Personal growth enables us to become a better version of ourselves. It takes a lifetime to perfect it. However, personal development doesn’t need to be complicated!
Let’s imagine that we are playing a tic-tac-toe game and give you two tools to build on and one factor that may block you and how you can overcome it.
This article helps you to grasp the gist of how to make improvements to your life in a few simple steps. By implementing them into your daily routine, you can make instantaneous changes to your life, and little efforts soon will mount into something pretty amazing.
To achieve quick positive changes putting these tiny efforts to good use, you need to know which lever to pull. Our article gives you a handle on the areas you need to focus on to make a real difference.
Positive Thinking
The number #1 element of personal development we mention in this article is positive thinking. Having a bright outlook on life is essential to moving forward in the right direction. When we apply positive thinking to a situation, our aim is to notice and focus on the good things. Now, I am not suggesting that you are looking at the world through rose-tinted glasses! However, the only person you can change is yourself and your attitude. Positive thinking can help you move on with what you can take away from a situation rather than be stuck on contemplating the negatives.
This attitude to what’s happening around you will help you find solutions to the problems sooner or learn how to let them go faster. One thing you can do today to make a difference to your tomorrow is a quick Focus exercise.
10-minute exercise to promote positive thinking in your everyday life
- Choose a problem that you have been struggling to solve for a while
- List three reasons why you need to solve this problem. What happens when you solve the problem? What will you achieve by solving the problem? Focus on the impact and positive outcomes.
- Write down three skills/experiences that will make you successful in overcoming this problem.
- List the top fear that is holding you back in solving the problem.
Find an example of a solution to the same or similar situation in your past, or learn from someone you trust and can learn from.
- Envisage the best, a good and an acceptable outcome, and set a realistic way to measure your success, concentrating on what you can influence.
Find a link to a simple template we give away for free.
https://unleashr-mentoring.com/download/12234/ Use it as many times as you need it.
Next time, when you come across a problem, go back to this exercise to focus on the positives and overcome the problem with the right attitude.
Do not forget to be grateful for the opportunity to grow through solving the problem!
Applying positive thinking to your days doesn’t mean devoiding your life of all reality. Of course, we need to be standing on the ground with two feet. The difference is that we are looking up rather than staring at the ground. Personal development has to have a good pinch of positivity.
Do you want to know the difference between being overly enthusiastic and positive?
Positive thinking is rooted in reality; you have a firm connection with it. Whereas if your thought has gone off the grid, then it’s not reality anymore but something that you have imagined or created in your mind. Naturally, not all imagination will take away your sense of reality. Creativity is an essential part of life and can result in amazing things such as pieces of art or technological invention. Staying grounded though helps you achieve results instead of longing for something unattainable.
Let me illustrate the difference between positive thinking and being detached from reality with an example.
A business entering the market with a new product may plan on achieving a $100K turnover in half a year, which can be a realistic expectation if he knows how to get started and increase sales fast. The better strategy and operational foundations the business has, the sooner they can put the product onto the market. With a robust strategy and business plan, they will be able to achieve results fast.
However, if someone is planning on getting wealthy from hitting the jackpot on the lottery or partaking in “get-rich-easy” schemes, they may find that the journey to the stars is a bit further than they hoped.
How to do positive thinking correctly?
Well, your thinking must be plugged into reality. Your mind has to be focused on the results and the outcomes. Additionally, you need to take into account what the chances are of these outcomes becoming a reality.
Here is another example,
We’ve all deliberated the pros and cons of a situation before making a decision. Going to a café versus going to a restaurant for lunch – well, the coffee is excellent at the café, and they have delicious cakes, but I am starving, and I can have a chilled sit-down meal at a restaurant!
Tough call? Well, here is when the probability factor comes in: the café may not have enough sitting space for me to enjoy a short and quiet break… The chance of a favorable scenario coming true is slimmer, i.e., to be able to sit down to eat my meal. Therefore, all in all, the best call, in this case, must be to eat out at a restaurant. The fear of the café not having seating contributed to my choice falling on the restaurant.
The issue with the fear factor is that we may fail to consider what could be done to promote the positive outcome to come to light. In our example, if we were really after cakes from a café, we could have gone to a place that has more of these eateries around to increase our chances of having a chilled coffee with a cake.
In reality, you may not make an optimal decision because of the multiple factors that influence decision-making pairing up with the time pressure. In other words, not trusting an optimistic scenario, you compromise on a plan B.
Overcoming insecurities
The #2 component of personal development, which we cover in this article, is overcoming insecurities. These insecurities are, mostly subconsciously, holding us back from reaching our full potential. These self-doubting thoughts can come at us unexpectedly. It may be related to performance or being accepted, or it could be arising from questioning our own abilities.
All these little worries are stemming from something that happened to us in our past. We may not have noticed them having an effect on us at the time, and we may not be able to pinpoint them onto one single event. A series of experiences can even cause insecurities.
One thing is for sure, it, consciously or more so subconsciously, caused us to change behaviors and the perceptions of events we partake in.
We can see that to overcome insecurities as part of our personal development journey, we need to confront these skeletons in the closet. Behind every insecurity, there is a motive, a particular deep-rooted belief or desire that got bruised.
Let me give you an example if you are feeling insecure because you don’t feel accepted, then at some point in your life, on a deeper level, your desire for being accepted by your parents, your partner, or your boss took a hit, and it left its mark on your mind. Many female professionals realize that their ambitions to move up the career ladder was deeply rooted in their early experiences of their mothers’ expectations related to perfection.
Another example, you may have a deep-rooted motive connected to achievement, and you feel like falling short of hitting success repeatedly. This means that, at some point, you probably wanted something really badly, and you couldn’t quite get it. So, the next time your fear of not achieving it drove your actions.
Here is my suggestion for getting past the doubts that may live in your mind – have a moment to yourself and think what may have happened to you that affected you? What is it that bruised you and left its mark?
If you can identify it, or at least become conscious about this affecting your thinking, then you already took a step towards your personal development. Learning and reflection are such massive cornerstones of self-improvement and setting ourselves up on an upward journey.
Just like that, we arrived at the #3 element of personal development.
Growth mindset.
Growth mindset is a state of mind based on the belief of being able to move forward and improve. It’s a belief in your own skillset and that you can develop further. Every tiny little thing that you learn propels you forward.
You are always in motion. Just like sharks! Sharks need to keep moving to stay alive. We, humans, need to frequently change, improve, and adapt to new situations and circumstances. We need continuous improvement dynamic in our lives, just the same way sharks need to keep swimming.
Remember, incremental changes are all it takes to become a better version of yourself from one day to the other.
To put this growth mindset into practice, list five things you learned over the past 2 days.
Think of what you saw, where you’ve been in these past couple of days. You could have learned about a quirky trait of an animal in a documentary, saw a greener solution to an everyday item you use, learned 3 words in a foreign language… things like these are propelling you on from one day to the other, so keep them going!
Apply some positive thinking in your everyday life, step over insecurities that may stop you from becoming the better version of yourself, and allowing your mind to absorb and grow with information that moves you closer to your goal.
