Kingdom Chat Week 31 – Unleashing Your Potential
Hi folks, it’s my honor to lead this week’s discussion, and I want to focus the discussion on personal development. Personal development is a lifelong process. It is a way for people to assess their skills and qualities, consider their aims in life, and set goals to realize and maximize their potential. Jesus has invested so much potential in each one of us, but the truth is that every gift or potential that God placed in you is in seed form at the beginning. God is the God of principle, and by principle, you don’t start out with the fruit. You always plant the seed first, and then through care and improvement, you realize the fruit. In the same way, God has deposited in each one of us seeds that must be improved on to reach the desired goal.
Paul wrote to Timothy in 1 Tim 4:16 (AMP), “Pay close attention to yourself [concentrate on your personal development] and to your teaching; persevere in these things [hold to them], for as you do this, you will ensure salvation both for yourself and for those who hear you.”
I am sure some might have thought of the concept of personal development as a worldly concept, a term only used by motivational speakers, coaches, and trainers. I discovered this verse this week in a conversation with our next guest on Kingdom Channel, who will be speaking about the Power of Personal Development. And by the way, please plan to watch the Kingdom channel this weekend. It will be life-changing.
Paul was, in essence, saying to Timothy, take care to develop yourself fully and realize the purpose of God in you. Don’t let your gift remain in seed form, but you must do whatever it takes to cause them to grow and become real powers that you possess.
Personal development will help you identify the skills you need to set life goals that can enhance your spiritual potency, employability prospects, raise your confidence, and lead to a more fulfilling, higher-quality life. The key is to commit to making relevant, positive, and practical life choices and decisions for your future to enable personal empowerment.
There are several steps to take in managing your personal development.
1. Develop a Personal Vision
Personal development can simply be for fun. However, most of us find it easier to motivate ourselves to learn and improve if we have a purpose in doing so. Developing your personal vision – a clear idea of where you want to be in a few months or years and why – is a crucial part of developing this purpose.
2. Plan Your Personal Development
Once you are clear about where you want to be, you can plan how to get there. Drawing up a personal development plan is essential because it does make the process more realistic. Remember, failure to plan is planning to fail. Suppose you are struggling to identify which areas to target for development and improvement. In that case, you may find it helpful to break down your life into roles. I think of my life in terms of five key roles – spiritual, family, intellectual, health, and professional roles. I strive to take steps towards enhancing each of these areas of my life each day and week.
3. Start the Improvement Process
There are several different ways in which you can learn and develop. Whatever your plan is, start! What good is a plan if not followed through? Don’t let your life be full of intentions and no actions.
4. Record Your Personal Development
It is often a good idea to keep a record of your personal development. By writing down key action steps in your learning and development as and when they occur, you will be able to reflect on your successes at a later date. Recording the frequency of occurrence will help keep you accountable. There are several tools for recording your development process – apps, journal entry books, etc.
5. Review and Revise Your Personal Development Plans
Regular review of your personal development plans, and your development activities, will ensure that you learn from what you have done. It will also ensure that your activities continue to move you towards your goals and that your goals or vision remain relevant to you.
To complete this week’s discussion, reply to this discussion post. Please consider these questions as you respond. Do you think personal development is important and why? What areas of your life do you want to improve on? What steps do you need to be taking to reach your goals?
- 4 Replies
Great post @phil4krist! I absolutely believe that personal development is a basic responsibility for anyone, but especially as a Christian, we ought to be intentional about the steps we take in agreement with God’s will for our lives. God doesn’t just do our lives for us – we have a free will to use and we must choose how to spend our time and what to commit our mind, energy and resources to every day.
I really like the tip #4 about recording your progress in personal development. I haven’t been doing that in an organized way and I think it would actually be really encouraging to acknowledge the tangible steps I’m taking toward my personal vision. Most recently, I am preparing for a career shift toward education and have revamped my resume, taken early childhood education classes and am beginning to apply to jobs as I feel led. Even though I don’t know exactly what’s next for me, I know enough about where God is taking me to prepare myself. And I think that’s what personal development is about.Thanks @phil4krist for this enriching discussion. I have just shared it on my Facebook page because so many people out there need to hear it as well.
I think this re-echoes the recent discussions on this platform and Kingdom channel live. Life is not a passive process where we say, “que sera sera”- whatever will be, will be or as some talk about “fate”. Also some may misunderstand faith to mean abandoning everything to God without any commitment on our part. Hebrews 11:1 defines faith as the assurance of things hoped for … There has to be a hope also for faith to work. When we preach the gospel, ww create hope so that faith can be birthed in the hearts of the hearer.
This message is so important to me, because it reminds me about the blog made on this platform at the beginning of this year about Taking stock. It is crucial to have a clear plan on different areas of our lives and then in the middle of it, we take time out for evaluation and reappraisal of how far we’ve come and then see which areas we can tweak for greater productivity. As a student, what is your goal, is it to graduate with a distinction or make a mark in your field? It is possible if we set the right daily targets and work towards it. In my profession, I know my curriculum is very wide and I cannot afford to wait until few months to exams to prepare for it, so I plan to start early. In my family, I look out for how each member can be the best of themselves and try to provide the tools and inspiration to them. I actively choose my friends and relationships to be productive ones. In my personal life, I think of how to raise my standard of living by striving to replace old things to match my current level in life. There were times I couldn’t afford a brand new equipment and had to get the cheaper ones though lower quality, but as I increase, I try not to get stuck in that old thinking too, I can now go for the higher quality that I can afford. In my spiritual life, I look at how to increase my prayer time from just the one hour; how to surround myself with more spiritual materials; contribute more financially and in physical committments to the growth of the fellowship. Financially, I’m thinking of ways to increase my self- worth, productivity and investment portfolio so I can take advantage of God’s grace for my prosperity, even when it meant taking a large pay cut to go into a training position for few years, because I know, I’ll get the pay back after I finish at a higher level.
There’s a lot to say but like Paul says, its good to constantly renew our minds, so we can plan and be transformed into God’s best for us.
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