9 Steps To Get Started With Your Personal Development Today

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Personal development is something we should always aim for and constantly work on. Whether we’re happy with ourselves or we feel completely lost, personal development should always be one of our top priorities. Working on yourself and aiming towards self-improvement is the key to having a fulfilled and meaningful life. That’s why you should start working on your personal development today.

Still, if you have no idea how to get started, or you just need a push in the right direction, we’ve got you covered. Here are 9 steps to get you started with your personal development today.

Let’s break it down together and take a closer look at each step.

1. Define Why You Need a Plan

Before you start writing your plan, you need to take a deep look inside yourself. Then, try to answer a very important question:

  • Why do I need a personal development plan?

The motivation behind your plan means a lot. Answer the question frankly and face the truth:

  • you simply want to push yourself further
  • you’re not happy with yourself currently
  • you feel like you can achieve so much more in life

Whatever the reason is, make sure you’re being 100% honest with yourself. That is the first, and most important step of the process.

Once you face the music and open up for yourself, you’ll find it easier to work on the rest of the steps.

2. Set Your Goals

Now it’s time to set your expectations to a suitable level. By analyzing yourself, and opening your mind to potential changes, it’s time that you set your personal development goals.

That means that you have to define what you want to achieve with the changes you’re about to introduce.

There can be numerous  goals on your list:

  • being more self-assured
  • getting a better job
  • improve your social life
  • be happier
  • start a company
  • be healthier

List your goals and let them rest.

Come back the next day and read your list of goals. Then, try to prioritize them and chose your top 3 goals.

These goals will be your main focus in the process of personal development.

3. Identify Your Strengths

Working on self-improvement doesn’t mean you don’t have any strong point or you’re completely of the track. To make sure your plan works, you need to remind yourself of your strong side.

The best thing you should do is list all the characteristics that you’re proud of:

  • you’re patient
  • you’re a quick learner
  • you adapt to changes easily
  • you’re responsible

Whatever might help you achieve your goals needs to be on this list. This is to remind you you’ve got this, and you can trust yourself to succeed.

4. Identify Your Weaknesses

Just as you have strengths, you also have your weaknesses. You have to face them and prepare yourself to work on overcoming them.

List anything that might stand in the way of your personal development:

  • you give up easily
  • you don’t like to ask others for support
  • you’re afraid of failure
  • you have low self-esteem

It’s important to be aware of your weaknesses and prepare yourself to fight against them. This step alone will be a huge leap forward in the process of personal development.

5. Plan Your Actions

Now that you know what you want to achieve, and you’re aware of your strong and weak points, it’s time that you take some action.

You need to decide how you’re going to do achieve your goals and what means or resources you plan on using along the way.

For instance, if your personal development goal is to get a better job your plan would have to contain:

  • your current skillset
  • the skills you need to advance professionally
  • means of acquiring those skills

Or, if you want to get healthy and fit, your plan needs to cover:

  • your current eating habits
  • your current physical activity
  • how you plan on being more active (gym membership, dance classes, jogging, etc.)
  • learning about proper dieting

You need to understand how to get from point A to point B in your personal development. By understanding this, you’ll be able to start working on it and be one step closer to reaching your goals every day.

6. Set a Deadline

Although your personal development goals can’t be reached overnight, you still need to set a deadline for yourself.

That means that you have to:

  • predict the amount of time you’ll need to achieve your goals
  • set a clear deadline
  • work towards meeting it

The deadline will be there to remind you to nor get lazy or sloppy with your action plan. It will be the motivation to do your best every day and not give up.

7. Track Milestones

During the entire process of working on yourself, you need to keep yourself encouraged and motivated. If you fail to do so, you won’t be able to complete the process and achieve your goals.

The best motivation is seeing actual progress and feeling that hard work is paying off.

This is why you should set minor milestones in your plan and celebrate the small victories.

For instance, if your goal is to learn a foreign language you can:

  • record videos of yourself talking in the foreign language every 4 weeks
  • compare the new vides to the ones before
  • note the improvements and differences

This will help you push forward and continue working on your personal development.

8. Team Up

There’s nothing wrong with having someone to support you in this process. Friends, family, or partners can make a huge impact on your personal development and help you complete your plan successfully.

That means that you can ask for help and support in any form you need:

  • someone to work on the same goals as you
  • someone to track your results
  • someone to give you guidance and advice

You can even blog about your process and try connecting with people online who go through the same things as you. In case you need help with translation, check out pickwriters online translation service.

9. Evaluate

Once you reach the deadline, and you’ve done everything in your power to achieve your goals, it’s time to evaluate.

That means that you have to review the process of personal development that you went through. Answer these questions:

  • Which goals did you reach? What made it happen?
  • Which goals were you unable to reach? Why?
  • How did you feel during the process of working on yourself?
  • What’s your next step?

A detailed self-evaluation will help you understand the importance of the entire process, and not just reaching your goals.

In case you didn’t reach all your goals, you’ll have the energy to keep working on yourself. At the end of the day, you’ll realize you should never stop with your personal development.

Final Thoughts

 

Personal development is important. It’s not easy to work on your weaknesses and recognize your soft spots, but once you do it, you’ll see how much it will mean for your personal growth.

Use the list above to create your personal development plan today. Start working on yourself and get out of your comfort zone. Track your results and never stop.