600 Personal Development Exercises
do one a day - every day!
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THE BOTTOM LINE What's the bottom line? Is it profit, survival, cash, market share, return or growth? It can be all of these of course but what’s the bottom line for you? What really matters? This is the ultimate business question. What's the real bottom line? Nothing matters but God. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. What REALLTY matters to you? Day 251 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
DEFLATION It’s always the same feeling as I walk away from the station alone. You’re off on your train journey and there is an emptiness and a strange quietness without you. It’s a feeling of deflation for the wind has been taken out of my sails. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. What makes you feel deflated? 2. How do you deal with this? Day 250 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
JOB VACANCY When we are asked ‘what do you do?’, we often give a response based on a job. I am in retail. I’m in banking. I work on the ambulance. I’m a teacher. Or maybe, I’m unemployed. I’m looking for work. I’m building my business. I’m at college. The world has conditioned us to define what we do, by the job we do. Our perceived economic value. But this is not what we do. This is simply the role that others assign to us or we give to ourselves. So, go beyond the two or three word title, and think ‘What do you do? At home? With your family? With your colleagues or friends? In your community? In all your activities? In your creativity? In your gentleness? In your conversations? In your hopes and plans?’ Next time someone asks, Have your answer ready and tell them, what you really do. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. Let's practice this - 'What do you do?' Day 249 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
QUANTITATIVE EASING The shortest way may be the longest. The highest road may take you nowhere. The smallest thing that you do may be the greatest. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. How do you measure what really natters? Day 248 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
MODUS OPERANDI We are here in this life to serve God or if you prefer to build love. They are both the same. So many of us are told to look for happiness in what we do, and how we can build our futures But happiness is found in the mode of service, beyond the mode of self. For if we work solely for ourselves, on our plan, we exclude others. But when we look to all others, we include ourselves. For we are part of all. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. What is your way of working - your modus operandi? Day 247 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
MULTI-STORY We choose how to spend our time, how to live our life and what our priorities are. It is these choices, that create the picture, or canvas, that captures all that we are. And sometimes we make the wrong choices and the wrong decisions. But we can start again. We can paint over our canvas. We can make new decisions, better choices. So, many layers and stories are built up over the years. All is embedded on this one canvas. This is our gift to the world, enabling us to leave behind all that we are. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. What does your canvas show at the moment? 2. What layers have been covered over? How many? Day 246 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
MALFUNCTION The opposite of love is unlove. It is when we move away from our true nature. It is when we create a situation within ourselves, which is not aligned to our true being and what we will become. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. What does 'unlove' mean to you? 2. When has 'unlove' been relevant in your life? Day 245 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
DOOR HANDLE What happens in this moment can change absolutely everything, if I let love in. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. What do you have to do to open the door? 2. What will be different for you when love comes in? Day 244 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
BLACK FRIDAY They’re going to be scratching their heads even more this year. Wondering what to get the Old Man for Christmas. Amazon will have more clicks and cash than it could ever have imagined. Black Friday is becoming Black Christmas. So perhaps I’ll adopt a different approach, and take the pressure off those determined to buy me something. This year. I’ll say exactly what I would like. There are millions of people and thousands of groups struggling in the present situation. There is no normal Christmas this year. So, I would love it, if you could make a small donation to those doing good work or help a local cause on my behalf. However, if you really want to do the online Christmas shopping experience, then why not send a surprise toy to a young family, a gift to an older person or a food delivery to a local food bank. We can spend our way from now to a Black Christmas or we can empower each other and create a Kinder Christmas. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. What would you like for Christmas? Day 243 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
MONITORING VISIT I was sitting in the garden early this morning and the gate opened unexpectedly, with a rattle, and Jesus walked in. It was not what I could have predicted! He was dressed in white of course, raised his hand, and shouted ‘hello’ as he closed the gate. I’ve just come to say ‘thank you to everybody for all the good work that you are doing. I know how difficult it is at the moment’. He sat down on the bench beside me and we said nothing. He didn’t need to say anything and I didn’t know what to say. He then got up, shook my hand, gave me a hug and said ‘Good to see you’. As he closed the gate he added ‘Take care, talk soon’. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. What would you have said? Day 242 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
ARRIVALS LOUNGE Sit down. Put the phone down. Put the book down. Put the pen down. Breathe out. Relax. Smile. You have arrived. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. What is the Arrivals Lounge? Day 241 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
IMMERSION I close my eyes and I can see everything. The past, the present and the future is all around me. But it’s not activities, places or people I see. It cannot be described for it has no form. It is way beyond me and yet in me, as I am in it. With everything. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. How and where does the word immersion relate to you? 2. What is 'way beyond you, and yet in you'? 3. In Astronomy, 'immersion' is defined as 'the disappearance of a celestial body in the shadow of or behind another'. How might this relate to us? Day 240 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
PRODUCTION COMPANY From the words that you write these are lines to be spoken. There are songs to be sung and thoughts to be owned. There are moments to be savoured and truths to be uncovered. There are ways to be taken and a life to be discovered. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. What words are you writing? 2. Begin to keep a journal, capture your thoughts every day and create you own production company. Day 239 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
SIGN LANGUAGE The rabbit. The dog and the seagull. I can still make those hand shadows against the wall, when I get close to the light. I can still remember their voices and the dramatic storylines. They are forever with me. The rabbit. The dog and the seagull. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. What shadows can you create with your hands? 2. What's your story? Day 238 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
HAPPINESS It takes great courage to live your life as you really are. For so much of what we do and say is filtered, by what we believe others will think of us. Our ego, vanity and society all demand, that we present ourselves in a way that will please others. But others, are also thinking and acting in the same way. They too, are trying to present themselves so that we will approve of them. If only one of us could have the courage to change, and live our life as we really are. Then perhaps, we would give permission to others to be themselves. We can relieve ourselves of the burden of expectation, and the stress of living to a false standard. We can be courageous and be truly happy. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. What do you need to change, to live your life as you really are? 2. How can you find true happiness? Day 237 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
DOUGHNUT Personal development consists of three key elements. They come together like a doughnut! The physical doughnut is our physical selves. Everything around the doughnut is the world around us. And the hole in the doughnut? Well, here there is nothing. It is empty. It is the absence of self. This absence of our self is the core of our personal development, for it takes us in, through and beyond, what we are in this world. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. Draw a doughnut and label the three components of personal development. 2. Write down your action plan for each component. How will you develop this aspect of yourself? Day 236 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
LIGHT SWITCH If you switch off when you hear the word 'God', then just change it to love. If you switch off when you hear the word 'love', them just change it to your name. For you are part of all love. We are part of God. And that cannot be changed, ever. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. Write a sentence (or two) that includes the words 'God', 'love' and your name. Day 235 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
FLIGHT ATTENDANT You can throw that old unused loaf of bread in the bin, to rot, or take the slices and scatter them on the grass for the birds. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. How are you connecting to and looking after the natural world we live in? Day 234 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
CRITICAL THINKING Once we have the courage to give up what we are desperately trying to hold onto.... we find where we should be, what we should be doing and what we are really looking for. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. What are you desperately trying to hold onto? Day 233 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
COMBINE HARVESTER Our personal harvesting is an ongoing, everlasting, outpouring of our experience, knowledge, expertise and love. Our collective harvesting, is a daily torrent of all that we need for ourselves and the world, now and forever. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. What are you harvesting each day? 2. How are you using your experience, knowledge and expertise to build love? 3. How are you encouraging others to harvest? 4. What are you building together through collective harvesting? Day 232 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
MINDFUL I am busy all of the time. There is just so much to do. My mind never stops. I’m always thinking about this and that, and whatever comes along. My head is packed with information, ideas and plans. I have created a detention centre for my brain. How can I get my life back? Where is my rehabilitation program? How can I enjoy every day as if it is the only day I’ll ever have? How can I be grateful and happy for all that I’ve been given? How can I find space not to think, not to plan and not to be so busy? PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. When and where do you find space and time not to think? Day 231 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
VIRTUAL ASSISTANT I will be leaving you soon but please do not cry, for I can stay here forever and keep an eye on you. You won’t see me of course but sometimes you will know I am here. For nobody ever ends. We just change. I can stay here with you and in heaven at the same time. For heaven is all around us and within us, together. Our human abilities of course can’t understand this yet, for we are so limited by time and space. But those who have gone before are still here now, watching and waiting, guiding and helping, and rescuing us all of the time. Some call them angels, some call it coincidence or luck, some say it is the Universe, and some say it is God. But really it is our loved ones who are still here, chatting away, and trying their best to steer us and look after us. So, do not worry or be sad. And please remember to talk to me for I too will be here forever, to help and look after you all. You won’t see me in the usual way but you will know that I am here. For as I said, none of us ever ends. We just change into love. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. Which of your Virtual Assistants do you miss the most? 2. Speak to them now. Day 230 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
FACILITATION SKILLS The greatest skill of a facilitator is to do nothing. To let people talk, together, and allow them to find the best way forward. You see it’s not about the facilitator, nor indeed the topic. It’s about enabling individuals to move forward, purposefully and securely, together. So as a facilitator, be kind and smile. Set the scene or task. Encourage your groups and then leave them to it. Your best results come when you do nothing. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE. 1. When do you use facilitation skills – at work, online or at home? 2. In which situations might you do less (or nothing) and let others find a way forward? Day 229 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
LIFE COACH If you’re thinking about using a Life Coach, then ask them one question. 'What is your purpose in life?' If you need to ask a follow-up question for greater clarity, you will know which one of you is the Life Coach and which one of you needs a Life Coach. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE. 1. What is your purpose in life? Day 228 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
WORK LIFE BALANCE My bike has a rickety wheel. It jolts me unpredictably from side to side. Like I am forever on a rocky beach. I balance as best I can, sometimes stopping to put one foot down. But I’m still here thankfully, on my bike with the rickety wheel. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE. 1. How would you describe your work life balance? Day 227 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
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