For personal development to work, we must understand the seriousness and gravitational pull of our bad habits and habitual thinking. We must make strong resolutions and a commitment to lift off as a spaceship would and break out of the gravitational forces of our habits and thoughts.
It has been proven that it takes at least 21 days to replace an undesirable habit with a new, beneficial one. This is because new habits require a lot of repetition in order to soak them in. In order to get the best out of your personal development plan, here are five tips – taken from the book Reimagining Myself by Ntsikelelo Mzibomvu – to help your journey:
1. Have a big picture
You must have a big picture of personal development and a thorough understanding of what you want to achieve. This thinking will help you tailor your own model of personal development and guide you when searching for the material you need. In order to do this, ask yourself the following questions:
1. How will my life story change by engaging in this journey?
2. What would I like the end game to look like?
2. Vision and goals
Your vision is where you ultimately see yourself. Your goals are what support the materialisation of the vision. Your vision is your why, the reason that fuels your personal development plan. Without a strong vision and a strong why, we lack the necessary motivation to keep up with our resolutions and our plans, and when we do this to ourselves, we make it harder to start again in the future.
· What is your vision – where do you see yourself?
· What are the primary goals that need to be achieved in order to realise your vision?
· What are the work goals that need to be achieved in the immediate future?
· What are the personal life (relationship) goals that need to be achieved in the immediate future?
· What are the environmental goals (influences) that need to be achieved in the immediate future?
· How do your goals fit into the bigger picture?
3. Unhook from distractions
What are the distractions that you need to unhook from that are robbing you of your energy and stealing your time? Distractions are everywhere and they are easy to find, but hard to get rid of. It could be that we are watching too much TV, eating too much food, drug addictions, spending too much time on the internet, social media, drinking, porn, spending too much time with friends etc.
What are the top five distractions that you need to unhook from and what do you plan to replace them with?
4. Build positive habits
Build habits that support your vision and goals. These could include building the habit of going to gym, the habit of practising yoga, the habit of reading good material, the habit of positive prayer, the habit of meditation, the habit of waking up on time, etc.
· What is the one habit that, if you cultivated, would help you build more positive habits?
· What positive habits would you like to cultivate before the end of this year?
5. Journaling
Journaling helps us keep track of our progress and helps us be aware of our thinking patterns. Writing down our thoughts is the best way to peek into our subconscious mind. The more we do it the more we unveil. It brings the ‘enemy’ to the forefront, and an enemy identified is an enemy half defeated. This is because once we have identified a limiting belief, we are then able to put in place an intervention to replace that belief. What limiting beliefs do you have? Write them down.
This is the heart of transformation, the process of identifying negative traits and replacing them with positive ideas until our whole being reflects our new and preferable ideas. Journaling is a never-ending process, and should be treated as a lifetime project that keeps track of our challenges, our resolutions, evolution and transformation.
Reimagining Myself is available at www.8eenconcepts.co.za
