Self Help - Don't Ignore What You Can Do For Yourself

Self help means different things to different people. It is close to self improvement in most people's interpretation, and one can see why. Many view the benefits of self help to be of an intellectual, emotional or economic nature. And often involving support groups and people coming together to help one another. Help one another through an element or period of our lives. And often a very important element or period of life.

Self-help - a general view

I wish to take another and much more general view or interpretation of self help. And use the term in the nature of helping oneself through life. Taking advantage oneself of one's own efforts at improvement. But, in addition, taking advantage of the contributions of others, when that assistance is or becomes available.

Basic terms

Self help - to take responsibility for one's life. In basic terms - to improve one's lot in life. To see live anew when required. Or, to see life with fresh eyes when the need arises.

Our view of life

How do we view life? How we experience life? How do we enjoy life? These questions are key to what happens in life, and what we can do to influence our life. Self help is so important in our lives. For no one else is as close to us as we are. No one else has the same interest in life, as we do.

Self help has closely entwined threads, and close links, with other areas of help, development and improvement. And in these web pages we have discussed the role, importance and place in our life of self development itself. And self improvement. And we should not forget personal development and personal improvement.

Self help has close links

On these pages I am trying to distinguish between these five very closely tied terms, in the hope of giving greater meaning to the efforts we all make to improve/develop/help our position in life and our experience of it. (I must confess on a personal level, this analysis is starting to answer some of the questions I have always had, but never realized.

Those questions lie near the surface, but still hidden. Questions about how I could change my life and my experience of it. My efforts will have succeeded if you, the reader, start to feel a little more clarity as a result of reading and pondering these pages for yourself.

Meaningful or meaningless, new or old

If, on the other hand, this is meaningless to you or you have solved this/these particular questions in your own life then may I suggest that you either

• read on and see if what I say makes sense to you and improves your understanding, if only by a little, or
• have a look round this website for a more relevant topic to your present life, or
• make a beeline for my contact page and share with me what you feel about this whole area of life, or point me in a more fruitful direction

Back to the discussion

So self we are probably comfortable with as a word - please see the self development and self improvement pages for the discussions there. But what about the help aspect of 'self help'?What is help?What does help mean to us? It is obviously something of benefit to us. Help is something that assists us or offers assistance. Help is something that we can avail ourselves of. It can be an aid. It can alleviate some of our ills or our situation.

Self help can contribute to our lives. It may be a favor of another. Equally we are supported by help when we cooperate with others on a joint venture. Help can be advice. It can be a remedy or repair of our situation. We can either be rescued by the help or it can serve us in our actions or circumstance.

Help - many interpretations

Self help can mean many things as we can see. Is it not something that we have to accommodate in our lives? Yet help is something we can accept or refuse. It is something that promotes relief, or can relieve an element of life we are concerned about. At times of danger or incident, a SOS it can be very handy if not essential to our welfare.

Moving forward

We can advance our life with the appropriate help (and guidance) at an important moment. Help can succor us in our times of need. It can support and sustain us when we are stretched. It can both be a treat when unexpected or from an unexpected quarter. But help can also treat us in the sense of help us heal after a trauma or stressful circumstance or period in our lives.

Multifaceted

Self-help can do so much in so many ways. Other help can alleviate our suffering. At the other end of the spectrum, assist us to champion our cause. It can care for us, and be a real favor for us. It can help lift our life and our situation out of a slump or rut. Equally it can lift our very self from a decline or temporary mental instability. It can be a helping hand in our time of need. But also help can befriend us when we feel low - either life supporting us or the entrance of a (sometimes new) friend into our life at a time of need.

Help can take care of us. It can lift and promote a healthier state of mind. It can succor us and strengthen our resolve, improve our motives, benefit our actions, support our efforts. But equally help can occur when we are strong, satisfied with life and all is going well. Help can then lift us and sustain our efforts. And bring even greater achievements or accomplishments than we could reasonably hope or believe could happen.

Such an aid

Help for our self is such a boon in life. How could we do without it? Helping ourselves is so important for our esteem, for our confidence, for our life. For our sense of self worth and for our growth. For our motivation, setting of goals and achieving them. To become disciplined and more in control of our lives.

We just need to be mindful of its presence and aware when it may walk in and out of our lives. And be ready in ourselves to be receptive, for it may not come either in the form that we might expect, or from the direction we have anticipated. Nor may it push us in the direction we expected or be shaped in the manner that we are used to. With openness of mind and spirit we can see that help is there a lot of the time. When we are being more closed in our outlook the help seems to vanish or remain hidden beyond our reach. If we can open our eyes once more we can see what is there, whether expected or unexpected, and be more able to accept its offer and move on.

Self help where?

And what areas of our life need help, and particularly (here) those areas pertaining to our self? How can you help yourself?

• our self esteem may need a boost
• our self confidence may need to be nurtured
• our self motivation may need resurrecting
• our self image may need sharpening and brought more into focus
• our self development may need to take on a deeper, stronger role and become more important in our life
• our goal setting skills may need to be brought out of the closet, sharpened and honed for use
• our talents need an airing and values become real for us, as we need them both to lead a meaningful and satisfying life
• our body language needs to reflect our newfound status in life
• our self management is required to ensure that we look after ourselves as well as the things we may be doing in life
• our self discipline gives us the support and direction to utilize our motivation and goals to move forward and achieve
• our personality needs to brushed off and shine, that we may become a beacon of good in our life
• our behavior reflects the efforts we are making in our lives, to improve, to develop, to help ourselves in a new beginning

And wherever we are at, we can remember that each and every day can be a fresh and new beginning. Another chance to look at life with new eyes, the eyes of a new day. See the good in our lives and the benefits experienced from our efforts at helping our own self.

Our chance

And at times the help is there to enable us to help another. To give us support or strength, the confidence or motivation, to go that little extra step for another - and help ourselves at the same time. This is life's way of treating us when we put a little back. When we contribute a little to another, and fellow human being.