We all know that personal growth is important if we want to move forward in life, get better, and achieve our goals.  But how consistent is your personal growth? If you are like many it goes in spurts.  You’ll have a period of time when you are doing all the right things: you are listening to CDs and podcasts and reading books.  Because you pursue these activities in spurts you also grow in spurts.  You grow for a little, and then stabilize.

What is interesting is that your progress towards your goals will end up following the same track.  When you are growing and pursuing personal growth activities you will be moving towards your goals. There is a direct relationship between personal growth activities and progress towards your goals.

So what’s the solution?  A small but consistent daily commitment to personal growth.

Just FIFTEEN minutes a day!

That’s all it takes.  Fifteen minutes a day can help you stay focused on your goals, moving forward, growing, and a step ahead of your competition.

Here’s how you can make the most of your fifteen minutes a day:

1. Those fifteen minutes a day must be FOCUSED.

They must be FOCUSED on the field or discipline that you need in order to achieve your primary goal.  If your primary goal is in sales, you should be pursing personal growth activities that help you be a better salesperson and stay motivated.  If your primary goal is your blog, you need to be learning about how to be a better blogger.  If your primary goal is to run a marathon, you need to be pursing activities that keep you excited, encouraged and learning how to be a better runner.

This means that other personal growth activities that you pursue don’t count towards your fifteen minutes.  Only activities directly connected to your primary goal count as your fifteen minutes a day.

2. Know the skills and abilities that you want to improve.

Based on your goals, you need to know what areas you need to get better at.  If you are a salesperson, perhaps you need to focus on closing skills or on understanding your customers.  If you are a blogger, you may want to learn about developing WordPress themes or improving your marketing skills.  What are the skills that you need to excel in to achieve your goals and be excellent in what you do.

3. The fifteen minutes a day must be consistent.

You need to do this every day without skipping.  Initially this might be hard.  You may forget, there may be other things going on, and it may feel like you don’t have time.  Even if it is the last thing you do before you go to bed at night make sure you take that fifteen minutes pursing focused growth.

Personal growth in this manner is a habit.  That means after a period of time it will become a lot easier perhaps even automatic.  It takes time to form a habit, but it is worth it.

4. Have someone hold you accountable

Anytime you are looking to pursue a goal or create a habit, you will have more success if you have someone holding you accountable.  As you work to create a fifteen minute a day of personal growth habit, you will be more likely to do it if you have people holding you accountable.  Ideally these should be people who are pursing a similar primary goal and as such are working on similar personal growth activities.

I have a group of four other people that I work with to hold each other accountable to our fifteen minute a day of personal growth.  We email each other every couple of days and share how we have spent our fifteen minutes of personal growth time.  Not only does that help keep us motivated but it serves as a way to share ideas on personal growth activities.

5. Engage in personal growth activities

Just do it!  The slogan that Nike uses is useful here.  You need to get started and just do your fifteen minutes of personal growth time.  What should you do?  There are many options:

• read a book (my top 10 books are listed here)
• listen to a training CD
• get an audio book from the library
• listen to podcasts (my top 10 podcasts are listed here)
• read inspiring blogs
• watch a TED presentation (my top 5 TED presentations are listed here)

There are lots of options, choose one and get started!

Fifteen minutes a day is not a lot of time.  You can learn a new skill, move towards your goals, and above everything else grow!

Written by:
Danny Gamache – The Success Professor
Follow me on Twitter: @successprof

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Recently I wrote an article entitled 6 Ways to Grow Daily, and the subsequent follow up, how to create a reading plan and where I shared my Top 10 Book Choices.  Today’s article follows in that series by providing another way for your professional development – TED!

Are you familiar with TED?  TED is an annual conference held for top leaders in the fields of Technology, Education, and Design.  The conference is very exclusive, with a detailed application process, and an expectation that you will only be accepted if you are top leader in your particular field.  At the conference this exclusive group of people is exposed to 50 top notch lectures from other leaders, authors, and educators.  There are no breakout sessions, instead everyone gets every lecture all together. The goal is to literally change the world with this group of leaders as a starting point.

Naturally, because the event is so exclusive, the likelihood of any one person being able to attend the event for personal development reasons is slim-to-none.  Fortunately, TED talks are also made available online. The videos have become a top source of online personal growth and learning about a wide variety of subjects.  With numerous videos from several years of recent TED conferences means that you have hours and hours of videos right at your disposal.

So how do you narrow them down?  Obviously you will need to search their database for areas of personal interest, but to help you out here is my top 5 TED talks list:

1. Malcom Gladwell – author of The Tipping Point & Blink

Talk: What We Can Learn From Spaghetti Sauce

2. Tony Robbins – author of Unlimited Power & Awaken The Giant Within

Talk: Why We Do What We Do

3. Seth Godin – author of Purple Cow & The Dip

Talk: Sliced Bread

4. Billy Graham – evangelist (See: Autobiography: Just As I am)

Talk: Technology, Faith, and Suffering

5. Richard St. John – author of 8 to be Great

Talk: Secrets of Success in 8 Words & 3 Minutes

This list will give you a great start.  Do you have a favorite TED talk?  Which is your favorite out of these five?  What other talks would you recommend?  Share the details below and we continue to help others grow.

To your success,
The Success Professor – Danny Gamache
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