Where To Start With Your Personal Development

It seems like a lot of people view personal development as a kind of race. They want to know exactly where to start and exactly what steps they need to go through to reach the finish line. But in my view, there really isn’t a finish line.

Personal development is a life-long pursuit where you’re constantly striving to become your best self.

So where do you start? Honestly, it doesn’t matter as long as you DO start.

“The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it.” W.M… Click To Tweet

Where Should YOU Start?

The answer to that question really depends on where you are in your life.

Big Event?

It’s not unusual for big (or small) events in your life to prompt you to start doing some self-reflection.

Trauma?

Take it from me, just about any big trauma in your life will get you thinking about a lot of things differently.

It’s Just Time?

Sometimes you just hit a wall, or reach a certain maturity level or age, and you’re ready to start working on YOU.

If you already know what you want to work on, then that gives you a pretty good place to start. Some examples of common issues people want to tackle in their personal development include:

Work on issues like self-esteem, socializing with others, or finding fulfillment
Work to improve health, lose weight, become fit
Alternative strategies to overcome depression, anxiety, or even a phobia
Finding your way through trauma or major life events.
Work on your career or leadership skills
Learn new skills and broaden your horizons

If you’re interested in looking at a lot of these things, you’re not alone, and it can be really difficult to choose which area to tackle first.

So let’s start at the very beginning with a personal assessment of where you’re at right now and where you want to be in a month, six months, a year, or even further out. Okay, so if you’re like me and the idea of doing some kind of personal assessment or survey makes you want to hurl, don’t worry.

That kind of one size fits all crap that’s thrown together by “experts” who really aren’t experts on YOU has no place here.

I’m just going to ask you two questions:

Are you happy?

Why?

Let’s take a page from my favorite musical… The Sound of Music!

Chances are very good that you waffled on the first question.

You’re unhappy, but didn’t want to seem so ungrateful for all the wonderful things that you know you have in your life, so you remain in denial.

If you fall into this category, may I humbly suggest that you start by addressing your guilt? Seriously, you shouldn’t judge yourself so harshly. If you’re not happy, then you’re not happy. It’s how you FEEL, therefore there’s no right or wrong here.

From my own experience of taking the blame for EVERYTHING and living in a constant state of guilt, I’ve learned that these feelings largely come from the idea that you don’t feel like you deserve the good things in your life.

It’s not so much about self-esteem as it is about feeling WORTHY of happiness and loving yourself.

Self-esteem centers around feeling WORTHY of happiness and loving yourself. Click To Tweet

Possiblity #1: You probably never really thought about it, so you must be happy.

If you’ve never thought about it before, then you seriously need to spend a little time with yourself and figure it out. If you’re looking into personal development, there are probably some things in your life that you’d like to improve. Now’s a good time to start thinking about it.

Once you know how to answer the two questions above, then you’ll be ready to choose a direction for your personal development.

Possibility #2: You just can’t admit to yourself that you’re unhappy, but you know you are.

If you fall into this category, then you need to concentrate on the second question. Why are you unhappy?

Of course there can be all kinds of reasons that you’re unhappy. For example, I once spent 9 hours per day in a cubicle with no natural light and no human interaction. It was one of the most soul-sucking jobs that I’ve ever had, so I quit and my happiness quotient improved immediately.

My point is that unhappiness can occur for all kinds of reason – both internal and external. Figure out your “why” and you’ll know where to start. I’ve got an article planned on figuring out why you’re unhappy, so stay tuned.

You’re happy with some things, but there are a lot of things that you’re not happy about.

Great! You’re in pretty good shape and figuring out where to start your self-improvement journey will be pretty easy. Sit down in a quiet place and make a list of all the things that make you less than satisfied or unhappy, then prioritize your list to decide where you want to start.

Then choose one and jump in.

You really are happy… So what are you doing here???

Just kidding!

Of course you can be happy and still want to embark on a journey of self-improvement and personal development. It’s not where most people start, but it makes it really easy for you to pick an area of your life and get started.

So you can approach things like we discussed above by making a prioritized list and choosing an area to start with, or take a look at the blog and either pick an area or browse around an see what strikes your fancy. If you’re still stuck, start where you are with a journal and ask yourself the questions that will point you in the right direction to get started on your personal development journey.

Become Self-Aware

One of the biggest obstacles in both starting on the path of personal development and achieving success is learning to be introspective and self-aware. You’ve got to figure out what makes you tick so that you can discover what will truly make you happy and fulfilled.

So here’s a quick list of some ways that you can start to do that:

Observe your own specific behaviors and the results you get from them – both internally and externally.
Look for the patterns in your behavior and how they affect other things in your life.
Focus inward on your thoughts and feelings in various situations, including your self-talk.
Journal your thoughts and feelings and look for patterns – both good and not so good.
Start going to events, trainings and activities dedicated to improving your self-awareness. Your local Meetups can be a great place to start.
Watch people who are getting the results you want.
Stop the daily grind, sit down with just you, in a quiet room, and really thinking about what you have and what you need.
Work hard at being “present” in your day to day life. Don’t sleepwalk through your day.

When it’s all said and done, YOU are in control of the form your life will take. If you don’t like where you’re at, then it’s up to you to change it.

You deserve to be happy… Believe it!

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