Personal Development, in its most basic form, is the conscious act of self-discovery and growth as an individual in order to improve your own life and the lives of others around you.
It’s the number one tool that we all have access to that can make the difference between living a fulfilled life or a life of regret.
A life-changing process
Personal Development gets a bad reputation most of the time.
However, my recent experience of ‘Personal Growth’ has been nothing short of life-changing.
And if I can drag myself out of the depths of despair using it as a tool to find focus and clarity in my life, then you can too.
Personal Development isn’t what you think it is
The first thing I used to think of whenever I thought of ‘Personal Development’ was of cardigan-wearing career advisors working in grey offices at school telling you to re-write your CV.
Naturally, I avoided it at all costs.
But back in 2015, I was at an all-time low.
There I was, a forty-year-old man about to become a father feeling totally lost.
I was dissatisfied with work, I was out of shape and suffering from a bad back. My bank balance was a mess and essentially, I’d lost my way.
Discovering Personal Development as a tool for clarity and focus
I still remember that fateful day back in 2015 when I nervously typed those two vomit-inducing words into Google and hit ‘Enter’.
I’d run out of options and desperately wanted to get my life back on track.
What I found offered a glimmer of something tangible that I could use as a tool to really help me to ‘find myself’.
Over the weeks, months and years that followed, I dedicated every spare minute to learning everything that I could about Personal Development and sifted through hours and hours of courses, videos, events, books and audio.
Throughout my journey, I discovered oodles of complex and complicated words and phrases plus a million and one courses, skills and techniques to try.
A lot of it was nauseatingly dull and pretentious and almost all of it spoke to an audience that certainly wasn’t me – an ordinary middle-aged bloke from the UK.
If you’re a woman, then there’s a zillion and one websites and mentors out there who speak your language.
If you’re a man – especially an ordinary, middle-aged, middle of the road kind of guy – then your options are limited.
Thankfully though, Smashing Fifty exists just for you.
I kept going on my journey of discovery because, amongst the fluff, I was beginning to unearth some really simple and effective tools that I could use to help dig myself out of the hole.
A different perspective
Today, I find myself writing this with an entirely different perspective on life.
I know much more about who I am and what I want out of life.
But most importantly, I feel in control and excited about my future.
All thanks to Personal Development.
Tools and techniques
Amongst all the noise, I discovered some really simple and effective tools, strategies and techniques that you can use to discover who you are and what you want out of life.
Finding these tools and techniques can be a game-changer and once you’re aware of them, life can quickly start to feel better.
Sometimes, much better.
The aim of this article is to arm you with a simple (but solid) overview of what Personal Development is and how you can use it to change your life.
By the time you’re done here, you will understand the different parts of Personal Development as well as some of the key elements and techniques.
Let’s get into it.
What is Personal Development?
Personal Development in its most basic form is the conscious act of self-discovery and growth as an individual in order to improve your own life and the lives of others around you.
It’s the number one tool that we all have access to that can make the difference between living a fulfilled life or a life of regret.
In my experience, Personal Development is all about asking yourself the right questions in order to understand who you are and what you want out of life.
It has nothing to do with ability, but instead, knowing what you want your outcome to be and then being focussed and driven enough to get there.
Everything starts with clarity
Everything within Personal Development, I believe, starts with clarity.
Being clear about who you are and who you want to be.
Additionally, there are two fundamental tools called progress and belief.
“Work harder on yourself than your day job”.
Earl Shoaff
Progress is everything.
You can only ever hope to make progress, to improve and get better.
However, you won’t make progress without belief.
If you don’t believe you can do something, you won’t try.
When you do try something and you make some progress, you feel that.
For example. If you’ve never run a marathon there’s no way you believe you can run a marathon.
But if you run 5k then over time, you will start to believe you can run 10k…
You get the idea.
Potential, action and results
The Yoda of Personal Development, Tony Robbins consistently speaks about progress and belief, and with good reason.
But in order to make this system work, you need to add in three more ingredients. Potential, action and results.
This system is valid for just about any kind of change.
The graphic below explains how.
Follow the wheel clockwise starting with Potential reading the (As) together and then the (Bs).
Belief vs Hope
How many times have you bought a lottery ticket in the hope that you’ll win big?
You go to bed dreaming that with X million in the bank, you can quit your job, buy the house of your dreams and spend the rest of your life doing whatever you want.
That was me in 2015.
I just didn’t believe that I was capable of building the life I wanted. But nor did I know what kind of life I wanted either.
I was living in the dark.
With odds of winning the lottery jackpot at about 13,983,816 to one, I was putting my faith in the most unrealistic of odds and just hoping for a miracle.
Needless to say, I didn’t win.
Drifting through life
It’s a far-fetched example, but in many ways, it’s a good metaphor for how many of us drift through life.
We don’t really know what we want so we half-heartedly hope for a solution to land in our lap that will change our lives for us.
We do that because it’s hard to know what you want, and a lot of the time people just don’t believe that they can build the life they want by themselves.
Know this… Nothing happens by accident
The fact is. Nothing happens by accident.
True, there are lottery winners but few and far between.
In one of my recent Podcasts, I interviewed Fred Zalokar, a sixty-year-old man from the US who is a World Record holder for winning marathons for his age group.
He also climbs mountains and travels like a backpacker.
When he told me “Nothing happens by accident”, it really sank in.
You don’t go on holiday by accident, you plan it and make it happen.
Nor do you become a marathon champion or a musician by accident.
Whatever it is that you want to do in life, whether it’s simply getting a bit fitter, becoming an entrepreneur or a language teacher, none of it happens by accident.
It all comes down to you.
You can design your own life and live it how you want to.
But the very first step in knowing what you want is finding out who you are.
The key aspects of Personal Development
Personal Development can be applied to any part of your life, but as a general rule, there are three key aspects to it.
- Spiritual – your soul
- Physical – your physical body and appearance
- Mental – your mind and mental health
As you recognise what you want to (and need to) improve on and discover your desired outcome, you can then begin to work on your own personal development.
Additionally, there are many more areas of life that you can work on.
Your emotions, finances, relationships and health.
In fact, you can make progress in just about every part of your life by simply taking the time to stop, think, find the problem and start taking the necessary steps to improve.
A lexicon of Personal Development
Personal Development is a myriad of phrases and buzz words.
You’ll come across words like Purpose, Goals, Habits, Values, Mission and Vision, all of which can be confusing.
Let’s clear that up.
1. Purpose
Ah, purpose. A real tough cookie this one, but essentially your purpose is knowing why you get up in the morning and what you do for yourself, your community and the world.
Simple, right?
Eh! What?
I know…
When John F Kennedy said, “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.” He knew that contribution, no matter how big or small is fundamental to a positive mindset, and millions of positive mindsets, when combined, create great change.
When you die, it’s highly likely that during your final breaths you’re going to want to know that you mattered to someone or did something of value during your life.
Knowing that you and your life had a meaning gives your life purpose.
“A life lived with purpose is a life lived on purpose.”
Rob Moore
Maybe you love playing the piano, teaching kids how to play football, helping the sick or landscape gardening.
If you can discover what you love to do and make it your purpose, I guarantee that you will start to live a more meaningful life.
I’m not making this stuff up either.
Watch this short Ted Talk by ‘Purpose Expert’, Richard Leider to really understand what purpose it and how you can apply it to your own life.
My own purpose, which I recently discovered, is simply to help other people (other middle-aged men in particular) to live their best life.
If I can do that in some way today, I know that I can sleep well tonight.
2. Vision
While your purpose is the grand reason for your existence, eg: “I want to create beautiful music that inspires people” your ‘vision’ is a way of visualising the picture of your life on a day-to-day basis.
For example. In a perfect world, what do you do every day? Where do you work, who do you spend time with, what do you focus on.
Your vision defines the type of person you want to be and the type of life you want to live.
Part of my own personal vision is to live a life of freedom in which my work and personal life are intertwined.
In this world, I’m free to work from wherever I want and can earn a comfortable living helping other people.
Your vision can be applied to many different aspects of your life, such as:
- Health and fitness
- Relationships
- Emotions
- Love
- Parenting
- Career
- Character
- Spirituality
- Finances
- Experiences
- Learning
3. Values
It’s all well and good defining your purpose and a life vision but in order to feel like you are genuinely living a life that is true to you, you need to know what your values are.
No matter who you are or what you do, it is your values that filter and determine how you experience the world around you.
Your values form your basic principles which influence every decision, action and thought that you make.
You are what you do
What you do is determined by what you think.
And what you think is determined by your values.
Your values will help you to decide what goals and life you want to have in the first place.
Personally, I wouldn’t be being true to myself if I was dedicating all of my time to the cosmetics industry because cosmetics and make-up just aren’t something of value to me.
My niece, on the other hand, would love to spend all day working in cosmetics doing eye make-up and lipstick.
Values are things like; family, money, health, career, punctuality, adventure, travel, music, football, happiness, charity, the environment etc.
Understanding what you stand for is a fundamental concept to living a life of fulfilment.
4. Mission
If you already have a purpose, a vision and your values in place, then what on earth is a mission?
This is how I see it.
Your purpose is your great (or small) contribution to the world, the thing that gets you up in the morning.
Vision is how you see yourself living out that purpose day-to-day.
Values define what you do and why you do it (your beliefs).
Then, mission then is simply a concise way to package your all of the above (purpose, vision and values) together in a clear and inspiring way.
This is usually done through a mission statement.
5. Goals
Goals are the signposts that you aim for and work towards while on your mission, but they’re not meant to define your journey.
Whether you have big goals or small goals, they will help to pull you towards your vision.
If you want to lose weight, for example, your vision would be to have a slim, strong body.
In order to get that body, you need to work towards certain goals that will help you along the way.
Running 5k in 25 minutes would be a great goal in pursuit of losing weight.
To reach that goal, you’re going to need to do a lot of running, and that act, of running three, four a or five times a week will eventually lead to you having a slim, strong body.
It is your vision that inspires you. Your goals simply help you along the way.
6. Habits
Habits are the things you do day to day that make all of this happen.
Habits are action.
This is where the real work happens because all of the above is just the planning, the definition of who you are and what you want.
To make your vision and purpose come alive, you need to have the right habits that will get you there.
James Clear has an awesome book on Habits called ‘Atomic Habits’ which I highly recommend.
The masters of Personal Development
There are literally thousands of people working within the realm of Personal Development right now, and each one has a website and all the social media channels you could wish for.
There are life coaches, spiritual coaches, Max-Your-Life-To-The-Top-And-Be-The-Best coaches (urghh).
But for me, two of my favourites are Tony Robbins and Jim Rohn. These are the big men.
Additionally, Rob Moore, Jay Shetty, David Goggins, Rich Roll and Brendon Burchard are all worth your time.
I’m telling you this simply because I want you to not have to go through the time and effort that I went through to weed out the good from the average in your pursuit of a better you.
Dream and design your best life
To conclude, I think that every one of us is capable of much more than we think we are.
Discovering who you are and making progress towards your dreams is in your own hands.
You just need to believe in it and take action.
The French philosopher, Blaise Pascal wrote, “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”
So I invite you, to take some time out, discover who you are and what you want.
Then, fucking go for it.