How can we naturally drive our self-development?
I find our human urge for self-development the most beautiful gift we can give to ourselves in a lifetime. There is nothing greater than that to unfold purpose in our life. However, when we look around it becomes clear that many people struggle to achieve their desired development. Or worst, the ones who do achieve their goals seem hard on themselves. Why is that? I believe that one of the reasons for unsuccessful self-development could originate from the way we approach it. So, what could be a more natural way to approach it?
Shifting away from a victim’s perspective
I have come to realise that one of the greatest barriers to self-growth is the habit of seeing ourselves as a victim. Often, it seems so much easier to blame others for our own suffering. Behind the victim’s eyes, everyone or everything is a potential enemy or reason for our failure or own problems. This mindset drags ourselves into lower energies that in turn attracts negativity into our environment. If we start to look closer, we can notice ourselves living in mental and emotional conflict with our external reality. This offers very little room for important human abilities such as curiosity, creativity and understanding. This said, like any other person, I still put myself in these situations sometimes. This mentality can be responsible for feelings of doubt and fear that discretely consume our mind and body. However, by nurturing consciousness/awareness, I have been able to avoid over and over again a victim’s mindset. The way of doing it is by simply taking responsibility for all the occurrences in our daily life.
Every thought that pops into our mind or event that strikes in our life exist for a reason in the present moment that we owe ourselves responsible for.
But what does this mean? It means our personal growth relies on our ability to be present and to question the impact of our thoughts and actions around us. This conscious thinking enables us to decipher hidden messages that can guide us. Our reality shifts away from a battlefield into a playground of endless possibilities and pure potentiality. We discover that we aren’t constrained to fixed ideas, concepts and habits deeply ingrained in us. We start to embrace change and harvest its power by rewiring our thought patterns and changing our attitudes towards our most desired wishes. Reality becomes a product of our creation. This new perceptive will naturally drive us to become whoever we want to be, which ultimately is a better version of ourselves! However, taking full responsibility for our life can sometimes prove to be more difficult to accept or understand than said. It can awaken unbearable regret or hard self-expectations in us. The key is to rely on mindfulness so that we find mental freedom to lay down an unbreakable foundation for inner growth.
Living life with great intention
The second key to our self-development is the practice of intentions. As mentioned above, being consciously accountable for our reality give us openness and space where we can run our self-development. But it seems equally important to find a direction where to aim our growth. Intentions are that direction in our path to self-development. I like to see an intention as a strong wish that connects us to our higher sense of being or purpose.
Therefore, the quality of an intention is to make us think greater than ourselves.
It can also be perceived as the channel for energy to flow between us and our environment. For example, praying is an intention that conveys gratitude, meditation or yoga an intention that conveys inner peace, and helping the others an intention that conveys compassion.
Creating intention in our life belongs to a personal practice of deep thinking. To find our intentions, one has again to constantly question the meaning behind our thoughts and actions. So the practice of intention means two things: to draw a truthful direction for our life and to live according to that direction. We should ask ourselves, what has been giving us a deeper sense of connection or grounding? Is it helping others? Is it teaching others? Cooking for others? Or simply the expression of our own creativity? There are so many answers out there for each one of us. The more we question ourselves and our experiences in a search for a purpose, the bigger our sample of intuitions and answers gets. With an open mind, we can easily spot our greater intentions standing-out from the rest of the answers. Once they unveil to us, we need to find the courage to share them with the people that surround us. A great start is to choose people we feel more comfortable with. Eventually, we try expanding the circle. Slowly, we see our intentions becoming our reality. This may require a change in our lives, new decisions and experiments, but they should feel natural because we are aware of how they align with our sense of purpose.
Personally, I have experienced how powerful and magical the practice of intentions can be. It led me to an inner transformation which reflected itself into a change in my career to become a creative chef, finding my soulmate which I got married to and winning the freedom to travel around the world. All in a very short period of time. Where could we expect to get in a lifetime with great intention?
Consciousness is clearly a vehicle of immense energy capable of awakening in us a beautiful journey of self-development. Becoming fully accountable for my reality and nurturing powerful intentions have been for me the intertwined foundations to drive my growth more naturally with freedom and great direction. Accountability for our own mindset gives us an openness to finding answers in places we never would. And living a life according to our intentions will provide us with the spiritual direction to walk towards our own uniqueness.
