When I first started exploring “personal development” I was 17 years old. Now I’m 22, and I imagine that personal development will be something that I continue to embark on until the day I die. From where I stand, I don’t see any reason to stop. There are always things to improve upon in one’s life: health, relationships, career, finances, hobbies, talents, or other personal goals. So long as you are breathing, you are developing and changing as a person – I think that is something that should be embraced if we want to get the most out of our lives.
And from what I gather when writing this blog and interacting with others, people who are interested in personal development come from all different age groups. I’ve exchanged e-mails with people who are barely 16 years old, and then others who are well over 70. It’s actually pretty insane – but it makes perfect sense to me.
My belief that personal development is for all ages stems from my belief that personal development is a never-ending process. Once we experience success, there is always another plateau to be reached. Why stop? Just keep going, keep exploring your boundaries, and keep working on new skills and abilities. I think most people would be surprised on just how much they can accomplish when they really dedicate themselves toward making consistent progress.
In my utopia, I would make personal development a part of our schools’ curriculum. I think there are too many people graduating high school and college without any understanding of their values, beliefs, attitudes, and how they have come to know and understand their map of the world. I don’t think we are ever too young (or too old) to start actively working on ourselves.
It’s odd how the sole purpose of school is learning, yet we rarely learn how to be good learners. It wasn’t until I started reading NLP books in college that I realized I was looking at “education” through a completely faulty paradigm. Schools taught me how to regurgitate facts and get good grades, but NLP taught me that education is a process that has to be met with enthusiasm and an intense passion for the topic being learned. Since then, I’ve never looked back. The more I became passionate, the more I learned, and the better of a person I seem to have become. I imagine instilling this same attitude in children at a young age would lead to significant improvements in individual’s ability to succeed and prosper in life. I know that it is something that I would want my kids to learn as early as possible.
On the other hand, one can never be too old to start improving aspects of one’s life. And since people are never perfect (and perfection, if anything, is a myth), I believe this is a huge motivation to always want to make progress. I don’t know anyone who is successful that doesn’t still seek to expand themselves in different ways. It doesn’t mean one can’t be happy with their life, only that these individuals are always looking to test their boundaries. Their personal development is a constant expansion of themselves.
So long as you can think, feel and are conscious, you have the power to make decisions in your life and influence your world. It’s that simple. Whether you are a new-born or on your death-bed about to utter your last few words, you are making your mark – so make it count.
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