Life
5 Steps to Creating Your Personal Development Plan

Do you feel you’re not really getting anywhere? When you look back over the last year does it seem like you haven’t changed in the directions that you wanted to? Then, in that case, it’s time to consider creating a personal development plan, to give you the purpose, drive, and direction that you’ve been missing.
A personal development plan will help you decide where you want to go and that is not something that should be overlooked. After all, as they say, “If one does not know where one is sailing, no wind is favorable.”
So how do you make a personal development plan? Here are 5 tips to get you started:
1. Brainstorming
The first step is to write down everything that you would like to accomplish in your life. It doesn’t matter how crazy it is, it all goes on the page. Do not let the ‘nos’ in your head dictate what does and doesn’t go on the page. Self-editing can come later. For now, just write and write.
Perhaps think about using an app called “the most dangerous writing app”. Here you choose a time limit and if you stop writing for 5 seconds before that time limit has expired everything will get deleted. In this way you can short circuit your internal editor and actually get on the page that you’re supposed to be on.
“Personal developement is a major time saver. The better you become, the less time it takes you to achieve your goals.” – Brian Tracy
2. Try to create overarching categories
After you’ve written down everything that you want to accomplish, it’s time to group things into different areas of your life. Some might be career oriented, some might be love oriented, others might be in terms of intellectual development. It doesn’t matter what your categories are, as long as you can make some.
The best thing to do is to abstract things a little bit so that things can more easily be fit under several hats. If you spend some time doing this you should find trends emerging. So if you’ve got, ‘quit my current job and tell my boss to stuff it’, ‘start my own business’ and ‘become rich’ you could abstract those all together into a category called ‘have my own successful business’. This will be useful for the next stage of the exercise.
If some desire or plan runs contrary to other plans, then you’ve got to prioritize. So, if you’ve got the plan, ‘have my own successful business’ and ‘don’t get up till noon and don’t do more than half an hour of work’ then you’re probably going to have to decide which is more important to you and let the other one go (at least for now).
3. Figure out what is needed to get you from here to there
Now that you’ve got your overarching goals, start constructing the sub-goals that lie in between where you are and where you want to be. These are like your stepping stones to get you across the chasm that separates you from what you want.
It’s a good idea to create a detailed, yet flexible plan. The interesting thing is that quite often if you did the abstraction correctly, in the above step, you’ll see that to some extent you actually already have one.
In the above example, the two sub-goals to ‘have my own successful business’ are ‘quit my job’ and ‘start my own business’, which will both first need to be achieved before the final goal can be.
Once you’ve got the sub-goals, you break it down even further. What do you need to accomplish to get those things done? You can only quit your job if you have either enough savings or another source of income to tide you over. Also, be sure to note the big obstacles in your way and find ways to overcome those.
4. Remember to be SMART
- Specific – as in they’re clear and you know what you need to improve.
- Measurable – there has to be some way that you know that you’ve achieved your goal and can move on to the next one.
- Achievable – if you can’t achieve them then they’re dreams, not goals.
- Realistic – You can’t fly unless you have an airplane and if you’re 30 you’re not going to win the Olympic 100 meter dash.
- Time-related – ‘somewhere in the future’ is not good enough. Put up a time frame for when you want to complete the goal.
Once you’ve done all that, then it’s simply a matter of starting on the first step in your plan in the different fields.
“Investing in yourself is the best investment you will ever make. It will not only improve your life, it will improve the lives of all those around you.” – Robin Sharma
5. They’re goals, not chains
Remember that as you’re pursuing your goals, you make certain that you allow space for the situation on the ground to weigh in. No, ‘I don’t want to get up today and work on my plan’ is not a good excuse for not pursuing your development goals. If you get sick, however, or your boss promotes you, then you should be willing to adapt.
Note that I said ‘adapt’, not ‘abandon’. Rework your plan to take into consideration the new developments and see what you have to change to get where you want to go.
Finally, make certain that at least once a year you sit down and consider if the goals on paper still reflect the goals in your head. It is important that you do not end up steering yourself down a road that you no longer want to follow.
The best strategy is to begin by brainstorming what you want again and then comparing what you wrote down this time with what you wrote down last time. Then, if you’re finding that your goals are shifting, allow your plan to shift as well.
What does your personal development plan look like? Please leave your thoughts in the comment section below!
Life
The Imbalanced Problem with Work/Life Balance
Balancing is for your checkbook, gymnastics, and nutrition; not for your people’s work/life ratio.

Balance…it requires an equal distribution of value between two or more subjects to maintain steady composure and equitable proportionality. (more…)

It’s 2023, a new year, new you, right? But how do we start over? How do we make the changes in our lives that we crave so much to see? (more…)
Life
Failing is More Important Than Succeeding
Failure is an integral part of life as life is incomplete without failures.

People often consider failure a stigma. Society often doesn’t respect the people who failed and avoids and criticizes their actions. Failure is an integral part of life as life is incomplete without failures. Not to have endeavored is worse than failing in life as at some stage of your life you regret not having tried in your life. (more…)
Life
5 Indicators of Unresolved Attachment Trauma

Trauma caused during specific stages of a child’s development, known as attachment trauma, can have lasting effects on a person’s sense of safety, security, predictability, and trust. This type of trauma is often the result of abuse, neglect, or inconsistent care from a primary caregiver.
Individuals who have not fully processed attachment trauma may display similar patterns of behavior and physical or psychological symptoms that negatively impact their adult lives, including the choices they make in relationships and business.
Unfortunately, many people may not even be aware that they are struggling with trauma. Research estimates that 6% of the population will experience PTSD in their lifetime, with a majority of males and females having experienced significant trauma.
Unresolved attachment trauma can significantly impair the overall quality of a person’s life, including their ability to form healthy relationships and make positive choices for themselves. One well-known effect of unhealed attachment trauma is the compulsion to repeat past wounds by unconsciously selecting romantic partners who trigger their developmental trauma.
However, there are other less recognized but equally detrimental signs of unprocessed developmental trauma.
Five possible indications of unresolved attachment trauma are:
1. Unconscious Sabotage
Self-sabotage is a common pattern among individuals with unprocessed attachment trauma. This cycle often begins with hurting others, which is then followed by hurting oneself. It is also common for those with attachment trauma to have heightened emotional sensitivity, which can trigger this cycle.
This pattern can manifest in lashing out, shutting down, or impulsive behavior that leads to feelings of guilt, shame, and self-loathing.
Many people with attachment trauma are not aware of their wounds and operate on survival mode, unconsciously testing or challenging the emotional investment of those around them, and pushing them away out of self-preservation and fear of abandonment.
This can lead to a pattern of making poor choices for themselves based on impulsivity.
3. Behaviors That Block Out Trauma
4. A strong need for control
5. Psychological Symptoms That Are Not Explained
What to do next if you’re suffering from emotional attachment trauma?
There are several ways that people can work to overcome emotional attachment trauma:
- Therapy: One of the most effective ways to overcome emotional attachment trauma is through therapy. A therapist can help you process your experiences, understand the impact of your trauma on your life, and develop coping strategies to manage symptoms.
- Support groups: Joining a support group of people who have had similar experiences can be a great way to find validation, empathy, and a sense of community.
- Mindfulness practices: Mindfulness practices such as meditation, pilates, prayer time with God or journaling can help you become more aware of your thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations, and develop a sense of spiritual connection and self-regulation.
- Trauma-focused cognitive-behavioral therapy (TF-CBT): This is a type of therapy that is specifically designed to help individuals process and recover from traumatic events.
- Building a safety net: Building a support system of people you trust, who are there for you when you need them, can help you feel more secure and safe in your life.
It’s important to remember that healing from emotional attachment trauma is a process and it may take time. It’s also important to find a therapist who is experienced in treating trauma, who you feel comfortable talking with, and who can help you develop a personalized treatment plan.
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