Begins process of personal self-development from the moment when a person, having once wanted something, begins to think about how he can achieve it, and what prevents him from taking the first steps. The interesting thing is that once we receive a question, our brain constantly searches for an answer, even without the participation of consciousness. It includes the process of self-development of the individual, who, willy-nilly, absorbs all the necessary information, the brain itself sorts through everything possible options solutions to the problem and one day insight comes. But this process is too complicated and long.

First of all, it also requires some motivation. And each person motivates himself, since personal development is a strictly individual process. But in any case, whatever the motivation, the process of personal self-development leads to the same thing - a change in a person’s habitual thinking, a change in attitude towards the world, others and, of course, towards oneself.

The process of personal self-development is difficult, long and painful, since you have to fight with your own “I”, which does not want to recognize and accept changes in life. But it’s also stupid to stop on this path, since the process immediately starts in reverse side and everything previously achieved loses its value and returns you to a dull and unpleasant past. The main thing is not to lose heart. Be sure that always on the path of personal self-development you can meet a person who will help you, support you, and without demanding absolutely anything in return.

Methods and stages of personal self-development

Many people know that these issues are often dealt with by psychology; personal development is within its competence. But in fact, the process of personal self-development can consist of a variety of practices: meditation, faith, communication with other people, training, yoga, etc. But in any case, personal self-development goes through several stages.

1. Getting to know your own “I”, its features, as well as searching for ways to modify it. In this case, personal self-development helps not only to understand oneself and the world around us, but also to discover the relationship with childhood traumas and fears and problems of today. After this, all the talents and abilities that had no outlet before literally break through.

2. Next step Personal self-development is the reprogramming of one’s own actions and behavior. This helps transform sudden and unexpected success into regular and permanent success.

3. When such transformations become significant and acquire a permanent character, the world begins to play with new colors, and people treat you better and better.

What does personal self-development give?

Self-development of personality opens up new perspectives in life and in communicating with people. Life itself becomes brighter and more fulfilling, and most importantly, it begins to shine with new facets. New opportunities, friends, horizons, ideas, thoughts appear. The process of personal self-development allows you to make the world around you more harmonious, kind and filled with energy.

If we turn to self-development as a specific process unfolding in time and space of human life, we should note its ambiguity and diversity. Here it is much more difficult to clearly identify the sequence of actions characterizing self-development than, for example, the sequence of actions describing the process of self-knowledge. This is due to many reasons, the most important of which is the existence various forms self-development.

It is no coincidence that in the Russian language there are many terms that capture different nuances process of self-development: self-presentation, self-expression, self-affirmation, self-improvement, self-actualization, self-realization, etc. All of them are components - the first part “self” indicates that the subject, the initiator of the activity is a person, the second characterizes the specificity, originality of the activity: to express oneself, to establish oneself, realize, improve. Therefore, it is not possible to simply analyze the goals, motives, methods and results of self-development, as was the case with self-knowledge. All this can be analyzed within the framework of one form or another of self-development.

The forms of self-development are the most important and describe self-development in their entirety quite fully, these include: self-affirmation, self-improvement and self-actualization. Self-affirmation makes it possible to express yourself fully as an individual. Self-improvement expresses the desire to get closer to some ideal. Self-actualization is to identify a certain potential in yourself and use it in life. All three forms allow one to express oneself and realize oneself to varying degrees. Therefore, they are the ones who adequately characterize the process of self-development as a whole, where the internal moment of the movement is the self-construction of the individual.

These three main forms of self-development are closely related to each other. The primary thing, on the one hand, is self-affirmation. In order to improve and become fully actualized, you must first establish yourself in your own eyes and in the eyes of others. On the other hand, a self-improving and self-actualizing personality is objectively self-affirming, regardless of how much the person himself at these stages of development feels the need for self-affirmation. At the same time, acts of primary self-affirmation are also acts of self-actualization. Taking into account the above, let us analyze the goals, motives, methods and results of self-development in the forms of self-affirmation, self-improvement and self-actualization.

There are three main forms of self-improvement: - adaptation ("bringing" oneself to certain norms and requirements); - imitation (copying a certain model or part of it); - self-education is highest form self-improvement.

The main factors that encourage a person to engage in self-education: - the desire to recognize oneself as an individual; - examples of others; - assessment of others; - properly organized educational process.

Self-knowledge is the study by an individual of his own physical and mental characteristics. It allows a person to look at himself from the outside, evaluate his qualities, actions and thoughts. Self-knowledge should take place in a calm, favorable atmosphere, otherwise it can lead to inadequate self-esteem (overestimated or underestimated). Self-education and the direction of practical actions depend on self-esteem.

For practical actions for self-improvement, many people chose a motto for themselves. For example: “A dream is achieved through hard work”, “Conquer yourself if you want to defeat others”, “Go forward and don’t give up”, etc.

To work on yourself, you need to create a self-education program. A self-education program can be developed with the goal of self-education of different aspects of the personality (complex) and may provide for the self-education of any one quality.

Self-education programs are differentiated into long-term or short-term, general or detailed.

It's better to start with more simple programs(for example, overcoming any trait or quality), gradually moving to their complication.

Self-development is a process, and like any process, self-development is necessary to achieve a certain goal. The peculiarity of self-development is that goals always change, depending on the level of awareness, ability to take risks, self-discipline, self-confidence... All these criteria determine what goal we set for ourselves and how soon we will achieve this goal.

Personal self-development can be divided into several steps, we will talk about them below, but now let’s think about what motivates us, what forces us to get up and follow this interesting, sometimes difficult path of self-development.

So, as soon as we come into this world, we are surrounded by adults, our parents, perhaps brothers or sisters, grandparents. And, one way or another, they are older, stronger, smarter, wiser than us. And we unconsciously, sometimes consciously, compare ourselves with them, and this comparison is always not in our favor.

And it is precisely at this moment, when we are faced with the fact that we are in some way “worse” than the people around us, that a complex of insufficiency, described in detail by A. Adler, arises in us. In an effort to overcome this complex of insufficiency, we begin to engage in self-development.

The process of self-discovery

The first step in self-development is the process of self-discovery. We strive to identify ourselves in this world, position ourselves in our mental coordinate system, in relation to our idols, ideals, work colleagues, members of our family (both parental and the family that we have already created), religion, spiritual teachers and mentors... In general, we are looking for the answer to the question “who am I in this world?” This search can last a moment, but it can drag on for many years.

I have some shortcomings

The second step is to admit to myself that I have some shortcomings that lead me to undesirable consequences and results in life. And here self-acceptance plays a very important role. If we accept ourselves, then no problems arise with an objective view of the surrounding reality.

And we understand where we are and what (who) surrounds us. We may not like it, but we understand that it is so. As soon as our level of self-acceptance decreases, we begin to justify ourselves, to find people who, in our opinion, are “worse” than us. And this allows us not to change anything in our lives. And, therefore, the process of self-development ends.

And how I would like it to be

The third step comes if we do not give up, and openly look at our shortcomings (here it is important to understand that this is only our own subjective assessment of what are our shortcomings and what are our strengths), and begin to think about how I would like it to be . If not, then how? Often many people stop at this step.

Because we know how much we DO NOT WANT, but we don’t even think about what we WANT. And then we begin to complain about how bad our lives are, because we are surrounded by everything that we don’t want and that we are trying to avoid (you can understand why this happens after watching the movie The Secret, everything is described in detail there). In this context, it is important for us to avoid the victim state and not shift responsibility for the cause of our dissatisfaction to others.

How to achieve the desired result

The fourth step is to see what ways I can achieve desired result. What do I need to do to become what I want? And here on our way we can meet people, books, films, trainings that show different options and ways to achieve our goal.

And the help of other people is effective provided that we have already completed the first 3 steps on our own. Otherwise, it will turn out that we realize and justify other people’s expectations about us, about how they would like to see us, and this is far from self-development.

And perhaps you will get by without the help of others, and this is completely normal. However, when it comes to the need to consider as much as possible different options, then a detached, independent look is very useful.

And avoid those people who will insist on their opinion as the only true one, always reserve the right to choose and the right to doubt that the words and ideas of another person (or group of people) are one hundred percent correct. It may be true for them, but it doesn't matter to you. (However, like this article - perhaps these are just someone’s ideas that will not cause any response from you)

Steps to achieving your goal

And the last, fifth step is action. We make any efforts, take steps to achieve the goal that we set for ourselves in the 3rd step.

And at the end, we again move on to step number 1. We again begin to evaluate what we have achieved, what we are capable of, what place we occupy relative to those around us. And in fact, the process of self-development is endless; there will always be ideals to which we strive, in comparison with which we are not satisfied with our situation.

And this process stops either at the moment of death (which has not yet been proven), or at the moment when we stop believing in ourselves, in our strengths, our goal seems unattainable, and we stop, but only for a while...

A modern person is a successful person. He is handsome, healthy and well-built, knows exactly what he wants, loves and knows how to do something important that brings benefit to others, and gives him both moral satisfaction and income. We begin to develop such a picture under the influence of modern media, the rhythm of our lives, requests and desires.

However, comparing themselves with this image, many remain dissatisfied - one does not correspond to the other. Therefore, a person comes to the conclusion that he needs to change himself, but often does not know where to start, what this notorious personal growth is.

Self-development - what is it?

Speaking about self-development, we will try to formulate as simply as possible what this means. Get busy with this not an easy task preferred by people who want to change their lives in better side and they do it. Most of us have already developed perfect image yourself - fit, active and successful person with an excellent sense of humor, who does what he loves. But, thinking about where to start the process of self-improvement, many fall into a stupor, putting it off and postponing it until later.

Self-development involves a qualitative improvement in any aspect of life, personal growth. Probably no one will be able to change everything in one fell swoop. Firstly, there are not enough resources for this - after all, each of us has important, but uninteresting things to do, from which it is simply impossible to escape. Secondly, a person is always afraid of sudden and cardinal changes, and anyone will give up before the picture of a complete reshaping of life. Therefore, it would be right to start metamorphoses for the better from one area in which we feel “blocked”.

Initiate change: how?

Many people think that starting the process of change and personal growth requires a huge amount of time, money, talent and other opportunities, which they simply do not have. Therefore, a person either postpones this event, or ruins his mood every day, scolding himself for his weak character and laziness.

But before that, it is important to analyze which area needs immediate growth first.

Sphere of the Human Spirit. Personal growth is, first of all, understanding your shortcomings. Changing yourself in this area means trying to get rid of anger and stop gossiping and settling scores, and changing your own attitude towards others for the better. They say that around a bright person the world becomes kinder.
Financial side of life. Which of us is satisfied with our income and does not want it to grow? However, the root cause is usually the individual’s dissatisfaction with the place and activity where he has to do his daily work. Ask yourself - are you really satisfied with your profession, position, corporation? It very often happens that no. But not everyone can simply quit their job or immediately change it to a better one. Therefore, you can start by attending trainings, courses or seminars, studying online, submitting a resume to other companies, while remaining working in the same place. Many people want to start their own business but are afraid of failure. Changing this situation gradually is the most reasonable solution. Find out what documents and conditions are important in this area, and what exactly it will cost you to open your own business.
Social sphere. Often, when communicating out of habit, we do not attach due importance to this, but it’s worth starting to do so. Think about whether the people you are talking to are really pleasant and necessary to you? Do you have comrades who pull you back, envy you, pour negativity on you with constant complaints? Ask yourself, why did problems appear in the family? Maybe you are the one to blame for this, paying little attention to your spouse, parents or children? To make sense of all this and continue your personal growth, it’s good to start keeping a journal. You can make a diagram or table for yourself, point by point what needs to be done in this area, and what you would like to get rid of. Such a “road map” will clarify the situation and mark the beginning of changes for the better.
The sphere of intellectual growth of the individual. It relates to the development of attention and memory, deepening one’s own knowledge, abstract and creative thinking, which is necessary in any, even the most pragmatic, activity. Where to start to change for the better in this area? The most important way of gaining knowledge and education for thousands of years is the book. By training yourself to spend 20 minutes in the evening not in front of the TV or wandering on social networks, but reading really interesting material, you will improve your literacy, deepen your vocabulary and simply calm your nerves.

Productive - little by little

It is impossible to change yourself once and for all at an accelerated pace. We lose some skills, living conditions and circumstances change, and our body requires constant care and work on itself. Do it little by little, but regularly - main principle, capable of changing the internal and external in oneself for the better, which is what we all desire. Here are examples of such small activities that can move mountains and initiate great changes in oneself:

Do 15-20 squats twice a day.
per week.
Change your habit of eating chocolate after lunch. Instead, use some seasonal fruit.
Turn off the TV for 20 minutes in the evening and just talk to your children.
Dividing your apartment into small zones and cleaning one of them a day is also one of the manifestations of personal growth.
Go to English or Spanish courses, because you have dreamed of this since your student years.
Download video classes for the type of fitness you like - stretching, yoga or incendiary Zumba - and perform one small complex per day.
Before breakfast, drink a glass of water with a spoonful of honey dissolved in it.
Walk before bed with your spouse for 15 minutes.

You can change your life for the better right from this moment. To do this, it is important to get up and do some small but important thing that will raise your self-esteem. Don't forget to praise and motivate yourself. Start only with those things that are truly interesting to you. In this case, self-improvement will take over you, changing your life and opening up new, unexplored horizons.

The relationship between the concepts of “development” and “self-development”. Definition of “self-development”

It is impossible to live better than by spending your life striving to become more perfect.

Socrates

Concept of development. The broadest concept from the perspective of which self-development can be characterized is the concept of development.

Under development in general, they traditionally understand the naturally occurring process of quantitative and qualitative changes in matter, consciousness, society, etc. In relation to a person, they most often talk about physical, mental, and social development.

Physical development - this is a quantitative and qualitative change in the bodily properties and qualities of a person, associated with both the maturation and transformation of the structures and systems of his body.

Mental development , in turn, is a natural process of formation and change psychological properties and human qualities.

Social development - human development social norms and rules of behavior, communication and interaction in the process of socialization.

Let us dwell on the problem of mental development. For a long time In psychology, the theory of preformationism dominated, according to which development was understood as simple growth, maturation, as the predetermination of stages. It is no coincidence that until the 17th-18th centuries. childhood was seen as preparation for life, and the child was seen as a smaller copy of an adult, still immature and unreasonable.

Gradually, development began to be approached as irreversible process quantitative, qualitative and structural changes mental processes, properties, states unfolding in time. Currently, there are many different theories of mental development (naturalism, sociomorphism, culturalism, theologism, epistemology, anthropologism), which offer their own versions of understanding and explaining mental development.

The problem of identifying factors of mental development has acquired particular relevance in science. Several approaches have emerged here. According to biogenetic concepts, development is determined by biological, congenital and hereditary factors, as well as maturation factors that set the program and vectors of mental development. The sociogenetic direction, on the contrary, places emphasis on the social conditioning of human development, believing that by organizing the life and activities of a child in a certain way, it is possible to form desirable properties and qualities in him. In V. Stern’s theory of convergence of two factors, child development is presented as a result of the influence of both heredity and environment. IN domestic psychology The most common opinion is that the leading role in development is played by training and education, as well as communication and activity, i.e. social factors, and biological, congenital features act as conditions for development. Vygotsky wrote about the unity of factors of heredity and environment in human development. It should be noted that in some theories, to a greater extent, and in others, to a lesser extent, the fact of the determination of development on the part of the person himself is ignored, although attention has always been paid to this point, in particular, in Russian psychology.

An important problem discussed in psychology is the problem of the driving forces of mental development and the search for it. general patterns. In domestic science, it is recognized that the driving forces of development are contradictions, for example, contradictions between needs and possibilities for their satisfaction, between old and new forms of behavior, between demands from the environment and the child’s existing capabilities. And the laws of mental development are such as its irreversibility, direction, continuity, unevenness, plasticity, a combination of progress and regression, zigzag and some others.

Particular attention in psychology is paid to the problem of age and age-related periodization of development. According to L. S. Vygotsky, each age can be characterized by such concepts as the social situation of development, leading activity, and age-related new formations. Based on the views of L. S. Vygotsky on the structure and dynamics of age and the concept of leading activity developed by A. N. Leontyev in the 70s. XX century An age periodization was developed (author - D. B. Elkonii), which to this day remains a priority in Russian psychology. The peculiarity of this periodization is that it covers ages from birth to 17-18 years. Among foreign periodizations, the age periodization of the American psychologist E. Erikson has become widely known. This periodization covers the entire life cycle person, and here there are two options possible development human: productive development and unproductive. These periodizations are well known and described in many textbooks, so we will not dwell on them.

Having briefly recalled what development and mental development person, let’s pose the main question: what is self-development, what is its essence, how does it differ from development?

If we substitute “self-” in the term “development”, then we get - ashor development. Therefore, in this "self-" and this is the solution to the phenomenon of self-development. Therefore, before moving on to the substantive characteristics of self-development, we will try to understand this mysterious term “self-”.

“Self-” as a category that “translates” development to the rank of self-development. Phenomena designated by the concept of “self-” (which includes self-development) are increasingly becoming the subject of study, as they attract researchers with the opportunity to identify specific features that distinguish modern personality, such as activity, freedom of self-determination, the ability to manage one’s behavior, development, and take responsibility for it.

From an etymological point of view, the concepts of the “self-” group are compound words, the semantic community of which is determined by the initial part of the words: itself- in Russian, auto (autonomy, autosuggestion) And self (self-affirmation, self-command) - V English, selber (selbstanalyse) And eigen (eigenart) - in German.

“Self-” introduces the following two meanings into complex concepts:

1) the direction of the action, named in the second part of the word, towards oneself;
2) performing an action involuntarily, spontaneously, without outside interference.

Such semantic units as “auto-”, “auto-”, “I-” have similar properties. For this reason, the “self-” group also includes such psychological concepts, as “auto-aggression”, “auto-training”, “autonomy”, “autobiographical memory”, “I-concept”, etc.

If we imagine the concepts of the “self-” group as compressed sentences, then in expanded form they can be expressed by the phrase “I myself do something in relation to myself.” For example, self-knowledge means that I know myself; self-esteem - I evaluate myself; self-motivation - I motivate myself; auto-aggression - I show aggression towards myself, etc. Moreover, the phenomena of the “self-” group for the most part can be interpreted in two ways: as processes and as the results of these processes. For example, the terms “self-esteem”, “self-attitude”, “self-determination”, etc. describe the mental both in terms of the course of activity and in terms of the result of this activity.

In the language of psychology, self-statements can be interpreted in two ways: 1) “I” acts as a source of some activity; 2) this activity is aimed at “oneself”, i.e. also on “I”. The general attributive features of the “self-” group are expressed in the intra-system attribution of causality and the intra-system direction of activity (the coincidence in the “I” system of the subject and object of activity).

The phenomenon of “self” can be understood if the personality is interpreted as a holistic and at the same time polymorphic formation, including in its structure two modes of “I” that perform different functions: the function of the subject and the function of the object.

The phenomenon of “self”, described above as “I myself do something in relation to myself,” becomes retarded if we imagine that in the intrapersonal space there are two modes of “I” (two subpersonalities): a subjective mode and an object mode.

Subjective mode(modus of the subject) is the personality as the initiator and leader of activity, object mode(object mode) is the “I” that performs executive functions or acts as an area of application of subjective activity. The content of subjective activity is concretized through that verbal noun, which is part of the specific concept of “self” (cognition, affirmation, respect, expression, etc.).

In relation to self-development, the term “self-” means that a person, on his own initiative, begins to take some actions to transform and change himself, his individual and personal properties, his behavior and activities, his attitude towards other people, etc.

Definition of the concept of “self-development”. In psychology, there have not been any universally shared, stable ideas about human self-development. Self-development is presented in its various qualities and is defined as follows:

- as a life strategy (K. A. Abulkhanova-Slavskaya);
- as life orientation (E. Yu. Korzhova);
- as a life opportunity (E. P. Varlamova, S. Yu. Stepanov);
- as a form of living life (E. B. Starovoytenko);
- as a form of development (M. A. Shchukina);
- as a need (A. Maslow);
- as a specific activity (A. G. Aseev, L. N. Kulikova, N. A. Nizovskikh and others).

This variety of approaches is quite justified; it is due to the complexity and versatility of the concept of “self-development”. Currently, self-development is increasingly beginning to be defined as a specific human activity aimed at transforming oneself. Let us give examples of some definitions made in line with the activity paradigm.

V. I. Slobodchikov and E. I. Isaev were among the first to try to determine the essence of self-development. The authors write that “self-development is a person’s fundamental ability to become and be a true subject of his life, to transform his own life activity into a subject of practical transformation” [Slobodchikov, Isaev, 2000, p. 1471.

According to D. A. Leontiev, self-development is an activity directed by a person towards himself in order to enrich his essential powers.

According to L.N. Kulikov, self-development is a consciously and systematically carried out process, determined from within, and not from without, since its motivation and driving forces develop within the personality, and not outside it.

If you try to generalize these definitions, you can find many similarities in them. Almost everywhere it is emphasized that self-development is a person’s independent construction of his own personality, the acquisition of qualities and characteristics that did not exist before. This emphasizes the importance of the individual’s subjectivity, his activity, the achievement of a new state and new properties.

In this textbook we will adhere to the following definition.

Self-development is a specific human activity to create qualitatively new things in one’s consciousness, relationships, experiences and behavior, carried out in accordance with life tasks and internal motivations with the help of special psychological means [Nizovskikh, 2007].

In our opinion, such a definition is the most heuristic, easy to understand, makes it possible to build a fairly clear and unambiguous theoretical paradigm and, what is very important, allows you to build psychological practices promoting self-development.