The main problem of self-knowledge is a long and difficult process not everyone can do, some get tired already at the beginning of the journey, and the development of their personality is strongly inhibited or completely stopped.
The essence of self-knowledge and personal development
In psychology, a person's self-knowledge is the study of one's own physical and mental characteristics. It begins with the moment of birth and lasts a lifetime. There are two stages of self-knowledge:
- Primary - a person gets to know himself through other people, making up a picture of himself completely from other people's words;
- secondary - change of opinion about yourself as a result of introspection, at this stage a person no longer relies on the opinion of other people, but defines himself.
Thus, the knowledge of other people and self-knowledge are closely interrelated. One can exist without the other, but in this case the person's idea of himself will not be complete. The goal of self-knowledge is not only to obtain information about yourself, but also in the further development of the individual , it makes no sense to acquire any information if there are no plans for its further use.
The basis of self-knowledge is self-observation followed by introspection. Also, in the process of knowing yourself, there is a comparison of oneself with some measure or other people, and clarifying one's own characteristics. At later stages, there is a realization that any quality has both positive and negative sides. When finding the advantages of quality previously perceived as negative, the process of self-acceptance is simplified, which is also an important moment of self-knowledge.
Books on self-knowledge
Another affordable way to learn more about yourself and outline the ways of further development are books on self-knowledge. There are a lot of them and every year there are more and more, among them the following compositions can be noted.
- "The Way of a Peaceful Warrior" by D. Millman.
- Carlos Castaneda, 11 volumes, including "Tales of Power", "Journey to Ixtlan", "Silence Power" and others.
- Editions by Erich Fromm, for example, "Escape from Freedom", "The Art of Love".
- Friedrich Nietzsche "Human, too human."
- Richard Bach "Hypnosis for Mary."
In addition, reading books and introspection, there are other exercises for self-knowledge, however, they are accepted in esoteric, and modern psychology is not serious to them. Among such exercises is meditation, as the method of the highest concentration on any problem, exercises for concentration and many other methods of training your own mind.