What Is The Value Of One Great Idea?

What is the value of “one great idea” on personal development? Priceless in my opinion. When I really look back at the things which have helped me with success and happiness, it really comes down to a few key ideas and concepts that just “clicked” at one point in my life. The funny thing is that a life changing concept for me will often be practically ignored when shared with another. Everyone is unique as to what concepts are most needed in their life, and their readiness to receive it. Each of us needs to find those ideas which are going to take us to the next level in our own personal development. And I believe there always is a next level.

I don’t mean to diminish the importance of basic values, this is foundational to personal growth and happiness, and I believe having some spiritual beliefs is important here. But the key thing is that all these techniques such as affirmations, hypnosis, inspirational stories, motivational speeches, etc. only go so far. Real, substantial change only happens with a great idea which fundamentally changes the way you act and think. I don’t just mean a “nice idea”, rather one that just hits home with you, and helps you look at life differently or changes your behavior.

When I read a personal development book, I’m happy if I just get one great idea out of the entire book, this sadly isn’t always the case. Sometimes a great idea will hit me in the early part of a book, and I’ll set the book aside until I can fully process the idea in my mind. Great books are this way, full of so many great ideas that reading too much in one sitting is a bad idea! But great ideas don’t need to only come from books, they can come from so many sources, perhaps even a friend or co-worker.

How can we better leverage this concept in our lives? Keep a journal and write down special ideas as you come across them. Just trust yourself if an idea seems like it hits home for you. If it doesn’t feel right for you, just pass it by, even if it came from a super successful person. What’s right for one person may not be right for you, we are all unique human beings, although it’s wise to listen carefully to a successful person who you’d like to be like. Take notes about how this idea might help you in your own life. Otherwise you risk forgetting about it if you aren’t applying it regularly. My grandfather kept a little black book of ideas and quotes he wrote down, and when he passed away it meant a lot to me that I was able to have this and read the wisdoms he had collected during his long life as a minister.

I think one of the reasons people like quotations is because they sum up a great idea from a famous person in one or two sentences. Develop your own “life quotations” which express your personal great ideas and beliefs you wish to live your life by. Own these personal quotes by writing them down, and live them by practicing them.

A belief is simply an idea which you have 100% certainty in, so the trick is converting an idea to a belief through successful application of the idea. If you’re not sure an idea will work for you, just dive right in and give it a try, just thinking about it will usually get you nowhere!

Become Successful In Body, Mind, Spirit, and Skill By Using Personal Development

Have you heard of Personal Development Programs? Are you interested in taking the path to personal growth and success?

What is personal development? Quite simply, it is a focus on the self and the development of your mind, skills, body and spirit.

Personal development cleans out the dusty corners of procrastination and stagnation and replaces them with clean, well-organized plans for the future.

You can hire a Personal Coach to help you straighten out your priorities and focus on your strengths. You can hire a Personal Trainer to help you develop your body.

When you set a goal for personal development, you usually focus on a number of areas:

Time Management vs. Procrastination 
Learning to control your time by setting a schedule and listing action items to accomplish. Setting a schedule and sticking to it so you don’t keep putting things off.

Organization and Productivity 
Organizing your house and your life so that you can find things. Get rid of things you don’t need and never use. Get productive by delegating things YOU don’t need to do yourself, and by prioritizing the things you have to do, so that the important things get done first.

Goals and Milestones 
Establish WRITTEN goals and assign dates to the goals. If they are long-term goals, establish milestones along the way so that you can achieve smaller goals and work toward the long-term final goal.

Values and Ethics
Write down your personal values. What is it that you hold dear? What matters the most to you in life and what values and ethical standards do you want to preserve? Add to these as you think of more things you want to capture on paper.

Good Health and Fitness
Work on your diet, exercise and lifestyle to preserve good health. This good health preserves mental clarity and physical vibrancy so that you can achieve your other goals.

Spirituality and Relationships
Focus on your family, friends, and co-workers and envision how you want your relationships to grow and thrive. Consider your spiritual side and delve into meditation or study philosophy or Eastern religions as a way to expand into deeper thought and consider the meaning of your life and your journey.

A Personal Coach will help you structure your personal development program and guide you through the steps to achieve your goals.

But, you can certainly do this on your own. There are self-study programs and books and articles on the subject. Armed with nothing more than a list of the personal areas you want to address, you can make your own lists, and begin to record your thoughts about personal priorities and defining your own success.

Personal Self Development - Coaching Yourself

The fact that you are reading this article probably means that you have an interest in your own personal development.

You may have come to the realization that you only have one life and a very finite time to make use of it and that you are the architect of your own destiny.

Certainly the fastest way to learn and achieve anything is to elicit the guidance of a mentor or coach. Their experience and knowledge will shortcut a lot of the trial and error that you will go through in reaching your goals.

However, if you would rather guide your own personal development by way of coaching yourself you must first consider what advantages, benefits and roles that a life coach would provide. By identifying these you can acquire the knowledge and resources necessary.

The main advantages and benefits of a coach are:

1) Provision of information and advice.
2) Plan development and goal setting assistance.
3) Accountability.
4) Assistance in overcoming obstacles.
5) Also it is often difficult to ascertain your real personal development needs when coaching yourself as it requires a thorough and critical self evaluation. That is certainly the value of a good coach as they have trained to present a program of progressive development.

You can overcome all of these issues by implementing a few simple strategies in your own personal development strategy.

First though I would like you to understand that a complete holistic personal development program should include and strive to develop the following areas of your life:

1) The emotional self; self esteem, self confidence, motivation to name a few.

The first place that any personal development strategy should start is ensuring that your self esteem is strong. Since all decision making is controlled by emotions we must develop our emotional selves with a strong sense of self acceptance and self appreciation.

Accept your failures as just feedback, learn to handle criticism; if it is constructive learn from it, if it is destructive dismiss it by acknowledging that it is all about them (the critic) not about you.

Learn to self evaluate yourself without criticism, look constructively at yourself and move on.

2) The intellect and knowledge base.

Knowledge is power and gives us the ability to achieve our goals. The fuel that drives you along the path of personal development is knowledge. When coaching yourself you must develop a disciplined approach to acquiring knowledge.

The internet has made available a huge resource for sourcing personal development information by way of blogs, DVDs, CDs, discussion groups, online courses and websites, this makes information readily available and very affordable.

To get the most from these resources constantly review the information, strive to get a full comprehension and understanding and always check the accuracy of the source material by looking for peer reviewed references.

3) The physical self; diet, exercise, life enhancing habits.

Eat well and reduce the stress in your life. Learn to meditate and ensure that you get adequate rest and sleep to recharge yourself. Avoid cigarettes, drugs and excess alcohol. Develop a consistent exercise regime; if you are unaccustomed to hard exercise start slow and gradually increase the intensity as it is the intensity that pays the biggest dividends.

4) The spiritual self.

Develop a comfortable relationship with yourself, the world and the universe. Whatever your belief system be comfortable with it and live it, however, if it doesn't seem right then feel OK about moving on and experiencing some other way, remember it is your life. Do to others as you would have them do to you.

5) Relationships.

In order to fully realize your own personal development you must look at your relationships, the people you associate with, and develop relationships that are positively motivating and that grow you.

Surround yourself with supportive and positive people and groups. They will enrich your life and open up doors for you.

6) The wealth area of your life.

In order to free you from the constant battle to acquire the basic needs of shelter, food, clothing and security you need money in this world. The amount of money is relative the life-style you wish to lead and the location you choose to live in. Develop a strict regime for living within your means and invest wisely in your future.

Once you have an understanding of the areas discussed above set goals and develop step by step plans to reach them. By having a target to aim for we are better equipped to determine what resources and information are necessary to reach it.

Develop a disciplined regime to follow and stick to the plan. Set yourself goals short, medium and long term. Always ascertain the cost of achieving the goal so that you can make sure that you are prepared to pay the price for achieving it.

We really work best when we are in line with our values and our passions. We can determine these by asking ourselves what we value the most in life and what are we truly passionate about. Write down the first 7-10 answers and then compare them with each other by asking yourself if you could have all of one and none of the other which would you choose. Compare each answer to the others and put the highest value at the top and list the rest down to the least valuable at the bottom. This exercise will really get to your core values.

Here are a few additional tips that you should implement in your program of personal development when coaching yourself:

Learn to listen and read actively. Don't just hear the words or look at them think about what is being communicated, question it and fully comprehend the meaning. Learn to think between the words and to get to the real essence behind the information.

Appreciate yourself for your successes; keep a success journal and review it constantly.

Take personal responsibility and accountability for yourself and your actions.

Above all take action; all the talk, training, going to seminars will get you nowhere unless you take action. One of the ways to overcome procrastination is to just start to do something, by starting we tend to keep going.

Paying attention to these simple guidelines will go a long way in assisting you in coaching yourself in your personal development.

Six Self Help Tips To Achieve Maximum Success In Life

The every day competition to win over others has developed a kind of self-centric attitude in every individual. But in this race, man has forgotten that he needs to win himself before conquering the world. The more mankind is heading towards modernization, the more it is being entangled with problems. In such circumstances, peace of mind is the only thing that one should aspire for from all his efforts. But, where can you get peace? Is there an easy way out to restore mental calmness, self satisfaction and success in life?

These questions have puzzled many people and prompted them to find their peace of mind in religious options, psychological treatment therapies or alcohols. But, as long as you are not satisfied with your inner self, it is almost impossible for you to get true success in life. And the best way to overcome all your worries and get going with your life is `Self Help`. This is the theory that has transformed inherent personalities of many people and helped them achieve success. The concept has also molded many disappointments into achievements. So, what self help is all about? How it can help you achieve success in your life? Well, the discussed tips are some of guidelines that can help you improve your self-esteem and achieve your objective of life.

1. Have faith in yourself:

Believing in the self is an inspiring and active force of life that can take you to places. Unless you trust yourself, no one else will trust you. Have faith that you have the ability to do something. This `self help` will help you find your ways to overcome many hurdles. When you believe that you have the potential to achieve your goals, you can unleash your strength and give shape to your dreams.

2. Recognize and nurture your strengths:

All of us have a special ability that can make us stand out among others. But, unless you realize that special quality, which is your forte, you can hardly give efforts to improve it. Therefore, instead of brooding over things that you lack in yourself, exercise your strength to make it stronger and more useful for you.

3. Judge yourself, but not based on others` opinion:

Often, people feel disheartened if someone gives negative remarks on them. Try your best to keep yourself away from this feeling. Everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses. Be proud of what good qualities you have and judge yourself based what you know about yourself. This is a crucial self help tip that can save you from depression.

4. Prioritize things you love to do:

Spend as much time as possible doing things that you really enjoy. Of course, here I mean doing constructive things that aids to your self-esteem and self development. Often, people excel doing their favorite activities. For instance, you can perform your best when you are in a job that you love to do. This self help will make you feel better and you will come closer to your success.

5. Select your friends group carefully:

People surrounding you make a lot of difference to your life. Often, they affect your lifestyle, thinking and activity. Hence, it is vitally important that you select right kind of people in your circle. They should contribute to your success and vice versa.

6. Positive thoughts attract positive result:

Your thought has a direct impact on your actions and the results you get. Think positive and speak positive thoughts to yourself. Focus your thoughts on things that your desire to achieve. You will find the energy of self help dragging success towards you.

Your achievements of life depend mostly on your efforts. Hence, boost your self-esteem and lead a successful life with the self help tips.

What Does Your Dream Life Look Like?

Every child has been asked what they wanted to be when they grew up. And more often than not, they had responded with "doctor," or "lawyer," or "movie star." It would always be some stereotype of success. It would always be something that was prevalent in both school books and popular media. Did you describe your dream life the same way when you were young? Don't be ashamed if you have; it's not your fault this information has been drilled into you from the start.

However, this doesn't mean that you should conform to such ideals. So what if that's what your parents or teachers wanted of you? Is that really what you want for yourself? You have your own unique perspective on life and the world you live in. The best life you could possibly live, then, is something you conjured up in your own mind. What do other people have to do with it?

So, ask yourself: what really is your dream life anyway? What does it look like? Chances are, it incorporates the elements of life you personally enjoy the most. It is a life that you maintain entirely on your own terms, one that you have complete control over. It is the kind of existence where your success depends on doing the things you love, and nothing else.

Still stumped? Think long and hard. If you had the chance to do only one thing for the rest of your days, what would it be? Forget your current obligations. Don't take your job, finances, or family into consideration. Whatever that thing is, be it cooking haute cuisine or building houses by hand, that is your dream life. That is what you should be pursuing.

Do you really want to waste away your precious time on Earth with your crappy job? When you feel that you should be doing something other than what you're doing now, then why don't you do it? There is no reason for you to stunt your growth as a person. There is no reason for you to stick to lame excuses. You know they're lame to begin with!

A man who slaves away day and night for a job he hates but still takes home millions of dollars is not a success. A man who makes the same income with a career he loves is the true success. By pursuing your dream life, you can be the latter man.

What's stopping you, then? Now that you know what your true goals are, you should go out there and fulfill them. Now that you have a better understanding of what your priorities should be, then the next step should be to avoid procrastination. The best life is an active life. There is no fairy godmother out there who can help you kick things off. In fact, you are your very own fairy godmother, and you have all the power in the world to make your wish come true. No matter the situation, you can only earn true success if you were responsible for your actions from the very beginning.