What does the term self-development mean?
Before knowing about 14 Effective Self-Development Exercises, Self-development is a process of improving oneself, it is a practice and research of finding and improving our own inner skills. Self-development plays a vital role as without self-development individuals wouldn’t stand an effort in upgrading themselves. It is a part where we get out of our comfort zone and practice boosting ourselves in various ways.
Why is self-development important?
Self-development is a constant never-ending process. By self-development, you ameliorate yourself at every step, unload your bad habits, discipline yourself on the path that you want to follow and keep moving ahead.
Do we really need self-development?
Of Course, we do. What’s the point of living if there is no progress? Upgradation is a part of life that every person seeks. Self-development is one of those upgrades where you practice on raising yourself at each step. The process could differ for each person, but repetitively practicing it you do find peace, be it a tiny seed but you’re still growing.
Think about those times when you feel miserable about yourself?
You feel miserable because you probably don’t have answers for the objects running into your head. Because of which, you lack the mental ability of thinking right. It could be anything – effective at work, home, various other criteria. But improving yourself mentally would definitely help you be less miserable as your mind is able to cope up with the daily routine required to survive. It just doesn’t stop at survival. You need to fill in constant knowledge for your mind to keep evolving. Let us talk about a few effective and speedy exercises to put into practice.
14 Fast and Effective Self-Development Exercises
1) Improving self-knowledge
Improving self-knowledge could be tough with the work schedule we follow, or the fast life we live in. But in order to sustain something there has to be sacrifice, and that would just be a limited amount of time spent on books, news, etc. You will see just by chipping in minimal time in those areas you’d gain knowledge in places you didn’t have a clue about. Therefore, taking baby steps at first will get you in practice. Let me rephrase the old quote: Practice makes you Perfect. I would say Practice keeps you going to get closer to being perfect.
- Self-knowledge is the greatest kind of knowledge.
2) Positivity
Seeing positivity at every genre could be difficult, but that’s what makes us humans, we all say we need to be positive in everything we do but what exactly does positive mean, is it just another word of comfort.Being positive applies in you accepting the outcomes of what you do, for example- whether you’re working in a school, an office, or you being the boss you still have negativity surrounding you with masks that have to be pointed out. Consider being surrounded with those masks and get rid of them 1 by 1. There might be times you wouldn’t be able to get rid of certain objects and it’s okay to lose and feel vulnerable. Acceptance is the reality in life that is what would make you positive.
3) Visualization
It is said when we close our eyes and walk our mind to another place and time, we have the opportunity to heal the past and prepare for the future. Using visualization, we can revisit the past, editing the narrative we tell ourselves about our history. I make it easier for us to accept the way things were dark and now they have come to light and what we have to do next to edit the phase we would get into. Think of it this way: anything you see in the man-made world- the chair, the mike, the theatre, any object, it existed in someone’s mind before it came into existence. In order to create something, we have to imagine it. This is why visualization is important.
4) Rejection
Nowadays a lot of people are scared of rejection, especially the youth. Accepting rejection takes courage, don’t be scared if you’re rejected in any part of your life. Take it this way: think if you hadn’t seen rejection, you would never see the value of acceptance, if you get rejected it doesn’t have to be the end of the world.There is always an opportunity waiting for you, face your rejection by accepting the facts you got rejected for, strive harder. Work on your speech, your attitude, your presentation, etc. It’s okay if you are not accepted because the most important valuable thing is you have another chance to prove yourself.No one in this world reached their goal without facing rejection.
- You’re rejected today but you will be accepted someday.
5)Acceptance
Real acceptance comes from your own achievements, and those achievements being taught to others, and they learn how to extend it to others. Rather seeing acceptance as a rocket science where you have to please and prove others to accept you. Acceptance comes from within. There are times when you’d feel no matter how much you help others, you feel no pride because there’s so much more to be done. The most powerful, admirable, captivating quality in any human being comes from achieving acceptance of oneself, but still embracing humility and their own insignificance, while moving ahead.
6)Stop Feeling insecure
Insecurity could be like a pesticide to your body. You won’t have knowledge on how it would slowly damage you. Feeling insecure holds you back from your own confident self, which means throwing away all your confidence into the pot hole that goes unnoticed. Deal with insecurities by filling yourself with phrases like, “You’ve got this”. “I’m better than my insecurities”. “My insecurities won’t block me”. Walk against your insecurities and build confidence.
- Insecurity would only drag you down.
7)Be confident
Feeling confident would mean being sure about yourself and your abilities, which would mean detaching yourself from your insecurities. When you’re in a state of confidence, it only means you’ve accepted what identifies you. Not only being confident feels good, it helps you seize potential opportunities, take more chances and make that big change or take the next step in your life and career. No external labels or accomplishments can give you true confidence, you have found it yourself.
- Confidence is something you wear, you’re not born with it, but with time you develop it.
8)Detachment
Detachment is a form of self-control that has infinite benefits across every form of self-awareness but its origin comes from the mind. Detachment in simple terms only means doing the right thing for your sake, as you know it should be done. Easy said than done right? Well, nothing comes easy right. How about you think of it this way, you just have to know that you’re doing this for your sake, for your good.
- Only by detaching we truly gain control of the mind.
9) Gratitude
You don’t have to believe me when I say Gratitude is the most powerful medicine which could come handy. It’s hard to digest that gratitude could actually be good for us, because of the egoistic world we live around, but by being grateful and expressing gratitude, you are unloading your baggage of ego. It will only make you lighter, calmer, happier. There is a measurable amount of science behind it too. Benefits of gratitude:Better mental health, better relationships and a sense of relief with fulfillment.
An Exercise you could try: Try to be grateful at any time during the day. It could be the first thing in the morning too. Jot it down or say it loud.
10)Surround yourself
A flower always blooms where it is taken care of, in the same way you find yourself flourishing around people who help in ballooning you. It’s obvious not everyone you surround yourself with is going to be of advantage to you, you cannot humanly expect that as well, but you can stick around those who are beneficial in the higher run. Choose people with a higher calibre than that of yours, acknowledge their calibre.
- You are the sum of whom you surround yourself with.
11)Inspiration
The best way to fulfil your intentions is to find yourself an inspiration. By that I mean find yourself a role model who has prospered, consider their stages of life, focus especially on what they did at your stage in order to get where they are. Extensive research on them, keep notes, make a to-do list on how it would all help you achieve what they achieved at your convenience. In your observations on inspiration, it’s worth remembering there can be multiple paths in achieving what you intend.
12) Do not create false hierarchies
When success gets into our head, we forget that everyone is equal. No matter who you are or what you’ve achieved, if you’re expecting more or demanding special treatment because of the status you’ve achieved, then that’s somewhere you have to stop. Creating those kinds of hierarchies is only going to harm you in the term ahead. Instead, humble yourself, seek more of what you could establish and development will shower its way on you.
- Create expectations not hierarchies.
13) Meditation
Researchers say as humans we have roughly 60 thousand odd thoughts every day, that our mind is at present time only three seconds. Not to mention rather our mind keeps moving forward and backward based on what we’ve experienced in the past and expecting in the future. This battle in our mind is waged over smaller daily choices, be it big or small. That’s where meditation comes handy. Meditation is an ongoing practice which takes time. You cannot expect quick and easy results, such as any cream that you use could turn you fairer overnight. Meditation involves quite a lot of science in it but as a starter I would suggest, you work on your breathing. The physical nature of breath work helps drive distraction from your head. Breath work is calming, but isn’t always easy. In fact, the challenges it brings are part of the process.
An exercise you should try:
Breath work:
a)Find a comfortable position.
b)Close your eyes
c)Make yourself comfortable in this position
d)Focus on your posture being upright
e)Bring yourself awareness
14)Discipline
Training expected to produce a specific character or pattern of behavior, especially training that produces moral or mental improvement.What I mean by this is, follow the path that asses you to self-developmentin a hardcore manner, be it by hook or by crook and that needs mental stability at every step. Discipline would be the last step of the staircase that you climb because, if you don’t discipline yourself in doing what is required there’s no point at all. As kids, we had to follow a certain routine which we were entitled to. Did it make a difference in our lives? Hell yes! That’s exactly why we’ve reached the endless road, when we once imagined we wouldn’t. Think of it this way all the exercises would fall apart if there was no base and therefore discipline is your base. Discipline yourself in following the routes and gradually you will reach your destiny which is self-development.
Believe in yourself because that’s all you got. The feeling of undervaluing yourself could come to you quite often, that’s the human tendency. But that shouldn’t stop you from the person you want to be. Think of it this way: self-development is a part of your body, nurture it and you will be able to work on the other parts of your body step by step.
Other Suggested Reads: HOW TO IMPROVE YOURSELF: 20 PRACTICAL SELF-IMPROVEMENT TIPS
https://www.oberlo.in/blog/how-to-improve-yourself
42 Practical Ways to Start Working on Self-Improvement https://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/42-practical-ways-to-improve-yourself.html
-Celeste D’sa
