The best investment you can ever make in life is any investment that will help you grow.

I truly do believe this. We spend so much time and money in our youth creating great memories, going on amazing adventures, creating a healthy social life, and so much more. But we don’t put a lot of that time and money into growing ourselves into the ideal person we’d like to be when we grow up.

I’m talking about investing in personal development activities. I know this because this was me in my teenage years, and for about 5 years of my legal adult life.

I had no idea what it meant, let alone looked like, to really invest in yourself in ways that only you could. Think about this like self-care. Self-care is important and necessary because it helps us create balance, learn how to remain in that balance, it allows us to rejuvenate ourselves when needed, and most importantly it’s a sure sign of self-love.

Personal development is very much the same thing.

When we take the time to work on ourselves and improve parts of us that may be broken or not as strong as other areas, it’s a sure sign of self-care. It’s an act of self-kindness that no one can ever take away from you, and it solidifies the way you see yourself as an individual when in the presence of others.

So how do you participate in personal development? What activities are out there to help you get started now? Honestly there are a ton, literally like thousands of activities waiting for you to give them a try.

But what if I told you that there were also just as many ways to engage in personal development without necessarily breaking the bank or taking up a ton of your time?

Well buckle up because I’m going to take you on an eye-opening ride! In today’s post I’m going to share with you 6 ways to engage in personal development that you can literally start doing today.

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What is personal development

Personal development is an act of improving your quality of life as a means to fulfill your biggest dreams, goals, and aspirations. It’s an act of self-love where you commit to increasing your awareness about your identity in order to feel whole and complete just as you are.

There are so many things that I love about personal development. Not only is it an act of practicing self-care, it facilitates self-love, it helps to enhance attributes that you naturally have, as well as provide you with the skills needed to authentically live a happy and fulfilled life.

My favorite part about personal development is that it brings a lot of clarity to your life.

When you take the time to work on bettering yourself, you realize so many things that you may never have given a second thought before. Toxic relationships that you’ve invested way too much time in, activities that do not excite you that you’ve spent way too much money on, or even the environment you find yourself suffocating in day after day.

When you invest in yourself as a means to better yourself you realize everything in your life that is working with you, for you, or against you. Having this clarity really makes all the difference in the way you live your life.

Personal development is a journey and something that you have to work on every single day. It’s not a magic pill that you take every morning in order to make all your dreams come true. It’s a process that takes time, requires a huge commitment, and requires you to be consistent in order to become the best version of yourself.

And that’s what I really love about personal development. It’s not something that you do once or twice and then put away in your “things that help me become a better me” box and never use again until you absolutely need it.

Instead, it’s something that can be used daily in order to grow into the best version of yourself. In other words, it never sees the shelf because it’s a skill that is constantly in rotation.

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How to engage in personal development

By this time, you’re probably wondering how to go about engaging in personal development. Well there are many different ways that you can do it. Like everything else we discuss on this blog, there is no one size fits all when it comes to personal development.

You got to find what works best for you and just stick with it. Experiment. Get rid of what lacks substance for you and keep what serves you a higher purpose.

Honestly this can be a tiring process. Especially if you haven’t the slightest clue about where to start.

That’s why I’m going to provide you with my top 6 ways to engage in personal development so that you have a baseline to start with, and hopefully an idea of where to begin with building your own foundation.

So let’s get into it!

My top 6 ways to engage in personal development

1. Read inspiring books that focus on self-love and self-improvement

One of the best ways to engage in personal development is to read books that personally inspire you.

These are books that you can relate to in some way. Whether that’s through your personal goals, your job, childhood dreams, your sex/gender, or even the way you were raised, you want to find books that have some kind of personal meaning to you. This will not only make reading the material fun, but it will also carry out its main purpose.

Which is to open your eyes to something about you that you may have never known, and inspire you to make a change.

There are so many books out there that can inspire you to engage in personal development. Personally, I love books that are memoirs or self-help books written from a personal perspective. I love these books because I feel these are the type of books that I draw the most inspiration from.

Memoirs are a great way to experience life in someone else’s shoes and make connections from their life to your own. While you don’t have to relate to every little bit of content provided, finding that one thing that really stands out to you is more than enough to inspire you.

Self-help books written from a personal perspective are great also. I love these books because I really appreciate the honesty that comes from being vulnerable, and the lessons learned from these personal life experiences.

2. Create a reward/punishment system

This is great because it’s a personal accountability factor. This is something that I do every single day not only for personal development matters, but for my overall health as well.

Rewards are a great way to gauge how far you’ve not only come on your journey, but also how much work you’re putting into it. As great as rewards are it’s also important to have punishments in place. Punishments are necessary if you really want to see improvement.

Punishments and rewards help you stay focus and motivates you to work hard on your personal development. The more you commit and remain consistent, the more you’ll be able to do things that you enjoy.

One small misstep and you know that you got to work even hard for that reward you want so desperately.

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3. Be honest with yourself always

This can be tough but I think it’s important. A key part to personal development is having the ability to be brutally honest with yourself.

This requires you to be able to face your fears, identify your strengths and weaknesses, implement that rewards and punishment system, and acknowledge areas where you are growing as well as areas where you are remaining stagnate.

Being honest with yourself can be tough because we all want to believe that we are doing the best that we can. However, when we are brave enough to say “I’m not doing my best” only then can we really push past what’s holding us back and propel forward.

Personal development is all about improving yourself in order to become the best version of yourself. In order to do that you have to face the reality of what makes you who you are. That includes the good, the bad, and the ugly, and you have to be brave enough to work through it all every single day.

4. Have positive role models to look up to

This is so important. You need to have people who are not only positive, but are also the ideal kind of happy and confidence that you want in your life.

These are people who are unapologetically authentic to the core about who they are, share their struggles and battles with you, and are also strong enough to not let those challenges hold them back.

I have a ton of people who I consider to be my role models. Some of them I do know personally, most of them have no idea I exist. And honestly, I think that’s ok! You just need positivity in your life.

People who make you believe that the sky is the limit, that you are enough just as you are, and most importantly people who encourage you to be your authentic self. This makes you more relatable and it makes it a thousand times easier to dive deep into personal development because you already know who you are at your core.

5. Make time for self-care

Plain and simple make time for self-care. I cannot stress this enough!

We have a terrible habit of not engaging in self-care and the number one reason is always because we just don’t have the time or energy to do it. This is complete bullshit. If you have the time and energy to do all the other things you were able to do for the day, then you have the time and energy to make yourself a priority.

People feed way too much into what self-care really is. Self-care is anything and everything that makes you feel whole, that rejuvenates you, and that makes you happy.

Self-care is 100% personal and looks different for everyone! But the one thing that is the same across the board is the way it helps you grow personally.

Self-care is a great way to check in with yourself mentally, physically, and emotionally. Personally, I believe self-care and personal development work hand in hand.

The more you engage in self-care, the more you’re working on your personal development, and vice versa. The way I see it no matter how you chop it up it’s a win-win situation.

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6. Define your goals

Know what it is your truly want out of life. I like to think of my goals as a compass. They’re guiding me in the direction I need to go in order to get everything I’ve ever wanted out of life.

This is why I believe having goals is important. They help you stay focused and keep your eyes on the prize, while also enjoying the journey that you are on. This works so well with engaging in personal development because when you work towards your goals, you’re also becoming the best version of yourself every single day.

For example, this blog has grown so much from when I started it 3 years ago.

Before I only wanted a place to inspire people to live their happiest life. Now, I’m striving to connect with people on a deeper level while also inspiring them to change their lives for the better by being vulnerable with my own experiences on so many different topics.

All the while I’m improving myself daily.

All of this is because of the goals that I have in my life and the way I am able to make connections to every single one of them when it comes to knowing who I am at the core.

All in all

Personal development is not easy. For some people it’s their favorite thing to do, for others its too much for them to tackle at this specific time in their life. And both of these roads are ok.

Everyone will embark on a personal development journey at some point and time in their life, and they will do it when it is right for them. I started in my early-20s, some start later, others much earlier.

But when you start doesn’t matter, what matters is how you grow from it when you begin. Keep this in mind as you start your journey. And know that no matter how many times you fall you always have the choice to get back up.

-Xo

Kimora