Sunday check-in: The power of personal development

Life coach Jasna Burza shares tips for personal development in this week's Sunday check-in. 

What is it: Personal development is a lifelong process that helps you assess your life goals and get better so you can fulfill your potential. It allows you to be proactive and take charge of your actions. Personal development contributes to both satisfaction and success in life. Warren Buffet said that investing in yourself is the best investment you can make. Personal development can include any skill that you build to improve yourself—your emotions, thoughts, or behaviors.

Sources of personal development are books, trainings, podcasts and working with coaches. You don't need to spend a dime to create a better version of yourself and who doesn't want that! Here's why you should invest in yourself:

• Greater Self awareness: Personal development begins with self-awareness. You get to know who you really are; your values, beliefs and the purpose you wish to pursue. True fulfillment can never come from chasing other people's dreams. If you want to achieve lasting happiness, you need to design your life based on who you are.
• Clear life direction: Once you have raised your self-awareness, you are clearer on the things you wish to achieve from life. Decision-making becomes a lot easier. Tasks which used to take a great deal of your time, no longer make it onto your to-do list. 
• Focus and Clarity: As your personal development improves, prioritization becomes much easier. You are clearer on your objectives and you can quickly identify which task will give you the best result with the resources available to you at that moment.
• Greater resilience: There will be tough times in life. When these tough times occur, you need to have the skills and attributes to deal effectively with them. Personal development cannot prevent bad things from occurring but it will help you deal with them when they do. You will have greater confidence, resilience, personal and interpersonal skills to cope with any eventuality.
• Better relationships: When you improve your personal development, you are better able to see which relationships are worth investing in and which need to be cut loose. You also develop the skills to make the most of those relationships which have the most positive impact on your life.

Jasna has a free, video personal development course on her website called Purpose Compass Formula. Click here for more information.