Personal Development

For most of us, personal development starts around the age of 5 when we enter school.  Then we spend all of our childhood and into early adulthood learning and developing ourselves.  Then, for some reason, many people just stop developing.  We get jobs and decide that we've learned about all we need to.  We slowly progress as our bosses allow/force us to and we spend all of our freetime on meaningless things.

Personally, I want to continue to develop and learn throughout my entire life.  I believe that I will always have room for improvement or growth, no matter how successful I become.  The truth is that this is much harder than it seems.  I tend to go in cycles, part of the time I am very motivated and devote time to learning while the other part of the time all I want to do is sit down on the couch and watch tv.  I have not completely learned the secret to always motivating myself, but I have learned that you have to form the habits of doing the activities you don't always want to do.

A few weeks ago I re-dedicated myself to reading books that help me develop.  My business partner loves listening to books, and while I think it is a great way to be exposed to more books, I am still partial to sitting down and reading a physical book.  I believe I absorb a lot more then when I listen.  So I have set aside time to read each morning and try to make sure it happens at least 3-4 times per week. So far so good!  But I know I will start to slack off and it will be up to me to stay with it.  To make myself spend the time even when I really, really don't want to.  If I can do that, I know I will continue to be successful and continue to develop.

I don't want to be stagnant.  I don't want to peak before 30.  I believe the best is still to come.  And it has been pretty good already!