10 Personal Development Goals for Success and Happiness

Success is like an elusive rainbow that we chase our whole lives. Every time we get close, it appears to fade into the distant horizon. After numerous futile attempts, we begin to wonder, will we ever get there? But this doesn’t have to be the case. Author and motivation speaker, Jim Rohn, once said,

“Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day.”

By aspiring towards these 10 simple personal development goals and consistently working on them, you’ll be well on your way towards a life of success and happiness:

1. Be Committed to Growth, Learning and Improvement

Whether you want to create an ideal relationship, build a successful business or master a new skill, you’ll need to be open to learning and expanding your knowledge to further your progress. Just as your body needs a healthy food diet, your mind needs a wholesome information diet. To evolve as an individual, feeding your mind with new ideas and information is essential. Every day, dedicate at least 15 to 30 minutes to reading material that enlightens and enhances your knowledge. Don’t read just to be entertained, read to stay informed and broaden your horizons. Consume content that is actionable and directly relates to your goals and aspirations. Your reading material could include books, magazines, newspapers, journals, and online publications. You may also listen to podcasts and audio books if you prefer to learn aurally.

2. Engage in the Practice of Goal Setting

You can’t achieve success without knowing your destination. Having a vision of where you want to go makes it easier to create a road map and develop a plan for focused action. If a lifetime vision plan does not seem feasible, break it down to a 10-year, 5-year, or 1-year plan – whatever time frame you’re comfortable with. Based on your vision, create long term and short term goals. Ensure that they are meaningful goals that inspire to think big and build your commitment to stay on course no matter what obstacles you face along the way.

3. Build Realistic Strategies

To manifest your goals on the material plane, you need to be strategic about allocating your resources such as time, money, effort, and connections. Your strategy should include a comprehensive pre-assessment of what really goes into realizing your goals. Outline a plan based on your assessment, as well as a strategy for execution. Getting a realistic overview of what’s needed to accomplish your targets will give clarity on the amount of effort required. Without having this estimation, you can easily underestimate how much work and resources will be needed, and fail.

4. Be Flexible and Patient

While it’s important to stay focused on your personal growth and progress, you’ll also have to prepare yourself for unforeseen changes. Always keep the end goal in mind, but stay flexible about how and when you’re going to get there. You have to lower your expectations of how your path will look, because there will be many twists and turns along the way. When you let go of your rigid outlook, you release yourself from the anxiety, worry, and disappointment that occur every time you hit a curveball. The best practices that have made it easier for me to go with the flow is mindfulness, deep breathing techniques, staying in the present moment, and having a sense of humor.

5. Make Your Physical Wellbeing a Priority

Your body is your vehicle for your life. It will be challenging to reach you full potential if you’re perpetually unhealthy and unwell. A lot of ailments, sickness, mood disorders and lack of energy are a direct result of a poorly managed lifestyle. Science has proven that our intellectual capacity and emotional wellbeing are strongly related to the state of our physical wellbeing.((Help Guide.org: The Mental Health Benefits of Exercise)) Make sure that you’re following the basic tenets of healthy living such as eating healthy and nourishing foods, getting enough sleep and and living an active lifestyle that keeps you fit and strong.

6. Breathe

In our hectic and fast-paced world, it’s essential that we make time during our days to pause and take a breather. We can center ourselves by bringing awareness to your breath. Most of us don’t realize that whenever we are stressed out, we have a strong tendency to hold our breath and have shallow breathing. By directing our attention to our breath, we not only take in more air, which relaxes our minds, but we bring our focus to living in the here and now. There are several exercises that can help us bring focus to our breath, such as certain breathing exercises, meditation practices and yoga.

7. Take ‘Time-Outs’ to Relax and Rejuvenate

If your thoughts are getting too overwhelming to handle, it may be best to step away and take time out to unwind and get into a calmer state of being. In addition to bringing more awareness to your breath, you can engage in relaxing activities such as meditation, yoga, tai chi, nature walks, listening to soothing music, gardening, drinking calming herbal teas, lighting candles with aromatherapeutic properties, reading a novel, or anything else that brings your pulse down. Avoid being in noisy and crowded environments, or consuming stimulants such as caffeine.

8. Build a Reliable Support System

Success is not a one-man journey. You’ll need the help of a trusted team of advisers, mentors, friends, and skilled professionals to facilitate you. Seek out friends and partners who support and encourage you in your endeavors. You can find these individuals anywhere but there’s a higher chance of meeting them at certain types of groups and organizations that generally attract people with high self-awareness, strong value systems and conscience, such as volunteer groups, animal shelters, self-enrichment courses/workshops and spiritual or religious oriented organizations.

9. Cultivate Gratitude and Simplicity

Sometimes we may not like what’s going on in our present life and we’ll be tempted to give in to unhealthy forms of escapism. We can steer ourselves from this by cultivating an attitude of gratitude and simplicity. There’s been so much written about the power of gratitude and how it can instantly raise our personal vibration. The mere act of appreciating the simple things that we normally take for granted can instantly shift our perspective on our life and uplift us in the process. A warm cup of hot cocoa on a winter’s day or your loyal pet who’s always by your side, especially after rough days, or your healthy body that allows you to stay active are all simple yet profoundly blessed realities that we can appreciate.

10. Embrace the Unknown and Let Go of Expectations

Most of us have an instinctive dislike of the unknown. We’re uncomfortable with uncertain outcomes and not knowing what lies ahead of us. But trying to get insights and clarity about an unknown future is a recipe for mental anguish. As spiritual leader Deepak Chopra says,

“those who seek security in the exterior world chase it for a lifetime. By letting go of your attachment to the illusion of security, which is really an attachment to the known, you step into the field of all possibilities. This is where you will find true happiness, abundance, and fulfillment.”

When we let go and trust in what we cannot see, we open the doorway for abundance. According to a study done by nurses who spent time with dying patients, the number one regret of the dying was wishing that they had the courage to live a life true to themselves and not what others expected of them.((Business Insider: The 5 Things People Regret Most On Their Deathbed)) Let this inspire you to take hold of the wheel and steer our lives it in the direction that will bring you the joy that you seek. Because, this is your life, and only you can make it as spectacular as possible!

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