Look at the huge number of offers there are about various trainings, personal growth groups, etc. Why would this be? Of course, you are right, demand creates supply. This means that humanity needs all this. This means that many want to live a better quality life, develop, and simply get rid of the problems that torment them today. Many people want this, but not everyone decides to do it. About one person out of a hundred decides to change themselves and seeks the help of a psychologist for this. And it’s not at all because this percentage is so small that one in a hundred needs changes, no, the point here is completely different. Part of the reason why things are so bad is because many people simply don’t see their potential, don’t know it exists, and don’t understand the benefits of self-improvement. They tend to doubt and even fear their abilities, thereby reducing the chances for self-actualization. This is the so-called “Jonah complex,” a psychological defense mechanism that impedes personal growth. Jonah is one of the Old Testament characters. The Lord ordered him to go to another country to preach the Word of God. But Jonah refused for a long time and doubted his capabilities and was still in no hurry to fulfill God’s blessing under various pretexts, but simply out of fear, indecision and lack of faith. As you know, the Lord will not allow anyone to carry more than a person has the strength to do. In general, it all ended with Jonah being swallowed by a whale and taken in his belly to where the Lord had sent Jonah and there releasing him onto the earth. It was in this difficult way that Jonah had to do what he considered himself completely incapable of. Such lack of self-confidence comes from the fact that a person tends to restrain both his best and worst impulses. Of course, this really prevents him from achieving more in life. But at the same time it gives a certain dubious sense of security. After all, the process of personal growth requires any of us to be constantly ready to take risks, make mistakes, and give up old habits. This is far from a safe business for a person. After all, each of us does not want to risk our own peace of mind for the sake of anything. Why worry and suffer in vain for a person if this can be avoided, even at the cost of one’s own stagnation, at the cost of refusing development and sliding into regression. And a person chooses to live in the old way, chooses his old, but known and familiar to him problems and pains, but at the same time avoids responsibility for his life. Each person could achieve much more than he achieves in his entire life. A huge number of people, reaching old age, realize that they themselves did not allow themselves to realize and reveal all their potential. And then what? Pain, resentment, despair - these are our constant companions in old age. Ostrovsky correctly wrote that one must live one’s life in such a way “that there is no excruciating pain for the years spent aimlessly.” The reason for this is only that from childhood we get used to running away from responsibility for our own lives, from childhood we get used to living clinging to someone , giving to this “someone” both the responsibility and the right to determine our lives. But not everyone agrees to be extras in their own destiny. There are also those in whom determination is strong, who are ready to take risks, who are ready to give up old habits, who are ready to overcome their own fears and insecurities. It is they who will become the authors of their own destiny. They will be the ones who will be able to change not only themselves and their lives, but will also have a huge impact on the course of development of humanity as a whole. After all, this is how it turns out: by changing ourselves from the inside, we gradually begin to change our lives from the outside. And in life we ​​come into contact with a large number of people, therefore, such changes will certainly affect our environment, although to varying degrees. Remember, by changing yourself, me, your life, you change the world for the better! Author: psychologist Svetlana Gutyar. We invite everyone who wants to go through self-knowledge to our training “The Path to Yourself”. You can watch the presentation here. Please register here.