The complete beginners guide on personal development for 2023

Why you should get started with personal development

But before we get into it, we’ll need to answer 2 important questions:

Why should you start with holistic personal development…

And who will holistic personal development work for?

Why start with a holistic approach to personal development? The answer is in the philosophical meaning of the word holistic. It’s the belief that the parts of something—in this case personal development—are intimately connected, and can only truly be understood by referencing the whole. So yes:

Meditation alone can help you learn about mindfulness, gratitude, and enjoying the moment
Time and task management alone can help you become more productive and fulfilled in your personal and professional life.
Science-based exercise and eating alone can give you a healthy body that can help you fight off fatigue and stress
And topics that address positive psychology alone can make you more resilient and decrease your anxiety.

But you won’t truly get all these benefits to stick, long-term, if you don’t put them in context of each other. If you don’t understand how they affect each other. That is why you need a holistic approach to personal development.

Who will holistic personal development work for? This approach to personal development is specifically designed to help those who feel stuck. Who feel like they’re going through the daily motions of their lives in repetitive humdrum. Who have had to place their dreams, goals, and ambitions on back burner because life keeps getting in the way. And most importantly, this approach is made for people who are ready to change.

Definition personal development

So what precisely does a holistic approach to personal development look like? In this article, we’ll explore that question in multiple different ways to make sure you get a concrete enough picture to get started.

But in a nutshell, it’s all about reflecting on your overall skills and qualities. And considering what you need to do with them to achieve your goals in life. For example, consider how developing patience, listen skills, physical health, and your ability to stay calm in stressful situations can make you a more confident communicator. Which in turn makes you a much better negotiator, able to navigate potential crises or present your needs in such a way that every party comes out satisfied, be it in your personal or professional life.

This is exactly what holistic personal development is all about—taking the diverse skills that affect every important area of your life, and developing them together so you can truly master them and take control of your life.

The true benefits of personal development

This all sounds like a lot of work, doesn’t it?

But if you’ve been setting goals and trying to achieve them for any significant amount of time, you’ll know that personal development is never easy. And it makes sense why. Because you’re not only trying to overrule and replace habits that have had years and years to form roots in your mind. But you’re also going to be getting benefits that last a lifetime:

• Like improved work-life balance. Imagine being able to perform above expectations at work. And still have time for family, friends, and all those hobbies and goals you’ve had to put a pause on—because you didn’t have the time.
• Like skyrocketing your empathy and communication skills. So you’ll be able to present your ideas and information in such a way that you make a positive impact on anyone you’re speaking to. Which in turn means you can let go of anxiety and form relationships easily.
• Like being able to effectively manage stress. So you always have a sense of control. Enhancing your self-esteem and removing any likelihood of depression in the process
• Like increased self-awareness. So you can always be in charge of your thoughts, emotional reactions, and habits.
• Like higher mental fitness and resilience. So you can be more productive, creative, and innovative. And so you can be protected against mental illness—simply because you have the ability to bounce back after rough patches.
• And finally, like better personal and professional relationships. So you can always have people around you who support you, and who can help you reach the top of the ladder in your career.

Do you see how these benefits interweave and intertwine with each other? How removing one could weaken the impact of the rest? That’s why you need to focus on holistic personal development—as opposed to the narrower approaches most others teach.

Personal growth

All right. Now it’s time we specified the actual skills you’ll be working on. Much like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, there are 5 different themes of holistic personal development. Each building on the other so that—if one is not accounted for—the others won’t be able to create the kind of impact on your life that they’re capable of.

With that said, here are the different themes of holistic personal development.

The Mental

This involves exercising your mind to stay mentally fit. It’s all about learning new things. About expanding and deepening your zone of expertise. You “expand” by learning new things outside your specialisation. And you “deepen” by taking the time to improve a particular set of hard skills you’re passionate about. But all that said, there’s one more mental exercise to keep in mind. And it’s likely the most important one: Rest. After all, your mind is a muscle, just like your body.

The Social

This theme is not as negotiable as most people think. Because no one ever develops themselves alone. And also because we evolved to be social—so not only do we need connection for our mental health. We also need it to develop important skills like:

• The ability to communicate properly
• The ability to solve any problem that comes your way
• The ability to easily build relationships with the people you want to
  And the ability to give and receive critical feedback

The Spiritual

Note that spirituality is not about religion. Instead, it is about your values, your morals, and who you actually are deep down. It’s about connecting to your inner self and the world around you—to gain a deeper understanding of how they both affect together. This is important not only because it gives you inner peace, but also because it gives you direction in life. Allowing you to set goals, meet them, and make decisions easily.

The Emotional

This is all about keying into how your emotions affect you, your thoughts, and your actions. And also how your experiences shape those emotions. It’s about looking back to see how you act in certain situations… together with why you act that way. So you can both repeat the emotions that drive you forward and take steps to elimintate the limiting beliefs that hold you back.

The Physical

What’s your nutrition like? How is your sleep? How much exercise do you do? It’s a known fact that your physical state is tied to your mental and emotional well-being. All of them influencing one another. So if we don’t care for our physical body, our minds and emotions and general goals in life suffer as well.

Rather than try to develop one of them at the expense of all others. Think about what you need to do to develop all of them in sequence with each other.

Personal development goals

Having read all that, the question that likely springs into your mind is:

How?

How do you go about improving these key areas of your life in such a way that they improve on one another?

Simple: you need to create a step-by-step plan that you can follow, by habit, to build and master the skills necessary to enhance these areas of your life.

But before you can plan, you need to set goals the right way.

And you start by asking yourself the two questions:

What do I want from these 5 core areas of my life? And what’s holding me back from getting them?

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Yes, it’s obvious. But the most obvious strategies are almost always the most powerful ones. Most people don’t achieve their goals, not because they’re lazy or demotivated or have bad plans, but because they don’t clarify what the specific obstacles in their way are. And they don’t build their plans around addressing those obstacles.

So take out a notebook and list out what you want and what’s holding you back from getting them. Once you’ve done that, you’re ready for the next stage.

Personal development plan

Alan Lakein—a time management expert and bestselling author whose seminal book How to get control of your time and your life was quoted by Bill Clinton to have influenced the direction of his life—once said: “Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now.”

In other words, a plan is a map to your dream future. It’s one of the personal growth quotes Bill lived by. It’s something you can visit again and again to always know the exact paths to take to achieve your goals. That said, here’s exactly how to go about it.

Key tenets of your plan

There are different ways to go about making a personal development plan. But if you look at the core of all those methods, they all have key things in common:

• They’re based on you having a crystal clear picture of where you are, where you want to go, and what’s holding you back from getting there. Aka, they’re based on well-defined goals. Which is why we discussed that before even speaking about planning. Remember: Know your obstacles
• Once you know exactly what you want, you’ll need to create a simple routine to get you there. Reduce that goal into a process. Start with the simplest actions possible and scale from there. Want to run a marathon? Create a routine to run 2.5 km three times a week. Then slowly raise the number of kilometers you run.
• After you have your simple routine that you can follow, again and again, look at the obstacles that are holding you back from doing what you set out to do. Then create a plan around your routine to address that obstacle. Using our marathon example again, maybe an obstacle is you’re always very drowsy in the morning—and that stops you from going out to run because you can’t get out of bed. Something you could do is have your running gear right beside your bed. So when you wake up drowsy, all you have to think about is putting on your shoes. Once you do that, everything else follows.
• Then, once you’ve done this for one of the holistic themes. Do it again for the others. Go down the list and create goals and routines and plans for obstacles you face with each of them.
• The next part—and this is the most important part that most people miss—is to make sure your plans are open to change and optimisation. We’ve all heard the saying “no plan ever survives first contact with the enemy.” It’s more true for personal development than most people realise. The first plan you make is almost never the perfect plan for you. So you need to keep analysing your failures—because you will fail—and keep creating mini-plans to address why it happened.
• And finally, be honest with your growth. Are you trying to move too fast? Are you taking on more than you can handle? Or is it the opposite: Are you really progressing as fast as you should? And are you doing too little to matter? All things you’ll need to consider and incorporate into your plan as you move forward.

But the major thing to take out of all this, which you might have noticed, is that a good personal development plan is never one-and-done. It’s fluid and constantly changing.

Success factors of personal development

You’ve set your goals. You’ve laid out your obstacles. You’ve created a simple step-by-step plan that takes you to where you want to go while helping you deal with the walls in your way.

But to make sure you continue to follow and optimize your personal development plan, there are a few psychological tools you can leverage to ensure your success.

• Goal Journaling. Here’s a neat mental trick you can use when writing down your goals: write them in the present tense. This makes you feel like you’ve already achieved the goal. So to make your emotions match reality, your mind pushes you into action. But this will only work if you set…
• Small challenges. It’s important you stack up a bunch of real wins in the beginning. The immediate benefit you get from this is a sense of satisfaction, direction, and control. This allows you to keep moving toward your goal. And in the long-term? You’ll be surprised to look back and see just how much easier it is to take on challenges that would have stumped you in the past. And one thing you can do to get yourself excited as you start your small challenges is…
• Visualisation. Don’t imagine the goal. Instead, imagine yourself going through the motions to achieve that goal. Imagine the steady progress you’ll make as you show up, again and again, to get to your dream destination. This will make, and keep, you excited to follow your process. But that said, whenever you do get a win, remember to…
• Celebrate. No matter how small or seemingly insignificant the victory is, celebrate it. It will show your mind that there are real, concrete rewards to be gained from following your plans. But as you do all of this. Keep in mind that, because life’s full of ups and downs, it won’t always be perfect. Which is why you’ll need…
• Resilience. Everyone who ever succeeds at anything worthwhile fails. It’s unavoidable. And in fact, it’s the key to massive personal development. So if you fall, get back up. And while you do that, be sure to avoid any form of…
  Negativity. Pay attention to what you’re thinking. A lot of us are so used to beating ourselves down it’s practically become a disturbing source of comfort for us. But know that, if you continue on that train, you’ll be on track to a life where all your dreams remain dreams. What should you do instead? Simple:
• Positive Focus. Try to force yourself to think positive thoughts. Make it into a task. Pick a time of day when you just speak (or think) positively about yourself. It could be as little as 5 minutes. Do it every day for a week, then a month, then a year. Those positive thoughts will automatically replace the negative ones. And one other great way to reinforce your positive thoughts is…
• Self-Competition. This is the key to happiness. If you compare yourself to others, you’ll wear yourself down because no matter how much you do, it will never be as “great” as what others are achieving. Your mind will always find a way to make you feel like less. On the other hand, if you only compare your present self to your past self—and you see the progress you’ve made, you’ll be inspired to keep moving. But honestly, to get any of the benefits listed above, you will still need…
  Persistence. Never. Stop. Moving. Be as consistent as you can. Miss once or twice? Get back at it. All the tools above will help you keep showing up, but you will still need a certain amount of willpower to stay consistent.

Personal development example

Aside from psychological tools, there are also practical tools you can use to keep yourself on the personal development grind and give yourself a near-infinite source of motivation. Find the personal development example that works best for your situation below.

Morning reading

Try this: rather than go for your phone or computer or TV during your morning routine, try reading something motivational or educational instead. It’ll give you a good start to the day because you’ll be expanding your knowledge while filling your mind with the kind of stuff that can help you live the life you want to live.

General journaling

Another thing you can do in the morning as you wake up, or at night right before you sleep, is to write down your thoughts. It could be on paper or a note app on your phone (though we recommend paper—as you don’t want the first or last thing you’re with a day to be your device.) This will help you clear your mind. See patterns in your thinking. And generate new ideas you can use to skyrocket your rate of personal development. At the very least, you can just write down the things you’re grateful for and proud of—to maintain a positive frame of mind at the beginning or end of the day.

Affirmations

This is something you should do daily. Remind yourself of what you’re trying to do and why you’re trying to do it. This allows you to keep what you care about top of mind—so it stays with you throughout the day, every day.

Word choice

Your words, metaphors, and the way you describe things influence your emotions and how you see the world around you. Think about the difference between saying “I’m caught between a rock and a hard place” and “I’m dealing with an interesting riddle I have to solve.” Do you see how one metaphor makes you feel trapped… like you have no way out but to choose between two unpleasant options? And how the other keeps you sharp, active, and solution-driven—while gamifying the problem for you and encouraging you to think creatively? That’s what the right word choice can do.

New activities

This is another way to keep yourself sharp, active, and solution-driven. Get out of your comfort zone as regularly as you can, and do something new for the first time. It works certain parts of your brain you usually wouldn’t—and it boosts your mood and creativity while you’re at it.

All that said, there is one particular tool that, in our opinion, stands above the rest. Because it skyrockets all the benefits of the tools we listed above—plus gives you extra accountability. What we’re talking about is…

Personal development training

Get started with personal development training. It’s the best way to get the fundamental basics you need for holistic personal development. It’s also a perfect way to kickstart your journey to achieving your personal development goals. And this is especially so for high-performance professionals.

Training gives you new, simple techniques you can use to work more effectively and happily—on both your professional and personal life. (Because we all know if one of those fails—everything else falls apart.)

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Training can involve reading books or taking courses on the 5 core themes of holistic personal development. So you can improve those areas of your life in tandem with each other—creating more long-lasting transformations in the process.

But this can be a lot to do on your own. Picking the information and strategies that are right for you. Monitoring the different necessary areas of your professional and personal development. Trying to keep track of and be consistent with everything.

The good news is:

This is where coaching comes in.

A coach is your personal development partner. They help you perform at your personal best. And they help you produce the kind of results you want to see in your personal and professional life.

And because of the fact that coaching is hands-on… with your coach taking the time to guide you step by step through your journey… you’ll also have someone to be accountable to. Someone who’ll push you to do what you need to do again and again—until you achieve the transformation you desire.

And here’s something else. A special type of coaching for high-powered professionals that you can try out. It’s called an Intervision group. In a nutshell, this is all about “peer coaching” where a small group of professionals who have similar challenges or related careers come together to help one another.

It’s like having accountability partners, but better. Because in this kind of group coaching, everyone is learning from each other—as well as an actual expert coach on whatever goals the group is trying to achieve.

So to sum it all up, personal development is the way to go about creating lasting change in your life and career. You can go at it alone and get success. But you can also get hands-on help from experts who have solved the problem you face for tens, hundreds, if not thousands of people like you.

Whatever the case, we want you to know that it’s still up to you to take action to transform your life into what you want it to be.

About We Go Hundred

Who are we?

We Go Hundred is a group of like-minded professionals from all over Europe who want to remove stress from their lives, skyrocket their energy levels, and become resilient. So they can transform their work and life for the better!

We Go Hundred’s leadership training program is all about holistic personal development. We focus on vitality, and on keeping you strong, active, and constantly motivated. This is the backbone of personal growth.

Our 3-month leadership program uses a hybrid approach. We help you using:

• Group training and intervision—so you can connect with like-minded people, form new relationships, and expand your mind with broad perspectives
• A blood test from the lab—so we can determine exactly what your body and mind need to perform at their absolute peak
• A personal development plan—so you have a step-by-step blueprint that you can follow, by habit, to get from where you are to where you want to go
• And on-demand training—so you’re not only receiving accountability and hands-on help through coaching, but you’re also learning new tactics you can immediately apply to take control of your inner and outer life via e-learning.

If you’re interested, you can talk to one of our experts today.