Personal development and growth have never been more to the forefront of our collective consciousness than at this present time in history. The key to personal growth/development is self-reflection and taking action that helps us to grow. It’s also a continual process. Doing so will help ease your stress as you become a better version of you.
Seek Advice From the Court of Familiarity
Often it is difficult to identify the areas where we need to develop most. This can be for many reasons. To make the process easier, however, we can enlist the help of others. Asking friends, family, peers or colleagues where they think you need to develop can be a very enlightening process.
Ask for constructive, honest feedback on your strengths and what areas you need to develop more. Those closest to you often know you better than you know yourself, use this valuable resource to facilitate your growth. These interactions will bring with them insights that you may find difficult to identify doing this on your own.
An Idiot With Plan Will Beat a Genius Without One
Utilising the information provided by your trusted development partners, create a growth and development plan. It is essential that you commit this plan to paper so that you can use it as the resource it is. Take the information gleaned from the process together with your own self-reflection and identify your short, medium and long-term goals.
Make these goals tangible and remember the process never ends so don’t try to do too much too soon. The secret is to commit to it. This commitment will go a long way to achieving your goals.
Enlist a Personal Development Training Buddy
From the group who assisted you in identifying your needs ask a number of them to help you in achieving the growth that you have planned. Share your growth plan with them. Schedule time with them throughout the year to sit down and discuss your growth against your plan and take advice from them on how you could achieve any areas that are falling behind against your plan. Have fun with this process, make it enjoyable for all concerned. Have the discussion over a long lunch or an extended coffee morning.
Plant Learning Flowers in Your Mind Garden
Within your plan, you will have identified the resources you require to achieve the growth that you want. This could be reading certain self-development books, attending a seminar, watching video content online, taking online courses going to retreats or a myriad of other options. The critical part of this learning is to make it active. When reading books, highlight parts of the book that resonates with you. At the end of each chapter write down what you learned from the section in your own words. Use these summaries to create an overview of the entire book in your own words. Doing this will markedly increase your learning from the book. Do the same for each other type of development you undertake. Doing this will improve your retention of the information and speed your own progress.
Become the Guiding Light to Others
It has been said that if you want to master any activity teach it. Give others the opportunity to learn from you and in the process deepen your own learning of the subject. You do not need to create a training course on the subject although doing so will have an additional benefit, you can teach friends, family or colleagues what you learned from your own development. Assisting in their personal growth and deepening your understanding of the subject that you are learning. There are fewer better ways to learn a subject than by teaching it.
Record Your Journey
Throughout the process of your personal growth keep a journal. On your journey write down the things you are thankful for. Expressing gratitude is a compelling process and one that will help you develop further and quicker. Write down what you’ve learned doing so reinforces the learning. Write what connections you have made both between things you are learning and other areas within your knowledge and life and also write down who you’ve connected with. Finally record any feelings that bubble to the surface while on your journey, there is a good chance that these are opportunities to grow further.
Using these tips will dramatically improve the speed and level of growth and development that you experience. Improving your development will help reduce stress. Applying all of these will have a compounding effect with the results of one building on the other. However, you can pick whichever tips you feel work best for you.