I'm curious, as I'm moving to take a more structured approach to my own personal development at this time in my life, what approaches to their own personal evolution do people in this group take, either NLP or other related?

Hi Adam
Evolving is right up there on my agenda and I would love to share on this thread! When you write 'structured approach', what specifically do you have in mind?
Happy Sunday!

Hi Candice

The structured approach is evolving ;-)

Currently I'm mapping out a set of goals for each of

Physical (biological)
Social
Psychological (cognitive, mental)
Emotional
Spiritual

with a view to integrating them and creating a series of "meta" goals. Effectively I want to create a picture of the person I am becoming most effectively, exquisitely and joyfully.

Stage two is to plan the actions, behaviours and interventions that will accelerate my progress, if you like :-)

I have been inspired, in parts, by Andy Smith's new book (I am really enjoying it Andy, a great accomplishment, you should be proud), by a quote on Steve Pavlina's blog about putting aside 3% of income for personal development and by Dr Covery's Seven Habits book, which I bought only a couple of months ago.

I think putting aside a percentage of your income and creating a fund for personal growth is a great idea. Lots of people invest a percentage of their income to benefit from compound interest and become more financially secure in the future, and I think investing in ideas can work in the same way and even better.

I have a rule that all the money I make from coaching clients will be used to pay for more books/training. I love seeing the clients and I think it's important that people always pay (something)i for their sessions, so I keep ending up with more money to invest -- and the more I learn, the more I enjoy seeing the clients. It works really well for me.

Your plan to be more structured has got me thinking. My plans are quite (un)bstructured at the moment, and the most dramatic result I've experienced personally was at a time when they were (very)i structured. Maybe I should think about this. [img]icons/icon0.gif[/img]

A couple of years ago, I was booked onto Richard Bandler's Personal Enhancement Workshop, which is the one where he has a very small group for three days and says he will give you everything on your 'wishlist'. Writing and refining the list turned into quite lengthy process because I wanted to make the most of the three days and get value for money, and I also didn't want Richard to shout at me for being stoopid! [img]icons/icon1.gif[/img]

As it turned out, the workshop was cancelled because Richard was ill. I put the list away and forgot about it, but a few months later I found it again and realised I had pretty much achieved all the things I had wanted to. In surprising ways in some cases and I still had a way to go with some things, but I would never have believed I could get that far on my own. Looking back now, the deep structure really helped -- and of course that's why we had to write and re-write the list.

Is the bath analogy in Covey's book? - the one where you need to refill the first bath in order to have water to transfer to other baths?
Woke up with thinking about this so thought I'd best download!!!!! (apologies Adam if this is not the type of thing you were looking for).

In setting your goals, are you chunking up from where you perceive yourself to be now, or chunking down from one overall goal?
How will you test that the goals you set are congruent?
Do you have timescales to achieve the goals you set eg: in 10 years, 5 years, 1 year?
What is outside of your control that can impact on your achievement of these?
What resources internal/external are you aware of that can help you to achieve? Where are the gaps, how can you/resources fill?
Do you have a systematic approach for achieving goals in each area? Will you be focusing on one area before moving onto the next for example?
What works for you now that you can bring forward into your new structured approach?

Enjoy the day
Candice

Hi Candice... I did reply to you, both here and in a pm, but it seems to have got lost in the change over (and my sent box is empty so I don't know if you got the PM)

Hi! Woke up one morning and my world had changed!!! Are we still in the same dimension?!!! No, I didn't get the PM but assume therefore, that you got mine.