Summary – The 3 Elements of Personal Development

I’ve actually known someone who doesn’t believe in personal development. According to him, we should just live and enjoy our life as it is. I obviously don’t agree with him. If not, this blog will not even exist.

Personal development for me is one of the most important thing in life. If not, we might as well spend our days lying naked and crying all day long to be fed. However, I must admit that the word “personal development” itself is a heavy word. It is considered one of the many serious and difficult topics throughout literature.

Personal Development Is Actually Simple

The truth is, we are practising personal development almost every second of our life without even knowing it. Yes, it’s true. Take being thirsty for an example. We will immediately know that we need water. The whole process of recognizing the need of water, the walk to the fridge and the drinking is personal development. We are now no longer thirsty and that is the goal.

Just look around you. Everything you do will consist of the 3 elements of personal development. You identify what you want, you figure out how to get it and you go get it. Don’t you think the word “personal development” now feels a lot lighter a topic?

Just like a man lost in the jungle. He will be just fine if he has a destination in mind, a map to guide him and the will to walk. These are the 3 basic elements of personal development:

1) Goals – Know what you want to achieve.
2) Methodology – Know exactly how to achieve it.
3) Do it – The action without which everything else is just daydreaming.

Just memorize these 3 elements and nothing will be impossible to you. Listed below are the top 4 of my favorite techniques to help your personal development quest. Good luck!

1) Goals

• Die next year – This is one of my favorite techniques when it comes to sorting out priorities. Just imagine that you will die next year. List down all the things you want to achieve. Now look over your list, and decide which items if achieved will make your life complete.

• Other people’s success – Some will argue that this is a bad advice, but I truly think that other’s success in life can be a very good goal in our life. If you define success as having a million dollars, research your local millionaire and find out how exactly he succeeded.

• 5 years plan – Just answer the following question as detailed as possible. What will you achieve in 5 years time? This is actually a cool tool since you will know whether you are on the right track towards your goals.

• SMART Goals – SMART is an abbreviation of the key characteristics of a goal. A goal should always be:
  - Specific
  • “I want to be successful” – No
  • “I want to become a doctor” – Yes

  - Measurable

  • “I want to be rich” – No
  • “I want to have a million dollars” – Yes

  - Attainable

  • “I want to be forever young” – No
  • “I want to be healthy” – Yes

  - Realistic

  • “I want to be a superman” – No
  • “I want to run a marathon” – Yes

  - Time-framed

  • “I want to save $10000″ – No
  • “I want to save $10000 by the end of this year” – Yes

2) Methodology

• Know your current status – Before you even start anything, you should really know where you are now in term of your goals. For example, if you want to run for marathon, you should check your current health first. You might not be healthy enough to pursue this goal.

• Detail your steps – If you want to become a doctor, you must first enroll yourself in a medical school. It will be a step further from your goals if you enroll in an engineering school.

• One habit at a time – This idea is made popular by a friend of mine, Leo Babauta of ZenHabits.net. Just by sticking to one habit at a time, Leo had managed to quit smoking, ran for marathon, wrote a book, become a problogger etc. Truly inspirational.

• Read – Unfortunately, there’s no other way to achieving your goals if not via knowledge. You will need to read a lot of books or personal development blogs to learn from the best. As a start, you can go through these 80 How-To Sites enlisted by Lifehack.

3) Do It

• Motivation – Yes, my friend. This is where it need to start and usually where it will end. You will need motivation for you to do anything. You can read all the internet’s article on motivation but to tell you the truth, it really boils down to you. Find your own way to motivate yourself. That’s it.

• X Mark - Create your own special calendar. It should be as big as possible. Everytime you miss working on your goals, mark the calendar with a big red X. Convince yourself that a big red X is something you don’t want to see on your beautiful calendar. Simple but it really works.

• Report to a person – If you are a blogger, make the announcement in your blog. Tell your visitors what your next goal is. If you want to learn a new language, make a special post everyday about what you have learnt that day. When you feel obligated to report to someone, you will usually get the job done.

• Carrot & Stick – This term is used to describe the process of rewarding and punishing yourself if you succeed or fail respectively. If you succeed, give yourself a mini rewards like buying a new camera. But if you fail your task, you should punish yourself like avoiding television for a week. It may sound harsh, but it will help you push through your quest.

Conclusion

These 3 elements are the basis of all personal development. As long as you incorporate this in your life, you will achieve anything you wish for. It’s just that easy.

- I Wonder -
Any other advices for a beginner in personal development?

————- Personal Note ————
There’s nothing wrong with waking up to a better you. It should be the only reason to wake up in the morning.

Photo Credit – Fdecomite

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I once heard a saying, that staying committed to something is harder that holding a burning rock. You will most likely to let it go all the time.

Take exercising for example, one day you were watching a documentary on how overweight people exercise their way to fitness and suddenly you got that extra boost of motivation to start exercising. You ran for 1 hour immediately after work. This went on for about a week until one day you started skipping the routine. It is now thrice a week. In a month or so you find yourself not exercising at all. You are then frustrated and blame it all on your weak willpower.

Does this look very familiar to you? No worry, every person on this planet has experienced the same thing. Like I said, staying committed to something is always difficult.

I however have learnt a technique to keep the motivation high everyday. Trust me this technique is very effective and if you practise it today, you will be seeing the effect of your continuously high level of motivation tomorrow.

This is what I do.

Excitement & Embarassment via 25% Technique

Instead of running for 1 hour daily, I run for 15 minutes. Yes, only 15 minutes. Even though I know that my body can withstand running for 1 hour, I stop running after 15 minutes. I will usually end up enjoying every seconds of that 15 minutes and getting excited for the next 15 minutes session tomorrow.

One of the most reliable way to stay motivated is to keep the excitement level high. This is what I do when I run at about 25% of what I am capable of. I know deep down that I can always do more, so everyday I will challenge myself by saying “If I can’t even run for 15 minutes, I will be very embarassed with myself.”

I don’t know about you, but it works for me.

Why This Technique Works?

1) You know you can do it anytime anywhere. It is only about 25% of your limit.

2) You will feel embarassed if you cannot finish it.

3) If for some reason you skip a day, you can redo the two day exercise by exercising at 50% your limit the next day.

4) After a while your body will begin to adapt to the 25% limit you set. You will notice that running for 15 minutes is not making you sweat anymore. This is a sign that you need to change your limit. Maybe start running for 30 minutes.

In other words, you are actually seeing yourself getting stronger. Who wouldn’t want that?

Other application

• Cleaning the house – Even if you can clean the whole house, try only vacuuming the floor every day.

• Blogging – Instead of posting one entry everyday, why not make it once every 4 days. Even if you already prepared 2 entries, publish it only after 4 days.

• Finishing an assignment – You can choose to work on your assignment all day long or you can set 2 hours everyday and finish it within a week.

Important Note

If you were to run only 15 minutes everyday your entire life, it will contradict with the whole idea of self improvement since you are not improving. This technique is meant only to help keep the motivation high every day. Once you are able to turn the exercise into a habit (action that comes naturally to you), you are free to stretch the limits accordingly.

- I Wonder -
How do you sustain your motivation? Any tips?

———- Personal Note ————
It is one of my resolution this year to reduce my weight to about 65 kg. Now that I have made this public, I will have to work even harder to achieve it.

Photo Credit – Eneas

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Have you ever wondered what life will be if we don’t have any unit of measurement. By unit, I’m referring to those such as kilogram, meter, second etc. Just imagine going to the store and try to buy 5000 grains of rice, or describing the time taken to walk from your house to the store by calculating the number of heartbeats to reach there.

It can actually be done but it will be very tedious and the process will be very complex. Take one meter for example, one meter is actually defined as the distance travelled by light in free space in 1/299,792,458 of a second. You can choose to measure all the distance throughout your life by using light and a stopwatch. But don’t you think a ruler is far more convenient?

Now here is where we can apply it in our life. I truly believe that life is very complex in all its definitions. However, there will always be a simpler way to understand and live your life.

1st Example : The Immortal Story Of The Boy & The Girl

Let say you like a girl and you really want to introduce yourself to her. But in your mind, you start to think all the ways that she can reject you and how you will react to the rejection. Some deeper people might even try to figure out what the consequences of approaching her would be. In the end, you will just end up with a major headache and becoming more invisible than ever. This is a great example of how we are constantly making our life more complex unnecessarily.

The same situation can be approached in a much simpler way. You like the girl, just go introduce yourself to her. Anything happen then is to be handled then.

2nd Example : My 2 Years of Nonsense Worrying

A personal example to further illustrate how to simplify the complex element in life is my quest for a steam certificate. I am currently working as an engineer for a mill. To make things short, I will need to be acknowledged as an authorized steam engineer for me to be promoted. In order to achieve that I need to apply and pass a series of examination conducted by the national board of engineers. It’s been over 5 years now and I’ve been postponing the application for 2 years already.

I always remind myself of the possibility of failure in the examination and how I am still not feeling ready to sit for it.

A few weeks ago, I took my own advice and see the issue in a simpler form. The board of engineers doesn’t even know that I exist since I haven’t applied yet. And unless I send in my application, all the worrying just don’t make sense. That’s exactly what I did. I sent my application and started preparing myself for the examination. Whether I fail or succeed, I know I’m half way there.

Conclusion

There are always two ways to see your life. A complex way or a simpler way. Believe me the two will always be there for you. Just choose the simpler way.

- I Wonder -
Any other example of a complex life issues that can easily be viewed in a simpler way?

————- Personal Note —————
The examination is due this June. Wish me luck! If I passed, I will buy all of you a drink

Photo Credit – Zanastardust

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Have you ever read a page turning novel? The kind that after you read a page, you are compelled to read another and another. The one thing that is stopping you from continue reading is your tired eyes.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we have a page turning life? Living everyday and getting even more excited about the next day – A Page Turning Life.

Luckily we can learn a thing or two from the novel author. We can learn how he successfully kept us wanting more in every page. A few tricks that immediately appear to mind are as such:

1) Put the answer on the next page

An author always bring up an interesting question in every page and immediately give hints that the answer to the question is just on another page.

This can be implemented in our everyday’s life. We just need to start asking ourselves the right kind of question. For example, when you are working, start up a social experiment. You can find the one person that hates you at work and be nice to him. Pay for his lunch or send him a card that says you are sorry. Now the whole experiment is the question of the day. Try to see the result to the experiment tomorrow.

Aren’t you excited to see what will happen?

2) Ensure every page is different

Would you read a 1000 pages book that repeat the same story in every page? I will most probably be setting fire to the book after about 3 pages.

The same goes to our everyday’s life. Yes, we have routine job everyday, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t do other things differently. Instead of driving via your normal route, try driving via a longer route. Instead of chatting with your friends, find new ones. You don’t even need to ask for their number. Just chat away.

Our job will always demand us to perform it without any change. But it doesn’t mean that we have to live the same way too.

3) The best book is a story book

Do you know the Snow White (*) story? I bet you can tell it to your children without even reading it from the book. It is memorable not because it is popular. It is memorable simply because there’s a story and the story is interconnected that you can memorize it in one go. There’s the princess, the witch, the mirror, the apple, the dwarf and the prince. See, I told you it is memorable and interconnected.

Our days are the most important story in our life. Write your story so that every day is interconnected. The best way to do this is of course to set a goal. For example, set a goal that you wish to be the best father for your children. Record your everyday’s attempt (both success and failure) in achieving this goal.

That itself will be such a beautiful story. Don’t you think so?

- I wonder -
Any other ideas to make our life page-turning?

———– Personal Note ————–
The first thick novel I read was Insomnia by Stephen King. And I personally verify that it is a page-turner, at least for me. It is a story of a person who was losing sleep every day until at one time he began to see auras from people among other strange things. He also started seeing the angel of death himself.

* My special thanks to Anya for pointing out that the story is Snow White and not Cinderella.

Photo Credit – Beige Alert

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