The best way to succeed on your personal development plan is to start now, from here, with what you have. Whoever was the anonymous genius who said that should be congratulated. It sums up the key elements of being action oriented and seizing the day. If you stick to this motto, you’ll never again lose opportunities through daydreaming of what might have been or waiting for things to get “just a bit better”.
There’s just one more piece of the puzzle to be added to completely understand this path to personal development. And that is, where is...”here”? And what is “here”? If you take a minute to objectively view what your current situation is, you’ll probably find that it is a combination of possibilities and restrictions. Upon identifying these correctly, you’ll be able to minimize the restrictions and maximize the opportunities. What is key in this analysis is to be able look at your situation as though you were someone else, a good friend perhaps, taking a clear view of the situation, unhampered by the subjectivity and the emotions that can otherwise cloud a person’s vision.
What friends are for
You may even want to get a friend to help you acquire this faculty of an open mind and an objective viewpoint so you can speed up your progress on self-improvement. If so, pick a friend upon whom you can rely to be honest, helpful and preferably constructive. There’s no point in setting yourself up just to have your ego demolished, so select your friend with care. Explain the personal development exercise and what you want to achieve, and ask him or her to comment on your situation in a factual manner, and to ask questions for any missing information. Be as honest as possible in your answers, because that’s how you’ll get the most benefit of your friend’s analysis of the situation.
When you’ve got this new, objective point of view, compare it with what you were thinking about and make a note of the differences. You don’t even have to pronounce one point of view as right or wrong. What is just as important is that you appreciate the variety of ways of considering what is “here” for you.
Opportunities disguised as problems and vice-versa
Make your way through the list of possibilities to see what opportunities you may already have picked up on, and what your friend may also have called to your attention in addition. There may well be some opportunities that were cunningly disguised as problems. It could be that wearisome task that you found yourself lumbered with at work, which turns out to be a golden opportunity to network with senior managers. Or the chore of taking your over-enthusiastic dog for a walk which could turn into a 15 minute run for both of you, to have your dog let off steam and have you feeling fit and full of drive in no time.
Likewise, an objective view of restrictions during your personal development process may reveal some that you kept telling yourself were opportunities – even if they were very “long-term”. Those stocks or shares that have been doing nothing for last year and that could pay for a vacation to boost you and your family’s zest for life. Or the time and effort you’ve been putting into a customer account when it really isn’t clear that either the budget or the interest is there, time and effort that aren’t available for prospecting new accounts that could do a lot more sales for you. Whatever your conclusions, going through this exercise will set you up a lot better for succeeding here now and with what you’ve got.
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