Personal Development

Personal development is the issue. One of the best contributions we can make to ourselves, our family and our country is to become a better person. It is your personal growth that helps you gain a deeper understanding of yourself, others and the processes of life. It is ultimately the activity that will determine who you will become next year, 5 years from now and in the end. In order to have you must first do, in order to do you must first be. Personal development is the path to becoming the most that we can be. Personal development is the development of new skills, the raising of our awareness, the broadening our understanding and maturing of our body, mind and soul. It is acquired from our personal commitment and plan to growth. Rarely will your income exceed your personal growth. I came up with my own definition after reflecting on the tens of thousands of dollars and countless hours spent on engaging in personal development information and training and it is very simply this: Personal Development is identifying our weaknesses, our short- comings and character defects and going to work on them. It's life problem solving as the great Einstein said, "Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them". It's growing beyond our present level of awareness.

We live in a very sophisticated world. It's now a global market place and competition is fierce. We need to add new skills yearly. We need to be flexible and adapt to new ideas and challenges. It is inevitable that if this world is going to continue on for the next few hundred years then change will have to be our ally. The new skill base is shifting from technical expertise to personal abilities which are the principles of personal development and success. (Perseverance, ability to set and achieve goals, self control and humility, discipline, integrity and love)

Personal development is now the most important skill of the millennium. Daniel Goleman, author of the best selling books, "Emotional Intelligence" and "Working with Emotional Intelligence" refers to the capacity for recognizing our own feelings and those of others, and for managing emotions well in ourselves as well as in our relationships. Emotional intelligence is the new name for character, soft skills, personality, or competence. It focuses on personal qualities such as initiative and empathy, adaptability and persuasiveness. This is the new yard stick Goleman says. CEO’s have told Goleman emotional intelligence, not technical expertise or book learning, is what matters most for excellence. Personal qualities not tech skills or formal education! Emotional intelligence is Personal Development!

Even our relationships are demanding us to improve. Why? Because even they have become more complex. Biological and psychological problems are infecting our world and people are expecting us to deal with it. All of us struggle with a variety of problems in life from day one. Whether it be in our relationships, business or our finance or our health. The solution is to raise our level of awareness, to grow beyond our present situation and level of skill. In order to grow we must personally develop. Solving problems is Personal Development!

Be the leader of your own personal development:
Create a personal growth plan. Do you have a mentor? How many books do you read a month? How many classes have you taken over the past 6 months? What new skills have you developed recently? Do you have a detailed set of goals for your life? I know of sales managers when hiring people first ask them to name some of the titles of self development books in their library and if they can't name any he simply says thank you very much and escorts them to the door. We know from experience that people in certain businesses must be continually feeding themselves motivation, success and personal development or they just will not last.

Examples of some personal growth plans:

Wake up 1 hour early to listen to personal development programs, take notes and apply teaching. (Mon., Tues., Fri.)

Reading 30-50 pages at least 4 nights per/week from books on the subjects I want to grow in.

Meditate and reflect on things I have learned, goals, plans and who I want to become for 20-30 minutes daily.

Thursday eve, attend and apply myself 100% with local Toastmasters club to continually improve on my speaking, listening and leadership skills.

Travel with a personal development, leadership and/or mind expanding audio program playing in the cars cassette deck.

Goals properly set and reviewed on a regular basis.

Accountability. Through commitments to individuals, corporations and deadlines.

Counsel. Continuously running my dreams, goals and struggles by family, friends and those I respect and admire

Monitoring growth. Growth plan and progress toward goals is noted and details recorded in journal and goal book.

Another growth plan recommended by John Maxwell from his book "Developing Leaders around You"

Monday: One hour with God.
Tuesday: One hour listening to a leadership tape.
Wednesday: Another hour with the same tape including filing notes on highlights and reflecting on what has been learned.
Thursday: One hour reading leadership book.
Friday: One hour with that same book filing notes and reflecting on what has been learned.

Turn your car into a mobile university:
All high achievers are constantly listening to inspirational, motivational, educational tapes. The average person travels 10,000 mile per/year. Sales people travel 25,000 miles per/year. 25k translates into 500 hours, 500 divided by 40 gives you 12.5 weeks which = 1 university semester you can gain just driving around. How much more competent, capable, confident would you be if you took 3 months every year in courses and study.

This is just plain good time management making good use of your drive time. There is something powerful that takes place when you are listening to successful people sharing their ideas and experiences. You don't have to worry about getting bad information either because failures don't make audio programs. It took people their life time to learn and they have transferred all that knowledge into a 4 or 6 cassette program for you to ponder, listen to and see if you can apply some new ideas to better your future.

Be aware of the grade 5 mentality. Question: How long would you let your kid stay in grade 5? Approximately? 1, 3, 5 years. That's ridiculous. You can't stay in one grade more than a year. If you felt they are not going to make it what we do is start to pour on the pressure. Teacher pressure, peer pressure, school pressure, you do what ever you can to push, persuade and encourage the child to learn and move on to the next grade. What if when you were in grade 5 nobody expected you to move on to grade 6. What if you were actually discouraged from moving on. If your friends and family said don't go there, there are just more challenges and set backs. You don't want that. Very few would have ever moved to the next grade. We would continue to do the same things over and over, writing the same tests and thinking we are good because we can ace them, blaming the school system and teachers for our lack of development. It is a good analogy because if we demand it of our children then we must demand it of ourselves.

I congratulate you for the work that you have already done. You obviously do not have the grade 5 mentality or you would not have this book in your hands. Continue to grow and bless the world with the unique ideas and together we can make this world a better place to live.