Where to Begin with Personal Development
Posted by Rhiannon Louise on May 30, 2007
Filed Under Personal Development
‘Personal development’ as a concept is soooo broad and it means something completely different to each and every person depending on who they are and how they view and live their life right now – and where they are ultimately hoping to go in life of course.
So where to begin with personal development really depends a little on who you are and what you want out of life. Having said that, there are quite a few fundamental steps that each and every one of us can begin with, get working on and master, and over the next few days and weeks I’ll be concentrating on introducing these fundamental steps to you so that you can get started on improving your outlook and honing your guru mindset.
Unlike some types of therapist who tend to want to take a client back and forth over the past, raking up old wounds and negative memories in an attempt to exorcise ghosts, personal development as I understand and use it every day is very much about dealing with the here and now in a positive way and constructively and profitably framing and mapping out your future.
However, to get to an emotional position where you are completely ready to leave behind your past issues and let go of self-limiting beliefs is absolutely the most fundamental first step you have to take…
So, if you do have issues in your past that are limiting you, harming you or holding you back, you may wish to take an approach to deal with these now – this may involve you seeking the assistance of a specific type of therapist or you could try some of the following ideas which have helped me get in the right place emotionally and mentally to begin ongoing day-to-day personal development…
At this point I need to state quite categorically that I am not a qualified therapist nor do I profess to be a personal development life coaching expert (yet!) – rather I’m someone who used to view their glass as half empty and who would often utter ‘I hate my life’ because it felt out of control to me – that was before I employed certain personal development approaches to my life and now I’m far more likely to be heard saying ‘my cup runneth over’ and ‘I love my life!’ So, if you want to find out how I changed and you want to employ the same simple approaches and techniques to change your life for the better you’d better read on!
Reframing your memories
In our past there have been pivotal, key moments when some event has occurred that has harmed our self esteem and damaged our sense of self…
Such a key moment could have been a day when someone made a harsh and negative judgment about you and you have held that opinion that was expressed inside you and replayed it, magnified it and believed it to be a true fact about who you are.
It could have been a moment in time when something was taken out of your control and caused you to lose belief in your own abilities.
It could have been a time when you were on the receiving end of someone’s unjustified wrath and that has caused you a long term trust problem…
If you feel you are ready and able, consider taking the following action: -
Get a notebook and on a separate page list out between 5 and 10 of these personal and pivotal, key moments. Give as much detail to the memory as you can – how did you feel, what did you see and hear, how old were you, what was said, how did you feel inside before, during and immediately after the moment.
Having done this, go back to each memory in turn and look at it – look at it from the point of view of how this moment in time affected the way you believe you are today.
Write out how this particular key moment caused a deep and long term negative effect on you.
Okay – at this point you’ll be feeling seriously fed up and wondering why on earth you’re doing this exercise as it seemingly has NOTHING to do with personal positive development right?
Well, hang on a moment….the best part of this exercise comes next.
Having defined, relived and understood the memory, the moment and how it has affected you personally for your whole life it’s time to ‘reframe the memory.’
You have to allocate a brand new, positive, valuable, productive and creative meaning to each of your memories…find the benefit in the moment…was a critical event a positive catalyst to you eventually achieving something positive, was a pivotal happening more about the troubles affecting the individual who lashed out at you, did it make you stronger, did a harsh occurrence actually encourage you to change, to develop, to move on?
This is quite possibly the hardest personal development exercise you will ever have to do and you have to be committed to going right through the exercise to the point where you reframe every single experience otherwise you will have taken a step backwards in your personal development!
Please do NOT engage in this exercise unless you can promise me you will get all the way through it to the reframing stage.
I found reframing almost impossible for some of my key, pivotal moments but I’m lucky in that I have a really understanding husband (well, he’s understanding most of the time unless I prang the car or ‘break stuff’ (computer, TV, washing machine etc.,)) and I was able to pluck up sufficient courage and share some of my more complicated (in my mind) memories with him. He not only helped me reframe them, he made many of the moments so funny with his take on what actually happened that now, when I look back over my reframed fundamental happenings I laugh out loud and wonder WHY WHY WHY it took me so long to let go mainly of stupid things other people said about me!
Finally, if you are willing to tackle this step, good for you, I support you – but remember you have to go right through to assigning a new and positive meaning with added benefit to each memory and then just to make sure you really ‘get it,’ – i.e., you really understand and take on board the new and positive meaning to these moments that shaped your life - you need to go back over the positive meaning that you have attached to your memories every single day – you need to see how each moment in your life has benefited you and helped you get to where you are today…i.e., on the cusp of fantastic things!
