While many people want to achieve different goals in their lives, few know that there are certain stages in our personal development that require plenty of effort in order to achieve success. Before you can make personal development a priority, you first need to familiarize yourself with the steps themselves. Although you need to put a significant amount of work in, I can assure you that it pays off when you discover what a success you’ve become. Here are the seven steps of personal development that you need to take to fulfill your goals and reach your desired success:
Step 1: Self-awareness
The first step toward personal development involves thinking about all your strengths, weaknesses and conducting self-analysis. This will heighten your self-awareness, and allow you to understand yourself better. In addition, you'll also be more aware of your strengths and weaknesses. Remember that without self-awareness, personal development simply can't occur. This is because you have to be aware of where you currently stand and where you can improve the skills required for you to grow.
Step 2: Comparison
Oftentimes we're told not to compare ourselves to others due to the harm that it can cause us, however you should aim to get to know the people in your desired area of success so that you can set yourself a benchmark for where you want to be. Despite all people being individuals and having different opportunities in life, it's evident that there are certain skills that can be learned in order to make success come faster. Note that comparing yourself to someone you desire to emulate should be approached from a perspective of trying to understand what makes them so good at what they do, rather than trying to better or one-up them. You should also never feel ashamed of asking for help when you need it.
After you’ve figured out what the skills or abilities you require to realize your ambitions are, you need to start thinking about how you can change your life for the better by improving them. The motivation for wanting to do this is irrelevant – you merely need to identify the changes that need to be made in your life and use your improved skills to work at implementing them.
When you’ve established what you want to achieve in your life as well as the skills required and the changes you need to make in order to achieve it, you’re ready to move on to the stage of acceptance. This means that you should acknowledge your weaknesses and accept them as a part of you. No-one is perfect, so the awareness and acceptance of your weaknesses will only strengthen your resolve going forward. Simply commit yourself to investing a lot of time and effort into overcoming them.
Want to learn a new language, or maybe start painting? No matter which goal you choose to achieve, you should make a list of small goals along the way and rank them in order of priority. Set short and long-term goals, plan them in whichever order you choose, and write down every goal you fulfill. Planning is very important for your personal development because it helps you move in a straight line without deviating from it. The list of tasks that you complete will help you see the results of this forward momentum and will help keep you going.
Being unafraid of stepping out of your comfort zone is the only way that you can get to a place where you can reach your potential. Be sure to identify your true value, but don’t be afraid of trying new things or failing at something you try. Stepping outside of your comfort zone may allow you to discover a hidden talent that you might never have known about otherwise. Developing your skills requires patience, so focus on staying on track and be fearless.
