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Do you Keep on hearing the importance of personal growth and development for every individual regardless of his age, profession, and gender? Surely, you must have. However, this doesn't mean that we all try to opt for things necessary for the growth of our personality and the betterment of our maturity level. And this is because not all of us fully understand the meaning of personal growth. In simple words, personal growth teaches you your hidden potential and gives you the liberty to lead a happy, balanced, compassionate and free life without fearing of failure, and without hurting yours or other's feelings.
Donna Goddard has beautifully summed up the freedom of a self-aware soul in her book, the love of devotion, saying, “A balanced inner calmness radiates from a peaceful center. It neither craves others' approval nor rejects others' presence. It neither pulls towards nor pushes away. It has a reverent attitude towards life and all its inhabitants.” And this is what relays the importance of personal growth and development for every individual.
• What is Meant Spiritual Personal Development?
Spiritual development makes you strong from inside out by feeding our soul with the spirit of religious teachings and strengthen our personality by bringing us near to the mighty God. In the course of spiritually learning your strengths and weaknesses, you get to know the importance of personal growth and development in a unique yet highly significant manner. In this learning, you discover to improve your maturity level, your spiritual aura, and be more productive and useful not only for yourself but for everyone around as well.
However, in spite of all these great benefits, there is a very obvious divide among people, as some belief in the spiritual teachings from the core of their hearts while others prefer to groom their personality without lingering on the religious teachings.
No matter what your beliefs are, you can gain help otherwise. Because one of the most fundamental things to get better and better with each passing day is to have full faith in yourself and have the utmost determination to achieve an improved version of yourself. As Roy T. Bennett has written in his book, the light in the heart, that “Believe in your infinite potential. Your only limitations are those you set upon yourself. Believe in yourself, your abilities and your own potential. Never let self-doubt hold you captive. You are worthy of all that you dream of and hope for.” If you have a firm belief in yourself then certainly you will achieve your goal.
Whether you seek self-development through going on a "self-help" path or through a "god-help" journey, your determination and promise to groom your personality, to leave the hatred behind and to choose compassion and love over ego and pride will give you success, happiness, and content. Shannon L. Alder has beautifully summed it up saying, “Accomplishments don’t erase shame, hatred, cruelty, silence, ignorance, discrimination, low self-esteem or immorality. It covers it up, with a creative version of pride and ego. Only restitution, forgiving yourself and others, compassion, repentance and living with dignity will ever erase the past.” These golden words are enough to change one's personality.
• Is Spiritual Personal Development Different from Personal Growth?
We all have heard about personal development and growth a number of times here and there, through books, on TV shows, etc. However, the concept of spiritual personal development is not that common as personal development. So, what is the difference between the two? In the simplest way, personal growth and development revolve around "self-help" whereas, in the spiritual personal development, you seek help from the mighty God, and thus comes under the umbrella of "god-help". And that difference of just a single world is like a difference between day and night.
• Why Do You Need Personal Growth?
Growth towards becoming a better version of anything or anyone is always great. You need personal growth because you want to magnify beautiful aspects of your personality while diminishing the negative ones at the same time. And you have the power of changing only one person in this world, and that is you yourself. Because, surely, you cannot change every person in the world, you can try to have a greater impact but changing the whole society would take an eternity or simply impossible. However, you never know what may be a good change within yourself will reflect in people around you as well. Jim Rohn has brilliantly summarized the impact of personal growth and development on one's own personality and on everyone around him/ her in these words saying, “Personal development – the never-ending chance to improve not only yourself but also attract opportunities and affect others.” Surely, positive change in one's personality reflects all over the place.
Undoubtedly, you cannot completely change others but your good traits can surely influence others to adopt them. The human brain is a complex and simple machine, both at the same time. The more you concentrate your thinking and focus on things the more these things will become a reality for you. If you start thinking about things that you dislike, fear from, or increase negativity in your life, then it means that you are attracting discontent, displeasure, and unhappiness in your life.
On the other hand, when you start thinking about all the good things around you, all the blessings you have in your life then you will improve your internal energy to think pleasantly, and clearly. The more you surround yourself with the good, the more you will feel good, have clarity of mind and will surely lead a happy, healthy and successful.
Moreover, it is one of the most common mistakes that we start comparing our lives with others. And more deteriorating thing is that while doing so we keep in mind everything we do not have with everything the other person does have. Whereas in reality, not a single person has each and everything in his or her life that he/ she desires. Each and every one of us strives for something that is missing in our life. Some people are craving for the love of their family, some people pray for money, some people want to get success, and so on. In a nutshell, not a single soul is completely happy and content with what he or she got. And that is where you need to learn the importance of personal growth and development. Personal growth will let you see the positivity and blessings in your life, while simultaneously it will push you to do better in your life.
• Personal Development Let You Dream
Instead of piling up your fears, regrets, and emotions, personal development gives you the choice of choosing your happiness without fear of failure. And this is extremely necessary to lead a happy, healthy and content life. Knowing the importance of "now" is extremely important. Present in not called "present" (gift) without any reason. It surely is a gift for us, for those who believe. On the path of self-growth and personal development, you will be aspiring and inspired to achieve higher and greater good. Personal development pushes you forward to dream big and then give you encouragement and confidence that you can have everything great that you wish for. What's most important is that you try, without fearing failure. Because every failure teaches you a lesson about what went wrong and what you can do better next time. The genius Mark Twain has remarkably put this in words saying, “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” Be free, and fearless to see, explore and achieve greater things in life.
We all have the ability to do something different, something worthy, something really great in our life. As the legend, Bruce Lee has said, “Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it.” But only those of us, who have the courage to explain, display and project their idea into words and actions get successful and become notable. Russell Simmons said, “What holds most people back isn’t the quality of their ideas, but their lack of faith in themselves. You have to live your life as if you are already where you want to be.” And this is exceptionally true in most cases.
Those people who have been encouraged, groomed, and raised with confidence and self-belief find it easy to achieve great benefits in life. While describing the characteristics of great and successful men, Harry S. Truman said, "I studied the lives of great men and women, and I found that the men and women who got to the top were those who did the jobs they had in hand, with everything they had of energy and enthusiasm and hard work.” Whereas, on the other hand, people who held their feelings back, and hide their ideas behind the fear of failure and disappointments often end up depressed and dejected.
However, never say never. It is never too late to get back on the right path and hop on the journey of self-growth and personal development.
• Personal Growth Diminishes Hatred, Anger and All Negative Vibes
Hate, anger, disappointment, distress, and anxiety create a negative aura around you and never let you experience true happiness and tranquility. Hate is a very strong feeling that is developed after sheer disappointment and remains alongside anger. These negative forces have the full force of destroying all the positive vibes within you. Buddha has exceptionally explained the powerful force of hatred and anger saying, " Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.” These forces can leave you unhappy and distressed all the time. However, with the goodness of self-growth and personal development, you can fight these feelings away and can lead a happy and successful life. Les Brown, the genius writer has written, “Don’t let the negativity given to you by the world dis-empower you. Instead, give to yourself that which empowers you.” You must be strong enough to tackle these negativities with full strength and courage and for that, it is extremely important to improve the positive traits of your personality.
• Personal Development Fills Your Heart with Love, Kindness, and Compassion
When hatred, anger, and distress can kill all the positivity within your personality, love, kindness and compassion can restructure the lost beauty of your soul. This all becomes true with the importance of personal growth and development. The path of personal development lets you realize the authenticity of your soul and you get to discover and explore the loveable and kind nature of your personality. And finding the ability to love, and be kind to others is true happiness. This gives you the courage to be good towards yourself and towards others as well and thus spread kindness and compassion all around. As Rollo May has said, "The word courage comes from the same stem as the French word Coeur, meaning “heart.” Thus just as one’s heart, by pumping blood to one’s arms, legs, and brain enables all the other physical organs to function, so courage makes possible all the psychological virtues. Without courage, other values wither away into mere facsimiles of virtue.” These virtues can never go wrong and will surely lead everyone on the right path of success and happiness.
• Personal Growth Makes You Mature, Realistic and Happy
Another great impact of personal growth and development is that with this you become more mature and realistic towards the important things of life. The things that matter the most, rather than whining over the trifle and petty things. You get to see things, situations and people from a different angle. You stop being biased rather than gain the ability to read and analyze the situation with full maturity. Don Miguel Ruiz has said that "Don’t take anything personally. Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.” You can also see as the extension of reaching your full potential. As each and every one of us is special and has the power to understand, analyze and examine any situation. But, somehow, this ability of ours becomes vague. With personal development, you get to nurture this characteristic and be more mature. And this leads you towards happiness. Seeing things above personal level gives you the courage and confidence to be happy with what you have and where ever you are. This personal growth helps you to be content and happy with everything you have in your hands. As Elizabeth Gilbert has said, “People tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will descend like fine weather if you’re fortunate. But happiness is the result of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly.” This form of greatness is surely hard to achieve, but when you reach that point you realize the importance of real things in your life. And this gives you utter happiness and magnificent content through vital things of life.
• With Personal Grooming, You Achieve Your Full Strength and Highest Potential
Undoubtedly, this is definitely one of the most important things that personal development leaves you with, the achievement of your highest potential. It is extremely terrible to think that many of us never get to experience the highest potential of ourselves. Because in the ups and downs of our lives, we tend to lose our personality in the darkness of worries, fears and doubts. This happens to most of us. Most of our lives, we bury our head in petty things and never ever learn to appreciate our full strength. Rather, we concentrate and focus on what other people will be saying, are saying, or what they will be thinking. The desire of making everyone happy around us transform our confident personality into a timid, shy and underwhelmed one. And with all these traits, we become vulnerable to all the negativities around. On top of this, our head starts creating negative thoughts of its own, and thus eventually we forget to concentrate on any positive thing within our personality. This surely is an extremely painful, terrible and disastrous thing that anyone can experience.
Nonetheless, in order to avoid getting caught up in all these dark scenarios, just focus all your energy on the importance of personal growth and development and on the journey of self-growth, you will definitely get to achieve your full potential and high strength. As Brian Tracy has remarkably put the great results of personal development in words, saying, “Personal development is a major time-saver. The better you become, the less time it takes you to achieve your goals.” Rightly said, as the more invested you are in changing yourself towards betterment, the nearer your goal will be.
Success and happiness cannot be achieved in a single night. Helen Keller has said, “Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.” Character building is a time taking process, and the one who is totally invested on the right path will get there soon. As Stephen Richards has tremendously put the vitality of self-growth in words saying, “You are essentially who you create yourself to be and all that occurs in your life is the result of your own making.” It proves that your everyday experiences are changing yourself. However, it relies on you in what direction you put your energy on.
• Personal Development Allows You to be the Better Version of Yourself
All human beings are on the journey of learning. All-day and every day, each and every one of us learns something new, something different, something helpful. However, the most impactful learning is the one that directs you in a more successful, more content and happier direction. Jim Rohn has said, "You cannot change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction overnight. If you want to reach your goals and fulfill your potential, become intentional about your personal growth. It will change your life.” And here lies the importance of personal growth and development, because with personal grooming and self-awareness you get to achieve a better, stronger and smarter version of yourself.
You learn to realize the importance of character building, power of knowledge and forceful impact of actions. As Anaïs Nin has profoundly said, “What we call our destiny is truly our character and that character can be altered. The knowledge that we are responsible for our actions and attitudes does not need to be discouraging, because it also means that we are free to change this destiny.” Anaïs has brilliantly described the importance of maintaining balance in your personality. It is extremely important to understand the nature of your personality and built your attitude, character and thus actions upon it.
There you go. I really hope that all the points mentioned above will help you understand the importance of personal growth and development and from now on, you will try to empower and nurture yourself in a more mature and better version of yourself. Nothing in this life is impossible. You just need to have full faith in yourself and your true determination on the right path will definitely help you succeed. I wholeheartedly wish that you will achieve great success, immense happiness, and content in your life.
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