A person grows, develops, gains new knowledge, skills, and learns life lessons. These factors influence the process of becoming his personality.
Today, more and more people strive for self-development, self-improvement, knowledge of themselves and the world. More and more often we are faced with the question: how can a person become an individual, discover and develop his individual characteristics?
Can a person not be a person?
Before considering how a person becomes a person, it should be noted that there are two opinions about whether every person can become one.
- Some argue that in the process of socialization and development, each living unit of Homo sapiens becomes a person to one degree or another.
- Another group of specialists testifies that there is a circle of people who cannot be called a person. Such people do not develop in the process of their development, but degrade.
That is, as a small conclusion, I would like to say that, in essence, the formation of personality is a process of assimilation of norms and values that are relevant for a particular society.
How to be an individual? Advice from psychologists
According to developmental psychology, a person’s personality can be developed up to the age of 23. Further growth and development depends on the person himself and the circumstances in which he finds himself during his life.
What does it mean to become a person in the ordinary sense? First of all, it means having a strong character. A person is not susceptible to any influence, has his own point of view on what is happening around him and is able to independently manipulate others. When a person becomes an individual, he ceases to depend on someone else’s opinion, which, you see, is important.
What do you need to do to become an individual, and not remain an object of constant manipulation? First you need to develop the appropriate qualities:
1) Learn to be confident in yourself. Break down what complexes are preventing you from looking ahead proudly and not being afraid of anything. Practice a confident look and gait.
2) Get rid of shyness and embarrassment. Read out loud when no one is watching. Practice a confident voice and clear diction. No one will respect you while you mumble. This is one of the first steps to becoming an interesting person.
3) Learn to tell people the truth face to face and express your personal opinion. Get ready to defend your case to others.
4) Get rid of excessive self-criticism. A person who is thinking about how to become a strong personality must know his own worth and not allow others to underestimate it.
The most important thing is to love yourself. Remember - how you treat yourself is how others will treat you.
Personality formation: what you need
It's time to figure out how to become a person. What do you need to know or be able to do for this? It is important to remember that the main thing in this case is the presence of the following points:
- Self-awareness. That is, how much a person feels the strength and desire to improve and change. This inextricably follows the concept of self-confidence (not self-confidence, which is precisely what prevents a person from becoming a full-fledged person).
- You need to understand that a person is responsible for all his actions. We must hope and count only on ourselves, without expecting outside help.
- A person is an independent person. Neither from other people, nor from circumstances.
- And most importantly, be able to admit your mistakes and be flexible. Principles are good, but you need to be able to give in and lose.
How to become independent from the opinions of others
“What will others think?” - keeps ringing in your head? This over-reliance on society's assessment is very common. But ultimately, you need to get rid of this burden and stop being afraid of judgment.
1. Be tolerant. We are different, we are individuals. Everyone has their own opinion and the right to express it. But it often happens that they do not coincide. You need to take this calmly. Be patient with others. Everyone has their own path in life, a different attitude to the same problems.
2. Ignore. The technique seems simple at first glance, but it is not so easy to implement. Don't communicate with people who dictate how to live. Don’t argue with them on social networks, don’t prove your opinion to them, and in any case don’t make excuses – you still won’t convince them.
3. Learn to fend off psychological blows. It sometimes happens that some individuals are not at all aware of the first point. And then the instructions and caustic remarks begin. This is a public opinion shrouded in fears and legends: “You don’t eat / dress / live like that.” What to do? Learn to put your offenders in their place without a showdown. How? A typical situation: you have long dreamed of an unconventional trip. You're planning to hitchhike across Europe, but your bold plan haunts your colleagues. “He doesn’t want to work, so he goes,” some say, “He’s just lazy,” others say. Don’t be afraid to answer that you don’t dream, but act immediately. And with a smile, promise to bring everyone sea shells from the Mediterranean and palm leaves from Barcelona.
4. Respond to evil with good. Thank them for their “valuable” and “bright” advice regarding the arrangement of your life, compliment them for their vigilance, observation and attention to your modest person. And without a hint of irony. Turn a negative into a positive and you will gain freedom from such a burden.
5. Don't think in stereotypes. Perhaps you yourself provoke a negative attitude, condemnation or instruction. Analyze your behavior: how often do you think about an elderly person: “Oh, he’s old, he lives in the last century, he won’t say anything useful,” or about a blonde: “She’s probably stupid.” If such thoughts emerge, then stop them immediately and return to the first point - each of us is different, do not generalize, as this will certainly lead to stereotypes, and they will lead to misunderstandings.
The process of personality development
Psychologists have provided two simple steps that illustrate how one becomes a person:
- You need to look under your mask. That is, to be naked in front of oneself, to understand who a person really is, throwing away all images. This search is the most important stage of development.
- Experiencing feelings is the next stage. In moments of strong emotional stress, a person becomes who he really is. Forming the right self at such moments is an equally important stage.
Personality traits
Are there certain characteristics that define a person as a person? So, psychologists highlight the following points:
- Openness to new experiences. A person constantly tries something new, learns and develops in new directions.
- Individuals are aware of the capabilities of their body and completely trust this feeling. Personality knows moderation in everything.
- A full-fledged person stops looking for approval or evaluation from the outside. Such people have a so-called internal locus, where personal value judgments of everything that happens are formed.
How to become independent from your family
One of our strongest addictions. Some people can’t get rid of it even at 40. You don’t need to move out from your parents at 15. You have the power to become independent, even while living with them.
1. Start earning money on your own. It's corny, but it works like a charm. As soon as you stop asking your mom for pocket money, you will immediately feel superior. And your mom too.
2. Negotiate with parents. If there is some issue that cannot be resolved without the intervention of father and mother (for example, a trip to study abroad), start negotiating with them. No scandals or raising your voice. Calmly and reasonably explain why you should go, how you see your life there, and so on.
Almost every family has its own unwritten rules, laws and responsibilities for each member. But often we forget to do them on time. Start taking out the trash or washing the dishes without persistent reminders, the results won’t take long.
4. Do without the help of your parents. Do you have a toothache? Broken phone? Don’t rush to immediately run to your parents, complain and ask for help. Try to solve your problems yourself: call the dental office and make an appointment, take your phone to be repaired. So that your independence is not so short, pay for these services yourself. Where can I get money? See point 1.
5. Become a full-fledged member of the family. Paradoxically, in order to become independent from the family, you need to become an independent member of it. Because the old truth says: “If you can’t win, lead.” From time to time, please your family with pizza or a fruit salad of your own making, go for groceries after school or work, pay for part of the utilities, initiate cleaning of the apartment (not just your room), offer interesting ideas for a joint holiday.
A little about the creative personality
Very often people are interested in the question: how to become a creative person? Here, in addition to working on yourself, you also need a bit of talent. If it is, just great. After all, a creative person is a socially developed individual who has certain creative abilities or simply creates. If nature has not given you the inclination for singing or drawing, you can successfully do something that does not require special skills. So, you can easily learn how to embroider according to patterns, weave baubles, bracelets, or make origami figures. These types of creativity have instructions, following which you can create beauty yourself.
Action plan
A plan for finding individuality within oneself has been proposed by some scientists. There are only two points, but their implementation will help a person find his personality:
- Lack of fear of oneself;
- Stage of emotional experience.
Don't be afraid to admit your weaknesses, failures, and shortcomings. Everyone perceives them differently. For some, failure in their personal life may not be solvable, but for others it may be an unimportant trifle. Women are more emotional than men. A woman may take the breakup hard, she will think about her guilt in what happened, and look for shortcomings in herself.
If accepting yourself causes difficulties, create a certain scheme and act on it. A common and truly working piece of advice is to compliment yourself in the morning.
Learn to focus on individual qualities and your attractiveness. Remind yourself that you are a strong person, that you are capable of doing what you want, capable of achieving your goals.
Being an individual does not mean being very smart or a genius. It is enough just to want to develop, to be confident in your successes, to be purposeful, to have a creative or technical mind, to understand that all your shortcomings and advantages make you a complete person.
A little about an attractive personality
I would also like to talk a little about how to become an attractive person. Or - in other words - charismatic. However, you need to understand what exactly will be discussed. After all, it’s not a matter of external attractiveness, but of that very charisma. That is, in a complex of such characteristics as self-confidence and natural charm. How to become an attractive person, what do you need to do for this?
- You need to have a bit of optimism.
- Having a sense of humor is important.
- Attractive individuals are successful people. These are not only the rich, but also those who have achieved everything on their own.
- And, of course, these are strong-willed people.
How to develop your personality
Personality is associated with freedom. Without freedom there is no personality.
Nikolay Berdyaev
It is generally accepted that every person is an individual, regardless of what qualities and character traits he or she possesses. It’s hard to disagree with this, but we can and should add to this that a person, in order to remain a person, must necessarily develop. After all, we call a person, first of all, a unique, special, interesting person, unlike other people, who has rare abilities and a rich inner world. But without development, without working on oneself, a person will not go far from other people, he will be the same as everyone else. And if a person does not differ from other people, if he does not have special qualities inherent only to him, then we can call him a person with a very big stretch. However, the question arises: why does each of us need to be different from other people, why become an individual, for what purpose, for what benefit? This is what I will tell you, dear readers, in this article. I will tell you about how to develop your personality and why it should be developed. Believe me, there are great benefits from such development.
Why develop your personality?
To understand why a person needs to develop a personality, it is enough to take a closer look at what is happening in our lives. What is highly valued in this world? It is obvious that it values everything that, firstly, you and I need, and secondly, everything that is in short supply. What is in short supply is valuable. Do you agree? Moreover, what’s interesting is that sometimes we don’t really need what is in short supply, but we are still drawn to it. We love everything rare and exceptional because we ourselves want to be like that. But we don’t particularly value what we have in abundance, even if it is something very useful for us, and sometimes we don’t value it at all. An interesting trait of human personality, isn't it? Someday I will explain to you why we behave this way. For now, let's return to the essence of our question. So, how can you become a valuable, and at the same time, a sought-after person, so that other people need you, so that they pay attention to you and love you? To do this, you need to become special, not like everyone else. You need to become more interesting, more useful, of better quality, and even, let’s say, more unusual than other people. This can be achieved in different ways, you can work on your outer appearance, that is, on your appearance, or you can set yourself a more complex and serious task - to change, or rather, develop your inner content. This is not an easy job, to be honest. But it needs to be done so that you are valued, so that you are needed, so that you are difficult to replace, and so on. Don't forget - what is rare is valuable. And what is valuable is loved and protected.
People will begin to pay more attention to you, and you will enjoy greater respect if you can develop rare and useful qualities for people, if you become an interesting, bright and even a little mysterious person. Good prospect? That's the point, it's good. After all, we all want to be valued, loved, respected, to be given attention, to be admired, to be needed, and so on and so forth. It's nice and useful. But let's think about what we should be valued, loved, respected for? Why should other people give us their precious attention, for what benefits? What's so special about us? What personal qualities of ours can people around us admire? This, friends, is something each of us should think carefully about on our own. Many of us may have a very good opinion of ourselves and think that there are no others like them. And this is good - you need to have a high opinion of yourself, without any doubt. This increases our self-esteem. But believe me, other people may think differently. They may see us as a completely different person, not the same as we see. How important this is for us is another question. We live in a society that, whether we like it or not, must accept us, or rather, we must be able to become part of it, because we depend on this society. We all depend on each other. And the point here is what place each of us will take in society. So, for this place to be as good as possible, a person needs to become an individual not only for himself, but also for other people. Let's now find out what we need to do with ourselves in order to develop our personality.
How to develop your personality
So, if you agree with all of the above, then I believe you are interested in learning about how you can develop your personality. Friends, if I tell you that personal development is a simple matter, I will be lying. And I don't want to lie. And I will not. So, no, it’s not easy. And I think that, not unfortunately, but fortunately, this is not easy to do. After all, if the development of a person’s personality were a simple matter, such a thing as working on oneself would simply not exist. Work is not the most pleasant word, you will agree. We associate it with tension, with workload, with stress, sometimes with pain, and not with pleasure and joy, unless you love your job, like me, for example. Be that as it may, any job has its own pleasure, there is its own joy, and those of you who do what you love know this very well. Working on ourselves is a special pleasure that we experience when we understand how our efforts bring us benefit. Therefore, working on yourself to develop your personality is pleasant, interesting, and fun. You can get a thrill from this. Therefore, it’s not so scary that this is not an easy job, the main thing is to understand how interesting and useful it is.
What should be done? Study, gain new skills, play sports, as well as interesting and creative activities, make your life and the lives of other people better. Here's what you need to do to develop your personality. It is your work on your body and mind that makes you a more perfect person, and of course, different from others. The main question here is not what to do, but how to do it. And a huge number of books and articles have been written about how to do this - how to work on yourself, how to develop yourself. And each of these books and articles offers its own recipe for personal development, although many of them are similar to each other. The more accurate and effective this recipe is, the faster you will be able to develop in yourself a personality whose analogue will be impossible to find. And the quality of your personality can and certainly must be such that society as a whole or individual people value you very highly. To do this, you must be useful to people, society, interesting and unique. What is rare is valuable, remember, right?
I will give you my recipe for how you can develop your personality, so that you keep it in mind when deciding exactly how you should work on yourself. Who knows, maybe he is the best of all existing ones. Why not, I have been dealing with this issue, essentially, my entire adult life. I believe, friends, that you need to start with psychology. Yes, yes, I understand, this is not the first time I’ve talked about this, or rather, written about it. And you, in turn, can say that again this sandpiper praises his swamp, as if nothing else exists in the world except this psychology. Of course, there is, but, friends, I praise what I praise, namely, such a science as psychology, not because I study it, but because it really gives us a lot - it allows us to develop valuable values in ourselves. qualities for ourselves and for other people, thanks to what points us to them. That’s why I started studying it myself, because I saw how valuable it is for a person, both from the point of view of knowing himself and from the point of view of knowing other people. You can't improve yourself without understanding exactly how you're made, right? How will you know about this? Well, okay, there is biology, anatomy, medicine, anthropology and a host of other human sciences that study his body and mind. There are many of them, these sciences. But if we narrow our view of this issue, we can reduce everything to those sciences that study the human body and those that study his soul and mind. And these are the things we need to develop in order to make ourselves better. Here, psychology mainly studies the human soul and mind. And this, as you can, is not even so much to know as to feel - very important elements of a human being. And since they are important, we need to work on them in order to develop our personality - that’s exactly what we need, right?
Therefore, when I say that you need to study in order to develop your personality, you must understand what exactly you need to learn first. If you want to improve, say, some technical device or come up with a new one, you can start studying physics, mathematics, engineering, and so on. If you have a goal - to come up with, say, a new medicine for humanity, you should start studying chemistry and biology, and other sciences related to medicine. Well, if you want to understand yourself and other people and want to develop the best, strongest, most valuable qualities in yourself, then what, if not psychology, can I offer you for study. The question here is: what kind of person do you want to become, what do you want to be valued and respected for, for what knowledge and skills? To understand this, take a closer look at our life and answer the question - which people in it are the most popular, who are loved, appreciated and respected most, and for what? And then think about how you can become one of these people - what do you need to study for this? Maybe you don't want to follow my path, okay, I don't insist. Then choose your path - find, invent, choose your calling, as it suits you. After all, you still need to study in order to become a valuable person, and for this you need to study well, very well. And to study well, you need to have a great desire to achieve something. What do you want to succeed in, what do you want to achieve? Don’t rush to answer this question, think about it – this is a difficult choice.
In general, the more you can do that you can’t do, or can do but other people do much worse than you, the better. After all, being a person does not mean, for example, having your own opinion, as many of us are told today, since it may well turn out to be incorrect and even absurd. Why then have it, if you can borrow someone else’s, more correct, more accurate and much more useful opinion for us? To be a person means to be a useful person, useful both for yourself and for others. Even if you are different from other people and have charisma, you will not necessarily be a person to other people. After all, not every personality is valuable, even if it is unique. A person can be quite unusual, unique, interesting, but at the same time harmful. We can accept such a person, and even partly admire him as a person, but at the same time, if he causes us harm rather than benefit, then we will inevitably wish that this person was not in our life. Therefore, I believe that you need to work on yourself in such a way that you ultimately become a very useful person for society and be in demand by it. This will significantly simplify and improve our lives. Therefore, we should approach our development from the perspective of our own interests and the interests of the society in which we live.
Let's now talk about our shortcomings - after all, we all have them. We need to eliminate our shortcomings, if possible, and, if necessary, skillfully hide them. You see, a person with a bunch of shortcomings does not seem unique. Whereas the image of an ideal person, whom you can admire, whom you can and should look up to, whom you can love and appreciate, lives in the head of each of us. We want to see someone as an ideal person, someone other than ourselves. Is the ideal unattainable? Maybe. But you need to strive for it in order to at least seem like an ideal person, and therefore rare, and therefore valuable, and therefore someone who needs to be loved, valued, respected, and protected. An ideal person is without a doubt a person, even if he is ideal in the heads of only a few people, or even in the head of one single person, but very valuable to him. Therefore, our shortcomings are, to some extent, our enemies, with whom we must constantly fight, raising our cultural and intellectual level. Let other people behave naturally, the way they want. And you behave as you should in order to make a positive impression on people, and at the same time on yourself. You will begin to respect yourself more, and people will respect you more, if your behavior meets the highest standards. Therefore, be sure to develop self-discipline, because for personal development this is necessary work. It is not circumstances, not other people, who must control your behavior so that it is acceptable - you have to do it. Personality is not an object, but a subject. Therefore, the individual himself determines the norms of his behavior, based on the characteristics of the society in which this individual lives.
And finally, the last thing you need to develop the right attitude towards in order to develop your personality is responsibility and independence. A lot has been said and written about this, so much that it’s somehow even inconvenient for me to repeat it. But, either it is said in the wrong way, or it is written in the wrong way, or people simply do not listen to what is said and written, but for some reason there are no more independent and responsible people in our society. Therefore, it would be a shame not to discuss this issue again. I am sure that my work will also make its contribution to the development of individual people and society as a whole. What else can be said about responsibility and independence? But we can say this: it is absolutely obvious, at least for me, that a person himself determines his life path, because he is a person, and not a statistical unit and not something that can be generalized. Therefore, a person who wants to become an individual must be free in his soul, in his head and in general within himself in order to do what a free person can do - choose. When you have a choice, and you always have it, you just can’t always see it and don’t always want to see it, you can consider yourself a free person, but on the condition that you make your choice yourself and take full responsibility for it . So true freedom is within us, and this is the only freedom that no one will ever take away from us without our consent. But in order to have it, or rather, to use it, you need to take responsibility for your life yourself. There is nothing complicated about this, just as there is nothing terrible, but you need to tune in to such an attitude towards life, having understood all the benefits that you can get from such a life. And believe me, there are a lot of benefits from being a responsible and independent person. And the most important of these advantages is the freedom of choice I have already mentioned. You will always have the opportunity to get out of any absolutely dead end in which you may, by the will of fate or because of your own decisions, find yourself, because you will have a choice - a choice of what to do. People who are not free in their souls do not have such a choice, because other people decide everything for them. And you will have it if you do not refuse to take responsibility for yourself and your life. In life you will have everything - successes, failures, joy, suffering, victories, defeats, and much more that will make you happy and upset. You need to accept all this as a result of your choices, your decisions, your activities. Even if this is not the case, even if we depend to a large extent on circumstances and other people - we, you, friends, do not need to refer to this. Do not convince yourself that someone else in your life plays a more important role than yourself, because this is weakness, this is dependence, this is lack of freedom that kills your personality.
Take responsibility for everything that happens in your life and for yourself first of all. Don’t do this for other people, for them you can put on any performances you want, but for yourself. Be responsible and independent for yourself in order to be free, because only a person who is free at heart can become a person capable of doing what most other people, who shift responsibility for their lives to everything and everyone, are not capable of. If you shift responsibility to others, you will give them power over you, which means you will lose freedom, and therefore you will not become an individual. And I think that you deserve to become one! You are already a person, since you have read this article to the end, since you have made the necessary efforts to start moving in the right direction. Therefore, I can only wish you one thing - do not stray from your chosen path, continue moving, develop your personality - this is work for life, but, believe me, it is very generously rewarded. Determine for yourself the purpose for which you should do this work and let it inspire you.
A little about an independent personality
Having understood how to become an interesting person, you must not forget that you also need to be an independent person. This does not mean that you should refuse the help of others. But you need to rely only on yourself, without expecting outside help. Independent individuals have their own opinions, which are simply impossible to influence from the outside. Such people always find a way out of a difficult situation, learning not only from their own, but also from the mistakes of others. And most importantly, they know how to admit personal mistakes and apologize.
Why is it so difficult to start and not quit?
Knowing about the difficulties that may arise in the process of self-improvement means being prepared for them.
1 reason. We underestimate the complexity of the task. We think: “So, from today we become a strong person,” and we wait for our decision to come true on its own. We decided, consider it done. And if it didn’t work out on its own, it means it’s not given, it’s not ours. After all, everything that is “ours” should come easy? But that's not true. Learning a new skill is a long and difficult process. You not only need to get used to new habits, master a new model of behavior, but also wean yourself from old ones. This is why behavioral methods, for example, 7Spsy behavior modification technology, are so effective - they allow you to learn a new skill and consolidate it into a behavior model.
Reason 2. We rush and try to bite off too much. What happens when you bite off more than you can chew? That's right, you could choke. So it is with habits. If we always went to bed at 3 am, then it is difficult to immediately start falling asleep at 10 pm. Therefore, it is better to break down tasks into small steps and change your behavior gradually.
Reason 3. We quit after the first failure and blame ourselves. But during retraining, declines are natural. We do morning exercises for 6 days, and on the 7th we get lazy. Treat these dips as a natural part of relearning, not as failures.
Now that you know a little more about changing habits, you can move on to the practical exercises.
