Are your personal development plans realistically achievable?
I visited with a group of students this week about their personal growth and development. Most of them listened and some looked at me as if I was an alien from another planet. My message to them was to be thinking about their personal development in addition to their career plans after high school. One great example that came from that conversation was a student going into criminal justice made time for listening to crime podcasts. I can’t blame them for not having a concrete plan in high school. How many adults do we know that don’t have a plan? Probably many! For myself, I haven’t always had a specific plan. I knew in my adult years that I wanted something more and could never nail down what that was until recently. I still struggle with planning and direction of one of my goals. I think my problem is I give value to the excuse I’m too busy to give time to a specific goal and I’ve noticed moments where I waste time doing unimportant things.
Personal development is not always an emphasis for everyone. Many people go through life focused on what they do at work. I absolutely believe that many people are fulfilled with the careers they have chosen. I’m not doubting that. However, there are also many people who are not looking at potential goals in which they improve themselves. We all get caught up in the day-to-day activities or our schedule takes over our lives. I am guilty of this at times. This summer is a perfect example. We had some major things to get done and I never made time to go to the lake with my kids. How often does time sneak up on us and then we look at our lives and see missed opportunities? Missing growth opportunities happen when we lose focus in specific areas. Take time to manage your schedule and put time in it to look to the future. See what growth opportunities you would like to focus on.
Are you trying to do too much, which is causing you to do nothing? Yes, and yes!! I have done this. Tracking and creating habits related to my goals has caused me times where I get nothing done. When we choose to develop ourselves, one of the mistakes we tend to make is doing too much. It’s important to evaluate the goals you want to achieve and where you wish to improve. Once the area of growth has been identified, you need to act. The actions you take should be small habits you can manage daily. The fewer actions the better. Act on one step and master that before moving on to the next steps. When we take too much on, we risk not doing an adequate job on that step. Go slow to go far!
Should we have big goals or small ones? Is it tied to your why, mission, or vision? I have always been a fan of taking massive action. Big steps towards a goal have worked for me at times but it also has shown that I misjudged my goal’s difficulty. I had a conversation recently about how goals and personal achievement ideas tend to change over the years. We hear and a lot of conversations about our why or what our vision is. We also hear about following our passions. Many times, on this blog site I have used those terms repeatedly. We need to focus on the terms that best meet our goals and our steps to personal achievement. There are so many resources out there in books, online platforms, and individual speakers or organizations. The key idea is finding what works best for you!
Why do we continuously chase or not chase personal development? We all must answer this question in our own way. If you are always happy and fulfilled with where you’re at, then lucky you. It is rare to be always clear in our achievements. We must reflect often, to see whether we are truly at a high level of achievement or improvement. If we have the slightest thought that we need more, we should explore that thought and look for potential paths we could take. Everyone has a different idea what achievement and growth are. Yes, you can be satisfied and still find the need to grow in your personal development and chase goals.
How are you paying attention to your personal development?
How are you pacing yourself with actionable steps?
What resources are you utilizing and who are you following?
Are you done chasing your growth or is there still room for improvements?
We must pace ourselves by taking on steps for growth and we can’t take on too much. Before that, we must answer whether we are satisfied where we’re at or can we do more. I know I will always be going after something. That’s just the way I roll. Thanks for looking in on this week’s post. I hope you will evaluate your growth and take time for you! Have a great week!
Steven C. Bucks- Leading Conversations
