Personal Development and Improvement

The following article is from the new book, Getting Personal: A Guide to Personal Development by author and speaker, John Patrick Hickey.  To read more from John Patrick Hickey or to get his books, training and book him to speak to your church, business or group, visit our website at www.johnpatrickhickey.com.  

The whole point of personal development is that we improve. It is all about becoming better: better at what we do, our relationships and who we are as people. Another way to see personal development is to call it personal improvement.

Abraham Lincoln said, “I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.” If you look at your life and see that you are the same as you were yesterday and the day before that, then you are in trouble. Each day, we have to be learning and growing; with learning and growth comes improvement. Without it comes stagnation and, if you have ever seen stagnate water, you know it is not a pretty sight. Stagnate people, like stagnate water, are ugly, smell bad and are toxic. No one enjoys being around stagnate people.

Success-minded people keep the stream flowing in their lives. By learning from every experience and person they meet, by reading and feeding their minds with good nourishing information, and through the help of others, the waters of their life are fresh and clean. They have all they need to improve and grow into the very best they can be. So, how can other people help us improve? There are three things

that can benefit us by being around other people. This is especially true with those who are more successful than we are. These three are education, inspiration and measurement. Success-minded people will gain more education from the lives of the successful than they will ever find in a book or class. No matter what your learning style, when you learn from others you are seeing life first hand. You not only learn from their success and how it is achieved, but you will also learn from their failures and how they were faced. The principles of life are no longer just an idea of theory, but are real and have consequences.

To discover how you can achieve the dream you have believed was impossible for too long, read Getting Personal: A Guide to Personal Development by John Patrick Hickey.  You can get a signed copy for yourself and get one for a friend, by going to http://www.johnpatrickhickey.com/it-is-good-to-set-goals-better-to-achieve-then/.  Now available on Kindle, Oops! Did I Really Post That? Online Etiquette in the Digital Age by John Patrick Hickey.

© 2016 John Patrick Hickey. No part of this may be reprinted or published without permission of the author.