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.