No matter where you are in your personal or professional life, you can still learn and do more to become a better person. Investing in your personal development can help you be a better leader at work, a better spouse or a better parent to your children. What can you do to continually get closer to reaching and fulfilling your potential?
Never Be Afraid to Do Something Outside of Your Comfort Zone
One of the worst habits you can get into is staying inside of your comfort zone and becoming stagnant in your career or in your relationships. While there is nothing wrong with having a favorite restaurant or appreciating certain traits in a friend or colleague, you should make time to do something that you might not usually do.
For instance, you might decide to go skydiving to get over your fear of heights or learn a new language to broaden your cultural horizons. Getting out of your comfort zone will challenge you to learn more about yourself and your assumptions about the world around you. Doing so will give you new tools to deal with problems or new perspectives that allow you to innovate at work.
Learn and Become Familiar with Your Flaws
Nobody is perfect. We all have flaws that we like to hide or ignore. However, one of the best ways to become a better leader is to acknowledge your flaws and embrace them. Owning your imperfections will help to humanize you to anyone who you may supervise or lead at work. It will teach your kids that you don’t have to have all the answers to be considered smart or look a certain way to be considered attractive.
In some cases, acknowledging that you lack patience or that you tend to talk out of turn can help you overcome those flaws. You may learn how that deep breathing when you get frustrated can help you keep calm when dealing with a frustrating colleague or when traffic just isn’t moving as quickly as you would like. Whether you are working in the construction safety industry or are a professional athlete, you will have days when something goes wrong, so it’s better to learn how to cope instead of hoping that nothing bad ever happens in life.
Don’t Forget to Exercise
Exercising is not something that people generally think of when thinking about personal development but it is a very important factor. When you are stressed or tired, you may have a natural urge to take a nap. However, the answer may be to get up and exercise for a few minutes. A brisk walk can help clear your mind while a 20 minute bike ride or session lifting weights can increase your heart rate and allow you to overcome your mental block.
Seek Out Those Who Are More Accomplished Than You
If you spend your time around those who haven’t accomplished as much as you have, you may stop challenging yourself or lose your motivation to do more. By spending time with an award-winning writer, you may decide to finally start writing that novel. When you spend time with a CEO, you may finally decide that it is time to seek that promotion or to start your own business. Even if you don’t become a famous author or the leader of a Fortune 500 company, simply striving for something more is a victory in itself.
As an individual, you are capable of more than what you have currently accomplished. Although you may not realize it, anyone can become better at their job, better at playing a sport or better at being a good person. When you challenge yourself and step outside of your comfort zone, you will never stop learning and growing as you go through life.
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