Tips for personal development

Tips for personal development & personal growth that will help you live with more calmness and choice in your life.

Over a lifetime of studying all aspects of personal development, including, counselling, therapy, personality profiles, team building, spirituality, hypnotherapy, NLP, CBT, psychology and after reading almost every self help book on the market – these are my top tips for personal development.

These self help tips are the ‘what‘ not the ‘how‘ – to find the ‘how’ I recommend that you find a good teacher or personal development coach, if you live close to Buckingham in Buckinghamshire or Milton Keynes you might want to give me a call?

Here are just a few things to consider if calmness, health and happiness are at the heart of what you are searching for:

Download a free values elicitation work sheet

“The greatest error of all is in thinking that the only way for you to feel good in certain situations is for someone else to behave in a certain way”

• Recognise where your locus of control is
• Let go of being right (or wrong) it really doesn’t matter
• Hope for the best and know that you could cope with the worst
• Talk to yourself nicely, develop a kind and positive internal dialogue
• Realise that how you talk to yourself heavily influences how you feel and what you do
• Don’t listen to the voices in your head that whirl around – become the observer of them
• Recognise when your ego is active
• Explore your ego – and then, let it go
• Have a vision – there is nothing more powerful than a person with a vision
• Take responsibility for your life, your feelings and your actions
• Set goals
• Know your values and live them
• Find out your personality type
• Eliminate unconscious personality conflicts
• Document who you really are and what you want
• Accept your weaknesses and focus on your strengths
• If you acknowledge your weaknesses you won’t fear criticism
• Allow others to have weaknesses too, focus on their strengths
• Say what you Do Want, rather than what you Don’t Want
• Understand the difference between Being rather than Doing
• Stop watching the news and reading magazines
• Know that the media is manipulating you – get the facts, search for truth
• Share your emotions and fears with others, let your guard down
• Know that you can’t change others – but you can change yourself
• Stop being a victim (no ones like hanging out with someone who whines)
• Know that jealousy stems from low self esteem and fear
• Don’t place your happiness in the hands of others – it hurts when they take it away
• Trust your self, know your strengths and your weaknesses
• FEAR – Future Events Appearing Real – Imagine more positive future events
• Avoid black & white simplifications
• Embrace complexity
• Tolerate contradictions
• Let go of what you can’t control
• Learn new things, read, write, go on course, ask questions, questions your own views
• Realise that most tiredness is emotional fatigue
• Relaxing the mind relaxes the body – meditate / yoga
• It’s OK to be neutral
• It’s OK to have a new point of view
• It’s OK to say no
• Be nice to people – smile
• Stop judging yourself
• Stop judging others
• Forgive others
• Forgive yourself
• Don’t take yourself so seriously
• Love yourself
• Love everyone
• Happiness is found within, it’s not external,it’s not down to something or somebody else
• Take responsibility for your emotions
• Feeling a victim sucks – stop it – take responsibility for what you say and do
• Realise the world is not out to get YOU – That’s your ego thinking
• Learn how the unconscious mind works – life makes more sense then
• Drop the thought “I’ll be happy when…….” Start being happy now
• Do your best, whatever your best is
• Don’t make assumptions – get the facts
• Don’t take anything personally
• Speak honestly, with integrity and emotional awareness
• We are all different, don’t assume everyone thinks like you or wants what you want
• Explore the difference between IQ & EQ – EQ wins
• Find someone who can help you to let go of the ego mind and teach you how the mind really works

Free personal development & Self help tools

To help you take more control of your life I have a few free personal growth tools available to download here they include a Wheel of Life tool, a Values and Beliefs Workbook, a Goal Setting Workbook and free hypnosis downloads for motivation and more confidence.

Attitudes of the mind

Freedom, whether personal, social or in business, is an emotionalised mentalisation and much can be learned by a practical (and non technical) understanding of mental functions. The mind is not just a thing that everyone equally has, because upon observation it can be seen that there are two distinct types of mentalisation.

Graduations exist between the contrasting pairs that reflect intensity, for example, there is a difference between craving and desiring – hoping for, or choosing. The difference in this single quality alone can spell the distinction between happiness and misery, contentment or depression.

Psychology, psychiatry, and brain chemistry pay little attention to the study of attitudes, which is surprising considering how important they are to human happiness, satisfaction and success. Just observing these two lists has a freeing effect on the mind and our awareness that is often over looked.

The benefits of accepting one’s defects instead of denying them is an increase in an inner sense of self-honesty, security and higher self esteem, accompanied by greatly diminished defensiveness. A self honest person is not prone to having their feelings hurt by others and immediately experiences less emotional strife. When we admit our downsides, others can’t attack us there, and as a consequence we feel emotionally less vulnerable, more safe and secure. The key to painless growth is humility, which amounts to merely dropping pridefulness and pretense and accepting fallibility as a normal human characteristic of yourself and others.

Self-respect stems from self-honesty and allows for the dropping of cantankerous, contentious defensiveness and the “chip on the shoulder” attitude of ego inflation, with its focus on unrealistic expectations. The secret of success is that it is quite simple to change others merely by changing oneself. Is London a cold, rude, callous place or friendly and polite? It all depends not on how Londoners are at all but on who we ourselves are. A very evolved person considers London a friendly place. An immature person sees it as cold and rejecting because the world mirrors the reflection of one’s own projected perceptions.

The process of changing is not arduous and can be very enjoyable and rewarding, especially when you are guided along the way.

Give me a call on 01280 823059 lets talk about making changes?

2 Responses to “Tips for personal development”

1. Mahendra says:

   January 11, 2011 at 9:59 am

   Its a great site to know myself. By putting in lot of free stuff, it creates due respect for you and the useful material you had put in which is a prerequisite for effective use of the tools. Thanks a lot.
2. Hope says:

   September 18, 2010 at 2:39 pm

   Hi John….I can’t thank you enough for your work, your generousity,your compassion, and your true understanding of the anxiety disorders which have consumed my life. I have never believed in hypnosis, thought it was a hoax. However, after listening to the free downloads, you have so generously offered to help those who are struggling financially, I am truly amazed! I felt hope the first time I listened. What’s so unbelievable to me is that after litening only 3 times to the free motivation download, the mere sound of your voice immediately puts me into a relaxed state. This is a true miracle for someone who has difficulty relaxing even when given the chance. Thank you so much!