Today is Blog Action Day and the theme for this year is poverty. Poverty isn’t always financial. In fact, I believe that poverty is multidimensional. It’s related to the four facets of prosperity: material, spiritual, physical, and social. Consequently, there are four kinds of poverty: material poverty, spiritual poverty, physical poverty, and social poverty. You must fight against all those kinds of poverty if you want to be truly prospered.
Self development plays an important role here. Only through self development can you put yourself in a position where you defeat poverty in all areas of your life. Self development grows your capacity so that you are bigger than the situation you face. It helps you overcome all kinds of poverty in your life.
In this post I’d like to share some self development tips to help you overcome the four kinds of poverty. Here they are:
Material
1. Increase your knowledge
It’s important that you consume the right information when it comes to career and personal finance. Otherwise you may get wrong advice that leads you into trouble. Here are three good books on career and personal finance I recommend you to read:
2. Develop your skills
Developing your skills is important to increase your earning potential. Read 7 Essential Tips for Developing Skills for more information on how to do it.
3. Manage your finance
You need to manage your income and expenses. The first step to do that is to take note of every transaction you do. I already have this habit since I first worked and it helps me a lot in my personal finance. It allows me to know exactly what my current personal finance situation is. This way I know if I overspend on something and quickly get it under control.
Spiritual
4. Find your purpose
You need to find your purpose in life because it gives you meaning and direction in everything you do. Read A Guide to Finding Your Life Purpose for more tips on it.
5. Build a spiritual habit
Just like you should regularly exercise to maintain your physical health, you should also have a spiritual habit to grow your spiritual health. Depending on your spiritual belief, the habit could be praying, meditating, and reading sacred texts, among others. The important thing here is to make it a habit.
Physical
6. Build the exercise habit
You need regular exercise to manage your energy. Regular exercise helps you maintain high-energy state during your days so that you can perform best.
7. Get enough rest
I was surprised when I first read about the power of nap in How to Stop Worrying and Start Living. Even seemingly short nap can restore your energy and make you more productive. I know it’s not always possible to take a nap, but the point is you should have enough rest to get your energy back.
Social
8. Prioritize relationships
Put relationships as your top priority. It requires you to sacrifice here and there which is not easy but that’s how you build a fulfilling life. One of the best signs that you prioritize relationships is you provide time for others. The time you provide might not be long, but spending quality time with others will boost your relationships with them.
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While short, these tips can help your self development. You can then fight effectively against the four kinds of poverty in your life.
What do you think? Do you have other tips to fight life poverty?
This article is part of October 2008 theme: Winning Attitude
Photo by notsogoodphotography
Good stuff Don. I teach and coach people to look at wealth in a wide variety of dimensions beyond money. I suppose if we can possess wealth in many dimensions, the lack of abundance or fulfillment in those areas would be the poverty you speak of. I never thought of it in terms of the opposite.
Well thought out material. I’ll sign up for your RSS feed.
– Mark
Hi Donald…
It’s important to look at different aspects of poverty… all too often we only think of financial poverty and overlook the rest. Each area of poverty has enormous ramifications for our self development… and the tips you provided were very helpful!
Jeanne
Mark,
It’s unfortunate that most people think only about financial poverty when they hear the word ‘poverty’. I’m glad you already teach people that wealth is more than just money.
Jeanne,
It’s true that we often overlook the other kinds of poverty beside financial. We need to have a balanced view of poverty and prosperity.
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poverty is actually the state of the mind.I think that how poor you get is dependent on the state of the mind,that mental poverty. Alot of people could be rich in potential but their minds are not positioned rightly, however they think they can not make.
Most of the communities in Indian Sub-Continent (such as Bengali), are succumbed in ‘Culture of Poverty'(a theory introduced by an American anthropologist Oscar Lewis), irrespective of class or economic strata, lives in pavement or apartment. Nobody is at all ashamed of the deep-rooted corruption, decaying general quality of life, worst Politico-administrative system, weak mother language, continuous absorption of common space (mental as well as physical, both). We are becoming parents (mindlessly) only by blindfold self-procreation, depriving their (the children) fundamental rights of a decent, caring society, fearless & dignified living. Do not ever look for any other positive alternative behaviour (values) to perform ‘human way of parenthood’, i.e. deliberately co-parenting of those children those are born out of ignorance, real poverty. All of us are being driven only by the very animal instinct. If the Bengali people ever be able to bring that genuine freedom (from vicious cycle of ‘poverty’) in their own life/attitude, start/involve themselves in ‘Production of Space’(Henri Lefebvre), at least, initiate a movement by heart, decent and dedicated Socio-Politics will definitely come up.
– Siddhartha Bandyopadhyay, 16/4, Girish Banerjee lane, Howrah-711101, India.
I love how there is a whole person aspect to this. You have to work on all of it. Great stuff!