Growth in all Dimensions

Growth in all Dimensions

The most effective person is the well rounded person. Being well rounded means that you are able to function on many different levels in life. You can be good at one thing but not good at others. When you have a glaring weakness in one area it effectively diminishes the strength that you seem to have in others. No one is good at everything but we can have excellence in one or two areas and be good in many others.

I think that the biggest factors which hinder us are the things that we allow to happen. Our lives, thoughts, and actions are normally determined by our life’s experiences. The thing is that our life experiences may not be right. A computer program will not be any better than the programmer who wrote it. If it is full of error it will only cause more problems down the road.

We are also sometimes locked in by our environment. We tend to view reality in the terms of what our environment has dictated throughout life. Our environment does not account for anything in life outside of itself. It only accounts for the things which happen within its confines.

Lastly we sometimes define life by the actions and reactions of other people. We need to remember that everyone is self serving so the way that they act or react towards us won’t necessarily cater to the things that we want. People will manipulate us for their own needs so it is a mistake to take their actions into account when we form our opinions of ourselves. Our opinions of ourselves should be shaped by the confidence that we have from past actions in life, not by the perceived opinions of others.

We need to grow in several dimensions in order to be well rounded individuals. We need to grow physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

Physically growth concerns the human body and its physical abilities. Exercise is the best way to grow along with the proper diet. We need to perform more than one type of exercise in order to be physically well rounded. We need to perform exercises for strength, endurance, and agility. These are not the same. You can specialize in one type of exercise but you won’t be equally as good in all three.

Mental growth has different areas that we need to work on in order to be mentally well rounded. The first thing that we need is knowledge. Knowledge is nothing more than being aware of facts. Knowledge is good and necessary but it needs to be coupled with real intelligence. Intelligent people know how to apply facts to their lives and situations. You can have knowledge and lack common sense. You also need mental agility or the ability to translate what you have into a solution for whatever situation that you are in. In other words you need to be able to use what you have to solve various types of problems.

You also need to be spiritually and emotionally mature. A mature adult doesn’t respond to emotional pressures the same way that a child does. Maturity makes you understanding. Have you ever noticed how older people seem to have mellowed out in life? I believe that this is because their maturity level is so much higher than ours and they have reached a level of understanding and wisdom which causes them to mellow out. One last aspect of emotional or spiritual development is control. The emotionally mature individual isn’t easily shaken by tough situations and circumstances. He or she knows how to accept things as they come along in life and adjust accordingly.

This article is not the bible of self development or growth by any means but I do believe that it can be a source of help to some people who are seeking to do better in life. The Good Life