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6 Top Personal Development Activities
By Todd | October 9, 2007
The following 6 personal development activities are geared towards serious PD devotees—people who spend significant time (even money) searching for unique avenues to bring success, happiness and fluidity into their lives. Try some of them out, and feel free to add your thoughts and suggestions in the comment field below:
1. Spend your Vacation time in a Place like Sedona
Sedona is known as “the spiritual capital of the world” and it is hard not to feel the incredible energy that emanates from the place. There’s a timelessness about the ancient red rock formations that fires the imagination and provides a sense of peace. Going to Sedona has the added benefit of insuring a great physical workout, as walking and hiking are the prominent modes of transport. You can certainly substitute Sedona with any number of places around the world, but the point is to spend your vacation time and money in a place that evokes feelings if inspiration, renewal, and clarity.
2. Attend a Learning Annex class on Visualization
The Learning Annex (and similar institutions) provides wonderful development programs, and are NOT only centered on people like Donald Trump telling you how easy it is to get rich in real estate. In fact, the most valuable Learning Annex courses center on meditation, visualization, and the “law of attraction”. Speakers tend to be very experienced authors and lecturers, and because the class sizes are small it gives attendees the opportunity to interact with the experts!
3. Spend a Day Completely Alone and do not Interact with Anyone/Anything
For personal development enthusiasts, spending a day in complete solitude with NO contact from the outside world has tremendous benefits. For one, it gives you an opportunity to completely “unplug” from your life. Secondly, it gives your mind time to quiet down. Once these things happen, you experience an unobstructed connection with your inner-most desires and feelings. This is SO rare for most people in our culture, and can have tremendous health and situational benefits. Extended solitude results in increased mental clarity and emotional freedom. To really benefit from this practice, it is absolutely necessary to completely shut yourself off for the allotted time (no email, TV, phone, etc…).
4. Read Steve Pavlina’s Blog
OK, I am well aware that Mr. Pavlina runs another spiritual development blog, and can be considered “competitive” to We The Change. First off, I do not see any other PD website or blog as competitive; in fact, I spend a lot of my own time reading the wonderful articles on sites like Steve Pavlina’s. There are so many websites and blogs out there which provide fantastic material, that not mentioning the internet’s offerings in PD would be a disservice! There is no better way to spend your “surfing time” than to search for ways to improve your life.
5. Play Golf
Albeit an expensive hobby, golf is one of the world’s greatest sports for these reasons: a) you are forced to spend multiple hours in beautiful, natural surroundings; b) it is very social and gives you plenty of opportunity to catch up with friends; c) it is the kind of sport that you can easily play well into old age and d) it tests your patience like no other sport. I am not sure of too many other sports that combine these four powerful attributes. If you play already, try and to limit your frustration and focus on the first three reasons for playing. If you have never tried golf, give it a whirl!
6. Attend a Landmark Forum
The Landmark Forum is a 3 or 4 day adventure where you are literally locked in a room with 100+ strangers and forced to experience the passing moments. Each day is 12-14 hours long and the format is purely conversational (there is no physical activity). Sound good so far? Landmark Forum leaders give attendees promise of enlightenment, clarity and transformation by the end of the course—and they deliver! Landmark is a truly incredible spiritual growth platform that provides unique insight into the true nature of our thoughts and perceptions and overall is a very rewarding experience.
There are a myriad of ways to improve oneself. Try a few of the above personal development activities and see if they vibe with your inherent values. As always, feel free to share your experiences here, thanks!
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Topics: Other Personal Growth, Physical Activity, Spirituality/Meditation, Health, Uncategorized |
Another great article Todd. After reading this I would love to visit Sedona. It looks a lot like the Australian outback from that photo.
Posted by: Peter on October 9th, 2007 at 10:22 amApart from point #5, because I’m dismal at it, these are great suggestions!
Posted by: ZHereford on October 9th, 2007 at 10:35 amThanks Peter– Sedona is AWESOME, although I’ve never been to the outback!
Posted by: Todd on October 9th, 2007 at 10:36 amTodd, great post! I was just thinking on my way into work today that I need to do something progressive… i.e. some functional time off (as opposed to attending to sick kids) where I can recharge a little bit. So, this was particularly of interest to me today!
Posted by: bluskygirl on October 9th, 2007 at 11:13 amAnother thing that’s good for self-development, although not easy, is fasting… if you water fast (ie only drink water… no other food or liquids) for three or more days, you’ll find that it can be an amazing experience.
Doing it for less than three days isn’t nearly as effective, as it takes about that long for your body to process out all of the “stuff” left over from your normal eating.
Posted by: Jason on October 9th, 2007 at 12:02 pmnice list. i’ve heard mixed things on landmark though ranging from cult to amazing. most have a strong opinion one way or another, but definitely hear more good than bad. golf.. you have great points on that. thanks for the article.
Posted by: Jason M on October 9th, 2007 at 7:28 pmJason– good pont about fasting, although I do NOT recommend it as we approach winter. This is a time where energetically our body requires more fat to store energy! Spring is a great time for a fast…
Posted by: Todd on October 9th, 2007 at 8:38 pmJASON M– Landmark certainly has a culty thing going on…if you can look past it, its wonderful. I highly recommend it!
Z– doesn’t matter how you hit ‘em…just get out there, its beautiful!
Some very good ideas here.
Posted by: Jenny on October 13th, 2007 at 12:18 amThanks Jenny…!
Posted by: Todd on October 13th, 2007 at 10:28 amI happen to reach your blog!!!
That was the most fortunate event before starting of 2008!!!
Gr8 work todd!!! your articles…i wish i could no…i will absorb 30-40% of these article…
I have friend who have experinced landmarkk!! your article gave me more faith!!!
thanks you very much todd!!!
abhishek
Posted by: abhishek india on December 27th, 2007 at 4:56 amThank YOU Abhishek!! Much appreciated, and have a wonderful New Year!!
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Posted by: Andy on January 10th, 2008 at 8:58 amI should go up to Sedona sometime. I might as well bring my Firefox with me in case I make any spelling errors while there. You ever play Mad Libs so long that you start to believe the things you’re writing down? We need to develop ourselves so intimately until we cannot tell the difference between our egos and our selves. Or maybe we need to lose the ego all-together. It’s up to you, guys. Well, I’ve got stuff to do. Have a great *bleeping* day.
Posted by: Andrew on January 14th, 2008 at 1:35 pmAndy and Andrew– thanks for the great (and comical) responses…spirituality can be funny too
Much appreciated and hope you are enjoying the site 
Posted by: Todd on January 14th, 2008 at 4:27 pmTodd
[…] few years after my central park experience, I attended a weekend retreat at something called the Landmark Forum. A few years after this, I attended a school called the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. […]
Posted by: Spirituality: What I Have Learned So Far on January 31st, 2008 at 9:40 ami would like to study personal development from yours
Posted by: ARUNI NANAYAKKARA on February 7th, 2008 at 5:41 am[…] there were one personal development activity I would encourage you to master it would be meditation. Living moment-to-moment allows your life to […]
Posted by: How To Meditate For Beginners on March 31st, 2008 at 4:49 pm