Personal Development Self Help

One of my friend forwarded to me an article written by Jim Rohn titled ‘The Miracle of Personal Development. It was such a very interesting and thought provoking piece and I hope you will enjoy it.

One day my mentor Mr. Shoaff said, “Jim, if you want to be wealthy and happy, learn this lesson well: Learn to work harder on yourself than you do on your job.”

Since that time I’ve been working on my own personal development. And I must admit that this has been the most challenging assignment of all. This business of personal development lasts a lifetime.

You see, what you become is far more important than what you get. The important question to ask on the job is not, “What am I getting?” Instead, you should ask, “What am I becoming?” Getting and becoming are like Siamese twins: What you become directly influences what you get. Think of it this way: Most of what you have today you have attracted by becoming the person you are today.

I’ve also found that income rarely exceeds personal development. Sometimes income takes a lucky jump, but unless you learn to handle the responsibilities that come with it, it will usually shrink back to the amount you can handle.

If someone hands you a million dollars, you’d better hurry up and become a millionaire. A very rich man once said, “If you took all the money in the world and divided it equally among everybody, it would soon be back in the same pockets it was before.”

It is hard to keep that which has not been obtained through personal development.

So here’s the great axiom of life:

To have more than you’ve got, become more than you are.

This is where you should focus most of your attention. Otherwise, you just might have to contend with the axiom of not changing, which is:

Unless you change how you are, you’ll always have what you’ve got.

Personal Development

To attract attractive people, you must be attractive. To attract powerful people, you must be powerful. To attract committed people, you must be committed. Instead of going to work on them, you go to work on yourself. If you become, you can attract.

We can have more than we’ve got because we can become more than we are.

The big challenge is to become all that you have the possibility of becoming. You cannot believe what it does to the human spirit to maximize your human potential and stretch yourself to the limit.

Pity the man who inherits a million dollars and who isn’t a millionaire. Here’s what would be pitiful: If your income grew and you didn’t.

The most important question to ask on the job is not “What am I getting?” The most important question to ask on the job is “What am I becoming?”

It is hard to keep that which has not been obtained through personal development.

After you become a millionaire, you can give all of your money away because what’s important is not the million dollars; what’s important is the person you have become in the process of becoming a millionaire.

Jim believes that income seldom exceeds personal development. However, what you become directly influences what you get. Good personality goes a long way to preserve the wealth on a long term basis.

Personal development as a term may make us think it is just about oneself, but personal development is greatly enhanced through an interactive process: for instance, a conversation and debate with someone who shares the same interest. Sometimes we learn the most by teaching others–because it requires clarifying our own understanding.

Personal development ranges from changes you wish to make in your professional life to changes you wish to make in your home life. Regardless of which part of your life you want to focus on, changing one nearly always overlaps into the other.

Below are some tips that will help you get started and organized so that you can be the person you want to be. 

Emulate others

Read up on what other people have done to become successful. The best way to learn how to avoid making mistakes in your career and your personal life is to discover the path that other people have taken toward self-fulfilment. Reading about the lessons they have learned will have a positive impact on your own personal development.

Raise the bar

Take a simple ordinary project that you are working on, and try to make it above and beyond what is expected. Once you can do this one time, you will be able to do it more often, and develop higher expectations for yourself. You will always want to put your best foot forward.

Develop passion for knowledge

Gaining knowledge is one of the best ways you can help yourself grow as a person. There is nothing wrong with going to the library and taking out books or audio books that can help you feel better about yourself and have a positive outlook on your goals and life in general. Do not procrastinate, the longer you put something off, the less likely you are to actually do it. You will also begin to forget why you wanted to do it in the first place. Accomplishing tasks and learning new things will help you grow as a person, so don't wait to get started on your projects. You can learn new language, sport, trade, musical instrument, song among others.

Think outside the box

Develop your wisdom by learning the difference between superficial language and the deeper meaning of what is said. No doubt you have heard many speeches that are full of eloquence and style, but which end up delivering nothing. Look beyond the flowery language and determine if there is any real substance. If you practice that, you will become more insightful. Make sure that you are always true to yourself. When you fake who you are to other people, you can lose who you really are. Do not do things that you think are wrong because others around you are telling you to.

Discover and improve on your comfort zone

Find what the best in you is and be true to it every day. This is the area where you have the best comparative advantage. In other words, what you find interesting to do and add value to you without any stress. Even though you might encounter many obstacles in your path to personal improvement, do not give up on your plans as giving up is a sure way to not reach a goal, and you will never improve. However, if you stay with your plan, even if progress has slowed down a lot, you will eventually get to where you want to be.

Personal development tips are there to serve as your guide in improving your personality. An improved personality helps the person overcome fear, increase concentration, cure bad habits, casts away public speaking nerves, becomes more charming and smart, learns how to love himself, value people around him, and achieve goals successfully. It should be accompanied with self discipline and determination, patience, and faith. You have to believe that the key to a better personality starts within yourself. For more of the personality development tips, you may do research through books, magazines, and the internet. It provides programs and useful information to further enhance your unique individuality.

More tips on personal development can be found here.

To your success,

Ayodele Ojo