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Developing Your Potential for Success and Happiness Index
INFORMATION At a 20-year reunion of high school classmates, you will find that some people have changed very little since high school, while other people and their lives seem dramatically different. Why is that? What is the factor that causes some people to keep learning, improving, and growing while others stagnate? One important part seems to be that some people make self-development a top value and conscious goal while others are more threatened by the idea of looking at themselves honestly and changing themselves in substantial ways. They feel threatened by criticism and failures instead of seeing them as opportunities to learn about themselves and their shortcomings, and grow. People who make self-development a top value enjoy new information about how they can improve themselves in both their personal lives and their careers. They may see themselves as being on a spiritual journey to improvement, a quest to be the best they can be, or motivated to be as happy or successful as possible (knowing that they must learn all they can to reach their goals). Evidence seems to support the idea that people who place a high value on self-development and engage in self-development through their lifetime are happier and more successful than those who don't. They become more successful and happier because both happiness and success depend upon basic life competencies such as thinking, self-management, and interpersonal skills. Most people assume that their current levels of skills in these areas (which they may have achieve "naturally" in their youth) are adequate. Their skill levels may be adequate for moderate amounts of happiness and success. However, developing very high levels of these skills takes years of study, thinking, and practice. It rarely just happens unconsciously. Often people begin their journey to self-development during a time when their lives are at a low point. They are very depressed, addicted to drugs, are grieving over the end of a significant relationship, have experienced a major failure, feel extremely dissatisfied with themselves or their lives, or are questioning the meaning of life. These low points can be the spring-board for change if a person makes a life-altering commitment to improve. Once people begin their quest, few can stop. Their quest lasts the rest of their lives because it is so satisfying and rewarding by leading to higher and higher levels of living. In addition, the process of learning is itself extremely fascinating and rewarding. ADVICE Maybe you have not begun your quest for self-development yet. Maybe you haven't had an experience that shook you up enough or was enlightening enough to get you started. If not, you may wonder why that is important. If you have had such an experience, you understand what it means and you have begun your quest. What can you do if you have low motivation for self-development? Start asking yourself how happy and successful you are compared to what you would ideally like to be. Start looking for positive models of people who have achieved great success and happiness. Compare yourself to them. Then start working on yourself to challenge yourself and close that gap. You can probably be happier and more successful in a way that is unique to you than you can now know. Just begin to develop your dreams, take the first step, then the second, then ... Soon you will be hooked on the process. INTERNET
LINKS BOOKS
& MEDIA GO TO: book_sites.htm Counseling and
Psychological Services (CAPS) Other student services and
student organizations may also be helpful All college courses are in a sense, self-development. Many courses provide you with important knowledge and skills in an important life area related to your career. Other courses may more consciously help you develop your basic values and beliefs, personality, interpersonal skills, and other general factors that will help you in many areas of life. Both kinds of courses are important. After completing the SHAQ assessment, use the results to find courses that will help you develop life skills where you have a particular deficit or interest. Student activities are an excellent way to develop your interpersonal skills and other important life skills as well as making friends, helping your career, and having fun. |
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Please bookmark this web site and tell others Success
and Happiness
Home Page Free, full-length self-help manuals.
Psychologist Dr.Tom Stevens' Web Site
at www.csulb.edu/~tstevens California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) Copyright 2006, Tom G. Stevens PhD URL of this web site is www.csulb.edu/~tstevens/success
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