Having good self development strategies is one of the first steps you need to take to get ahead in life. By developing these three skills, you will without-a-doubt be on the path to creating the life you want for yourself.
Working on yourself is necessary but hard. Many times, you don’t even know where to begin. As someone who is working every day to grow myself and create the life I want, I completely understand the struggle.
Lucky for you, I know and use these tried-and-true self development strategies daily and can attest that these techniques are truly life-changing.
You will learn everything from how to have a vision to growing your self confidence and more. By the end of this post, you will be equipped to take the first steps towards the new you.
Today, we’re talking all about self development strategies.
Best Self Development Strategies
1. Have a Vision
One of the most important self development strategies that you can use to level up your life is to have a vision. A vision is an overall idea of who you want to be, where you want to go in life, and what major goals you want to accomplish.
To create a vision, you need to be very clear about what you want in life. And I mean very clear.
Ask yourself questions like What do I want to dress like? Do I keep my nails done? What will I drive? What is my dream job? My dream home? What city do I live in? How much money am I making per year? Per month? Per week?
Use these questions to help you get started and then keep asking more. Go as deep as you possibly can and answer as if you have no obstacles to achieving your dream life whatsoever. (And if you need inspiration, Pinterest is usually the way to go!)
Once you’ve answered all of these questions, lay your vision out in a way that will inspire you every day. For some, this may look like creating a vision board poster that you hang in your bedroom. For others, this may be a vision board on Pinterest that you visit every day. Or maybe you prefer to go old-school and write everything down in a journal.
Either way, put your vision in some type of physical form that you can see every single day.
And do just that! Visit your life vision every single day. Whether it be in the morning right after you wake up or at night right before you go to bed, look at your vision. Remind yourself of what you’re working towards.
If you really want to grow, the first self development strategy you need is to have a vision.
2. Goal Setting
The next self development strategy that will help you change your life is goal setting. This is something that we all learn from the age of five, but very few of us actually implement.
BUT YOU NEED TO!
And I don’t mean goal setting as in “One day I’ll lose weight” or “Someday I will make a million dollars.” No, I mean specific, realistic goal setting.
Here are my top 3 recommendations to start goal setting today.
1. Use S.M.A.R.T Goals
If you haven’t heard of S.M.A.R.T goals, you are truly missing out on one of the smartest opportunities for growth. S.M.A.R.T is an acronym that lays out a method of planning goals that allows you to be strategic about achieving what you set out to achieve.
S.M.A.R.T stands for:
S- Specific. Make your goals as specific as possible. Don’t just say “I will start a business.” Say “I will start a clothing brand that focuses on producing environmentally friendly clothes at an affordable price. I will turn this business into my main source of income.”
M-Measurable. Make sure that you can measure your goal by having action steps and goal markers. Going with the business starting example from above, maybe some measurable steps are “create a brand name and logo” and “create a website.”
A-Attainable. Your goal should be something that is realistic. Don’t create a goal to start making $1 million per week within the next month whenever you barely make $3,000 per month right now.
R-Relevant. Is your goal relevant to the lifestyle you want to create? Look back at your vision board. Is your goal getting you any closer to the vision you have for your life?
T-Time-Bound. Have a specific and unchangeable time period for your goal. Without a strict deadline, you will not have the urgency you need to achieve your goal.
2. Start by creating 3-month, 6-month, and one-year goals
Goal planning can seem overwhelming when first starting out. It’s a good rule of thumb to begin by planning in increments.
I personally began by using 3-month, 6-month, and one-year increments. This allowed me to easily identify how I could get closer to my vision life within these time-spans and create actionable steps that I could start taking today.
As a starting point, I recommend creating one 3-month, 6-month, and one-year goal for these specific areas of your life: fitness, spiritual, relationships, education/career, financial, and mental/emotional health.
Build off the 3-month goal to create the 6-month goal, and build off of the 6-month goal to create the one-year goal.
3. Write your goals down
Writing your goals down is one of the best ways to hold yourself accountable and ensure that you achieve your goals.
I personally use GoGirl Planner and Organizer for Women from Amazon. Not only is it super cute and chic, but it helps me stay on track and smash my goals.
This goal planning journal has a place for you to write down your life vision, allows you to plan and prioritize your to-dos for the week, track your habits, and even has a section for your S.M.A.R.T goals!
Whether you use a journal or your google docs, I highly recommend writing your goals down in a place where you can visit them daily.
Goal setting is truly a self development skill that will upgrade your life.
3. Build Self Confidence
Without self confidence, you will never really be able to truly elevate your life. It’s like the icing on the cake. Your progress won’t truly be complete without self confidence.
There are many ways to build self confidence, but none of them work if you keep doing this one thing: taking to heart what others say and think about you.
While I do believe you should always listen to and think on constructive criticism, you should not let what others think about you define you. The difference between these two is that constructive criticism comes from a place of love, a place of wanting to help you grow. Constructive criticism focuses on you.
However, what others think focuses on themselves. It focuses on making you more likable to fit their personal needs and wants. And as long as you are focusing on making yourself palatable for others, you are taking precious time away from focusing on growing yourself into the best version that you desire to be.
My favorite ways to build self confidence are to say affirmations and to challenge myself to face my fears. I do both of these daily.
Every morning, before I do anything else, I say my affirmations in the mirror. I remind myself that I am strong and worthy of all my dreams and that I have everything it takes to achieve my goals, even if others say I can’t.
I also challenge myself to step out of my comfort zone. I do things that I think others will criticize me for. For example, lately, I have been wearing tank tops. Now, I am not a big fan of showing off my arms and used to worry about people looking at me and judging me because of them. However, each week I challenge myself to wear a tank top (outside of the house) at least once per week.
What I’ve noticed is that I care more about my insecurities than anyone else does. Figuring this out has opened so many doors in terms of building my self confidence.
And once you’ve mastered the self development strategy of building your self confidence, you begin to truly realize your self-worth and value and refuse to settle for anything less in life.
If you are looking to get on the path to changing your life, using these self development strategies are the perfect first steps to take. By creating a life vision, you will know the direction that every life choice should lead you in and goal setting helps you to identify and take actionable steps to gear you in that direction. But without self confidence, you won’t have the belief in yourself necessary to take those steps to begin with!
Today we discussed the 3 best self development strategies.
Until next time,
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