Three areas for personal development

This blog posts suggests three areas to work through. Each helps you figure out where to focus your personal development efforts on.

I found this approach very valuable. The order I present them here is the order I went through them.

Understand your values

Once you know your values you can make decisions that align with those. It might seem a bit big for trying to figure out your personal development plan, but it will be very useful.

To get you started have a listen to episode #42 How Knowing Your Values Unlocks Career Happiness of the Squiggly Careers Podcast. Link: https://play.acast.com/s/amazingif/dda48f0d-d5bf-484b-a085-39dc07845a8a

Define your strengths

I believe you’re a lot more likely to be successful (however you define success) if you get to use your strengths. 

To get you started have a listen to episode #27 Finding out your strengths of the Squiggly Careers Podcast. Link: https://play.acast.com/s/amazingif/95611f20-adb2-473b-8584-8d8dccbcbed0

Do the three lives exercise

The third area is writing out your three potential lives.

The exercise is explained in the book Designing your life: build the perfect career, step by step by, William Burnett & David J. Evans. I borrowed this from the library.

In case you can’t get hold of the book the exercise is summarised in a TEDx talk: Designing Your Life | Bill Burnett | TEDxStanford. Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SemHh0n19LA . It would make sense to listen to the whole talk, but the exercise specifics are from around 9:20.

Also, once you’ve finished the exercise take a close friend through it. The act of saying out the lives in itself is valuable.

Summary

In short, three areas I suggest looking into when you’re trying to figure out what you’d like to do are:

• Understand your values
• Define your strengths
• Do the three lives exercise 

For further inspiration read my post on how to find way to work on your passion: https://sustainableestonian.com/how-to-find-ways-to-work-on-your-passion/

I wrote this post as one of my friends wanted advice on how to figure out what they should do. I hope this summary would also help others. If you have any questions let me know in the comments below.