The Ultimate Guide To Personal Development

This is the start of your journey.

This is going to serve as a starting point for people who are just learning about Personal Development and who are just starting to look at improving themselves.

It’s going to explain the basics of the subject, and what you can expect. It’s also going to include a few links to help you get started.

Think of this like your contents/index page for this blog and for the Personal Development community as a whole. I wish I’d had something like this when I was getting started, although the information provided by a few good bloggers and websites really helped.

I’m going to return this to the world and to you.

I want this website – Transcend Your Limits to really help you to improve your life, and at the very least provide you interesting and insightful things to read and understand. Even if you listen to none of the advice and tips I give you, I hope that you’ll at least like the way I write and the way I tell stories and explain things.

Now that’s out of the way, let’s get started. So, this might have been introduced a little bit in my other pages: Why try to be better? and Getting started with Personal Development. These pages are a very basic introduction, but this is where things get real and you start taking steps towards a better life.

To begin, we look again at the question..

What is Personal Development?

Personal Development means improving yourself.

It means reading things like this personal development guide and understanding this website and the content it has to offer. It’s got to be personal though, as the name suggests. It’s not about what you parents think you should be doing, or what your teacher at school wants for you.

It’s about taking the first step towards your ultimate life and knowing what you want. We’ll explain the steps to getting started in more detail shortly, but it’s important to realize at first that it’s personal, it’s about you. Let’s get into it.

Getting started – Using the ultimate guide to personal development..

So we’re going to explain a few of the steps to go through, with the final goal being to have a life that you’re proud of and enjoy. A life that is full of things you enjoy doing, and it involves you being the best version of yourself. The best version that you can possibly be.

It comes down to choices.

You always have a choice in your life.

Whatever you’re doing, there is a choice to give it your all, or to do just what’s required. This is the starting point, remember that in everything you do, there’s a choice there, to do it to the best of your ability, or to just do what’s required to move on or ‘pass the test’ so to speak.

So now, we’re going to go through a number of steps, each one explained in detail, showing you how to get started with Personal Development. These may change as you move forward, for example you may start working on being a good writer and then decide you really have a passion for something else, but the framework is the same.

The framework, or the Personal Development plan will remain the same, and that’s what I’m trying to teach you in this post, a framework for personal development that you can adapt for yourselves and change to fit your own life and goals. It’s going to be different for everyone, and that’s important to remember.

These steps will all probably have links off to other posts on this site, or even other sites if needed, but you should be able to find all the information you need right here on this website. For a range of guides, meditation tools, courses and books, visit the Personal Development Resources section as well. On with the personal development guide!

Step 1 – Discover what you want in life

What do you want in life?

Here is a short clip to help you realise the type of things you could do with your life. Try not to think about the money or where the money is going to come from.

Everyone wants something, but not many people actually consider what it is that they want. They don’t really think about it, but the truth is, it’s the most important thing you could think about. After all, if you don’t really sit down and think about the things you want in life, someone else is going to do it for you.

There will always be people trying to tell you what you should be doing in your life, and it’s up to you to tell them where to go. Some people that will try and tell you what to do with your life include:

Parents. Your parents will usually try and tell you what you should be doing, going to college, university etc.. Getting a job?
Teachers at school. Teachers will always have something to say, and it’s usually telling you to stay in education..
Friends. Your friends influence you more than you think, but do they know what they’re talking about?

There will always be people telling you what to do, or what you should be doing, but the only person who has the right to tell you what to do with your life, is you. Don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise. It’s your choice, and your life. If you don’t really want to go to college, for your own reasons, then don’t.

If you, for example, really have the passion to become a writer, then do it. Become a writer. It’s not that hard after all, and if you enjoy doing it, that’s the main thing. If you can just figure out what you want to say to people as a writer, then it’s just a matter of finding the right people to speak to. If you’re trying to build a blog, figure out what your blog is trying to say, and build a following.

Whatever you think you can do, you actually can do.

We become what we think about, in a way that is hard to imagine. It’s a fundamental secret of the universe, but one that’s so readily available that it’s not really a secret. You’ve heard before that ‘ you get what you put in’, or ‘your returns are equal to your contributions’.. there are lots of quotes like this, but they all say more or less the same thing.

The basic principle here is that what you focus on, you experience more of. It’s how the brain, and the universe work. If you focus on negative things, you get negative results, if you focus on positive things, you get positive results. It’s all in you mind. To learn more about this, read: We become what we think about. Don’t worry, all the links here will open in new tabs, so you won’t lose your place.

So really think about what you want in life. What do you want to do? Is there one goal you’ve had all your life, but never had the courage to work towards it? Why not?

For more, see 3 Steps finding your life purpose in a few minutes.

Also, if you’re not sure how to stay motivated, then we have a lot of help for you with that. Motivation is the drive to do things, and the energy to keep going with what you’re doing. It can be easy to lose, and that’s why it’s important to charge it up every day and remember why you’re doing it in the first place.

Step 2 – Address any problems with yourself/Change your thoughts

You must now actually start to improve yourself.

As you go through the journey of improving yourself, you’ll discover that people who are not happy with themselves will oppose you, discourage you or otherwise try to shoot you down. Don’t let them. remember that their beliefs may be limiting, but that doesn’t mean they have the right to affect you in this way.

This step is all about changing yourself and addressing problems with yourself. For example, do you have a bad memory? Regularly get up late? As you may know from reading the About Transcend Your Limits page, I used to get up at midday and smoke, drink etc, but I changed all that, for a better life. You can do the same, and it’s all about starting habits that you carry with you from today onwards.

Write a list of the things you think you have wrong with yourself.

This list could include anything, but try to only write genuine problems, and not just things that other people have said. You should be able to ‘know’ when you have a problem with yourself, and therefore you can start to work on it.

For each item on the list, make a small plan to fix it. For example, if you get up late every day, and you want to change that, write that on the list, Write that you want to get up at 8 every day, because that way, with a definite goal, you can either achieve it, or not. Your mind can rationalize anything, and if you give yourself a margin for error, you’ll use it.

Make a definite goal for each thing on the list, one which can’t be faked. If you want to get up at 8, you’re either awake and out of bed before 8, or you’re not. There’s no middle ground with a definite goal like this. That’s what you want to start with.

Here are the relevant articles for this stage.

Step 3 – Make a plan of action

This is where you start moving towards your goal.

You’ve looked at things such as problems with your social circles, belief systems and addressing your emotions and feelings, and hopefully got most of that under control. That’s the main framework, but the next step is a new ball game.

This is where we start to think about making a plan.

Your dream life is now in sight, you know what you want, and you know what/who you are. You have understood and hopefully corrected some basic problems with yourself and your life, start saving up a little bit of money, maybe even looked at your appearance and changed that a little bit as well.

Making a plan is a daunting task, as it can seem like there’s no easy way to get started, specially when making a big plan, like your entire life and career, for example, but it doesn’t have to be difficult. Start by referring to your first step, what do you want in life. When you have that information, the plan is easy to make. You know what you want, so let your brain work out how to get there.

If you imagine a ship leaving a harbor with a crew and a destination, 99 times out of 100, it will get to where it started out to get.

It may encounter some problems, maybe it runs out of fuel and needs to resupply, or maybe it needs to stop and let the crew rest, but it has a destination, and knows where it’s going. It knows where it’s going and therefore eventually, it’ll get there.

The same can be said of a person. If you know where you’re going, you’re going to get there eventually, provided you stay on course, and keep reminding yourself of where you’re going. Write your goal down, maybe put it on your noticeboard, bathroom mirror or fridge. Look at it every day, and this will remind you to move towards it.

Are you moving towards that goal every day? Anyway, let’s talk about the planning side of things. To improve yourself and work towards that goal, you need to understand how the goal can be achieved. Research it. If you want to get rich, do the research!

One of the goals I wanted to achieve a few months ago was to make money online.

I researched how to make money online, and was met with a number of guides and lots of information. the information showed me that to make money online I had a few options:

Invest/trade stocks and shares. I actually did this, and wrote a trading guide on my other website.
Start a niche website. I did this one as well, and you’re reading one of my niche sites right now.
Provide value to people. This is something I hope this blog does, and I hope that as a result, people will continue to stand by my blog.

The information is out there. Type into google a simple query: ‘How to become ……’. Fill in the blank.

Ask yourself the question..

What do you want to become? What do you want to achieve.. Put that into the search engine and you’ll quickly find out how to do it. It may require years of study, for example to become a doctor you’ll need to go to university and do lots of work.

If you really want it, you’ll do the work. This is why step 1 is important, because if you don’t really want the ‘thing’ or the goal, you won’t have the motivation and drive to do the work needed to get it. This is the harsh truth, and it’s why a lot of people that are pressured into going to university don’t get their grades and end up in McDonalds just to pay the bills – they didn’t want to go in the first place.

Create a plan, showing you in detail how to get to your goal.

Include things you can do every day, every week and every month in order to get there. If your goa is to become a skydiving instructor, research it. I know that you need over 200 jumps in order to start thinking about becoming a skydiving instructor, but I’m willing to do that, because it’s a passion of mine.

If you want something enough, and you have a passion for it, you’ll almost certainly attain it. Useful articles for this step are:
Description of a tandem skydive. This is somewhat related, it’s a passion of mine, and I’d recommend doing it to anyone. This is something I wanted to do, and I went out and did it.
Have A Messy Room? Read This. A little article about being productive and keeping your room tidy. This is related and shows the importance of making a plan and keeping yourself focused on it.
4 Tricks To Become Very Productive. A small article showing you a few tricks to help kick start your productivity and get you moving.

Step 4 – Start moving towards your goal!

So start moving! You’ve got your goal, and you know how to get there, so every day start doing things that will bring you closer to that goal. Along the way you may discover that you want to change other things about yourself as well, and this is fine. It’s natural.

For example, as you get closer to your dream goal of becoming a self employed millionaire, you may look in the mirror one evening and realize that your haircut is not very smart. You may decide that you’ve had nightmares all your life and want to change that.

Whatever your main goal is, you may want to try other things as well, along the way.

The path probably won’t be easy. Many things in life, specially the things that are worth doing, are not easy.

You may have heard the quote – ‘nothing worth achieving in life is easy’. This is actually kinda true. It’s going to be hard, and people around you may try to discourage you. Remember that even though people change, it’s part of life, and doesn’t matter. As long as you’re focused on what you want, that’s all that matters.

Step 5 – Keep yourself motivated!

Motivation is like showering.

You can’t just shower once and that’s it for the rest of your life.. The effects wear off, and you start to smell after a few days/weeks. The same sort of thing can be said about motivation, you must keep it topped up every day.

Just like you shower every day or so, you must keep yourself motivated every day too. The best results happen when you really start getting up earlier every day, and when you also top up your motivation with regular inspiring articles and also videos.

What Matters In Life? A reminder that money is NOT the most important thing in life. Instead, things like experiences, memories, love and happiness are the most important things.

This page/article is here to provide you with a framework for getting started. It’s like a contents page for this site, but also for your life, as the things you can learn and apply here will really help you. Hopefully this ultimate guide to personal development has helped you.