“You have all the tools already inside you, you just have to know how to use them.”
Whether you want to call it self help, personal growth, personal development or your god given growth, they all relatively mean the same thing. If your not familiar with these terms, they all simply mean improving yourself for the better, to better your current situation. Its a way of living life, Its about growing positively and having a higher awareness of yourself and your surroundings. Its about not settling with the current way of thinking and going above and beyond the norm.
In personal development there are several methods you can use to make your life better and make you a more well rounded individual. I see personal development less about changing yourself and more about getting back what you where originally, as your real self. You have all the tools already inside you, you just have to know how to use them.
Common categories you can find in personal development:
- Health
- Wealth
- Body
- Mind
- Spirit
As you can see there is something for everyone, you just have to pick whats right for you or what you trying to learn about.
Good the bad and the ugly
There is many different styles of personal development, some are a lot better than others. Personally I am more drawn in by a more personal and creative approach to personal development because it presents itself as friendly and down to earth. There are a lot of blogs and books that seem unfriendly, rather cold and very distant out there. It just doesn’t feel right. It can be stuffy or come off very egotistical, the type of writing where it makes you feel that the person writer is better than you and they know it. I tend to also stay away from the new-age approaches to personal development because like I said above they seem fuzzy, off path, loosing the point and tend to use way to big of a vocabulary for the average reader to understand.
The style I like may not be the style for you so you must experiment. Its important to explore all styles of personal development before making you decision on one or another.
Simplification
Its all about simplification not complication, its about putting complicated things into simpler more friendly form. There are plenty of self help books and blogs that are just dull boring regurgitation’s of what other people have said in the same exact ways, there’s nothing compelling in them. They leave you with an empty feeling and not one that’s going to boost your spirit and energize you to want to make changes. Simplification is key!
Some examples of something you may find in a self help or personal development article, blog or book:
- “Ways to improve your mood while under stress”
- “7 ways to ignite your creativity fire and keep it going”
- “How to not be shy”
- “How to live fearlessly”
- “How to quit smoking”
Get the picture? Chances are you may have already been implementing some self development techniques without even realizing it, till now.
Definitions(mine) of the most commonly used terms in personal development:
- time management- doing things effectively and in a timely manner
- motivation- Your drive to get things done and take action
- goal setting- Making goals for yourself and completing them
- conscious living- Being conscious and aware of yourself, your actions and the world around you as a whole
- consciousness- Being awake and aware of your unconscious
- 80/20 rule- 80 percent of your success will come from doing 20% of the most effective tasks
Common misconceptions of personal development:
Its easy
There is a lot of bs guides out there that claim “If you buy this book or DVD your life will be changed forever”, but its not that easy. I don’t care what you may have heard, personal development is not something that does not take any effort. You cant just read an inspiring book and leave it at that. You must apply yourself with the knowledge you learned from that book to see any results. Its not going to happen on its own. You must invest time in yourself and do it a lot to improve your current self and see the results you like.
Its also not something you can just learn a little, master it and abandon. It takes constant maintenance to continue and excel, you don’t want to go backwards. Constant maintenance can be staying on top of yourself and being conscious at where you are where you are headed. Its not a done deal, there are always important things to be learned and ways to improve your life.
Some examples of ways you can use it to improve your life:
- Self exploration – learning about yourself through thought and experimentation
- Observations – looking outside yourself and at your external surroundings
- Reading informative books, listening to audio pod-casts, reading blogs etc
Each of these things are a vital way to improve yourself!
All and all My personal approach and for this blog is all about loving yourself and loving others, solving problems and being happy. You must focus on the small things in life because they will bring the most happiness as a whole. Personal development is about working with your strengths and improving your weaknesses, do that and you will never go wrong.
Discussion: What are you first impressions of personal development?
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