4 Easy Steps To Personal Development
By Larry Strawson
"Personal Development" is another name for "personal growth", or the process by which someone goes about trying to better him or herself. There is no set "growth track" for people who are interested in personal development. On the contrary, each person's personal development journey is completely unique. That said, there are some general areas of personal development that most people focus on.
Setting Goals
For many people, setting goals is relatively easy—it's meeting that goal that poses the challenge. The trick to setting goals is to make sure that each goal is reachable. If you find that your goals are too lofty or difficult to reach, you might consider breaking down your larger goal into smaller, manageable tasks. Let's use "quit smoking" as a goal. Some people are able to quit smoking cold turkey. But for most, it involves gradually cutting down on their number of cigarettes or using tools like the nicotine patch or gum to help them curb their cravings. Be honest about what it will take to get you to your personal finish line. With a "quit smoking" goal, you could break it down to "I will only smoke x amount of cigarettes this week", and then gradually diminish the value of x.
Taking Charge of Your Habits
It takes twenty-one days of repetition to turn an anomaly into a habit. If personal development is something that you are trying to focus on, try to develop some new, positive habits to help you on your journey. The trick is to make yourself do these new habits constantly until you no longer have to think about it. Perhaps you want to get in shape. Make yourself do some form of exercise every day at the same time. It will be hard at first, but after a few weeks, you'll find that your body naturally gravitates toward activity at that time. You won't even have to think about it.
Finding Motivation
Staying motivated is a problem for everyone, whether or not they are on a personal development track. Finding motivation involves things like learning how to battle procrastination habits, the fifteen-minute rule (devoting at least fifteen minutes of your full attention to the task at hand before letting the distractions "win") and the "one more thing" trick (in which you keep telling yourself, "I'll just do one more thing on my list before I take a break“).
Productivity Improvement
Much like finding motivation, there are plenty of tricks to help you increase your productivity. For people who want to work on their personal development, this can involve improving productivity at home and in their interpersonal relationships as well as increasing productivity at work. You can increase your productivity by writing lists, keeping a calendar, and telling yourself, "I'll just work for five more minutes before I take a break."
The personal development road is not an easy road to travel, but the longer you walk on it, the easier it will get. For many people, personal development involves teaching themselves new ways of thinking and embracing new and better habits.