Creating Your Personal Development Plan Pt. 1

What Is Personal Development?

Tree of Life

I like to think of it as Personal Evolution. Constantly evolving in every area of our lives. We all do this in some way and on some level, whether were conscious of it or not. Personal Development puts it into a structured format. It’s a tool if you will to assist us in living the life that we want and not the life that seems to be given to us. It gives us clarity, and that’s very important when finding your passions and your life purpose.

I believe everyone should have a personal development plan. You wouldn’t get into a taxi and say “I don’t know where I want to go or what I want to do, but I want to have fun and get me there as soon as you can please”. You would first assess where your are and what you feel like experiencing at the time. This will give you clarity to come up with several choices that will give you this experience and then you will break it down to one choice. This is what a Personal Development Plan will do for you in your life, metaphorically of course.

When creating a personal development plan your first step and probably the hardest is to assess your current standings in the different areas of your life. This can be difficult because you will have to take a very deep and honest look at yourself, something that a lot of people find very difficult to do. This will give you a clear picture of where you are, so you can better plan the route to get you where you want to go. If you follow the process below it will give you a great sense of clarity, and you will be on your way to living the life you were born to live.

**Please Do Not Skip This Step**

Steps for Creating Your Personal Development Plan

1. Create a Word document and type in the following life categories and information.

Career Are you in your dream job? Ask yourself what would I be doing If everything (bills etc.) where fully paid and I had no other responsibilities? Write a paragraph of how you are doing in your career, and if you’re not in your dream career what you would rather be doing. Then on a scale from 1 – 10 1 being the worst and 10 being the best rate your career.

Finance Write a paragraph of how you are doing financially. Have you achieved your financial goals? What actions are you taking to get you there? Now rate your financial state on a scale from 1-10.

Relationships How are you doing in your intimate relationship? Are you with the person you want to be with the rest of your life? Do you have a spiritual connection with them? Give this area of your life a rating a scale from 1 – 10.

Family Are you close to your family? Have you told your mother you love her? Have you given your child a loving hug today? Rate this area of your life from 1 – 10.

Emotionally are you depressed, have panic attacks or are you generally happy? Write a paragraph about your emotional  state at this time. Rate yourself emotionally.

Spiritual Write a paragraph of how connected or disconnected you feel from you higher self / soul.  Rate you Spiritual life.

Character Write a paragraph about how you feel your character is. Are you a caring person? Are you honest? do you have integrity and honor? Rate you character.

Contribution What have you given back to the community or others? have you run a marathon? donated time or money to a worthy cause? Rate your Contribution.

Fun & Adventure Write about the fun & adventure in your life. Trips you have taken recently, activities and events. Rate your fun and adventure in your life.

Here is an example of what it could look like:

Career 5 Currently I am a Desktop support technician. Although I do enjoy what I do, I don’t have the same fulfillment I once did in my career. I want to be a Website designer. I feel I would be helping small to mid size companies in my local area grow their business. I can use my creative skills and there would be some graphic design which I love doing. Currently I am taking a free online course to help develop my skills needed to get into this field. I’m also looking into courses at my local community college.

And you would continue doing the same thing for each category of your life. Type the name of the category, the rating and a paragraph of how you are doing in each area. It’s very important to be honest with your self here. This will take some time to complete if you need to, leave for a while and come back to it latter. Try to have it done in a couple of days when I will post Pt. 2  if you have any questions please post them in the comments section below.

To be continued in Pt. 2

Why I Renounced All Religion

Questioning My Beliefs

First I would like to say that I respect everyone’s right to their beliefs. This article is in no way, to persuade you to renounce your religion, or anything else for that matter. My intention is to give you my perspective and how it’s helped me.

I was taught from  a young age like most people in this world, about religion. My parents passed down their religion, as did their parents and so on. Throughout my life two things troubled me. First I couldn’t find the answers to my questions in religion, which is where they should logically be. And second  If God loved us so much, was most merciful, and most gracious why would God teach us through fear? My questions where; Where did I come from? Why am I here? What am I to do here? Where am I going when I die? And the truth about God.

I started questioning religion. If everything was created by God then how could a devil exist? What would be the purpose of burning in Hell for all eternity? Why would God the all knowing punish us for Adam & Eve’s sin? Why when religion is posed with a question it can’t answer the standard response is “You must have faith”? Why does religion preach that theirs is the one and only truth (segregation) and all others are wrong? Religion teaches to love your neighbor unless he is of a different faith. There has been countless deaths and wars fought in the name of religion. As a matter of fact there is one going on right now in the Middle East. How can God give us one of our greatest gifts, free will and yet give us commandments which would nullify our free will? Why does religion predominantly preach the word of God but not the experience of God? Why would God the all knowing teach us through books that mainly focuses on evil acts and negative events when the core subject is pure and positive? God is Love and the furthest from God is fear why would all the religious books teach us through fear. The point is I saw allot of contradictions in religions and very few answers.

Answers Through Spiritual Connection

I began to study what I now call “Spiritual Masters” like Jesus, Moses, Muhammad, Abraham, Gandhi, Buddha etc. I began to realize that all of the spiritual masters where teaching us how to live spirituality. In other words they led by example something the leaders of the world have yet to do in my opinion. They did not fixate on the words but on the experience even though all of them where persecuted in some way or another, and in some cases tortured & murdered. A few years ago I found spirituality and that’s where I found my answers.  I now have an understanding of who I am. I feel a strong connection to God and to my soul. I am at peace,  all of which religion could never do for me.

Now don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that everything in religion is wrong or bad. Allot of my core morals & values come from religion. I am just saying for me religion left too many questions unanswered, had too many contradictions, induced feelings of  being a sinner and unworthy. Also went about teaching in the wrong way.  Fear begets more fear. I have seen in the past few years a surge in spirituality. It seems more and more people are questioning their beliefs and seeking the truth. I call this the “Shift” and I believe by year 2015 we will reach Critical Mass collectively.

I would love to hear your thoughts on  this subject but please be respectful of others beliefs.