Personal Growth Tips

In our daily life we make use, less or more conscious, of a powerful process called feedback. Feedback is that process by which a system (biological, social, ecological, etc.) maintain and improve its own performance. The system return to the start of an action a part of the information about the action flow and its results. It’s an evaluative and corrective information.

If we begin our actions and activities with some goals in mind then at the finish we will (or should we) compare the results with the goals. In this way we can see if the activity was a success or not, and if we may improve something in order to be a success.

Almost all our activities include trial and error actions. If you don’t know a pattern or an well established path to success, in a certain case, then you’ll resort to trial and error actions. It means you think of a possible solution and try it. If it works then all it’s ok, but if it don’t work you have to try something else. All these are possible through the feedback process. There is a permanent transfer of corrective information between input and output in order to succeed.

The most important kind of feedback for our life are biological and social or interpersonal feedback. If these are well used they can make a huge difference in our daily life.

Biological feedback

At a given time we become less or more conscious of a certain aspect of our body and mind (a pleasant or unpleasant sensation, a tension, a pain, a thought, etc.). Then our mind send, less or more conscious, a command of adjustment to our body or to itself. And so have place the most fine tweaking process of body and mind. It is responsible for our daily physical and psychological states. Imagine what will be if we make this process more conscious. There is even a relaxation method called biofeedback that uses monitoring instruments to adjust and improve our mental and bodily processes.

Interpersonal feedback

It means providing evaluative and corrective information to others and receiving it from others. It’s responsible for the quality and efficiency of our relationships. The social or interpersonal feedback it’s a key to maintain a good relationship and to improve it to the best. We all need feedbacks from others to understand their attitude towards us and to take the pulse of the relationship. And we have to send regularly constructive feedbacks to significant others in order to help them understand our attitude and to improve the relationship.

Every year we make a lot of preparation and buzz for a few days of the year - Christmas Days. We make a lot of shopping: aliments, gifts, Christmas Tree, ornaments, etc. Then we decorate and ornate our houses, Christmas tree, greet each other with “Merry Christmas”, and so on.

As I learnt at axiology classes all things (including days of the year) have no value at all in themselves if we humans don’t put/invest value in them (if we don’t value them). They are “beyond good and bad” as a philosopher once said. All things in themselves are not good or bad, beautiful or ugly, useful or useless but we have the power to see them so. We all are magicians. We may create value there where is no value at all. We can make things be good or bad, useful or useless, look beautiful or ugly.

The same thing happen with Christmas Days, they aren’t more special than others but we see them as being more special. These days are not so highly valued by all peoples. Buddhists, Mussulmans and others don’t see these days as more special. Christmas Days had at the beginning a religious value, Christians believe that nearly two thousand years ago, on 25 December was born the Son of God - Jesus.

Even now, Christmas Days have religious value but only in the background. Many Christians celebrate these days only for the pleasure of celebrating and by habit and not for the sake of Christ. They forgot the feted person and only see the old year out and new year in.

We may see the days of the year as being different, some being more valued than others or we can treat all days as the same (there is no special day). Others may argue that all days are special, because each day bring something new, special in our life, there is no one day that is a carbon copy of another one.

I want to argue that there is only one day more special than others and this day is TODAY. Today is the most special day of the year. This doesn’t means only “carpe diem” (living the moment in a simplistic and hedonic way) but much more. It means living consciously today - what you think and do, how you feel and relate with others and God today count more than what and how you did yesterday or what and how you will do tomorrow. Let’s be aware of the fact that too often the yesterdays and the tomorrows have stolen our today.

There are two main reasons why people exercise. Most people exercise because they want to lose weight. But there are others who exercise not only for their weight but to improve and maintain their health (both physical and psychological health). It’s well-know that exercising from 30 minutes to an hour every day it’s a sure way to fit your weight and maintain a high level of health. Exercising regularly helps you lose weight, improve your physical & subjective well-being, strengthen your immune system and lowers your risk of : heart disease, diabetes and cancer.

Even if we do know this facts, many of us are overweight and unhealthy. Why?
Because:

• we think we are too busy;
• we aren’t motivated and constant;
• we don’t think in a preventive/prophylactic way;

We think we are too busy but we are not. We use this kind of rationalization/trick to avoid something we believe we don’t like (exercising). I may say, from my experience, that exercising is a very pleasant and liberating activity.

We aren’t motivated and constant in exercising because, in our mind, we have associated the image of exercising with exhausting effort, pain, perspiration, etc. But let’s see jogging, bicycling or aerobics as gifts, as the most pleasant things that can happen to us. Let’s enjoy the process as well as results of exercising.

Thinking in a preventive/prophylactic way is a sign of wisdom. Why to procrastinate until we are too fat and unhealthy? Why to recover when we may forestall? Beginning today with a few minutes of exercising (jogging, aerobics, etc.) and adding just one minute daily, for the next month, we can achieve at least 30 minutes a day of the most beneficial activity for our life.

It’s time for jogging.