Part of my mission is to make personal development available to anyone who wants it, anywhere, regardless of financial means. I have been blessed with incredible mentors, training, and most importantly, experience. It’s time to share it.
It is dawning on me what is really needed to get started right with personal development. I’ve been noodling on this because in the company I consult with, in four years we have ramped up to include 200 of their 6,000 employees. It’s been remarkable, but it isn’t exactly scalable or inclusive.
“What would it take to fix this?” I’ve wondered. And I’m now glimpsing a way forward. We are about to do some tests to vet this idea. It is an incredibly exciting time and a highly motivating endeavor. Namely…
Empower people to work together to support one another in personal development.
Where would this start?
I think everyone — including you — who wants real results from personal development needs to know eight things. This article explores these eight things. See how many you are clear on…
A Little Context
What I’ve noticed over the years is that personal development efforts often don’t work. They don’t produce a lasting change for the better.
Why not? There are a number of reasons, and going through them all is outside the scope of this article. But three salient reasons are:
- No clear outcome in mind… an unclear “what”
- The outcome isn’t felt as imperative… an inconsequential “why”
- Lack of knowledge regarding personal development — what it is, what it entails, what we are up against, and how to go about it… ignorance regarding “how”
This is fixable. And the start of fixing this is to get as clear as you can on eight specific things. If you have at least a workable degree of clarity on these eight things, I believe you can get started right with personal development. Alternatively, if you are actively engaged in personal development but your efforts aren’t producing a lasting change for the better, one of these eight things might be missing.
The Eight Things I Think You Should Know
- Your Purpose
- Your Goal
- How You Trip Yourself Up
- What Gives Rise to those Behaviors
- The Behaviors You Want to Do Instead
- Strengths You Already Have and Can Leverage
- A Vision of What a Transformed You Might Look Like
- What Your Future Looks Like if You Change… and if You Don’t
Those eight things pack a wallop. Show me someone who has those eight things dialed in and has a feeling for how all eight things are interconnected, and you’ll be showing me someone who’s got the essence of personal development in their bones.
Let’s talk about each in a little more detail. In upcoming articles, I’ll be covering these in more detail. So I’ll exclude the “how” here and briefly give you the “what” and the “why”. I’ll give you enough to go on, enough to get started.
1. Your Purpose
The key to a fulfilling and meaningful life is to discover or detect your purpose and to be it and live towards it. There’s a lot that’s been written on this topic, yet so few people have a clear purpose. And then they wonder why happiness is fleeting and their accomplishments seem devoid of any lasting meaning. We all long to contribute something, to serve in some way, before we die.
2. Your Goal
Know someone who is really “into” personal development but nothing in their life really changes? Same struggles, same relationship issues, same complaints, big dreams and no manifestation, etc.? It happens all the time. For years, that was me. The only way you know you are changing is by seeing the world around you change. Your world is your mirror. So, to make personal development intensely practical, do your personal development in the context of a goal you want to accomplish. Choose a goal that isn’t possible unless you change. And choose a goal that connects to your Purpose and brings it to life.
3. How You Trip Yourself Up
Everyone’s foot is nailed to the floor somewhere. The problem is, we are usually blind to it. Or it is too fuzzy. The more clear we are on the behavior that holds us back, the more possible it is to change it. We can’t change what we can’t see or observe. Be clear on the behavior you do that makes 1 above hard to live into and 2 above hard (or impossible) to accomplish.
4. What Gives Rise to Those Behaviors
You probably know you shouldn’t do those behaviors in 3 above, right? Yet you can’t help yourself. Something is trumping your intellectual grasp that doing 3 above isn’t in your best interests. So what can we conclude? That there’s a system driving those behaviors and that system is trumping your best intentions. That system includes fears and assumptions that are very real, but not necessarily true. These things must be named in order to be tamed.
5. The Behaviors You Want to Do Instead
If you stopped doing the behaviors in 3 above, what would you want to do instead? It is clear that you would need to know this, right? But very often, this is fuzzy for people in their personal development efforts. Get clear on this. Clarity is power. It is easier to let go of one thing if you know what you want in its place.
6. Strengths You Already Have and Can Leverage
You already possess some very remarkable strengths. What’s funny about that is this: it often doesn’t occur to us to double-down and apply these strengths in making the changes we want to make in our personal development efforts. This personal development stuff is hard. So leverage your assets. To do this you must know them and name them. Then you can strategize how to use them for this specific purpose.
7. A Higher Vision of Yourself
As remarkable as you already are, imagine what you’d look like and how you’d feel on the other side of the changes above. What if you were living more true to your purpose? Achieving that goal? Transforming the system — the fears and thoughts — that drive the behaviors that hold you back… and naturally doing behaviors that work better? Better leveraging your strengths? And, as a result of all this, doing more good and less harm and uplifting the people and the life around you? I want you to be clear on this version of yourself. Because if you are, this can pull you through the inevitable dark places your path of personal development will take you to and through. Carry this light, and you need not fear that dark.
8. What Your Future Looks Like… With and Without This Change
We human beings are quite self-deceived. We believe a better future is coming, regardless. It isn’t. Not necessarily, anyway. The way to pierce this illusion is to get courageously honest with ourselves. What does the default future look like if we don’t do the above? And what does the future look like if we do? Let yourself imagine the pain of staying where you are. Let yourself imagine the joy and meaning of striking out into the unknown, towards that vision of yourself you painted in 7 above. The bottom line is we don’t tend to change unless not changing seems unbearable. Feel the “unbearability” of staying stuck to get yourself in gear. And move towards that better, imagined future.
Stepping Back
If you step back and look at the eight things above, perhaps you will sense how interconnected it all is. Perhaps you will see that it contains light and dark, positive and negative. Moving forward becomes more doable when we are truthful with ourselves. Clear.
But some or all of this may not be clear for you at all. If so, welcome to the club! Everyone starts with questions and open holes in these eight things. So where to start?
Start Here
Start with getting all this on one page, without delay, as best you can. That’s it. Start there, and…
Forget perfection. You don’t need to get these eight things perfect in order to start. In fact, you can’t. You don’t yet know yourself that well, so how is perfection possible? It isn’t possible, and it isn’t required. Just do your best, my friend, and start from where you are.
If some of the eight are total blanks for you, great! No problema. Leave them blank. Nature abhors a vacuum, right? Hold your questions in the back of your mind, and let those questions work on you. Let the thoughts and feelings bubble up. The blanks will start to fill in.
Would you like all this nicely laid out on one page? I’ve got your back. Click here for the Word file, or here for a PDF. A little gift from me to you. There will be even more for you, too.
More? Yes!
Feel like you want more explanation of each of the eight? Maybe some examples? I’ll be covering each of the above eight items in more detail in coming articles. So if you aren’t subscribed, please do. Also, if you are reading this article months after it was published, see the Category on this blog labeled “Get Started with Personal Development”. Each related article will be there.
Don’t wait for me, though! I’m writing a course on this, and the first step in the course is for the student to do a quick pass through and fill in the eight items as best they can. That’s what I’m giving you as homework in this article. This a wonderful way to stretch our thoughts and feelings and to get “primed” for more.
So, yes, more is coming. I’ll look forward to sharing with you more detail on each of the eight items in the weeks ahead. But start bringing it to life, now. To your life. Stay tuned. The best is yet to come.