will help you live harmoniously. Also, you will be able to ask for help in weak areas. For instance, if you are forgetful and procrastinating, you will request your desk mate at work to remind you of something.

 

Finally, you will have success all round. You will relate with others better in marriage, work, business, as a parent, as a coach etc. you will also maintain the friendships you already have easily and you will create other lasting friendships easily. You will live harmoniously with yourself and with others, and you will have fewer conflicts in your life. 

Enjoy Your Life: Change Your Point of View

"Two men look out through the same bars: One sees the mud, and one sees the stars."- Frederick Langbridge, A Cluster of Quiet Thoughts 

 

If you’ve placed second in a writing contest, will you jump for joy and push for better results the next time or will you be discouraged and find an excuse not to join again? 

 

In life, you are always filled with choices. You may opt to have a pessimist’s view and live a self-defeated life or you may decide to take the optimist’s route and take a challenging and fulfilling life.

 

So why nurture an optimist’s point of view? And why now?

 

Well, optimism has been linked to positive mood and good morale; to academic, athletic, military, occupational and political success; to popularity; to good health and even to long life and freedom from trauma.

 

On the other hand, the rates of depression and pessimism have never been higher. It affects middle-aged adults the same way it hits younger people. The mean age of onset has gone from 30 to 15. It is no longer a middle-aged housewife’s disorder but also a teen-ager’s disorder’ as well.

 

Here’s how optimists are in action and researches that back up why it really pays to be an optimist:

 

Optimists expect the best

 

The defining characteristic of pessimists is that they tend to believe bad events, which will last a long time and undermine everything they do, are their own fault. 

 

The truth is optimists are confronted with the same hard knocks of this world. What differs is the way they explain their misfortune---it’s the opposite way. They tend to believe defeat is just a temporary setback, that its causes are confined to this one case. 

 

Optimists tend to focus on and plan for the 'problem' at hand. They use 'positive reinterpretation.' In other words, they most likely reinterpret a negative experience in a way that helps them learn and grow. Such people are unfazed by bad situation, they perceive it is a challenge and try harder.

 

They won’t say “things will never get better,” “If I failed once, it will happen again” and “If I experience misfortune in one part of my life, then it will happen in my whole life.”

 

Positive expectancies of optimists also predict better reactions during transitions to new environments, sudden tragedies and unlikely turn of events. If they fall, they will stand up. They see opportunities instead of obstacles. 

 

People respond positively to optimists

 

Optimists are proactive and less dependent on others for their happiness. They find no need to control or manipulate people. They usually draw people towards them. Their optimistic view of the world can be contagious and influence those they are with. 

 

Optimism seems a socially desirable trait in all communities. Those who share optimism are generally accepted while those who spread gloom, panic and hysteria are treated unfavourably. 

 

In life, these people often win elections; get voted most congenial and sought for advice. 

 

When the going gets tough, optimists get tougher 

 

Optimists typically maintain higher levels of subjective well-being during times of stress than do people who are less optimistic. In contrast, pessimists are likely to react to stressful events by denying that they exist or by avoiding dealing with problems. Pessimists are more likely to quit trying when difficulties arise.

 

They persevere. They just don’t give up easily, they are also known for their patience. Inching their way a step closer to that goal or elusive dream.

 

Optimists are healthier and live longer

 

Medical research has justified that simple pleasures and a positive outlook can cause a measurable increase in the body's ability to fight disease.

 

Optimists’ health is unusually good. They age well, much freer than most people from the usual physical ills of middle age. And they get to outlive those prone to negative thoughts. 

 

So why not be an optimist today? And think positively towards a more fulfilled life.

 

Why not look forward to success in all your endeavours? Why not be resilient? Like everybody else you are bound to hit lows sometimes but don’t just stay there. Carry yourself out of the mud and improve your chances of getting back on the right track. And why not inspire others to remove their dark-colored glasses and see life in the bright side? 

 

Helping Children Recognize Their Self-Worth

Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” We know that our self-talks and much of our low self-esteem comes not from what is said to us, but what we say to ourselves.

 

Have you ever had that experience where something someone says to you during the course of the day seems to repeat itself in your mind? Does it affect you as you go about your everyday business and make you feel unworthy and perhaps even interfere with your relationships? 

 

 Most of us have this experience on a regular basis and it’s not easy to forget the comments because our mind plays the words and eventually, we believe it ourselves. We may even convince ourselves of something that was not intended by the person who spoke the words to us.

 

We may not like to admit it, but we allow the words of others to affect us. We recite the child’s poem “sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.” Yet we know they do! Most people would agree that long after broken bones heal, the pain of negative words lingers on. 

 

As children, we were often hurt by the negative talk of those who were the significant people in our lives. Even if we didn’t realize how those words affect us, we carried these negative thoughts into our adult years. We tend to filter what others say to us through the filer of our experiences. It is difficult to change our own perceptions, but for our children, it’s not too late. 

 

As parents and adults, we can help our children to develop strong self-esteem by thinking about the words we use when we talk to them. Teaching them to recognize their own self-worth is essential to helping them develop a strong self-esteem. Significant adults in children’s lives must give them lots of praise and help them to recognize their achievements. However, it is equally important to ensure that a child can recognize their own self-worth and to maintain strong self-esteem even when may need to be disciplined for things they do which may not be praiseworthy. 

 

As adults, we learn to hear praise and reject it consciously or subconsciously. When we learn to praise ourselves appropriately, we own the praise. Teaching a child to praise its own accomplishment teaches a child an important resource that will greatly help them in the future. 

 

Personality Development—How to Reach Where You Want to Reach

We come across many people in life, and they are all different in how they behave, how they react and reason. These people are all made different by the different personalities they have. Therefore, personality is the combination of mannerisms and attributes that makes one person distinct and unique from the other. Personality is formed as a result of many factors. 

 

First, there are personality traits that one inherits from parents and relatives. No wonder you find some of your traits and your likes and dislikes similar to those of your parents or relatives. There are some personality traits that we pick up along the way as we grow and live our lives. As we grow and live, we pick up habits, values and beliefs that are dependent on where we grow and who we grow, live or interact with. However, the traits we pick up in childhood stick the most more than the ones we get as we grow up. 

 

It is possible to design and develop your own personality. It is not a sealed fate set for us to act out, but you can control it and determine how it is going to work out. In other words, you can redesign even the hereditary traits to be what you would like them to be instead of letting them be what they were set to be. 

 

If you want to have successful personality development, you need to be honest with yourself on your personality type. There are four main personalities or temperaments you can use to classify yourself. These include sanguine, melancholy, choleric and phlegmatic. These four temperaments are very different, and there is no one person who has 100% of one trait. When someone is called a sanguine, it means that this temperament is the most outstanding. There are many personality tests you can take on the internet for you to exactly know where you lie. Without being honest with yourself about your personality, you will find this to be an uphill task. 

 

After being honest with yourself, look at the strengths and weaknesses of your personality type. Do your best to build on the strengths. For instance, if you are talkative and confident, use this to your advantage and let this trait boost your career and ambitions. If you are very patient, use this to your advantage and to the advantage those that surround you. Also, identify your weaknesses in a very honest and open way. Work on your weaknesses by making deliberate efforts. For instance, forgetfulness can be improved by ensuring that you have phone reminders and lists on your notice board.

Self-Discovery Starts by Loving Yourself

Self-discovery is greatly dependent on whether you love yourself. Love for oneself is a great asset that one can have in life. First and foremost, you should ask yourself who you are? To a very large extent, most of us are deeply engrossed on the day-to-day hustles and bustles of life. This entails; making ends meet, running our various businesses, starting new paths for our careers. We are deeply engrossed in this till we forget who really are. We never stop to discover self. 

 

Knowing yourself first entails come to the realization that first and foremost we are all unique beings and that to a very large extent, we are endowed with special gifts. We all have one or two things that we can do better than others. It is after discovering this that everything else in life takes shape. To a large extent this is the key that can unlock the door to everything that you are undertaking. A great number of us tend to believe that real happiness rests material things which are not the case. Happiness comes from discovering yourself.

 

To a large extent we only believe on those things that we can set our eyes on and can feel with our hands. We tend not to trust our inner self. The inner wisdom that we are all endowed with. When we were young, we are always told to always be perfect and to some extent that we are not that good enough. When you realize you are not yourself you stop carrying somebody’s luggage. It is important that we always act ourselves, we should not look down upon ourselves but rather believe that we are okay just the way we are. Always put yourself first, do not look down upon yourself. 

 

To a large extent if you do not love yourself, then there’s no way you can love somebody else. Loving yourself has nothing to do with ego; it does not mean looking down upon others or being too proud and zealous. There’s no way you can love others if at all you do not love yourself, then there’s no way you can love any other party and here you would be cheating both yourself and the people whom you claim to love. Thus, loving yourself opens up your life and it is through this that you can discover yourself.

 

Questions You Can Ask Yourself for Self-Discovery

Even though we are all endowed differently in terms of gifts and talents not all of us is well aware of what our endowments are. It is also true that most of us know what our strengths are but they do not know how to maximize on them. We do not know how to use them both for our own benefit and for the benefits of others. One of the main reasons why people do not maximize on their God given talents is the failure to discover them. Many young people have the problem of identifying who they are really are and what they are in this planet. They are not able to make solid decisions towards fruitful career choices. Ones that augur well with their personality.

 

It is sad to note that it is not only the young people that are affected with choices regarding their lives but even the older people have the problem of discovering their real self. Many adults make choices in life without taking their passions in to consideration. The problem is that they deny this undisputable fact and tend to keep to their comfort zone. They are afraid of changes n their life and prefer satisfying external desires. 

 

There a number of questions that you can ask yourself for self-discovery. These include; asking yourself the activity did you use to love doing when you were a child? You can also ask yourself that if you so happen to write a book what subject would you talk or rather what would you write about? Ask yourself what area or aspect in life that you feel you can comfortably help people in? Also ask yourself what your close associates and friends or even what you relatives say about you. Ask yourself of the dreams you are always day dreaming about. Search your memory and try remembering a certain day that you felt you utter mostly felt that happiness from deep within you.

 

All these questions will lead to the discovery of the real you. You will at the end of the day have a personal satisfaction of the direction or path that your life ought to take. You will be motivated and inspired. You will find yourself facing each and every day in a different way. With energy and vigor. You will be more confident about yourself and you can handle anything that comes your way with ease. 

 

Understand Your Personality, Develop It and Be a Successful Consultant

If you are a professional consultant in whichever field, you basically are someone that others look up to in that specific area for guidance and direction. Therefore, you cannot afford to be a blind man leading another. You need to know your personality so that you will make the best out of it and so that your career will go to greater heights.

 

The first thing you should do is to analyze your personality type or temperament. Are you an artisan, guardian, rational or an idealist? We shall name these temperaments A, B, C and D respectively for ease of identification.

 

The type A person is a very flexible person, and he is not rigid to one routine or schedule. He can easily move with the wave. However, this person does not work on information whose foundation is not concrete, and he prefers to use his senses more than he uses hearsay. The type B person also loves working with the same kind of information as the type A person. This person will hardly pay for things simply because he heard that they are on their way coming. He will need to see them first and even touch them and have close scrutiny ion them before any commitment is made. However, this person is not as flexible; he works with a written plan.

 

Then, there is the type C person. This person is spontaneous in his thinking. He is also very positive minded about all things and he believes that something can be made out of even the most useless things. Instead of working with actual, solid information, the type C person works like an artist – with abstracts. The type D person is one who is also spontaneous in thinking, but also trusts in his instincts when feeling. This is also a person who loves working with abstracts as opposed to the types A and B persons, who love solid information. 

 

Therefore, you need to know what you can do best using your personality type. The type A person can work best as a coach in arts (music and drama) and as a gymnasium personal coach. Type B person can do well as a business consultant (especially in recruiting workers) and as the consultant in charge of teamwork and answerability at work. The type C person is a good consultant for management teams, research in medicine in business. The type D is good in the same areas as C but can also make a motivational and inspirational speaker.