Personal development is a way to assess your skills, consider your aims, and set your goals. Amidst the hustle-bustle of life, many of us don’t have the time for personal development. However, currently, you may have more time than you know what to do with. Call it a blessing in disguise; the quarantine has given us ample amount of free time. So instead of sitting around feeling lonely and worrying about coronavirus, why not invest your time in personal growth. Here is a guide to personal development that you can easily follow while staying at home.
Write out goals and achievement plans
While this may sound clichéd, starting by setting your goals can drive you straight towards your personal growth. Make a list of goals you want to achieve in the coming week, months, or even years.
These goals and achievements can be as simple as maintaining a healthy lifestyle to something like beginning a new startup. You know better what goals are most important to you, and this will set you in the right direction towards self-development.
Make your goals more realistic and quantifiable. Your goals should have a deadline so that you don’t forget or delay them. For instance, a goal like ‘I want to start eating healthy’ isn’t as strong as ‘I have to follow a healthy meal plan today.’ Try to set short goals for every day instead of one single long term goal.
Think of your agendas as a syllabus for personal development. Without a syllabus, you are likely to be confused as to what you should prepare for class. With a proper syllabus, you will know what to learn in how much time. Similarly, your goals will help you form a clear timeline for your personal growth.
Learn a new technical skill
Make the best use of your quarantine time to learn a new skill that can be very useful later on. Maybe you had an idea for an app, but couldn’t pursue it as you didn’t know how to code. Now is the time to learn and make it happen. Resources like LinkedIn Learning, Codecademy, Udemy, Master Class, and Khan Academy can help you learn skills you have been putting off.
If you aren’t sure what to work on, try connecting your skills with your future goals. Coding might be beneficial for you and your business because you would be able to do basic programming tasks for yourself. Or, you can start practicing video editing skills. If you are interested in learning a new language, go ahead.
With online courses, apps, and blogs at your fingertips, there are various ways to teach yourself useful skills if you learn a technical skill while away from work, you will return to a difficult job market with a leg up on your competition.
Start Meditation
You might be wondering if meditation is directly linked to personal development. The answer to that is yes. Meditating for long periods increases the activity in your brain. It happens as a result of increased grey matter in your brain.
Interesting research by Yale University suggests that meditation decreases the activity of ‘monkey mind.’ Brain activity that leads to wandering and self-referential thoughts is attributed to the monkey mind. Mind wandering is a sign of being less happy or worrying about the past or future. Many people want to learn how to avoid mind wandering.
A 2011 Harvard study found that mindfulness meditation can actually change the brain’s structure. These changes lead to an increase in cortical thickness of areas that are responsible for learning and cognitive skills.
To sum up, meditating daily helps you relieve unnecessary stress, anxiety, and worry. It further helps your mind with emotional regulation and increases memory.
While you are working to improve your skills, meditating will further help in your personal growth. Self-isolation is the best time to start meditating and benefit from it.
Practice self-discipline
Self-discipline is an important tool to enhance your personal development. There are several ways it can manifest itself. To begin, the first step to bring your mind and body to self-discipline is to sleep and wake up early.
Good sleep habits and self-control have a very strong connection with each other. Both are important for proper mind and body functioning.
Unfortunately, many people are misusing the merits of being able to work from home, which is deteriorating their sleep habits. Not having to go to work in the early morning doesn’t mean that you stay awake all night.
Wake up early and get the blood flowing with a home workout. Then, focus your mind through meditation and enjoy a healthy breakfast afterward.
Implementing healthy in your routine will help you discipline yourself. You will feel more productive and sharper while working.
Understand what personal development is for you
While we can give you some useful tips here, personal development isn’t the same for everyone. Just as how success looks different for everyone, there is no one-size-fits-all solution for personal growth.
For some, self-improvement is mainly effective time management. Meanwhile, others may need to work on their communication skills and building up their confidence. People with anger issues have only one goal for self-improvement, which is to not let their emotions overcome their actions.
Personal development can be a lot of things. You can apply it to many areas of your life; social, academics, professional, and even ‘personal.’ Sure, it might sound confusing, but personal growth is a category of personal development. The personal category is mainly about emotional and mental health, creativity, and hobbies. But it is a lot more than that.
Wrapping Up
Personal development is something with few limitations and endless possibilities. It genuinely improves areas of your life where you need the most help. It is crucial for you to set achievable and practical goals while practicing self-disciplining habits. Don’t aim for perfection when working on self-growth. Remember that personal development doesn’t mean being better than everyone else. It is about being a better version of your own self.
Get all your personal development materials from storesgo.com. StoresGo is a global marketplace where sellers can market new and used products and buyers can find everything they need (but mostly just want) and subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get updates.
Sources
https://www.skillsyouneed.com/ps/personal-development.html
https://www.readersdigest.ca/health/healthy-living/self-quarantine-activities/
http://www.circlesoflight.com/blog/how-meditation-helps-self-development/
https://www.success.com/11-things-to-do-in-self-quarantine-that-are-more-productive-than-netflix/