Personal Development and Growth

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You will become what you think about most.  This is a powerful statement when it comes to your personal development and growth.  What you think about most becomes the foundation for building your confidence and self-esteem.  And, what you think about most can help to improve your self-confidence or it can diminish it.  So, what are you thinking about most?

As a business coach, who also plays the role of a personal development coach, it is not necessarily easy to answer the question, “What do you think about most?”

I find a way to get something complex and deep started is to simplify it.  It is important to break it down into manageable pieces.  Let’s take a look at what I like to call the 5 Areas of Life.

  1. Spiritual-The spiritual is about how much you are conducting your life in alignment with your gifts and talents, who you are. If you are not, don’t panic or beat up on yourself.  This doesn’t mean that you don’t have a good life.  You probably do.  What it means is, that when you are living your life using your gifts and talents that you and your life will be happier and more fulfilling.  That definitely builds your confidence and self-esteem.
  2. Family-How is your relationship with your family? This is critical. Poor relationships will drain you of energy, focus and the desire to expand yourself and your world.  It is important to get this as right as possible.  It is hard to have build confidence and self-esteem in a constant cauldron of negative relationships.
  3. Business-This is what you do to earn a living. Or, what you do to exist.  The goal here is to be doing things that not only let you survive, but thrive.  An environment where you thrive will accelerate your personal development and growth.
  4. Financial-This is pretty straight forward. Have your income exceed your expenses.  Be a good steward of your money.  And, if you aren’t earning enough money, even if you have good financial habits, you can embark on personal development and growth, which will increase your value and put the odds in your favor of finding something where you will be paid more.  Actually, in the United States, this is the easiest area to change.
  5. Personal-This has three sub areas: The Mental.  The Emotional.  The Physical.  This is the area where you recharge yourself.  When you recharge yourself by focusing your mind on good things and progress, by feeling good about yourself and what you are doing then you are much more likely to create new pathways for your successful personal development and growth and ultimately your successful performance.  The last area, the Physical, is very important to supporting the mental and emotional.  When you feel good about yourself physically it is because you are doing good things for yourself.  The physical serves as an impetus to build your confidence and self-esteem in your thoughts and emotions.  The physical acts as a reservoir that the mental and emotional can draw on.  Take care of the reservoir of the physical and you will have the energy to become all that you can be.

These are five areas that you can focus on to take your personal development and growth to the next level.  Let them guide you to what you think about most.  After all, you do become what you think about most.

Self-Improvement Tips For Success from Personal Development Coach

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“I must be the best me in order to be the best for everyone else.”-Steve Scott

I like this quotation, not because it is mine, but because it underscores a fundamental truth to self-improvement.  When looking at self-improvement tips for success, which means building your confidence and self-esteem you have to start with yourself.

You have to be the best you in order to be the best for everyone else.  If you are not the best you, or striving for it, what are you giving to others?  You are giving them something average or below average.  No one gets excited about the word “average.”

If people asked you the following questions with these answers ask yourself how motivated you would be to connect, partner or do anything with them.

  • How’s your life?  Average
  • How’s your business?  Average
  • How was your upbringing? Average
  • How are you doing?  Average
  • How are your relationships?  Average
  • How are your children?  Average

I think you get the point.  There is nothing exciting about “average.”  There isn’t anything there that brings, energy, excitement, and most importantly, momentum to ignite the power of creativity, excitement and forward progress.  Here is what is critical.  There is nothing in “average” to attract people who are “above average” into your life.

Life is not a one-man band.  It is about creating partnerships, sharing thinking and exploring new opportunities.  That’s what can make it above average when people see you, not as average, but as someone unique and exceptional.

So, start with yourself and be committed, not involved, committed to being the best you.  How do you do that?  You must be selfish.  You say, “Oh, people will think bad of me if I am selfish.”  They may and if they do, when you are being selfish in the process of being the best you, then they do not need to be a major part of your life.

Selfishness is, first and foremost, about self-preservation.  It’s meaning has been corrupted over time to mean something negative when someone wants something from you and when they don’t get it they tell you that you are selfish.

Sometimes, I am accused of being selfish.  When I am, I thank the person who says that.  “Thank you.  Yes, I am into self-preservation.”  Most people don’t get it let alone know how to handle it.

In my personal development coaching as a personal development coach I encourage all my clients to be selfish in order to be the best version of themselves.  In turn, they will be the best for others.  That is one of the most important self-improvement tips for success.

 

Self-Improvement Tips for Success

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Your personal development and growth are built directly on the foundation of your self-improvement.  The more you embrace your own self-improvement the greater the possibilities in your business and life.  As a business coach, very often my primary role with clients transitions into that of a personal development coach and personal development coaching.

Today, business owners, executives, and managers have a wealth of information available on systems, processes and what I call the “how to” of how to have a successful business.  If marketing is a challenge there are hundreds of solutions and services.  If manufacturing to higher tolerances is the challenge, there are processes to achieve them.  Regardless, almost anything you need to improve business today can be found.

Yet, there is one area where you can’t call someone in or bring a company to institute a process without your active participation.  And, that area is your self-improvement.  Much has been written on self-improvement.  Some people call self-improvement personal development.  I will use the terms interchangeably here.  Why is self-improvement or personal development critical?

Quite simply, seldom will whatever you want in life exceed your self-improvement or personal development.  The following I have found to be useful guidelines for many clients when I am in the role of personal development coach and do personal development coaching.

  1. Know your philosophy. Your philosophy is how you think.  Your world and your personal development can only become as large as your thinking.  What are the lids of your thinking?
  2. Know your attitudes. How do you feel, your attitude, about what you think?  All thoughts are things.  Every thought has an emotion attached to it.  Thoughts are things.
  3. Activity is the result of your thoughts and how you feel about your thoughts. If you wish for increased activity to accelerate your personal development than you must examine your thoughts and how you feel about them.  If your activity is not leading you to where you want to go then you must re-examine your philosophy and your attitudes.

At this point, to have the activity you want, you must be willing to amend your thinking.  When you amend your thinking and attitudes that is when you can create new habits and activity.  This is where a personal development coach and personal development coaching can be helpful.  It is important to have someone outside of yourself to support you in making the advances you want.  After all, if you are in the picture, it is hard to see yourself as you are.

  1. Results are the accumulation of your philosophy, attitude, and activity. If you wish for different results all you need to do is go back and amend your philosophy and attitude.  In turn, this will change your activity which will change your results.

To bring these four areas together, philosophy, attitude, activity, and results you must have one purpose at the forefront.  You must be willing to take action and to take it consistently and to be persistent.  Learning about your philosophy, attitude, activity, and results are good.  But, without the miracle process of applying, taking action on what you have learned, you will remain stuck.

Take action and the other self-improvement tips for success will transform you, your business and your life.

Definitions: Part 6-What a Personal Business Coach May Look at for Your Self-Improvement

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In the last post we looked at the terms symptoms, motivation and vision. When understood all three can provide the fuel for the engine of your self-improvement. In this post, we will look at tolerations, tolerations, strategy, strategize and attraction.These four terms will conclude our discussion on definitions that are central to the success of a personal business coach or a personal development coach and his or her client.

Tolerations:This, in my opinion, is a big one. All of us have things we tolerate. Over the years, in my life and the lives of others I have worked with I have seen the negative effect of tolerations.

To tolerate means to allow the existence of something, to permit or endure something, to put up with something. This implies that the something (or someone) is less than desirable, less than the ideal, and tends to drain a person’s energy. Let me add, that tolerations will also take you off course and can cause you to lose your focus.

A toleration is a situation, a condition, an influence of any kind that is allowed to exist, is put up with, that is less than ideal. A toleration is often a hindering influence.

Tolerations must be vigilantly managed. In fact, tolerations are like weeds. They must be yanked out at the roots. If you have a client with some serious tolerations it is going to be extremely challenging to find a good path to self-improvement.

Tolerations can sabotage the best of self-improvement business coaching. Wherever possible, get rid of your tolerations.
Strategy: A strategy is simply a plan or a method for achieving a specific goal. Referring back to the definition of vision which is about your goals for the future, a strategy creates a road to accomplish your goals.

A strategy can be anything from a way to accomplish a simple task to a way to live life more fully. Strategies generally have several ways they identify and track the goal-seeking process. A good strategy is one that makes use of all available resources.

As a personal business coach finding or discovering a workable strategy for your client is essential for his or her success. This leads us to the next term that I will define.

Strategizing: To develop a strategy, plan, or method for achieving goals. To be of value to your clients as a personal development business coach you must be strategizing with them. And once you have a strategy, continuously review it and alter it as progress is made and circumstances change.

Attraction: The last term we will define is attraction. Attraction is to be drawn to something. Or, I might add, to have something drawn to you. In coaching, attraction is the power and ability to draw people or circumstances to oneself. Being open to acting on one’s intuition allows a person to attract the right clients for the right fit. Likewise, if you are looking for a coach attraction, acting on your intuition will guide you to selecting a coach who is more in alignment with who you are and what you wish to accomplish.

Definitions: Part 5-What a Personal Business Coach May Look at for Your Self-Improvement

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In the last post we looked at the terms shifts, leaps, strengths and their definitions. In this post, we will look at symptom, motivation, and vision. Looking at how these four terms are defined will give us greater insight into what a personal business coach or a personal development coach may need to know to better coach his or her client. These four terms, symptom, motivation, vision and tolerations are key to understanding what is going on your business and life as well as those you may coach.

Symptom:When you think of a symptom very often it is in relationship to health. For example, if someone has a fever it may be a symptom of the flu. Very often symptoms give us a clue to something bigger that we can’t see, yet encourages us to ask more questions and to explore.

What is a symptom? The visible expression of a condition or situation; something that indicates the presences of something else. For example, if my client is speaking very quickly, he or she may be upset or not sure of what to say.

Yes, symptoms are clues. And in self-improvement business coaching, being able to recognize symptoms and to dig deeper to discover what they may be covering is essential to supporting my clients.
Like a good detective, the personal development business coach must see the symptoms, the clues, and then piece things together to solve the puzzle.

Motivation: An incentive or inducement to action. An example may be a client who is working hard at improving his or her communication skills because he or she wants to be promoted.

Notice that motivation is an incentive or inducement. Once the incentive or inducement is no longer available then what? A big part of continuous self-improvement is to always have an incentive or inducement to be your best.
Yet, to have success, motivation alone is not enough. If your intuition and discernment are off and you are not employing your strengths, you could set the wrong goals and priorities. When this happens, you start hurdling down the wrong path.

When you realize that your motivation has taken you down the wrong path what must you do to turn yourself around? You need more education. You must become educated about what brought you to going down this path that is taking you away from your goal of self-improvement. Secondly, you must get more education, or at the least re-educate yourself, so you can create a new pathway to turn yourself around.

Vision: A vision is simply something you see. A personal vision is something seen for the future. It involves anticipation, foresight, perception conception, and desire. It is a scene you create that is your vision of the future.

A personal or business vision is based on wants, needs, values, and goals. A vision may be singular in nature or involve many facets. The greatest value of creating a common vision that you and your client can share is that you both have a clear focus on where you want to be in the future.

With a common vision of the future it becomes much easier to co-create the mind maps that will be needed to take the client to the future he desires. Finally, the power of a vision, the future, is an awesome force. The vision of the future encourages us to become more. Also, it brings purpose to the present. With a clear vision of the future what you need to do in the present becomes absolutely clear.

Take a close look at these three terms, symptom, motivation and vision. Understand what they can do for you and your client. Symptoms can help uncover the true challenges. Motivation will create positive momentum for you and your client to achieve his or her vision. And lastly, but not least important is vision. With a clear vision of the future you will uncover the symptoms to problems that may be holding you back while creating the motivation to accomplish the vision.

Definitions: Part 4-What a Personal Business Coach May Look at for Your Self-Improvement

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In the last post we looked at the terms intuition, discern, solutions and environment and their definitions. In this post, we will look at shifts, leaps and strengths.All the terms we have addressed and defined so far are important. As a personal business coach or a personal development business coach I enjoy seeing shifts and leaps in my clients’ businesses and lives. And, for these shifts and leaps to occur, you must have strengths. So, let’s get started with the first term, shifts.

Shifts:Literally, a shift is a transfer from one place or position to another and includes a change, exchange, or substitution of something. It means to put something aside, such as a concept or understanding, and replace it with another. A shift can be systematic, following an established path of growth, or it can happen suddenly. Shifts are observable in resulting behaviors.

For example, in my personal business coach practice I had a client who was very talented, very bright and extremely impatient. You probably have already guessed that his impatience would end up sabotaging his talent and intellect. You are right. This was exactly what would happen. He would be overlooked for promotions because he was seen as reactionary with some mild displays of temper.

In his youth, he was a boxer. I asked him how he liked to box. He said he always liked to see what the other person was doing and react to it. He liked to be a counter puncher. He was very quick with great reflexes. I asked him if that was successful.

He said that in the beginning it was. Yet, as the competition improved he would lose because he would instinctively react, and everyone knew what his pattern was, so they were ready for him. Interestingly, everyone at work knew what his patterns as a manager were. They knew how he would react.

And very often, after he reacted, he would regret his behavior. We came up with a shift in thinking. Instead of reacting the next time someone says or does something, relax for a moment or a few minutes and then choose your response. Over time he changed from a react and respond leader to a relax and respond leader. This was huge shift. The benefit was that over time he became better liked and more trusted. Ultimately, he became the senior vice president of operations for the international company he was working for. To this day he is grateful for his shift from react and respond to relax and respond. Shifts will absolutely necessary to continuing self-improvement.

Leaps: To leap is to literally “spring” from one point or position to another. It involves jumping or springing over something to get to another place. In personal development business coaching, a leap is sudden and quick, not following a prescribed pattern of growth, and is usually accompanies with dramatic evidence of the leap. Leaps can be made over short or extensive distances. Leaping is the most obvious of all forms of client development that I have observed as a personal business coach. I have seen this in clients in many areas. It is a great reward as a coach to see clients make leaps in self-improvement that take their businesses and lives to a higher level.

Strengths: Literally, strength is the quality or state of being strong, an intellectual or moral force, a source of power, an attribute, or something with great value. Strengths are a collection of attributes, those things that a person excels at doing or has natural ability for. Strengths can be physical, emotional, or spiritual; they are values, skills, talents, attitudes, relationships, resources, and other sources of power, sustenance, encouragement, and satisfaction.

In self-improvement business coaching, identifying a client’s strengths is critical. Ultimately, for the client to be at his best and to give the most of himself he must be spending a large part of his time in his areas of strength.

When clients do not spend time in the areas of their strengths they will feel stuck, overwhelmed and are unlikely to improve. As a personal development business coach, I must identify a client’s strengths and guide them to developing a business and life around them. Yes, it is important to be aware of our weaknesses and to have a way to address them.

Yet, the greatest advances in self-improvement take place when we identify our strengths and design our businesses and lives to allow us to focus on them. When we do, this is a shift in and of itself. And when this shift is made, it leads to more shifts and ultimately leaps for the client to clear the way to greater self-improvement and creating the business and life he or she desires.

How to Build Confidence and Self-Esteem?

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How to build confidence and self-esteem? Very often, this question comes up when you feel that you have reached a ceiling in your personal development and growth. You have reached a point where you are asking is there more to my business and life? To move your business and life to the next level you have to become more. Only when you enlarge yourself will new opportunities find you.

How do you build confidence and self-esteem? Confidence is your ability and belief to take new action. As you know, taking the same actions will yield similar results to what you are achieving now. When it comes to confidence, motivation will get you started but it is the new habit or discipline to that will take you to the next level and keep you going.

Picture yourself driving on an unpaved road where you have to follow the ruts that have been created when the ground is soft. Wherever the ruts take you is where you will have to go. The same is true with your business and life. To experience greater satisfaction and fulfillment you must be willing to create new ruts. Confidence is the ability to create new ruts. New ruts will lead you to new opportunities for personal development and growth.
We have looked at confidence. Now let’s look at self-esteem. Self-esteem is how you believe about yourself. When it comes to trying something new it is very simple. You either believe you can, or you can’t. What you believe you can do is a measurement of your self-esteem. And, your self-esteem will rise as you take new actions and encounter success and failure.

You say, “Wait a minute?” “Failure cannot raise my self-esteem.” If you look at your failures as the necessary stepping stones to learn to be successful on another level then your perspective changes. Without failure we cannot know success. Very successful people fail often and reduce the cycle time it takes to experience success.

The fear of failure may be holding you back. But, something else may be holding you back, the fear of success. The fear that you cannot become the person you must become to have the level of success you desire. You can start today to build confidence and self-esteem. How? Take action. Action cures fear. Action shows you the possibilities. Continued purposeful action will show you the path to success.

Act today and you will build your confidence and self-esteem.

Definitions: Part 3-What a Personal Business Coach May Look at for Your Self-Improvement

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Previously, we looked at needs, wants goals and priorities.  A personal business coach or a personal development business coach also has to bring an aptitude to help the person being coached to better understand themselves internally.  As a business coach in Houston, I believe the following are areas that most coaches, regardless of the category, life coach, self-improvement coach, business coach or some other coaching discipline, use to benefit their clients.  Interestingly, regardless of the type of coach, they are all focused in some shape or form on self-improvement tips that can accelerate the process of your successful performance. This is critical because in the self-improvement business coaching model, all progress starts from within.  The first place to better understand yourself is with intuition.

Intuition:  This is the perception of truth, facts, information, or other input not based on any reasoning process.  It is the ability to have insight into something based on our own inner knowledge and truth, and not on external stimulus.  Intuition is that “little voice from within.”  Here’s what’s interesting.  The “little voice from within” very often counsels and supports our fears.  When our fears are affirmed, rightly or wrongly, they will keep us from taking a path to self-improvement.

The key to intuition and the “little voice from within” is to understand what we are truly saying when we talk to ourselves.  With self-improvement our intuition and what “the little voice from within” is saying to us will change over time as we gain in self-confidence and are on a more certain path.

Discern:  This means to be able to perceive and distinguish between things, usually through intuition or other internal knowledge. It means to recognize contrasts such as good and bad, right and wrong, timely and untimely, truth and untruth, real and false. Discernment is your natural ability to see at times what can’t be seen as well as what you can see and to take a course of action.

To move your self-improvement to the next level be aware of your level of discernment. For example, if you feel that very often you don’t see things coming or are often surprised in ways that are not pleasant, this is a call to up your level of discernment.  After all, only you can protect yourself from you.

Solutions:  The answers and/or solutions to a particular problem, situation, challenge, or dilemma.  For example, a common solution to miscommunication is to clarify what you hear the other person saying.  “Just to make sure I understand.  You said that we are going to meet next Wednesday, not next Tuesday?”

Solutions bring clarity.  Here’s a point that as a personal business coach, personal development business coach, or as a self-improvement business coach that I must always keep in mind for myself and my clients.  An answer is not necessarily a solution.  It is just an answer.  If the answer is something that can be reasonably implemented, then it can become a solution.  Very often an answer is the premise for a solution.

For example, a company wants to reach the next level.  The answer is to increase sales.  The solution is how to go about increasing sales.  In this situation we have an answer, to increase sales.  But, until how to increase sales is defined, we do not have a solution.

Environment:  The environment we are in is critical to our well being and our ability to embrace self-improvement.  In fact, one of the great challenges of personal business coaching is to support the client in creating the environment necessary for his or her personal development and improvement.

Environment can be defined as the aggregate or combination of surrounding things, conditions, and influences, including social, cultural, relational, personal, and professional forces, that shape the life of a person.

In conclusion, when you develop your intuition, you will discern better.  When you do these two things you will come up with solutions more quickly and as you do, you will create an environment that will support your continued self-improvement.  There are many self-improvement tips and ideas and my hope is that the above gives you some insights into how a self-improvement coach in Houston or anywhere in the world can support you in creating the business and life you desire.

In the next post, we will look at shifts, leaps and strengths.  All of which are key markers on the road to your successful performance.

Definitions: Part 2-What a Personal Business Coach May Look at for Your Self-Improvement

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In the previous post, I have shared some of the definitions to bring a better understanding as to what a personal business coach does, or as they are also called, personal development business coaches. Self-Improvement business coaching which is truly what a personal business coach or personal development business coach does can, like any coaching, have tangible and intangible results.  Whether I am business coaching in Houston or outside the area my goal is to collaborate with my clients to see real benefits as well as discovering others that are not so readily seen.

When you have an understanding of the terms and their definitions that coaches use, you will gain insight into how a personal development business coach or a personal business coach may benefit you.

Self-improvement does not happen in a vacuum.  The greatest strides in self-improvement are intentional.  They are intentional in that they require us to reach out and beyond ourselves to obtain the feedback and education to create our personal path to greater growth, satisfaction and happiness.  With that in mind, let’s continue our voyage of self-discovery and understanding with some more definitions.

Needs:  To me, as a personal business coach, the understanding of needs is central to connecting with a person you are coaching.  And, if you aren’t a personal development business coach, your ability to understand your needs will provide an essential key as to what drives you and what path you must take to self-improvement.

Needs are the emotional aspects that drive individuals.  The driving force behind needs is based in a human yearning for wholeness.  Often, needs direct major life decisions until they are met. Needs can also sit on top of, or get in the way of, a person’s clearly identifying their values and living life based on those values.

The kinds of needs I am discussing here go beyond the basic needs for food, air, water, and shelter to the things that person feels they must have.  Notice the word “feels.”  What you feel is emotional and defines your needs and drives you to satisfy them.  For example, one person may feel the need to be accepted.  Another has to accomplish. Needs take many forms such as acknowledgement, to be loved, to be right, or to be cared for.

People have multiple needs.  Yet, to be a successful personal development business coach you must be able to identify two or three key needs of your client.  If you create pathways to meet these needs, you have provided great value on a person’s path of self-improvement.

Wants:  All of us can get our needs confused with our wants. What’s the difference between a want and a need.  Wants, unlike needs, are flexible and/or optional; if you get it, great, if not, you are still okay.  When your needs are met, and your life is oriented to your values, your wants tend to proportionately decrease. For example, a person may want to succeed in business, have a great body, or have a big house.  Since these are flexible, they can change over time.

Goals:  A lot is written about goals and rightfully so.  Goals allow us to create a future and a pathway for our self-improvement.  With a goal, once the future is finished in your mind, then what you need to do in the present becomes absolutely clear.

A goal is the objective of a strategy.  Or, I like this definition.  A goal is a dream with a deadline.  A goal can be very simple or extremely complex. It is the result or achievement, toward which effort is directed:  the aim or end of something.  A goal implies that work (or effort) is involved to achieve it.

Priorities:  If you are to accomplish your goals, meet your needs and satisfy some of your wants, you must have priorities.  A priority is something that takes precedence over something else: something given special attention.  In general, priorities are a set of ideals (physical, spiritual, or emotional), that when grouped together compose the items most important to an individual.  They are considered to be at the top of any list of things to achieve in any area of life.  As an aside, there are many self-improvement tips, self-improvement tips and ideas or tips on self-improvement or however you wish to phrase it.  Yet, without priorities, most people will not take the first step, which is taking action, to enhance their self-improvement.

Moving forward on your path of self-improvement take a moment to write down your needs, your wants and your goals.  Then decide what your priorities are to achieve in each of these areas.  When you do, you will start creating pathways to accelerated the process of your successful performance.

Aim High

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A college professor prepared a test for his soon to be graduating seniors.  The test questions were divided into three categories and the students were instructed to choose questions from only one of the categories.  The first category of questions was the hardest and worth fifty points.  The second, which was easier, was worth forty points.  The third, the simplest, was worth thirty points.

Upon completion of the test, students who had chosen the hardest fifty-point questions were given As.  The students who had chosen the forty-point questions received Bs.  Those who settled for the easiest thirty-pointers were given Cs.

The students were frustrated with the grading of their papers and asked the professor what he was looking for.  The professor leaned over the podium, smiled, and explained, “I wasn’t testing your book knowledge.  I was testing your aim.”

An anonymous writer once commented, “Make no small plans for they have no power to stir your soul.”  Robert Kriegel put it this way, “The key is to have a dream that inspires us to go beyond our limits.”  Not only are people short on dreams but even those with dreams often set their sights low enough to protect themselves from failure.

To stay on your course for continuous self-improvement and the benefits that will be attracted to you and your business—AIM HIGH!