What Are You Doing for Personal Development?

I often ask people what they are doing for personal development and the answer is often that they are doing nothing. At least they think they are doing no personal development but the reality is that personal development is like momentum; always in motion.

Your personal development is either deliberate self growth or it is by default. Every day of your life you have been a receiver for messages; messages of positive data and of negative data. You hear or watch  the news, you listen to the radio, I daresay you hear gossip-even when its disguised as ‘status updates’. Sadly, the input you receive from these sorts of sources is usually negative and the result is that you may develop a negative view of people, opportunities and possibilities.

Your brain is no different that your body; what you feed it determines it’s well-being. And the good thing is that you get to choose every day what you will ‘feed’ yourself. You can choose to read stories about people that overcame adversity, that succeeded and inspired. You can watch movies that promote character and integrity. You can listen to music that elevates you. This sort of information makes you understand that people can do anything they set their minds to. That people can do great things, that life is good, and anything is possible.

It’s not that you don’t acknowledge that negative things happen in the world, it’s that you choose to put yourself in a position that if something negative happens you can respond rather than reacting. The former is done by deliberation the latter by emotion and I’ll bet you can guess which one usually works out best.

So take a minute and think about what sort of a ‘diet’ you have your mind on, maybe it’s time to limit your ‘junk food’ and increase healthier choices.