Make a List, Prioritize  Your Life

If you are dissatisfied with your lot in life, it can seem like a fairly daunting prospect to just decide that you are not going to stand for it anymore and make a change for the better. Where do you even start? It can seem like the hardest part of all is just to make sense of everything. Few of us are lucky enough to have just one problem, which if it is fixed will iron everything out and give us a simple life. One problem seems to lead to another one, two matters that are interconnected can each seem to complicate solving the other, and unravelling them can be so daunting that people give up on ever changing anything and just resolve to make the best of their lot in life. This is however not the best option to take. Unless you attack problems at the source, they will continue to make life difficult.

Approaching a personal development plan is daunting, yes. But when you sit and think about it, how wonderful would it be to be able to say that you are tackling your problems head on? There is a cliché that says that getting started is half the battle won. The reason this has become a cliché is because there is more than a morsel of truth in it. If you want to tackle your problems head on, then the best first step to take is making a list. What is it that you want to improve about your life? Do you want to give up a bad habit that is dragging you down? Is it a personal relationship issue? Is it a financial worry? These are just three sides to the issue of personal development, and there are certainly several other categories into which problems can fall. Your instincts will tell you which ones are your key issues.

When you put something down on paper, it makes it easier to isolate what exactly the crux of the problem is. Don’t limit it to a few words, write down everything that the problem makes you think and feel. Then isolate the key words in what you have written. Think about how you can address these problems. Evaluate different solutions and look at how each one will affect you. This will help you identify where you might end up swapping one problem for another, and allow you to take the solutions on their merits.

It may make for a harrowing experience, seeing your problems written down on paper. But both symbolically and psychologically it can make a real difference. The problems are no longer only on your mind, they are down on paper, and what you have in front of you is a battle plan, or game plan. You cannot defeat an enemy that you cannot see, but once you can see it, it becomes solid. And nothing that is solid is invulnerable. It makes a big difference to be able to see where you can attack a problem and once you do it, you will feel a whole lot better. It would be simplistic to say it will be easy sailing from there, but you will at least have steadied the ship.

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The Power Of Change

The most frequent complaint that many people have about the way their life is going just has to be “nothing ever changes”. People are sick and tired of their lives going the same way day after day. Most of us have probably had the feeling that we are living out the film “Groundhog Day” with ourselves in the Bill Murray role. Get up, go to work, come home, go to bed, with little changing in between. And the effect of this is, all too often, to make us discontented and fed up with our lot in life. And what do we do? Well, we get up, go to work, come home and go to bed. As a wise man once said, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

If we want our lives to change, it is we ourselves who need to take the first step in changing them. Life is not easy. Nor is it always exciting. And changing things is certainly not something that will happen overnight. But one thing that is undeniable is that too many of us shy away from changing things because we are concerned about how a change will affect our lives. Often the suggestion of doing something new is met by a response of “Why?”. “I could look for a new job, but why? I already have one!” “I could take up a hobby, but why? I have little enough time to myself as it is!” These same people will then complain about boredom at least once a day. The responsibility for changing things lies with individuals, not with anyone else.

When the idea of doing something different is floated, don’t just think “Why  should I?”. This just makes it easy to back out of changing your life. Not having enough reasons to do something is not an excuse – why not do it because its different? If it turns out you don’t like it, well, you live and learn. If it turns out that you love it, then you have added a new string to your bow, a new colour to your spectrum. In short, it makes your life a great deal richer. You could sit around for ever waiting for someone to convince you of the worthiness of an idea – or you could test it for yourself. You could go on forever asking “Why?” and all the person will be able to give you are their own reasons. Asking “Why not?” means finding out for yourself.

Sometimes people are scared of change – that’s normal. There is no guarantee that a change is going to bring all the joy you hoped it would. But opening yourself up to the possibilities out there is the only way you are going to experience the things you feel you are missing out on right now. It may sound like a naïve and wide-eyed interpretation of the world, but unless you give yourself the chance to do something different, you will carry on cursing the status quo. Better to light an candle than curse the darkness.

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How To Teach Kids Personal Development

No one can possibly deny that human adults are, today more than ever, beset by problems of personal confidence and finding themselves prone to stress, depression and other anxiety related illnesses. This is a result in many cases of increased expectations and increased focus on people’s personal lives in a society that is now more open than ever in terms of speaking about the self. However, what is really worrying is that the number of children diagnosed with mental problems resulting from social anxiety and other personal worries just keeps rising. What are we to do to ensure that children are given the help they need, rather than allowing problems to fester and increase?

It is something that would benefit from being addressed practically on a case-by-case level. Too many children fall into a cycle of problems caused by feeling isolated or targeted by other children. Of these cases, a great number seem to relate to bullying. The major worry in schools today is how bullying is still a part of the school experience of a number of children. This is not a new problem, but the worrying part is that years of initiatives to counter bullying seem to have had less of an effect than we would have hoped.

If you ask around, you will hear some blasé responses that seem to signal why bullying is not dying out. People who feel that “kids will be kids” and that bullying is just an accepted part of a child’s school days, people who feel that the incidence and effects of bullying are overestimated, and people who say that it would be a mistake to interfere because it actually makes the problem worse. Nevertheless, all of these viewpoints are dangerous and incorrect. The truth of the matter is that bullying requires constant vigilance. Too many children before now have ended their own lives because of the fear and anguish caused by bullies. It is therefore essential that we address it at source as an extremely serious problem.

One approach is to teach children very specifically about the causes and effects of bullying, to drive home the message that bullying is unacceptable in any circumstances. Although there have been initiatives similar to this, they tend to take the form of a one-off talk which is just as soon forgotten about and merely has the effect of raising awareness for a short while before it falls away once more. Given the effects, that bullying has on its victims and the way that these can contribute to residual problems later in life, it is all the more important to never allow bullying to take that kind of hold on a person’s life.

One way in which this could be reinforced is by getting reformed bullies to speak about their experiences and the reasons why they stopped. They more than anyone understand a bully’s motivation, and they more than anyone can make clear why it is something that is not a desirable part of anyone’s life. The addressing, prevention and eradication of bullying in schools is more important than anything else that goes on within those walls.

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Give Yourself The Best Chance For Personal Growth

We are all aware of areas of our life where there is scope for personal development. It is a path that none of us can avoid taking at some time in our life, which all of us have some opinions on and some need to address in a mature and considered manner. It is also true that personal growth can be a very daunting pursuit, one which can make great demands both emotionally and physically on the person who undertakes it. For that reason, there will always be people who embark on a journey of self improvement only to find that the demands are too great and then turn their back on it at great personal cost.

In this light it is important to look at how you give yourself the best chance for personal growth. It is not something you can decide right off the bat – “I am going to succeed because I want to” – but requires a game plan that takes into account the potential drawbacks of working towards your own development. The fact is that personal development is hard work, something that requires your attention and a firm commitment to make yourself better in a number of ways. It may cause you to face difficult questions, and raise issues that require a great deal of strength if they are to be dealt with fully. For this reason, personal development plans tend to succeed more fully if they are undertaken with a friend at your side, someone who knows you well and can provide you with a boost when you need it most.

If you embark on a self improvement project, the first few days are often the hardest. You will find that changing your ways is more difficult than just deciding that “this is how things will be”. We have all found ourselves in a rut from time to time, and some of us are comfortable doing things as we have always done them. To change this requires a lot of moral strength, because it is easier and less hassle to stick with what you know. The only way to ensure that you will stick to the path is to have some encouragement, someone to rely on who will tell you to keep going, not to lose sight of why you began your personal improvement project in the first place.

By embarking on the plan with a friend or partner, you will guarantee yourself a level of encouragement and support that can make all the difference in terms of success. All too many people bring a halt to their plan for personal growth because they fall into the trap of believing the little voice that tells them “You cannot do this”. Having a friend there to contradict this voice and tell them “Of course you can do it. I believe in you” makes all the difference. So if you are looking to make a change in your life, tell a friend and encourage them to join you. It will be one of the soundest decisions you ever make – and will have positive results for both of you.