An International Coach Federation study revealed people who got help with personal development became better at goal-setting, living a balanced life, and reducing stress. Most of us desire to become fitter, healthier, and wealthier. We all want to eliminate bad habits and create better ones. However, when changing our lives it can be difficult to know where to start, how to long to work on a goal, and when to change tactics.
If you’re looking to improve your personal development or the personal development of the people in your organization, BigSpeak Speakers Bureau works with the top personal development keynote speakers. These personal development keynote speakers are experts in building habits, resilience, happiness, and teamwork.
To get you started on your journey, here are nine tips on how to improve your personal development today.
1) Develop a Motivation Ritual
One of the hardest parts about self-improvement is getting started. The other is staying motivated. If you want to get started and stay motivated, top personal development keynote speaker bestselling author of Atomic Habits James Clear suggests you develop a motivation ritual.
You can develop a motivation ritual by associating something you already like with a habit you’re trying to start or maintain. For example, you could play a favorite song to get you excited before you go on a run or make a nice coffee or tea before you sit down to work on a difficult project.
2) Do Things Consistently Over Time
A key to personal improvement and achieving big goals is to do things consistently over time, says personal development keynote speaker James Lawrence who completed 101 consecutive Ironman triathlons in 2021. Lawrence didn’t wake up one day and start on his goal of doing 101 Ironman triathlons. He started with running 5ks and built up his endurance and ability over time until he was able to do marathons and then Ironman triathlons.
Big goals are achieved by stringing together a large number of small steps. Authors complete books by writing and editing a few pages every day. People who lose weight eat healthy at each meal. Lawerence says doing things consistently over time builds confidence in your success as you achieve milestones along the way, such as pages completed and pounds lost.
3) Reframe Roadblocks as Challenges
Conditions are rarely perfect for achieving your goals, says inspired leadership speaker Robyn Benincasa and bestselling author of How Winning Works. When you want to run, there might be rain. At work, there could be noisy interruptions and urgent deadlines.
Instead of giving up, Benincasa suggests reframing these roadblocks as challenges. See the rain challenge as a way to learn to run in the rain, to run at a different time, or to change to a different workout. See the work distractions as a challenge to find a different time or place to get your projects done. Once you see roadblocks as challenges, you can adapt to circumstances to continue working on your goals.
4) Block Out Time For Yourself
One of the challenges of personal development is finding time to work on yourself. Personal Development keynote speaker Whitney A. White helps leaders and businesses maximize their potential. Whitney says the key to finding time for yourself is to focus on one activity, then block out one to two hours per week on your calendar to spend on it. If you regularly make short periods of time to work on yourself, you’ll see big improvements over time.
5) Focus on Gratitude
In terms of personal development, it’s important to focus on what you have and not on what you don’t have. Happiness keynote speaker and bestselling author of The Happiness Advantage Sean Achor suggests you spend two minutes a day identifying three things you are grateful for.
If you practice gratitude for 21 days, it will train your brain to better identify positives instead of always focusing on negatives. People are good at finding things that are wrong but not as good as finding things that are right. Practicing gratitude will improve your overall optimism which is important for your continued personal development. It will get you through those days when you have setbacks by helping you focus on what’s working well.
6) Work on Things That Matter
One obstacle to personal development is spending too much time on things that don’t matter. Keynote speaker and change expert Lisa Bodell says you need to identify the time sucks in your life. Track your activities for a week: what are you doing and for how long? Are these tasks adding value to your life and work? What would happen if you stopped doing them? By eliminating the time sucks in your day, you can spend more time working on things that matter and add value to your life.
7) Form a Team
People who have the most success in their personal development have help from others. According to keynote speakers, James Clear, James Lawrence, and Robyn Benincasa, you can accomplish more with the help of a team than working by yourself.
Personal development may seem like a solo enterprise but by forming teams (and by team it could just be one other person), you can stay motivated and get feedback that will carry you further toward your goals if you worked alone. When you have a practice partner, points out Clear, it’s harder to blow off practice. When you have a big goal, says Benincasa, you will go farther if you surround yourself with people who can give you the feedback to push you to the next level.
8) Ask Why
Failure and rejection will help on the way to your personal development goals. Before you give up, always get feedback by asking why. Resilience expert keynote speaker and bestselling author of Rejection Proof Jia Jiang suggests you always ask why when you are rejected.
If you fail in your proposal, project, or sale, ask the person what was wrong with it so you can improve the next time. Personal development is not always about success, it’s also about learning from your failures.
9) Dream Bigger
Did you ever wonder why some people achieve big goals and you don’t? The reason might be because your goals are too small. Often, we play it safe and end up changing very little. If you want to change more, Personal Development keynote speaker and founder of Mindvalley Vishen Lakhiani says try dreaming bigger. The key to dreaming big is attempting something in which there is at least a 50% chance of failure. It’s okay if you don’t succeed because by attempting you will already have made progress.
This article was originally published by BigSpeak on Jan 18, 2022.
