Some of you may wonder what is meant by personal development. Personal development is also referred to as self-improvement, personal growth, or self-help. Personal Development is simply about improving ourselves in whatever areas wed like, which means improving or changing skills, attitudes, or beliefs that will help leading us to the desired effect. That desired effect could vary, maybe its just to be more happy, or maybe to make more money, to save or create a relationship, or even get over a fear such as public speaking. If you feel that you are already perfect in all ways then this is not for you, however most of us will admit we have room to better ourselves. Some arrive at an interest inSt only after they get so frustrated with their current situation that they truly open their mind to change and faster their self-growth. So why we should listen to someone else for advice? As Brian Tracy (my favorite author/speaker) said it well: No one lives long enough to learn everything they need to learn starting from scratch. To be successful, we absolutely, positively have to find people who have already paid the price to learn the things that we need to learn to achieve our goals. I strongly believe that people develop themselves throughout their entire lives. Our whole life is a process in which we strive to improve our skills, knowledge, relations and so on. Most of us have the ability and the desire to improve, and that can be as simple as learning of how to communicate more effectively, how to think positively (which brings us happiness, health and success) and how to give thanks and being grateful for what we have in our lives. It doesnt have to be Thanksgiving for you to feel grateful and express that gratitude. The last thing I would like to add is that personal development crosses the entire world, all countries, all cultures and all religions.

Hi, my name is Mitra Shahidi. I am an author, online marketer and business owner. I am married and blessed with having a loving family.

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Personal Development Archives - Mitra's Selfhelp Tips

BIODANZA - DANCE WITH LIFE

Course Dance with Life. This process will boost your confidence & self-esteem, relieve stress, improve your relationships and see you embrace life with a new exuberance and freedom.

If youve reached that point in life where you know you have to change the Biodanza Personal Development Course will give you the time and space to reflect and change whats not quite working out. And in a supportive environment, without any dogma.

The Biodanza Personal Development programme will give you the opportunity to look at life and understand whats truly important for you, the freedom to reach your own decisions, and the life skills to make the changes. It will help you find or recover your dreams, your passions, your goals and start to live them.

The Biodanza Personal Development Course connects you to life through dance, music, beautiful emotions and the healing power of pleasure. Its a personal transformation that makes you part of a worldwide community that puts life first!

Its your life and we invite you to live it your way with new confidence and self-esteem. And I will be honoured to assist you.

Carolina Churba

Director Biodanza South Africa

Read more here:
Biodanza Personal Development

This programme is so helpful for teenagers. It is particularly useful during Transition Year in schools in Ireland. It can be easily incorporated into the school curriculum, become part of youth club activities, or just be a stand-alone for individuals or small groups. Either way, it is pure magic. So here isbrief idea of what the 7 Habits programme isall about:

Habit 1 Be Pro-active:

This habit is about taking responsibility for your life. Deciding whether you want to be pro-active or re-active. You will begin to realize that some habits will not serve you well. Its about taking back control of your life.

Habit 2 -Begin with the end in mind:

This is about learning how to set goals. Its about developing your own mission in life. You will identify the things that you want to do but just dont know how to go about it. Learning how to develop your own goals which means you will will be motivated towards what you really want.

Habit 3 Put first things first:

This about getting real about time management and identifying what is really important to you, learning how to priotitise and geting the important things done first.

Habit 4 Think Win-Win:

This is about developing a win-win-attitude. This will affect your relationships whether with parents or friends. Often thinking win-win creates a great result for everyone. Its about thinking outside the box.

Habit 5 Seek first to understand, then to be understood:

Listening skills are not normally something that is taught. Yet, how can we expect our ideas to have an impact unless we learn to listen first..

Habit 6 Synergize:

This is about working together to achieve more. Imagine a rock band without the drummer. It just wouldnt be the same! It would lack synergy.

Habit 7 Sharpen the Saw:

This is all about body, mind, and spirit. Nutrition, self-image, rest, relaxation and continually improving yourself. Its about realizing that you have talents and identifying your passion in life.

Testimonial:

We found the The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teenagers to be very helpful especially the first habit about being proactive and not just reactive. This really helped the lads to reflect on situations in their own lives and enabled them to take ownership of the choices they make (Dublin Youth Club)

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teenagers programme helps teenagers really get to grips with life skills and the knowledge that they can be the successful peopel they want to be. Its practical, inspirational and gives real hope for a positive future. Highly recommeded course.

Read the original post:
Teenage Personal Development - Margaret Mara

Why Personal Development? - 7 Reasons On Why You Should Start Your Personal Development Quest

Maybe you are asking yourself : "What benefits do I get if I choose to continuously improve myself? Or why personal development? Why should I make the effort of starting a personal development quest?"

If this is the case, or if simply you want some things to motivate you into taking the first step and you are searching for a couple of reasons on why you should start your personal development quest, then this little list may be of help to you. Have a pleasant reading!

1. Why should I start my personal development quest? Reason No.1 Make new friends

Do you want to have more friends? If you do, then start improving on yourself and friends will come. Some people find this the most important reason to start their personal development quest. They have a couple of friends or none at all and they wished they had a lot of friends to talk to and share things with. If you are like that then personal development is definitely for you.

Maybe you have friends, and maybe you are content with your life, but one day you just look around you and you don't like what you see. You don't like your friends anymore and you feel as if you aren't really living the life you should. This happens to most of us and one very important thing to do to change all this, although sometimes very painful, is to change your friends. Sometimes, your friends are really dragging you down and keeping you from having the life you deserve.

It might not be on purpose, your friends might be swell guys/girls but you might realize that what you want isn't at all what they want as well. They might want to sit back and have an easy life, and that's ok. But if you want to be more successful in life, to meet new people, to live in a better place, to build a business, etc. then your friends will not understand because they just don't want that. Even more, they will often bring you down with negative talk and by "advising" to slow down and do as they do.

If you really want to do more with your life it's time to search for new friends. I'm not saying to get rid of your old friends! You can keep a good relationship with them, just don't talk to them about things that they won't understand. Try to find people that support you, that do what you are doing, and talk to them. Talk to them a lot.

See how they do it and help them as well. But how do I met new people, people that are doing something with their life? You improve on yourself and those people will come. It's like magic. When you are doing something, you are attracting people that do the same thing as you. If you sit back and relax, people that do the same will become your friends. If you try to constantly improve yourself by reading books, watching personal development videos, listening to self improvement tapes, talking to people that are trying to improve as well, you will attract people that do the same, and they will become your friends.

Don't ask why is that, it's just is. I'm sure that if you think about it you will see that this is the case for you too. Just think of what kind of friends you have and you will see. Remember, if you want to have new friends, friends that focus on personal development, you have to do what they are doing. Soon you will have a lot of friends that will want to help you improve, friends that you can count on and people that you can relate to and have a good talk with.

After talking to them you will always feel that you have gained something more than you knew before the talk. This is like the difference between talking to ordinary people about how to make money and learning ordinary things about that and then talking to people that make a lot of money and learning more interesting things (like making money). It's a huge difference!

2. Why should I start my personal development quest? Reason No.2 Discover what you love to do in life.

By choosing to start your personal development quest, you will be able to discover what you really want to in life. Most people will never know this, ever. They will accept what is given to them and do it until the day they die. Is this what you want? If so, then stop reading this and do something else. If you want more from your life you have to ask questions like: "what do I really want to do, like to do in life?"

Don't tell me that you don't know because I'm sure that somewhere in your heart you have the answer. Don't say that you love to do this or that but you can't make money with what you want to do and what you are good at, because you can. As soon as you know what you really want to do and what you naturally feel attraction towards, you will start seeing the big picture: how to make money doing what you love.

The important thing here is to realize what you love to do and the money will follow. You may not believe this but people that know exactly what they are good at, have more fun at work and make a lot more money then people who jump from job to job, going were they are paid better. People that are only after the money will never feel the joy of doing what they love to do and not what they think they have to do to survive.

Personal development can give you the joy you deserve. You just have to want to improve your life and be willing to make the effort to get results. I'm going to talk a lot about how you can discover what you truly love to do in life and how to get money from that in another article.

3. Why should I start my personal development quest? Reason no.3 Get a better job and a bigger salary

By getting things done faster and better, you will become a valuable asset to the company that you work for. You will have more influence in talking to your superiors and you will probably be asked when a decision is made regarding your department. You will get more and more power and respect and you will have better chances of getting a much better salary than what you have now. When people see that you care about your work, and you do it great, they will offer you a raise!

Personal development will also help you have better relatioships with all the people that you work with. This will make your work easier and even fun. You might feel as if you are not even working, you are doing things with some of your friends and you are even getting paid for this! Wouldn't this be a great change!

A tip here: try to think what I just said: think that you aren't working, you are merely doing some interesting things with a couple of friends and someone is paying you for this. This will help you feel better at work and improve the time you spend at work. You will feel better and if you repeat this little exercise you will soon feel that it's turned into reality and your co-workers are now your friends.

If you are looking to leave your current job behind, in the future, personal development can also help. Once you learn how to do your job better, you will be able to ask for a better salary or working conditions, and if you don't receive them, you can quit, knowing that you have enough knowledge to make other companies interested in your services.

4. Why should I start my personal development quest? Reason no.4 Learn how to deal with problems/tragedies

Personal development means learning how to deal with difficult problems or situations. By improving and practicing this, you will become a great problem solver, both at work and in your personal life. You can become a little expert in these sort of situations and you might even become respected for knowing how to solve problems.

Also, you will be stronger when a tragedy hits you, your company or even your family. You will learn secret techniques that will be very useful in this sort of situations. Each problem will make you stronger instead of making you weaker. You will discover how to take the best parts from every problem you may encounter so that next time when something similar occurs, you will deal with it better.

Personal development skills allow you to improve the relationships with difficult people. You will be able to understand the reasons behind a certain behavior and how to deal with it efficiently. This is great if you are a manager to a difficult group of people or even if you have friends/relatives that are these sort of persons.

You will find solutions faster and you won't need to argue with someone just to prove a point. Your solutions will be favorable both to you and the other person and this way you will avoid most of the other persons arguments.

5. Why should I start my personal development quest? Reason no.5 Improve your health

Personal development means getting better in most areas of your life, if not all of them. This means health too. Your health is the most important thing on the list (or at least it should be). Without health you couldn't do much. By improving the quality of your life, the quality of your food, you will also improve your health.

Personal development means a good physical and mental health. Your physical health is determined by the food you eat, the amount and quality of your workout, the quality of the air you breath, sleep, etc. The mental health depends on the amount of worries you let into your head. This is crucial! If you let worries overwhelm you your mental health will suffer.

But, in time, by learning how other people deal with worries and using their knowledge. Worries are mostly useless as you will see. There not all useless because if we didn't worry about anything we would all be kind of lazy and wouldn't do anything. When you learn how to replace worries with positive thoughts your mental health will improve a lot. You will become more healthy and you will be happier and joyful.

Mental health is more important than physical health, because your brain controls your body and not the other way around. This is why you must focus mostly on your mental health. You will learn this in time, if you choose to start your personal development quest.

6. Why should I start my personal development quest? Reason no.6 Learn more about yourself

Personal development offers you the chance to learn more about yourself, your good parts and your not as good parts. You must be willing and ready to discover things about yourself, some will be fine but others may be frightening. But, it's always best to know your strengths and weaknesses so you can improve on them. By knowing what you like and what you dislike, you will be able to make good decisions faster, because you will know what you want from yourself and from life.

If you love to find out things about your own person, then personal development is going to fit you great! If you are scared of what you may discover in this process, let me tell you this: to live a wonderful, complete life you must be willing to "go the distance" as Hercules from the movie with the same name, would say. You must have a burning desire to change and you must face the fact that you will learn some things about you, some good and some bad. We all have them so don't be afraid, you are not alone.

The price to pay for a changed life is nothing compared to the exciting moments that await you in the future if you choose the quest. People that choose to face their fears, whatever these fears may be, will always be stronger, happier and bursting with self confidence. They will walk and talk confidently. People around them will admire and respect their opinions, because everyone wants to be able to face his/her fears, but only few choose to do so.

We all can face our deepest fears, but we won't do it. You know why? Yes, you have guess it: because we are afraid. I hope you take your fear and shake it as hard as you can and then walk all over it! I really hope you do - it's not that hard as you think! It's like going to take a flu shot. Some people are terrified of that, but once they do it, it feels like it was nothing. It's the same with the fear, it just seems impossible to surpass, when, in reality it's not that tough.

7. Why should I start my personal development quest? Reason no.7 Be proud of your life

Are you proud of your life? Think about it. Are you? I hope you are, but if you aren't, would you like to be? Of course you would. Wouldn't you like to make something that will remain after you are gone, something that would help others. Something that people would point to and say: "this is made by that great ... <- your name here. I really liked to meet him/her. I wish I could do what he/she did"

But how do you know when you should feel proud? You will just know. I've said this before in The meaning of your life : you will have found the meaning of life and you can be proud of yourself when you can read the following and feel that it applies to you.

"When we are born into this world, everyone laughs while we are crying. Be sure, that by your actions, when the time for you to go will come, you will be the one laughing, while everyone else will be crying." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you start your personal development quest sooner, you will get the chance to change your life faster, but if you postpone this and say: "It sounds alright, but I really don't have time to do this now. I'll do it later" know that it is not you that it is talking, it's the fear inside you that's telling you what to do! Don't let fear push you around! Push back 10 times as harder and make fear wish it had never met you in the first place!

I embrace you, Razvan

If you liked this article, please consider making a donation to help this site. Any amount is greatly appreciated! Thank you for helping!

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Why Personal Development? - 7 Reasons Why - Razvan Dobre.com

Professional & Personal Development Courses

Listed below are popular classes, workshops and seminars offered by UW-Extension programs in the areas of small business development, executive education, professional development and personal enrichment.

UW-Extensions Division of Entrepreneurship and Economic Development offers workshops on how to start a small business and on maintaining existing small businesses. http://www.wenportal.org/Calendar.htm

Over 70 courses in business and financial topics, as well as certification and Master Practitioner programs. http://www.exed.wisc.edu/

Over 100 noncredit courses with practical application as well as certificate programs and customized training. www3.uwm.edu/sce/dci.cfm?id=3

Leadership Wisconsin provides workshops for community leaders to develop their leadership skills. http://www.uwex.edu/ces/wrlp/events/index.cfm

Workshops on developing and evaluating educational programs. Open to Cooperative Extension faculty and staff. http://www.uwex.edu/ces/pdande/training/index.html

The School for Workers, the labor education department of UW-Extension, educates workers and others about employment and workplace issues. http://schoolforworkers.uwex.edu/

Fifty Master Gardener associations in Wisconsin offer youth education, community education, and support services to their local communities including beautification projects and horticultural information. http://www.wimastergardener.org/

Research-based education and partnerships that support Wisconsin families and communities, including conferences, seminars and Grandparents University. http://www.uwex.edu/ces/flp/conference/index.cfm

Employee Assistance Program Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion UW-Extension/UW Colleges joint website

In 2012 more than 500 UW-Extension programs served 1.6 million interactions across our state. Your gift helps to build a strong Wisconsin. Learn more and donate

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Professional & Personal Development Courses - UW-Extension

Life Changing Personal Development & Coaching

At some time in our lives we all turn to someone for advice, an honest answer or simply someone to listen and understand. But what I can provide as a Life Coach in Orange County, CA are two of the most important elements that any valuable friend could ever offer: Insight and the motivation to take positive action.

This is what true personal development is all about and what coaching is truly striving for: MEASURABLE RESULTS

I do not engage in psychotherapy or other outdated, unworkable methods. I am not about dwelling in the past looking for excuses on why you should continue to fail or struggle. Because of my training, background and access to powerful knowledge, we can work together to achieve and realize your most heart-felt goals. I am spiritually orientated and know that all of us possess a greater amount of ability than we grant ourselves to have. I want to help you to recognize your own power and put it to use.

As a woman, wife, mother of two and business owner, I know the challenges of making it all happen. I have developed a plan for success that I want to share with you. While I encounter the barriers like the rest of us, I have developed a powerful sense of self-confidence and an unfaltering purpose to help others in life.

Almost all of the greatest athletes and sharpest minds in our history turn to a coach, teacher, or mentor for personal development, spiritual growth and overall well-being.

As a specialist in personal development and coaching women, I will help you to assess the exact CAUSES to your problems or difficulties so that we can develop a plan that helps you to improve any non-ideal situation with your marriage, your family life, business or your own personal goals. Without insight to what we want and what is in our way, it is impossible to draw a map for our lives. And it is this very insight and map that I will provide you.

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. Eleanor Roosevelt

While others may try to give advice in the form of clichs or patterns not fit for everyone, I prefer to elevate your ability with knowledge, tools and life skills. Only with a higher understanding and unshakable certainty can you feel confident and successfully go in the direction of your dreams.

I am a certified spiritual counselor who has worked with business leaders, as well as those who are gripped by addiction to alcohol and medication. From the top down, to the bottom up, I have given guidance to people of all ages and professions to address whatever they found to be in the way and helped them to overcome it with understanding and a sense of partnership. Feel free to contact me for a free, informal consultation.

Find us on Google+ Local

See the original post here:
Personal Development and Coaching of Women in Orange County

Sandra Pawula says

January 3, 2014 at 4:18 am

Hi Brendan,

Thank you for compiling this list of top personal blogs once again! I know its quite a huge endeavor and I appreciate how you put your heart and your all into it.

Two of my favorite blogs are Zen Habits and Be More with Less. I appreciate the way they blend simplicity and focusing on the quality of your being at the same time.

Im so honored that my blog (Always Well Within) was included in this list! Thank you!

Wishing you the best and brightest year ever.

Jodi Chapman says

January 3, 2014 at 7:15 am

Thank you so much for putting this list together and for honoring these wonderful blogs in this way! Im honored to have made the list! Happy new year! Jodi

Vincent Nguyen says

January 3, 2014 at 11:14 am

Woohoo! Glad to be on the list! I started mine a month after your 2013 list was published so of course, I wasnt anywhere to be seen.

Happy New Year, Brendan.

Vidya Sury says

January 3, 2014 at 1:19 pm

Hey Brendan, a big hug to you for this amazing labor of love. Compilation is hard work and I appreciate you for putting this list together.

I am honored to be included in it. I know most of these bloggers and feel blessed to be at the receiving end of their wisdom. Very hard to pick favorites.

Thanks! And may all your dreams come true in 2014!

With love,

Vidya

Bobbi Emel says

January 3, 2014 at 2:01 pm

Always wonderful to make your list, Brendan! Thanks so much and Im looking forward to the Launch Your Life Academy!

Betsy/Zen Mama says

January 3, 2014 at 3:38 pm

Hi Brendan, This is an amazing list of blogs that youve put together. So proud to be part of such an amazing group. Wishing you a very happy 2014!! All the best, Betsy

Suzy says

January 3, 2014 at 4:40 pm

I know a few of the bloggers but will check out the others. Congrats everyone.

Carl says

January 3, 2014 at 6:12 pm

Great list Brendan!

Ill be shooting for this myself next year!

Im an avid reader of several of these sites and they continue to inspire me and give me much fuel.

wilson says

January 3, 2014 at 8:33 pm

Hi, I am in the self help niche and my blog site is http://www.abundancebrains.com

My Alexa Ranking is 288,956. Is it possible to include mine?

Thanks!

Jordan Michaels says

January 3, 2014 at 8:56 pm

Its interesting to see who rose and fell when looking at the list for 2013. Congrats to everyone on the list! They deserve it for providing such great information. Thanks to you too for sharing this. Found a couple new blogs to follow!

Jamie Alexander says

January 3, 2014 at 10:07 pm

Hey Brendan,

Great job compiling another massive resource full of very cool blogs. Thanks very much for including me also.

I love the direction your site is taking btw. I liked your old site, but this new version is much more professional than a simple blog.

Farnoosh says

January 4, 2014 at 1:23 am

Brendan, you are so kind, so generous, so considerate and so thoughtful to do this list, to put the work behind it and share it so openly and my gosh, SO SWEET to include my baby, especially after the huge makeover to Gensis/StudioPress. Thank you and I DREAM of spending NYE on the Sydney Harbor. Been there many times but never on Dec 31st. Happy new year and to a great year!

Bert Purdy says

January 4, 2014 at 2:36 am

This is such a wonderful list. It will cut down my research time dramatically. I read several of these blogs but cannot wait to dig into the others. A newer blog that I hope to see on here next year is http://happentoyourcareer.com

Stephen Guise says

January 4, 2014 at 4:44 am

Another year, and another excellent job Brendan! Im sure its tough to sort through the thousands of self improvement blogs out there and choose just 100 of them! Thank you for choosing Deep Existence. Ill start working right away to try to make the 2015 list!

Cheers, Stephen

Keri Kight says

January 4, 2014 at 5:05 am

Wow! What an amazing list. Im currently going through all of them now. Jodi Chapman posted on Facebook about this list, so of course I had to check it out.

Steve Pavlina is a huge influence in my life. I dont know him personally, but his blog is the reason I decided to take the plunge towards self employment. He certainly knows his stuff.

marquita herald says

January 4, 2014 at 10:58 am

Wow! Thank you SO much Brendan I am honored and humbled to have IGG included in this impressive list of personal growth blogs.

Sandi Amorim says

January 4, 2014 at 12:18 pm

Thanks Brendan for your commitment to this yearly resource, and for including me on the list. Its always a pleasure to be in such good company!

Tynan says

January 4, 2014 at 3:31 pm

Hey, thanks for the shout-out. Check out sebastianmarshall.com hes the only one missing that really deserves to be here.

Thea Westra says

January 4, 2014 at 3:36 pm

Thank you very much Brendan. A great list and I appreciate you including my Forward Steps blog in the line up. Cheers, Thea

Larry Hochman says

January 4, 2014 at 4:35 pm

You know whats great about this, Brendan? Id been blogging for years, and although I thought the content was great, it hadnt been getting much traction. When I saw the 2013 list about three months ago, it spurred me to get better at the things that attract a stronger readership.

So of course Im happy to have made this list, and thrilled with many of the connections Ive made, including you. Some great content from my colleagues in self-development.

Its also given me a specific outcome to strive for, which is the top 10 on the 2015 version of this list. Soaway I go!!!

Roman Soluk says

January 4, 2014 at 6:54 pm

Thanks a lot, Brendan! Im glad to be on your great list!

Dragos Roua says

January 4, 2014 at 6:57 pm

Hi Brendan,

Congrats for this list, great job. Also, Im puzzled to see my blog on the list, again. Honored and humbled

Thank you!

Romane Stewart says

January 4, 2014 at 7:00 pm

Great list Brendan i enjoyed last year list and this year as well and also the fact that my site (makingmotivation.com)is included in it .Self improvement sites exists for a reason so a big thank you to all who have decided to take a leadership in role in this step and to all visitors like myself who always have a reason to come back and visit such sites because of the uplifting messages it has to offer words are the most powerful drug use by mankind so its important that our message is positive and can have a profound effect on ones life.

One Love !

Ken Wert@MeanttobeHappy says

January 5, 2014 at 12:55 am

Great work Brendan! Thanks for putting this together. Its a great resource (and must have been a lot of work!). Also, congrats on your rise in the ranks! Ill definitely return to do some more reading.

Celestine Chua says

January 5, 2014 at 1:14 am

Awesome Brendan!! Thank you so much for having Personal Excellence on your list; will be sharing this as one of my points in my current blogging course too to my participants. Ill personally be referring to this list as a benchmark for my blogs growth this year too!

Celestine Chua says

January 5, 2014 at 1:16 am

Awesome Brendan!! Thank you so much for having Personal Excellence on your list; will be sharing this as one of my points in my current blogging course too to my participants. Ill personally be referring to this list as a benchmark for my blogs growth this year too!

Go here to read the rest:
top 100 personal development blogs - The Start of Happiness

Feedback Is Critical to Successful Performance. Tetra Images/Getty Images

Are you looking for the process that provides the heart of your performance management system? You've found it. The Performance Development Planning (PDP) process enables you and the people who report to you to identify their personal and business goals that are most significant to your organization's success.

The process enables each staff person to understand their true value-added to the organization.

They do so when they understand how their job and the requested outcomes from their contribution "fit" inside your department or work unit's overall goals.

In the process, staff members also set personal developmental goals that will increase their ability to contribute to the success of your organization. The accomplishment of these goals also provides a foundation for their career success whether in your organization or elsewhere, so they ought to be motivated and excited about achieving these goals.

Your system of Performance Management, with the PDP process for goal setting and communication, will ensure that you are developing a superior workforce. As one CEO remarks daily, "The only factor that constrains our growth is our ability to hire a superior workforce." Why not grow that talent from within your organization as well?

PDP meetings are held, at least, quarterly to review the staff person's progress on the overall goals and objectives. Your staff person's progress on the action plans, that result from the PDP goals, is reviewed at your weekly one-on-one meeting.

This weekly meeting allows you to offer assistance and to identify any help or tools the staff person needs to succeed.

Wonder what to do to make the Performance Development Planning (PDP) meeting successful? These recommendations tell you and your staff person what to do prior to the Performance Development Planning meeting.

So, while seemingly time consuming on the front end, the PDP process, with a formal, effective foundation of solid personal and business goals, is less time consuming as quarters pass.

The PDP continues to create business and employee success and value during its lifetime. With quarterly updates, the PDP process contributes into the future.

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Performance Development Planning - Introduction

Here you will find a range of free personal development exercises to help you achieve personal change. If you have a coach or attended any personal development programmes you may have carried out various exercises to help you move forward. These could include exercises to assess your strengths and areas for development, clarify what is important to you, identify your priorities and set meaningful goals.

In this section I have put together some tried and tested exercises and templates you can carry out on your own which will get you thinking about some key areas to consider when making personal change. These you can then use as a starting point for your own personal development plan and, if you have a coach use them as a starting point for your discussions and to help you to maximise your sessions.

If you are a coach or trainer do feel free to use these personal development exercises but please do acknowledge their source.

Lifetime Goals Exercise

Return to Home Page from Free Personal Development Exercises

The rest is here:
Free Personal Development Exercises

My favorite positive affirmation is that there is NOTHING you cannot DO, or BE, or HAVE! I like to repeat that to myself daily. But one must do some dedicated goal-setting, and a lot of goal-getting to get there!

This was supposed to be a New Years post, but unanticipated changes due to my travel schedule forced me to postpone writing it. Thats okay though, travel will teach you a few valuable lessons about embracing change and rolling with the punches. The nice thing about resolutions is that New Years Eve isnt the only time you can make them!

In fact, you can set positive new resolutions for your life anytime you choose! New Years just gives us a great opportunity to reflect on our achievements in the past year and set some meaningful new goals for the year ahead. But you can do this anytime you chooseyou can make yearly goals on your birthday, or on tax day, or you can set resolutions every six months, every quarter, or you can even set monthly goals! You get the picture

The advent of a new year simply serves as a good reminder to reflect on all the progress youve made over the last 12 months and take what youve learned, and build a roadmap for the coming year and beyond.

Its actually better that there has been time for the hype of the New Year to pass by. A lot of people intentionally avoid setting new goals on January 1st because they see New Years resolutions as oh-so-cliche. Or perhaps you set a traditional resolution and already fell off the wagon. Revisiting what resolutions mean now might give you an opportunity to set more meaningful goals this year. So, stay with me here and embrace the change. Dont think of this as a New Years post. Instead, we are going to focus on goal-setting for this year.

Weve already seen how powerful it can be when you set goals for yourself. You wont succeed at every goal, but review your personal development progress at the end of each year to see how much you do accomplish! Simply setting the goals for yourself will greatly increase the likelihood that youll get much closer to your dream lifestyle in all these areas of your life.

So, as you can already see from my experience getting this post out much later than I intended, embracing change means that you dont always get to do things exactly when you planned. But thats okay, just because the timing changes doesnt mean you should throw away the whole plan! Just having made the plan in the first place makes you about sixty percent more likely to follow through on the action than if you hadnt made plans and set a time in your head in the first place. So the timing has changed. So what? You can still follow through. Thats what goal-setting is! Its setting a plannot a commandment set in stone. Dont give up on your goals if you miss your timeline.

Another thing about your goals is that they may change over time, or things may happen that prevent you from achieving them. Or you may simply not put in the effort to complete all of your goals by the end of the year. But what matters most is that you set them. The act of making meaningful, clearly-defined goals, and writing them down, will put you ahead of 95% of people out there, and it will certainly point you much closer in the right direction toward attaining the lifestyle that you desire in the year ahead. I guarantee that if you set ten goals for yourself in 2008, simply the act of setting goals for yourself will put you MUCH closer to achieving your dreams! As Abraham Lincoln said, A goal properly set is halfway reached. Get clear on what you want to accomplish in the next year, and focus your energy towards those ends, and youll likely achieve many of your goals.

Now it seems to be a popular thing to try to create 100 life goals or 100 goals for the new year. (Just do a Google search for 100 goals and youll see how many communities there are out there talking about the number 100!) Maybe its just that the number one-hundred has so much appeal Theres nothing wrong with wanting to go about it that way I suppose, but I think thats going about it backwards. Youve already started out by adding another goal to the top of your pile of things to do: To create 100 goals! But does having any particular number of goals really objectively have any value to you? No. In fact, the number is fairly meaningless, so dont start out with any particular number to reach.

Instead, try starting with the bigger picture in mind. As Stephen Covey said in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Begin with the end in mind. To do this, we will examine what roles we play, and what we want those areas of our life to look like in a year from now.

The necessary first step is to brainstorm your life roles, and other important personal areas of focus. Some goal-setting systems will tell you what categories to set goals for, but I believe you will come up with much more meaningful categories if you reflect personally about what roles you play and what areas of focus are most important to you. This is the system that Tony Robbins uses in his Personal Power seminars, and many other professional coaches (like my friend Tim Walther) use successfully in goal-setting workshops with thousands of people every year.

Think about your work, your family, your hobbies What roles do you play? For example, when I brainstormed, my roles included freelance web designer, business owner, professional networker, peer mentor, writer, traveler, and artist. But perhaps you are a mother, a CEO, an accountant, rock climber, church member, or amateur filmmaker. The roles that we play are different and unique for each individual. But what hats do you wear? What roles are important to you that you want to improve upon in the next year?

Roles tend to sound like titles or jobs, even if you dont get paid for them! They are how you relate to other people. But besides your roles, what other areas of focus are important to you personally? For most people this will include things like personal finances, health and recreation, social life, and so on. But maybe your areas of focus include nutrition, or spirituality, or professional development and training

Take some time to brainstorm and reflect on what roles and areas of focus are most important in your life, and once you have them all written down on a piece of paper, imagine one-by-one what each of those areas of your life could look like in a year. This is called visualization, and its an important tool in attaining your desires. Visualize how much progress you could make towards positive relationships with your family. Or how much you could improve upon your strengths at work. Imagine yourself in a new profession, being paid to do something you love. Or even picture yourself on vacation to some beautiful exotic location! But dont imagine these things passivelyvisualize yourself participating in making those changesin experiencing those improvements and accomplishments. Write down a sentence or short paragraph next to each role and each area of focus about what that picture looks like.

Now that you have your big picture and youve thought about where youre going with each of your personal roles, you finally have some direction. Visualizing what each of those areas of your life could look like one year from now should give you vivid images of what you want to DO, BE, and HAVE. So the final piece of the puzzle in making meaningful resolutions this year is to break those visualizations down into smaller steps you need to take to get there. What are the next actions that will get you closer to your desired outcomes? If you want to buy a new laptop, how much money should you set aside each month? If you want rock-hard abs, how many crunches are you going to do each day?

The best way to set goals that are longer-term than your weekly To Do list items is to start practicing SMART goals. SMART, in this case, is an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. You can review these questions in your head as you set goals, or you may want to write them out for each major goal you set.

Specific Is it something concrete, that youll know when youve completed it? This is one big reason why resolutions fail. People often set ambiguous goals that are too broad to be actionable or too unclear to know when youve fulfilled the requirements. For instance, a popular New Years resolution is to get in shape. But how are you going to achieve that? That is only a very murky version of the visualization that weve already practiced above. Now make it specific!

Measurable How will you measure your progress at the end of the year, or how will you know when youve achieved your objective? Think about what specific criteria youll have to fulfill to reach the specific outcome you want. And a good way of measuring may be to keep a notebook of your progress toward the goal, or involving your friends in keeping you on track.

Attainable Is it realistic and possible for you to achieve this in the year ahead, or are you reaching too far? Do you have too much on your plate already? Set goals that will make you stretch, and learn, and grow. But dont set unrealistic, far-fetched goals that will only discourage you when you dont meet them.

Relevant This is actually my favorite of these questions to ask when youre doing these mental exercises, and it is the first one that I ask because it is the best filter because I think it is the most important. Put simply, is the goal important? Is it really going to get you closer to your dreams, and is it really worth investing your energy in? Or should you focus on other, more important goals?

Time-Bound When will you complete this goal? Specifically? By October? In Q1? On your birthday? Remember what I said about being flexible with changes in timing toward the beginning of this post, but attaching a time to your goals makes them immediate and important. Remind yourself regularly that you have a goal to meet. When do you plan to start, and what is your target date for completion?

You may come up with a hundred goals for 2008, or you may come up with just two or three really important goals for the year. I go through my list and eliminate all the non-SMART goals, and I try to focus on the attainability aspect of my goals and think about how much I can realistically accomplish in just one year, so I have about 3-4 top concrete goals for each of my 10 roles/areas of focus.

In my own brainstorming, I found that my most important Roles included Web Designer/Consultant, Entrepreneur, Blogger, Peer Mentor, Traveler, and Artist. And other Areas of Focus for me included things like Social & Relationship-oriented goals, Health & Recreation, and Financial goals. After I settled on these nine top areas of importance for my life, I visualized how Id ideally like to see each of those realms in a year from now What sort of progress would I like to make? What things would I like to learn? How successful can I be in a year? And I not only asked these questions, but I tried to actually put myself in that future realitywhat will it feel like? How will I get there? Is it truly important?

So, once I had the broader picture of where Id like to be in a year (yet still very specific mental images), I worked backwards to think what smaller steps Ill need to accomplish to get to that point. I tried to frame each of my goals into the three areas of things I want to BE, DO, or HAVE, and I tried to frame them in the affirmative, to reinforce to my own brain that I will accomplish these things this year! I also tried to phrase my goals positively, focusing on what I should do to get there, not what I want to do less of. Here are the 24 major goals Ive set for myself this year, broken down by my Roles and Areas of Focus:

I. My goals as a Web Designer & Consultant

II. My goals as an Entrepreneur

III. My goals as a Blogger

IV. Career Development and goals as a Peer Mentor

V. My goals as a Traveler

VI. My goals as an Artist

VII. My Social and Relationship-related goals

VIII. My Health and Recreational goals

IX. My Financial goals

Remember, the more specific you get, the more likely you are to actually achieve your goals! I went through all of my goals to see if they were each Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely, and if they werent, Id throw them out. I wont include each step for ALL of my 24 goals here because I dont want to bore you! But, Ill demonstrate with my first goal how I answered these questions in my head:

GOAL: I WILL HAVE a dedicated portfolio site for my web development work

Now that youve seen my own detailed example of brainstorming Roles & Areas of Focus, visualizing outcomes, and SMART goal-setting for 2008, what are your personal resolutions for the new year? What goals are important for you to achieve this year? If you havent already spent time thinking about meaningful resolutions for the year, brainstorm on this and let me know what you think of my process in the comments.

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Please hit that comment section below and share your thoughts Good luck goal-setting!

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