What Is Personal Development?
I’ve been reading John Maxwell‘s latest book The 15 Invaluable Laws Of Growth this week. All I can say is that I’m thoroughly enjoying it! It is rich with golden nuggets of wisdom, each having to do with personal growth and development. If you are a leader interested in your own personal growth, this is a must read book for you.
I’ve only read the first six chapters so far but I figured you could benefit from reading a few quotes from the book. I read books like this one with a yellow highlighter in hand, because I love going back to read the highlights!
Here are the titles for the first six chapters of The 15 Invaluable Laws Of Growth.
- The Law of Intentionality: Growth Doesn’t Just Happen
- The Law of Awareness: You Must Know Yourself to Grow Yourself
- The Law of the Mirror: You Must See Value in Yourself to Add Value to Yourself
- The Law of Reflection: Learning to Pause Allows Growth to Catch Up with You
- The Law of Consistency: Motivation Gets You Going—Discipline Keeps You Growing
- The Law of Environment: Growth Thrives in Conducive Surroundings
The Law of Intentionality: Growth Doesn’t Just Happen
- “No one improves by accident. Personal growth doesn’t just happen on its own.” (page 3)
- “The longer you wait to do something you should do now, the greater the odds that you will never actually do it.” (page 5)
- Regarding a personal growth plan: “It’s similar to driving on an unfamiliar road at night. Ideally, you’d like to be able to see your whole route before you begin. But you see it progressively. As you move forward, a little more of the road is revealed to you. If you want to see more of the way, then get moving.” (page 7)
- “The whole idea of motivation is a trap. Forget motivation. Just do it.” (page 7)
- “The greatest danger you face in this moment is the idea that you will make intentional growth a priority later.” (page 11)
- “Later is one of those dream-killers, one of the countless obstacles we put up to derail our chances of success.” (page 11)
The Law of Awareness: You Must Know Yourself to Grow Yourself
- “The way to start is to pay attention to your passions.” (page 19)
- “You will never fulfill your destiny doing work you despise” (page 21)
- “Passion gives you an advantage over others, because one person with passion is greater than ninety-nine who have only an interest!” (page 21)
- “Nothing’s work unless you’d rather be doing something else.” (page 21)
- “You cannot win if you do not begin! The people who get ahead in the world are the ones who look for the circumstances they want, and if they can’t find them, they make them. That means taking initiative.” (page 27)
- “If you have discovered what you want to do, start finding people who do what you want to do with excellence. Then do what you must to learn from them.” (page 28)
- “Ask people when they will do what they want to do, and most answer that they hope to do it ‘someday.'” (page 31)
The Law of the Mirror: You Must See Value in Yourself to Add Value to Yourself
- “If you don’t realize that you have genuine value and that you are worth investing in, then you will never put in the time and effort needed to grow your potential.” (page 39)
- “People are never able to outperform their self-image.” (page 40)
- “You shouldn’t become too concerned about what others might think of you. You should be more concerned about what you think of yourself.” (page 40)
- “If you put a small value on yourself, rest assured the world will not raise the price.” (page 40)
- “Comparing yourself to others is really just a needless distraction.” (page 42)
- “We tend to get in life what we are willing to tolerate.” (page 48)
The Law of Reflection: Learning to Pause Allows Growth to Catch Up with You
- “Learning to pause allows growth to catch up with you. That’s the Law of Reflection.” (page 53)
- “Study the lives of great people who have made an impact on the world, and you will find that in virtually every case, they spent a considerable amount of time alone thinking.” (page 55)
The Law of Consistency: Motivation Gets You Going—Discipline Keeps You Growing
- “Motivation gets you going, but discipline keeps you growing.” (page 69)
- “If you want to become more disciplined and consistent in your performance, you need to become more disciplined and consistent in your growth.” (page 70)
- “Some days I believe that patience is a minor form of despair disguised as a virtue.” (page 74)
- “…we have a problem with patience. We want everything fast. We live in a country with fast-food restaurants and fast-weight-loss clinics. How ironic.” (page 74)
- “You will never change your life until you change something you do daily. That means developing great habits. Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishments, and that bridge must be crossed every day. Over time that daily crossing becomes a habit. And ultimately, people do not decide their future; they decide their habits and their habits decide their future.” (page 79)
- “In the end, hard work is really the accumulation of easy things you didn’t do when you should have.” (page 79)
- “Anyone who does what he must only when he is in the mood or when it’s convenient isn’t going to be successful.” (page 82)
The Law of Environment: Growth Thrives in Conducive Surroundings
- “I believe at some point during every person’s lifetime, there comes a need to change environments in order to grow.” (page 84)
- “The best place to learn is always where others are ahead of you.” (page 85)
- “The main idea is to know yourself and to assess whether you’re getting what you need in your current environment. If you are, celebrate. If you’re not, prepare yourself to make some hard choices.” (page 88)
- “It is not always comfortable, but it is always profitable to associate with people larger than ourselves.” (page 92)
- “So think long and hard about who you’re spending the most time with, for wherever they are headed, so are you.” (page 93)
- “One of the first ways that I challenged myself was by making my goals public. Few things push a person like a deadline and an audience.” (page 94)
- “Growth always comes from taking action, and taking action almost always brings criticism. Move forward anyway. To reach your potential, you must do not only what others believe you cannot do, but even what you believe you cannot do. Most people underestimate themselves. They shoot for what they know they can reach. Instead they should reach for what’s beyond their grasp. If you don’t try to create the future you want, you must endure the future you get.” (page 96)
What Should You Do Next? Allow Me To Suggest Two Things:
- Please leave a brief comment or suggestion below and let me know what you think about this article, whether good, bad or otherwise.
- Look down. See those social sharers? Would you mind tweeting, sharing or “liking” it to your social media followers? (You’re awesome, by the way. Thanks!)
* Image credit: Melody Campbell (Creative Commons)
Which one of the above quotes did you find must helpful and why? Also, if some asked you, “What is personal development?” how would you respond? Lastly, what have you been doing lately to foster your personal growth?
My comment addresses a slightly different issue than those in the closing question.
The value in these sorts of lists lies in the fact that they encourage us to examine ourselves to see if we’re doing something (or neglecting something) that might hinder the spread of the gospel through our ministry. This is an important task.
But there are a couple of potential drawbacks to the list approach.
FIRST AND FOREMOST, lists of this sort subtly draw our attention away from an important truth about building the church: Jesus aid “_I_ will build my church.” Church growth through conversions and spiritual maturation of the saints is something that Jesus accomplishes, not us.
The unexamined assumption is much of church growth literature is that Jesus will build his church *here* – where I happen to be ministering. That is far from the case. I have served as an intentional interim pastor in churches where a defeated pastor left a disappointed congregation because they did everything by the book but growth did not occur. I don’t have hard data on this but I would surmise that this is true in 90% of the cases where the typical church growth formulae are implemented.
I have also seen (and been on staff in) churches that do everything wrong, violating most of the received wisdom of church growth, and yet these churches grew significantly in very short periods of time. These instances are often attributed to being in the right place at the right time (when significant subdivisions were built near an established church or the church’s neighborhood was annexed by the city).
At other times there is no apparent reason for growth that anyone can identify. It is simply a case of God doing what he does – miracles, for which we can claim no participation or credit.
SECOND, and this is a tragedy, is that church growth formulae encourage pastors who want to see growth to emulate (mimic) the church growth rock stars. Now, in their defense, those who put on the seminars and write the books very often warn their audience to avoid this, but that is nonetheless what happens. Sadly, pastors will forfeit their giftedness and experience and try to become someone other than who God has made them.
This opens up a whole can of worms, particularly in light of the fact that the current research indicates that there are a few personality profiles and gift mixes that are more highly correlated with church growth and church revitalization. Google “Gordon Penfold” and check his research. He published a paper a few years back at the Gospel Coalition Research Network on this issue.
The can of worms is this: If certain personality types and gift mixes are much more likely than others to transition churches into growing churches, what does that suggest about the assumption that God intends for *every* church to expand? Frankly, I don’t have the answer to that one but it something that we need to wrestle with.
THIRD, the list approach directs our attention to a goal that probably isn’t the most important one. We have unwittingly adopted a church metric that’s wide of the mark. We think that ministry success – produced by hitting all the right check boxes – is measured by income, attendance and real estate. A misunderstanding of Acts 2:41-47 is basis for this misunderstanding.
The point is that our objective should be mature disciples, not attendance, income and program participation. Mature disciples, as we’re finding out, are far harder to describe (in my own research I have found that for every ten pastors you ask to describe/define a disciple you will get twelve answers!).
Sorry for blathering on so long about this, Charles. Please do not take this as criticism of you, your work or your post. It’s just that reading this has sparked some thought about this whole notion of church growth and the formulaic approach.
Blessings on you.
Thanks for your comment, Bud. I appreciate your thoughtfulness in outlining your beliefs.
However, I am a bit confused as to what exactly you mean with regards to how you compare/contrast John Maxwell (and his books on leadership & growth) versus how “Christianity” is to build (or conduct) a church. I understand your comments, I’m just unsure of how they relate to the topic.
It is interesting that this past week I was teaching on the very passage you mention in which Jesus said that He would build His church. I’m so glad it isn’t my responsibility to build His church! The last thing I want to do is be in competition with the Lord.
However, it is equally interesting that the Bible gives very little guidance, information, or criteria about how local congregations are to conduct church, what to do when we meet, who church is designed to be for, etc. In other words, the Lord left a lot open to our creativity about church, our worship services, how to “attract” the attention of people who might want to know more about God, etc.
I guess when it is all said and done, I’m thankful that Jesus told us to “make disciples,” rather than “make conversions.”
Like I said at the top, my comment was more of an aside than a comment on Maxwell’s laws of personal development. It was more of a thinking out loud response to the checkbox approach to ___________ (fill in the blank with whatever).
I guess I should have expanded on the checkbox approach to spiritual maturity rather than going off track with remarks about church growth. Just as with church growth, there is a “necessary but not sufficient” aspect of spiritual growth. By way of example, 2 Corinthians 3:18 (my translation) “we are being transformed from one degree of glory to the next by The Lord, the Spirit.” Add to that the rather enigmatic statement of Galatians 2:20 and you have a mystery on your hands.
That is why I think that lists, while necessary and helpful, take God’s sovereignty for graned and evacuate the mystery from the process.
Yes, there are many things that can make us stumble off the track of remembering that God is in charge and is alone sovereign over both the details and the end result.
Personally, I’m not a list guy. Can’t stand ’em. They make me nervous. Not because I have anything against lists, but because I feel boxed in by them. But I also know that, for example, when I create a to-do list at the start of my day, I accomplish a lot more in the end. So lists can be quite valuable when used wisely.
When it comes to church planting, church growth, or just living out our faith, I believe lists can be helpful as well. It creates stewardship. But we do need to remember that lists of any sort are just a tool and not the power behind the tool. God is the power.
Thanks Bud!
I just read this book. Brings a lot structure to things I’ve recently been thinking about.
“The best place to learn is always where others are ahead of you.” (page 85). Whew! That whole chapter on environment rocked me.
Cheers,
Max
Charles,
This article is informative and believe can prove to be fruitful if put into action. I could think of strategies for most, if not all, of these “laws” and quotes that accompany them. I am definitely picking this book up.
Personal development is growing in whatever area is important to each person. It is subjective. Personal development for me is becoming more productive in all areas of my life, not just in my work environment.
I have read several books by John Maxwell. The Winning Attitude, Failing Forward and this one are my favorites. I read this one last year and it was most meaningful regarding personal development. I get a book from the library – if I want to go back to it, I buy it and underline places. The library also had an audio.
Every year, between Thanksgiving and the New Year, I plan goals for the year and each month. After several years, it has changed my life – getting more accomplished as well as being more focused, peaceful, and calm. Goals for my career (income, saving, educational, books to read, areas where growth is needed), my personal home and business (budget, savings, home repairs/maintenance and autos), and personal development which includes health (physical, mental, emotional), spiritual, self-improvement, books to read. Love lists – the best list being a “Gratitude” list written every day (big difference between thinking and writing).
Brian Tracy and Jack Canfield are also authors that are very helpful for self-improvement. They are all on my “Gratitude” list.