Do you want a personal development plan that can help you create positive lasting change in your life?
A helping hand
According to Patrik Edblad, the creator of Selfication.com, with all the self-help out there it is very easy to get overwhelmed and stuck before you even begin.
“When I found personal development, I was all over the place consuming a ridiculous number of books, blogs, seminars, podcasts and so on. It did not take me long to get overwhelmed, getting very little out of the content I was trying to learn. If I could go back in time and offer myself a helping hand I would have told myself to take a step back, suck on a chill pill and put all of that good stuff away for now,” he says.
“I would have told myself that when you are just starting out, all you need is a simple plan and before you know it, you will be making awesome progress,” he continues.
The 3-step plan
Edblad says getting started on your own personal growth really is not as hard and overwhelming when you know where to start. He says if you just follow these simple steps, you will be well on your way:
1 - Create your personal growth action list
The only logical place to start your personal development quest is with yourself. Start out with creating a list where you write down everything that you know you could be doing (but you are currently not) that would have a positive impact on your life. Use this list of life areas as a starting point to guide you:
- Career
- Finance
- Relationships
- Home
- Health
- Learning
- Emotional
- Spiritual
- Character
- Contribution
- Fun
Try to have at least one action for each area but if you get stuck, do not worry about it. You can always come back and add stuff later. When your list is good enough, sort all of the items from the easiest on top, to the hardest at the bottom.
2 - Get highly motivated
As your will-power to make these awesome changes in your life start to dwindle, you will need proper motivation to keep going. That is why your next step will be to:
- Define and put into writing your personal vision and mission statements. Your vision will give you direction and serve as a source of power and inspiration. Your mission statement puts everything that you do into a bigger context which leads to a greater sense of meaningfulness and achievement as you move forward.
- Set your goals. Turn your personal growth actions into specific and measurable milestones. Make sure they have a deadline and are written in a present tense with action verbs. Here is an example: “On the 20th of September 2018 (deadline) I am (present tense) completing (action verb) the …. Marathon (specific details)”.
- Create a weekly action plan. Make sure to break your goals down into manageable pieces so that it is easy for you to see the next small step forward as well as how far you have come.
3 - Take action
Here is where most people will fail. They will think that this seems like a lot of hard work or perhaps that they will start later. And in the first case they are right. But this is not hard work in the traditional sense, because this is fun! Setting your goals and stretching yourself to see how far you can go is an innate human desire and Edblad promises that you will feel awesome as you start checking stuff off your list.
As for putting this off for later, there is just no way. If you have made it to the end of this article Edblad says that means that you are interested in this. “Do not trick yourself into thinking you will get back to this later. You won’t. You need to act while your will is strong,” he emphasizes.
“And you do not have to do it all at once. In fact, you should not. All you need to do is take one step in the right direction. It does not matter how small as long as you get going,” he says.
Will you commit?
“Now I want to know, what small action will you commit to, right now, to get started on your own personal development?” Asks Edblad.