Personal Development – the art of identifying ourselves. Personal Development refers to the process in which we, as people, grow, where our character, abilities and knowledge develop. Personal Development revolves around the process of learning and developing and for a topic that is so vital to our lives, do we really know what Personal Development is & why it is important?
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We have all heard the term ‘Personal Development’ before, right? It is a term that gets mentioned a lot in day to day conversations, but have we ever taken a second to look a what exactly we mean by Personal Development? Today’s blog is a guest blog, by Eve Becker, which takes that deeper dive into the subject and focuses on what is Personal Development & why it is so important to us in life!
So without further ado, here is Eve Becker with “Leading Guides to the Benefits of Personal Development”:
Being authentic, or in other words being yourself, is such an important part of how we live our lives. It influences who we are, how we work, why we do the things that we do, what we need to improve on and more. So, if being authentic plays a part in all of these different areas of our life, does it impact on how successful we are, both in life and as a person?
This is what we’ll be looking at in today’s “What do we mean by Success?” blog!
Today’s blog is going to be a little bit different to the usual kind of blog that I write. The blog is going to be focused around a story which happened to me around 4-5 weeks ago, which played a really large role in the increase of the amount that I stutter over the last couple of weeks.
I mentioned in last weeks blog that I was going to talk about it this and, even though it is quite a personal story, I still feel like the messages that we can take from it are very important. It may seem like a very sad story when you read through the first few paragraphs, but there’s always a lesson and a moment of reflection that we can take from moments like this.
So without further ado, this is Sweeney’s Stuttering Story – The Call.
Creativity – the ability to create, invent and produce original, new & useful ideas. Creativity is something that lives inside all of us, with each person taking their own creative tendencies. We use creativity frequently in our day-to-day lives, whether it be for work, education, free time or more! A question arises here for me, if we do all have some form of creativity, then can we use it as a measure of how successful we are?
That’s what we’ll be looking at in today’s “What do we mean by Success?” blog!
Being a part of a podcast has been something that I have always wanted to do in life, however, due to my Stutter, I always thought that this dream was out of my reach, but now I have proved myself wrong! This week I starred in an episode of the “It Starts with Action” podcast, where I talk about a large array of different things, and is going to be what today’s blog is about!
As people go through life, they quite often change, develop and grow. Life is one big learning curve at the end of the day and personal growth is essential to people. There’s always a lesson to be learned in life & they don’t always just show a mistake that has been made, but also an evaluation and modification that was made, as a result of the so called mistake. In saying that, can one’s personal growth be used as a measure of how successful or not they are in life?
This is what we’ll be looking at in today’s “What do we mean by Success?” blog!
Success, Happiness and Love. All are made out to be these grand, beautiful, life-changing things that one must seek and find in order to have lived a truly fulfilled life.
However, like with almost anything in life, meaning & importance are not fixed values but vary depending on your perspective which is also shaped by various factors such as your own values, life experiences, personality, beliefs, etc.
Thanks to James, I have the opportunity today to share my perspective on success with you.
Lockdown has given us all some time to take a step back and reflect on how we see ourselves, as well as how we live our lives. This time has been an enlightening experience for many and has led them to relight their creativity and passion for life itself. Today’s blog is guest poem by The Brown Minimalist, all about The Lockdown Reflection. I hope you all enjoy it!
Failure is something that we all face at one point or another in our lives and provides us with the opportunity to learn about where we went wrong, to ensure that we improve or learn a particular thing for the future. As we grow older, our concept over what the word “failure” changes, but can we use our failures as a measure of how successful or not we are in life? That’s what we’ll be looking at in today’s “What do we mean by Success?” blog!
Grit is a trait that we commonly use and require in life, but can it be used to determine whether we are successful or not? Today’s blog in the “What do we mean by Success?” series is going to look at what we mean by ‘grit’, the effects that it has on our life and if we can use it as a measure of how successful or not we are in life!
Social Media has very rapidly become a part of every way that we love our daily lives. For something that we use multiple times a day, can we use it as a measure of how successful we are in life? This is what we are going to be looking at in today’s “What do we mean by Success?” blog!
To mark Mental Health Awareness week, we asked blogger and Henley Business School student, James Sweeney, to cover what it is, and what we can all do to help work through any difficulties.
The way that we see ourselves and why we do the things we do can play a major part in a persons life. The way that we feel about ourselves can have a dramatic effect on how we go about living our day to day lives but can we use it as a qualifier for being successful or not? This is what we are going to be looking at it in today’s “What do we mean by Success?” blog!
How we see ourselves and see each other is one of the underlying principles of Society. Everybody in life has their own role to play which to many makes their public image very important. The question that I am now asking you all to think of is your public image a reflection of how successful you are or not? This is what we will be taking a look at in today’s What do we mean by Success blog!
Hello and Welcome to Sweeney’s Blogs!
Today’s blog is the fifth blog in the “What do we mean by Success?” series that we run on the page and is all about your public image! A public image is something that we all have and is something that plays a big part in how we live our day to day life! While everyone has a different part to play in life, can we use our public image as a determiner of whether or not we are successful in life?
Firstly, to answer this question, we need to take a look at what I mean by our “public image”. Public Image to me is both a combination of how we are seen by others and what our role in society is. Are you seen as a caring person who anyone can talk to or are you more of a quiet person that just does a job quietly?
Nearly everyone we meet in life will be different and will react in their own way to different circumstances. Some people will instinctively panic if a problem arises and will go frantic whereas others will be able to keep their cool and thin rationally about how to solve the problem that they are in. Is it fair to say that the person that keeps calm is more successful than the person who stresses out and panics?
The answer to that question is a matter of opinion, it reflects how you see people and indeed society. I don’t think we can judge whether someone is successful or not simply by how they react in a crisis, but to many it is a determining factor. Again I am not saying you are right or wrong in whatever your view is about the question, I just think it is quite an interesting question to ask ourselves.
The thing that this comes down to in my opinion is how important is your public image to you? If you see your public image as being very important then it is more likely that it will be a determining factor of whether you consider yourself and others successful or not. There is again no right answer as for how important your public image is to you, it is all down to what you think of it.
People come in all different shapes and sizes. Some people are tall, others are short, some are great at Maths, others English. We are all different and it is what makes the world interesting. We find as we go through life that there are people who are natural leaders and then there are people that work better being told what to do by someone else. Is it a fair thing to measure success simply by if you are a leader or not? Alternatively is it a fair view to say that someone is not successful in life because they are not a leader?
Personally I think that whether you are a leader or not does not matter in regards to being successful or not but in saying that , there will be others that think completely differently. I am really interested in seeing what you all think to some of the questions I have been asking all throughout this series. I feel like they are all very thought provoking questions that really make you think of how to answer them and how you see yourselves in general.
That’s all I want to talk about in today’s blog! The blog is a little bit shorter than I originally planned but I think that there are some very good questions asked here that can really make you think. What do you think success means? Do you think your pubic image is a factor in whether or not you are successful in life? What do you think your public image is? Let me know what you think either in the comments below or though our Facebook page!
Thank you all for reading and I hope you have a great day!
Sweeney’s Blogs
Any money donated here is greatly appreciated and will be directly reinvested back into the page!
Education and indeed the qualifications that you have are too many the foundation of their definition of success. People see education as an all or nothing when it comes to being successful or not when sometimes it just simply is not. The question that we are going to be looking at today is: does education factor in whether you are successful or not?
Hello and Welcome to Sweeney’s Blogs!
This is the third blog in the “What do we mean by Success?” series! Today’s blog is all about if education and qualifications are a factor of whether we are successful or not in life. As with many of the other blogs in this series, there are a lot of different opinions on this topic, I will give my opinion but I am in no way saying that it is right or wrong , it is simply my view on the subject. If you have a different viewpoint or question let me know in the comments or on our Facebook page and we will discuss it further.
The education that we have had the qualifications that we have achieved will most likely differ with each person you meet. Different people prefer different subjects, some people may find Maths and English as the easiest subject in the world, whereas others may see them as the hardest. The qualifications and education we have does play a part in where we end up in life but should we define our success simply by what we may have acheived 10-20 years ago?
It is very true that education can help you get a better job in the future but simply having the qualifications does not guarantee that you will get any or every job that you apply for. They play a good part in it yes, but they are in no way a guarantee. The value that we place on Education is very important growing up and is something that I personally value very highly but the question is: does it determine whether we are successful or not?
If you have 10 GCSE’s with grades ranging from A*- C and your friend has 9, does that make you more successful than them? Does it make you smarter than them? If another one of your friends has 11 GCSE’s ranging from A*-C does that make them smarter or better/ more successful than you? These are the questions that I would like you to think about when reading this blog. How do you see success and does your education act as a factor in that or not?
What I love about writing this series is all the questions that I ask are all down to a matter of opinion. You can talk to 10 different people about these questions and each time you will get a different response. The concept of success is one that we all see differently and it is something that should be embraced, not swept to one side.
Education is constantly evolving to adapt to a forever changing world, therefore the education and ,of course, the qualifications change with them. An easy example to look at here is the change from O Levels to GCSEs. This change was made for people who wanted to leave school at 16 without doing A levels or attempting to go to University. Education always changes eventually so should we deem how successful we are by the things that we are taught?
The way that we see Education also differs depending on who you talk to. The traditional way as it were would be to go through school to get your GCSEs, then go to College to study for your A Levels and then go to University in your chosen filed and eventually get a job. That is just one way that people can do it. There are so many alternate routes that people can take ranging from BTEC qualifications, to vocational qualifications, professional courses and so many more.
Personally I did not take the “textbook way” to get to University. I went through School doing really well and got very good GCSEs, even with a very large operation during my last year in School. When I went to College unfortunately I did not do as well as I hoped and did nowhere near what I was capable of. After College I did the Level 3 AAT, Accounting qualifications as well as a HNC in Computing and Information Systems at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David and went on to Reading University to study my chosen degree path.
Do I see myself as less successful than others as I took a different route to University? Should I? Personally I am glad that I did not take the traditional way. Not doing so well at College taught me a lot of lessons that will be very valuable to me in later life and the extra qualifications that I now have, alongside my AS and A Levels are a great asset when entering the world of work down the line.
There is no right or wrong answer for how you rank education as a factor in whether you are successful or not in life. It is all down to a matter of opinion. I base success off of a large number of variables of which my education is a part of. This blog is not meant to make you feel like you are wrong or right in what you think, it is made to open the door on questions that you may not have thought of.
Personally I love having debates on topics like this, I feel that because everyone sees them differently it can lead to a very interesting and thought provoking debate. All that I ask is that when you think of Education as a factor or not in relation to Success consider all variables. Remember what I said at the start of the blog if you have 10 GCSEs and your friend has 9, does that make you smarter or more successful than them? Success to me is a term of an amalgamation of different things but the way that you see it may be completely different.
That is all I want to talk about in today’s blog! Thank you all for reading! I hope everyone is doing alright in the lock-down that we are facing currently. What do you think of today’s blog? Are you enjoying the What do we mean by Success series? What would you like to see me talk about next? Let me know what you think of these questions and any other comments that you have either in the comments below or on our Facebook page.
Thank you all for reading and I hope you have a great day,
Sweeney’s Blogs
Any money donated here is greatly appreciated and will be directly invested back into the page.
Sweeney's Blogs 