Week 3 Personal Development Plan Update

I feel a little better about this weeks update. During the week I was able to drop 3 pounds. Not the 4 that I am shooting for but much better than the zero I lost last week. I purchase the Diet Solution Program but, I have not implemented too much of it yet. I am certainty looking forward to next weeks weigh in after having a full week on the diet solution program. There is a lot to it, and the author suggest that you try not to change everything at once. I will make a few changes and see how it works.
As far as the TV viewing is concerned I was able to cut way back on the time spent in front of the TV. There were two days that I did not turn on the TV at all and it did not kill me I believe less time in front of the TV contributed to the 3 pound weight loss. It seems that my personal development plan is starting to come together.

Week 2 Personal Development Plan Update

Well week 2 did not go well at all. I did not plan out each day and let life get in my way as far as weight loss goes. With no plan I found myself in many situations where I just ate what ever was convenient. My total weight loss for the week was a whopping zero pounds. I did have 5 good days of exercising, but that was not enough to offset my eating and drinking. Since my personal development plan has not been working as I had hoped. I have decided to follow some one else s plan for my weight loss. After searching around I have read a lot of good things about The Diet Solution Program. It sounds really promising. I will purchase it on Thursday of this week so I doubt I will have much feedback on Monday of next week but I will report my progress none the less. One of the main things you have to do when following a personal development plan is evaluate. Once you evaluate if things are not going in the right direction you have to change your plan. That is what I have done, after two weeks on The Diet Solution Program I will reevaluate, hopefully I will not have to change this plan any further.  

My Biggest Obstacle in My Personal Development Plan

We all have areas that set us back in our personal development journey. I like everyone else have more than one self sabotaging habit, but my TV viewing seems to be by far my most negative habit that is stopping me from reaching my goals. Habits developed over a long period of time are hard to break, but not impossible. My TV habit has been developed over a 30 year period so it will definitely be a hard habit too break. To achieve anything you have to give something up so my first step is going to be to cut my viewing down to no more than 3 hours a day. I know you probably just read that last statement and thought 3 hours a day is a lot, and you would be right. Over the course of a week that would be almost one full day of TV watching. However if check you will probably see that you are watching more than 3 hours a day. A lot of people will come home from work and turn on the TV around 5pm and turn it off around 10 or 11 at night. I am no math major but that certainly adds up to more than 3 hours daily and that  does not include weekends. For my personal development plan to work I will have to conquer this bad habit, when you give something up you will need to have something to replace it with. Below are some of the things I plan to do to replace TV time:

1. Spend more time with my family.
2. Take courses in areas that I would like to improve in my life.
3. Go for an evening walk or run.
4. Lift weights.
5. Write articles for my web site.
6. Read personal development books.

I will update you in the future of my progress. In the meantime take the time to find out what habits you constantly participate in that are holding you back and take action to overcome them. 

Week 1 Personal Development Plan Update

I made it through the first week of my weight loss plan without the results that I intended to get. My goal is to lose close to 4 pounds a week. I followed the personal development plan  pretty closely for the first 4 days but got off track at the end of the week. Total weight loss was 1 pound. Although I could allow myself to get discouraged I know where I went wrong and will refocus and correct the issues this week. If after week 2 my results do not improve dramatically then I will revisit my personal development plan, but at this point I don't believe that it is necessary. As I stated in earlier post it is critical to plan out each day in advance. If during that day you get off course, reevaluate quickly and refocus on your goals. When it comes to planning I think the late great Jim Rohn says it best:

"If you go to work on your goals, your goals will go to work on you. If you go to work on your plan, your plan will go to work on you. Whatever good things we build end up building us"

I look forward to updating you with much better results next week. Until then I hope that you will develop a personal development plan for yourself and start following it immediately.  

My Top Three Reasons For Pursuing Personal Development

What do you tell people when they ask why you are following a self development plan? For me there are numerous answers to this question. I decided to share a few today and will probably go into more detail in future blogs.

1. Because I can:  I ask myself why wouldn't I want to improve myself everyday. Humans are the only entities on earth that do not become all they can be. A tree will grow as tall as it's environment will allow. Animals will follow their instincts and develop to their full potential. For some reason most humans will follow the path of least resistance. I choose not to follow this path.
2. No Regrets: When I'm on my death bed I do not want to keep asking myself why I did not do this or that. I want to be able to tell myself that I did all that was possible and then some.
3. Sense of Purpose: Having a personal development plan and following it gives me as sense of purpose. You can not drift through life and feel fulfilled. You need something to aim for, a reason to get out of bed and get your day started. 

Feel free to share your reasons for your personal development plans. 

My Weight Loss Personal Development Plan

As I stated in my first post, one of the main reasons that I started this blog is to hold myself accountable. I would be a hypocrite to preach to others the need for personal development and to not follow that advice. With that being said I have decided that the main goal I need to focus on is my body weight. My reasoning for this is if I am not healthy then reaching all my other goals would be useless. I am not in horrible shape, but after weighing myself I noticed that the scale is not giving me the numbers that I would like. As mentioned in previous post you need to know where you are starting from. My weight is 241 pounds. My Ideal weight is 195 pounds. Having these two numbers allows me to make a proper personal development plan. To do this I need to ask the following questions:

1. How long do I want to take to reach my goal weight? I have decided to go with 12 weeks.
2. How much will I have to lose each week to make this happen? 3.8 pounds. I know this sounds ambitious and it should be. If I give my self an easy goal like 1 pound a week then it would not provide enough motivation to keep going!
3. What will my diet look like? I plan to eat real foods. By real foods I mean foods that have not been overly processed or have added chemicals. My diet will consist of fruits, vegetables, lean meats and fish. I will also be sure to plan my meals the night before.
4. What exercise plan will I follow? I am going to use a high intensity plan. This means I will push myself through the workouts to get my heart rate up. Monday, Wednesday and Friday I will lift weights alternating between upper and lower body.  Tuesday,Thursday and Saturday I will do 20 to 30 minutes of high intensity cardio. Sunday will be a rest day. I will also be sure to take an evening walk with varying lengths between 1 and 3 miles.
5. How will I stay focused and keep on track with my personal development plan? I will post once a week to this blog describing my progress.

I hope my weight loss journey will inspire others to take control of their lives and get in better shape. If you have any suggestions be sure to add a comment. Thanks!

Getting Started With Personal Development Part 2

We have now completed Step 1 by asking the tough questions about where we are up to this point in our life. We can now turn our attention to where we want to take our lives. If after evaluating your life you discover that you are not achieving the success you want, then a personal development plan should help you get back on track. If you continue to do the same things you have in the past then you will not grow. If you follow that same plan you can rest assured that you will be no better off next year than you are now. An example would be if you are trying  to get a promotion in your job and seem to keep getting passed over, then you need to change your approach. Maybe you have been showing up on time and leaving on time. Your new strategy should be to show up earlier and stay later. I know this seems like common sense but if you do not take the time to evaluate you can easily just continue to follow the same old path. We need to take the time now to ask some more personal development questions this time about the future.

1. What do I want for my family life? What is my plan for achieving it?
2. What do I want for my career? What are the steps I need to achieve this objective?
3. What are my financial goals? How much money do I want to have in 3,5,10 or 20 years?
4. What are my health goals?  How much do I want weigh? What kind of diet will I have to follow to reach my goal weight? What kind of workout program will I have to follow?
5. Where do I want to visit? How much will I have to save to make these trips possible?
6. What charities do I want to donate to? How will I help others? Will I donate time, money or both.

Once you have your answers to these  questions you have the beginnings of your goals list. Now comes the tricky part. Pick the one goal you wish to achieve more than the others. This is the one you should work on first. I know human nature is to try and change everything at once but it is best to focus on the one goal. The power of focus plus discipline is almost unstoppable. Write it down and go into more depth about how you are going to achieve it. Next take action immediately, just getting started even if it is a small step will help propel you towards your goal.