You get excited when you read motivational quotes and post then on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. You cheer when a speaker lays down a nugget of wisdom that makes you jump from your seat. You put your nose down, determined to make the quote and nugget an integral part of your life. It’s there for about a day or two, then you forget about it as life gets in the way and you fall back into your old behaviors.
You’ve heard that a personal growth and development plan must be a part of your everyday life. You know it’s important because it will help new behaviors and habits stick, but you don’t know how to start a plan or where to begin or what to do. You are not alone. Very often, people ask me when they should start a personal development plan or if they are too old to start one. My answer to both questions is Start Now!
No matter what happened in your past or what you thought yesterday, you can start living a different life with new behaviors and habits today. After all, the cells of your body don’t stop changing when you reach 18 years of age, so why should the way you think or view life stop evolving at a given point in time? If you have a desire to improve yourself and your life, embrace it! There are three initial steps you must take to begin your personal growth and development plan:
1. Decide to step away from the norm of life. We live in a world where it’s normal to put others down, to broadcast a person’s failures over and over and even to knock ourselves. Ditch this behavior. Live a life filled with different behaviors and habits. As the Cheshire Cat said, “I’m not crazy. My reality is just different from yours.
2. Remove negativity from your life. Assess your daily environment as well as the people regularly in your life. Do they encourage you and build you up or do they tear you down and make you feel inadequate? It’s time to do some spring-cleaning. As Maya Angelou said, “You are the sum total of everything you’ve ever seen, heard, eaten, smelled, been told, forgot – it’s all there. Everything influences each of us, and because of that I try to make sure that my experiences are positive.”
3. Infuse your life with positive behaviors and thoughts. Set aside a minimum of 30 minutes to read or listen to empowering information everyday. Today you have easy and convenient access to such information. You no longer have to rely on books, but can read or listen on your smartphone and tablets using YouTube, podcasts, e-books, etc. while you commute. Instead of being a “garbage in, garbage out” person, become an “empowerment in, empowerment out” person.
Download the “30-Day Jumpstart Chart” by clicking the link in the menu above and start your personal growth and development plan today. Nervous? Don’t worry. You can do it! Let’s get it started in here!
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This post was originally written for the e-zine Whine and Cheese, a publication designed for women to support each other as “they whine about the stresses of life and cheese (smile) in acknowledgement of their blessings”.
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