Personal development is the buzzword right now. But how much difference can it honestly make to your life?
As with most trends, plenty of people talk about personal development, but few people actually know what it consists of. This is without considering what it takes to truly take it on board and start learning and developing your personal life. There may be hundreds of influencers on social media posting personal development stories, but few people in the real world really actually getting round to it. This led us to ask the question — is personal development actually effective?
“Personal development is the belief that you are worth the effort, time and energy needed to develop yourself.” Denis Waitley
Does personal development work?
Personal development, if committed to, can make a huge difference. Not only can it add value to yourself, it can help to ignite your career. You want to achieve as much as possible. You have massive potential. But very few people make it to the top. Could a personal development plan be the difference between a stagnant career and truly achieving your goals?
The difficulty for some is that with personal development, the drive has to come from within. But this should be seen as a positive, as it allows you to be proactive and take full control of your life. With personal development, it is you who will be the maker of your own success. And that knowledge will make it all the more sweeter when you’ve achieved it.
Though long-term goals might not be achieved instantly, if you really work at developing your skillset, you’re likely to achieve your long-term goals. Personal development is a prolonged journey, not a short trip to the shops.
Ultimately, personal development comes down to commitment. If you’re willing to put in the legwork, the rewards can be huge.
“Investing in yourself is the best investment you will ever make. It will not only improve your life, it will improve the lives of all those around you.” Robin Sharma
What are the benefits of personal development?
Before you commit yourself to any long-term personal development plan, you need to know the benefits. Here are five that you’ll notice once you’ve begun your journey:
1. Personal development gives you a sense of direction
When you have a clear goal to work towards, decision making becomes simple. Those tasks at work that used to take up two hours of your time, without any real benefit to either you or the business, might slip a little further down your to-do list once you’ve realised they aren’t pointing in the same direction you want your personal development to travel.
Once you start breaking down the different elements of your personal and working life, you start to realise how some things aren’t important. And some things actually hinder your progress towards long-term goals. This is one way in which personal development is really effective. The end goal encourages you to do the stuff that really matters, and cast of the stuff that doesn’t.
2. Personal development helps you focus on what truly matters
What’s the most important thing in your life? Your partner? Your career? Whatever it is, it will always be something you intend to work towards growing. Personal development allows you to achieve this. But it also makes you take stock of what you really want. If you want to be CEO of Apple by 40, it might not be wise to waste half an hour checking Instagram at work. Likewise, if you want to maintain a healthy relationship, adopting a squad of rescue cats in your shared studio flat might not be wise either.
Whatever your end goal, personal development helps you focus on the things matter in day-to-day life. Because to achieve your long term goals requires effort. And part of the effort happens to be distinguishing what is the best thing for you to do right now.
3. Personal development makes you embrace failure
How many times have you heard people say on LinkedIn that the road to success is paved with failure? When you have a personal development plan, short term failures are learning experiences that help you avoid making the same mistakes in the future. Obviously personal development can never fully stop bad occurrences happening, whether at home or at work, and the biggest failures might still be yet to come. But with a positive mindset, and a goal-oriented, long-term mentality, these failures won’t have such a troubling impact on your life.
In fact, many people who choose to bring a long-term development plan into their lives embrace these failures. It is this that gives them the resilience they need to continue along the road to success.
4. Personal development makes you more motivated
Procrastination is the bain of everyone who works in an office job. We all want to be able to be productive and efficient, particularly if we want to succeed in our careers. But there are often too many distractions at work to really get to grips with our own personal growth.
Once you start to understand what you really want from life, however, getting over these daily humps is easier. And when it comes to tackling difficult tasks, knowing they’re beneficial to your personal development can make you more determined to complete them. The real actions are short term. But the gains are potentially life changing.
5. Personal development makes you more self aware
The principle of personal development starts with self awareness. By considering where you want to go with your life, you are already starting to become aware of your true values, and what happiness looks like for you. This point is where you plan your path of personal development towards what you really want to achieve in both your personal, and your work life.
But self awareness doesn’t end at the beginning of your journey. Throughout a personal development plan you will learn more and more about yourself. Your goals might even change from what you planned initially. But it is the drive for self fulfilment that will not only increasingly make you self aware, it will also be the main thrust behind achieving your goals.
If you are looking to improve your career through the latest in industry-leading training courses, get in touch with one of our Train With Tate team today.
