How To Start And Improve Your Personal Development Journey?
If for a moment you imagine that you got access to a time-machine and now you decide to use it to travel back to ten years ago with it, and there you meet yourself in ten years ago. Do you hug yourself and proudly talk about your current self and the successes you have achieved in these ten years based on your decisions back then? Or are you embarrassed and unable to face your younger self because of shame or for being not proud of your achievements so far?
But no matter what we say to your younger self, the reality is, we don’t gain much when we look back, we just have to learn the life lessons and move on with the experiences.
And when we talk about the future it is not the same! So one more time, imagine traveling in time and meeting yourself ten years from now! How do you see your future self based on your today’s reality?
Now, let us pause a moment to think about: Where do you want to be in life ten years from now?
Now, another question may be your mind too: How to achieve a better life and better future from this point of life?
If it is so, this article is for you!
Planning for your life and personal development is one of the ways that can make you proud to meet yourself ten years from now.
Continue reading this article if you want to know about personal growth and development, and how to start and improve your personal development journey from now on.
What Is Personal Development?
Personal development is a set of activities designed to identify and improve a persons talents, learning potential, employment and even wealth. Personal development, in short, means strengthening and nurturing any skill you want to develop to improve yourself.
The field of personal development indicates that everything depends on your mental development in the first place. Activities such as joining educational courses or participating in their classes, reading related books and educating yourself about the related topics, listening to a useful podcast or even watching an informational video are examples of activities that can help to improve your mental development. By allocating time during the day or during the week or even your free time for these activities, you can progress and start seeing growth and productivity in your life over time.
There are different dimensions in personal development but the 5 main dimensions of personal development are the most important in the start.
And just like any other subject, there may be many dimensions to personal development by different opinions and cases, but the main dimensions in this subject seem to be based on these 5 main pillars: Social, Mental, Spiritual, Emotional and Physical
Let us explore each of these dimensions in the following:
Social Dimension And Mental Dimension
When we talk about personal development, your gender or background, where you come from, or even if you are an extrovert or an introverted person is not important. If you are not already strong in these, then you need to learn to improve your mental strength and well being, your communication skills and your social skills, because a big part of your development depends on these dimensions. Compared to other dimensions, these dimensions have been neglected by some people at times. However, paying attention to mental health is very important, the development of social and communicational skills are important pillars for personal growth and development in today’s world.
Some of the most important reasons that some of us don’t want to start the process of personal development, and feel overwhelmed by this subject, or don’t find it easy to start and grow in these dimensions, is that we don’t know how to take care of our mental-wellbeing and emotions, and the other reason for some of us is that we don’t know how to socialize or communicate with everyone else in an effective way. And learning to take care of our mental wellbeing, and practicing effective communication and social skills, will be very beneficial for us when we are going forward in these dimensions.
Spiritual Dimension
Personal growth in the field of spirituality can have a different meaning for each person. The best way I think can work for most of us is to see what relaxes you and helps to connect you to your true self, spirituality is a very deep and meaningful subject, but it is an important part of personal development, because it can help you to go deeper that the surface of life and can help you to connect to a deeper part of yourself too.
Praying, meditating, reading the Holy books, connecting to the nature and educating yourself about spirituality are some of the activities that can be included in this category.
Emotional Dimension
Emotions are big part of human life, so most of us definitely can agree that one of the most important aspects of personal development is the emotional aspect. Not expressing your feelings or killing them inside you not only does not help you, but also makes your life worse than it can be. And being in touch with your inner self and knowing your true emotions and being able to express them in the right way is an important part of personal development and growth.
If you can’t connect to your feelings or even express your feelings at the beginning, maybe you can start now, by taking a pen and paper and start writing down your feelings about anything that comes to your mind, and then you can take other steps to educate yourself on this such as watching educational videos or reading related articles and books that can help you know more about the emotional healing and connection. Also, it is a great blessing to have one or few people or friends in your life who can be the rock of your life, people who have the patience and love to be there for you when you emotionally need them are very precious emotional supports; If you have this blessing, appreciate them, and if you don’t, there are many ways to connect to your emotions by your own too. And if you are in a phase of life where you feel that you need help with your emotions, it is totally fine to start consulting a with counselor who can help you grow in this dimension.
Also, you can write the memory of that day in your diary journal or personal notes, it can help you express at the end of each day, writing down your feelings and emotions can help you to have a deeper look at your personal development journey and keep track of your progress.
Physical Dimension
We have reached the last dimension of the five-dimensions which is the physical dimension. Keep in mind that the physical dimension goes beyond taking multi-vitamins and does not end with exercising. In order to have an accurate picture of this dimension, you must also consider good eating habits and keep a track of your sleeping habits. Knowing the types of habits which can help you correct your past bad habits and avoiding the things that can harm your development such as smocking or bad drinking habits and replacing them step by step with better habits and then strengthening your good habits, beside being in control of your physical health and wellbeing, can help you to be present for yourself, and this is very important for your future-self and wellbeing.
In addition to sleeping at least eight hours a day, exercising, preparing healthy and nutritious food, regular diet and regular medical examinations are effective in improving this dimension.
There is a common misconception in the field of exercising that says that training should last for few hours and your clothes should get wet from body sweat every time you exercise. Although this type of exercise can be a good thing, but what can be done for people who are busy with their work? Committing to at least 15 minutes of few sets of exercise during the day can be a helpful tip. When you think about exercising it should not be overwhelming and it shouldn’t be discouraging you, if you can not do heavier exercises, but you enjoy swimming or yoga it is really ok too, the important part is to do the exercise, and maybe a gym coach can give you good advice on the best practices based on your time and conditions.
27 Attractive Steps
We are all unique and have our own unique path to our success and happiness.
So every person can have different goals for their personal development, and their journey to becoming their best version, and their view to a successful life, may differ to others.
Here is a list of 27 of the most important personal development goals that we all can choose as attractive steps to reach our own destinations
You can use theses steps in your personal development and growth journey:
1. Active listening
2. Self Confidence
3. Coping with yourself and others
3. Changing bad or un-useful habits and creating good habits
4. Managing and limiting your expectations from others
5. Overcoming procrastination
6. Setting a bedtime
7. Strengthening your willpower
8. Do not be afraid of failure – Learn
9. Experience progress in life
10. Improve your emotional intelligence
11. Expansion of the communication skills and improving social network
12. Identifying and improving your weaknesses
13. Improving work and creating professional relationships
14. The growth in the field of creativity
15. Learning a new language or sport
16. Healthy habits and nutrition
17. Improving time management skills
18. Overcoming anxiety and stress
19. Balance between work and life
20. Knowing happiness in life for you
22. Learning and improving body language
23. Strengthening the skill of saying no in the right way
24. Enjoy life in a healthy way
25. Hope for the future
26. Creating flexibility
27. Learning and development of adaptation skills
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