Personal Development Counselling
The personal development of individuals has various ways of manifesting. It takes a different meaning depending on each individual’s life circumstances. Working towards personal development involves overcoming psychological, emotional and/or background obstacles. It makes us grow and leave behind past attitudes that were keeping us stuck in a place instead of getting ahead in our lives. It makes us feel alive and vibrant, willing to try new things and increase our self-confidence.
When you start to discover how to see things from a different perspective, it becomes possible to grow and move forward. From time to time we all get stuck in chronic situations and viewpoints that create suffering. We can’t see other perspectives, consider new ideas or create movement from it. We cannot see a solution for a problem that seems to be existential. However, there is always a way. Through finding new meanings and changing our behaviour, we change the way we feel about others, the future and ourselves. There are various ways to achieve this. In this blog, we will focus on a specific way of achieving personal change.
How does it look like to work towards Personal Development Counselling?
You can choose the areas of your life you want to focus for your development. You may choose these areas because you are not satisfied where you are and you want to do better. The goals for personal development are usually related to:
- Mental health (i.e.: depression, anxiety, anger)
- Career: a sense of dissatisfaction related to current status in one’s own career
- Personal Relationships: friendships and romantic
- Family relationships
- Self-esteem/Self-confidence
- Education: desire to get a degree or change program
- Health/Exercise/Nutrition
What is a personal development Counselling plan?
For a busy working person, personal development may involve spending time doing activities to refresh and replenish their energy, to feel alive again instead of feeling the sense of doom that comes from rushing to meet deadlines and demands. For example, it could mean to start spending time in nature, doing exercise, meditation and finding time to see friends.
For a grieving individual, it could be to be able to find new meaning to the loss, internalize the good memories of the loved one and be able establish relationships with others and feel they have the right to be excited and happy again after the loss.
For a an individual with a mental health disorder, it could be to live their life based on his/her values rather than on the impulses of their mood swings and dysfunctional behaviour. In terms of goals this could be to replace the yelling at family members with going for a walk or to be compassionate to others instead of aggressive.
A plan for personal development consists of 5 steps.
- What is your goal? What would you like to achieve?
For example: I want to have more time to stop living in automatic pilot and enjoy my life. I want to be present in the midst of my busy schedule and daily responsibilities.
- Where are you now in terms of your goal?
What are you currently doing or not doing in this area?
In our example: I spend most time working, get home tired with no energy to play with my kids. Don’t see my friends much and feel a bit isolated. Feel anxious with all the workload.
- Where would you like to be? What things would you like to be doing instead, how frequently, with who, when, how?
- Play with my children 30 minutes a day
- Walk 30 minutes a day
- Meet with friends twice a week, for coffee or lunch
- Do 20 minutes of meditation daily
Identify some of the small steps you can take in order to advance towards your goal.
Example:
| Steps towards goal: Play 30 min a day with my children | Date to take action: |
| 1. Think about an activity we will both enjoy doing together | Monday |
| 2. Get the elements to play (arts and crafts supplies, ball, etc.) | Tuesday |
| 3. Tell them you are going to play for 5 minutes today | Wednesday |
| 4. Set aside 5 minutes to play with them | Thursday |
| 5. Leave work 10 minutes earlier | Friday |
| 6. Play with children 10 minutes | Saturday |
| 7. Play with them 15 minutes | Sunday |
| 8. Think of another activity that will take longer and plan for 20 minutes play time with children | Monday |
| 9. Play 20 minutes with children | Tuesday |
| 10. Make it a routine to play with children after dinner and before bath | Wednesday |
| 11. Play 25 minutes | Thursday |
| 12. Play 30 minutes after dinner | Friday |
Example 2:
| Steps towards goal: Meditate 20 minutes a day | Date to take action: |
| 1. Get up 1 minute earlier and meditate for 1 minute in bed | Monday |
| 2. Get up 2 minutes earlier and meditate for 2 minutes in bed | Tuesday |
| 3. Meditate for 3 minutes in a seated position | Wednesday |
| 4. Meditate for 4 minutes first thing in the morning | Thursday |
| 5. Meditate for 5 minutes first thing in the morning | Friday |
| 6. Try to meditate for 10 minutes and see what happens | Saturday |
| 7. Meditate for 10 minutes first thing in the morning for 2 weeks | Start Sunday and continue 2 weeks |
| 8. Meditate 15 minutes first thing in the morning for 2 weeks | Start Sunday and continue 2 weeks |
| 9. Meditate 20 minutes in the morning | Start Sunday and continue |
You can plan to increase your steps daily, weekly, biweekly or with the frequency that you feel is realistic for you. If you are planning to introduce a new habit into your life, it’s easier to start with a short period of time but do it daily and increase time as the days go by. Each new day of practice will usually feel easier to do the new activity than the day before. You can use this method for studying, exercising, working and any activity you would like to start doing.
GOALS: Goals have to be SMART.
Smart stands for:
SPECIFIC: one at a time (play 30 minutes a day with my children)
MEASURABLE: 30 minutes a day by the end of the month
ACHIEVABLE: Can you accomplish this change in 2 weeks or do you need a month to adjust your schedule? Plan for success. Better slower but sure.
REALISTIC: Can you make 30 minutes a day to devote completely to your children? If the answer is no, go for 10 minutes.
TIME LIMITED: Want to try this for a month and see how it goes? Maybe after a month, you want to try a different way of bonding with your children and take them out twice a week or create a special family tradition to do over dinner such as talking about what made them happy during the day.
If you feel excited about working towards your personal development, go for it! Start by identifying the areas in your life that you could do better by your own standards and values. Then define your goal. You can have goals for different areas of your life such as family relationships, career, free time, etc.
Then go through the SMART goals plan to define them. Plan a series of steps to get from where you are now to where you want to be.
Start taking the steps one at a time. Enjoy your personal development!
CBT Psychology For Personal Development has an experienced Vaughan Psychologists who work with of child therapy.
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Written By: Dr. Silvina Galperin PhD, C. Psych.
