Throughout history and geography, we can find an endless number of psychological, philosophical, sociological and religious currents that have tried to offer answers to the existential questions of life that we, as individuals gifted with intelligence, have been able to ask ourselves.

When someone immerses himself in the study of any of the above disciplines, he is often surprised by examples of thought which, appearing to be contemporaneous with our questions, are in most cases hundreds, if not thousands, of years old. For curious minds, devoid of prejudice, it will not be a difficult task to delve into the various sources of wisdom that have tried, with greater or lesser success, to resolve such questions effectively.

Being able to establish associative links between those ultimate foundations of these currents, we can find a series of pillars of wisdom that have served as a basis for offering answers yesterday and today .

Knowing, accepting, surpassing oneself

In this effort to find the least common divisor of personal equilibrium, we have been able to identify three basic aspects that are repeated over and over again in various techniques and currents that could be summarized in the phrase of St. Augustine: “Know yourself, accept yourself, overcome yourself”.

In conventional cognitive-behavioral therapies, we find how a base of beliefs or thoughts, not always conscious for the individual, activate, maintain or direct his or her behaviors, being necessary for the return to normalcy, to go through a series of phases of the treatment that would basically consist of

1. Evaluation

Identify the causal factors of the behaviour through a previous exploration with different types of evaluation tools .

2. Intervention

Use of cognitive and behavioural modification techniques , aimed at the recovery of normal levels of behaviour in reference to the general scale.

3. Monitoring

Periodic review of the achievement of the objectives of the intervention and proposals for improvement .

Principles of personal growth from coaching

In the much-denigrated and often poorly treated coaching technique according to John Whitmore’s CAR model , three basic principles for its operation are recognized, which would be summarized in the acronym of that acronym.

1. Awareness

It would be formed by an objective part, coming from the possibilities offered by our own senses . This would be the personal hardware. And a subjective part, coming from the system of beliefs, values, learning history and other acquired socio-cultural influences that modify our interpretations of everyday reality. It would correspond to the personal “software”.

2. Self-belief

As a fundamental basis for the successful development of the technique, we work on the idea that the individual possesses all the personal resources necessary to overcome the difficulties that may arise, understanding that his role in this story is not that of the end itself, but that of the means to achieve it.

3. Responsibility

Once the previous steps of knowledge and acceptance have been internalized, the protagonist of the coaching process assumes the responsibility of action, committing himself to the execution of new processes that may lead to new solutions. In short, to leave the famous comfort zone and face the path of overcoming .

The keys to personal development according to the ACTs

Finishing this review, we would find the well-known third generation therapies, and specifically the ACT or Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. As its own name indicates, this type of therapies renounce to the old behavioral cognitive efforts to fight against the own personal nature, finding the key of the development and the well-being in:

Acceptance

The acceptance, previous self-knowledge, can be seen as a necessary tool to overcome the deviations of the norm in the matter of thoughts, feelings and behaviors , incorporating certain shades of emotional character with respect to the predecessor techniques.

The Commitment

The commitment, as a personal will to lead the change according to the characteristics and values of our own personal nature .

Finding psychological balance

As can be seen, there are multiple ways of approaching a situation, a single problem, of facing a challenge. But if we make an effort of observation, it is not complicated to find those common bases or pillars that support the personal balance.

In UPAD Psychology and Coaching we are aware of this and we like to go to all kinds of sources of knowledge to implement our methodology of work and offer our users all the tools at our disposal for their performance, welfare and personal satisfaction .