Personal Development Plans that Work

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Summarising what I’ve read from dozens of personal development books, I want to share some key strategies to creating your personalised plan for growth.

Figure out your measure of success. No two people will have an identical understanding of what success is, because it’s different to each and every one of us. And when we spend our time striving for someone else’s version of success, we are perpetually unfulfilled, aren’t we? This is why mindfulness and self-study is so important. When we don’t know ourselves, and what lights us up, we can’t really know what we are aiming for, can we?The same way we can’t solve a problem without first understanding the problem, we can’t be successful until we know ourselves intimately, and know what success really means in our inner world.
When you’ve worked out what you’re aiming for, imagine you already have it. Be as if you have already achieved your goal… Feel how that feels. Give yourself the full sensory experience. You might experience it as a sense of fullness or a feeling of being chuffed. Whilst feeling that way, ask yourself, “What’s my next step right now?” and take action from that space.
Continue to bring your gaze back toward the step immediately in front of you. Often people get overwhelmed when their gaze is focused at the top of the staircase – their destination – rather than the step immediately in front of them right now.
Repeat Step 1. Check in with yourself again to see if anything has changed. Ask: ‘Does this still feel congruent and aligned?’ Your measure of success may have changed throughout the journey of that step…Check out the article Coaching for Personal Development to learn more about the value of continuous self-exploration.

These four steps are your own simplified and profoundly powerful personal development plan. No matter who you are or where you are in your journey, you can benefit from that process, can’t you?

Keep doing the personal work to create external world results – internal creates external. Our “work” is never done, if we seek to continuously grow and expand.

If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him.

~ Buddha

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About the Author: Divya Darling

As the Founder & Director of the Intrinsic Brilliance Institute, Divya Darling loves empowering others to be the brightest and most brilliant versions of themselves. She has researched the mysteries of the mind for over a decade, obtaining degrees in neuroscience, psychology, and cognitive sciences from Oberlin, a top tier liberal arts university in the US.

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