600 Personal Development Exercises
do one a day - every day!
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INCLUSIVE PARTICIPATION Jenny, a food scientist has been working for a major consultancy, training a group of women in Dubai on how to build a local food business. Jenny’s passion though was to help women in Kenya to build their food businesses. She was trying to link her priorities, and make it work financially. Jenny knew she could sell her courses to the wealthy Dubai women, and then use the money to train the poorer women in Kenya. That would be a traditional ‘charity’ model, where we earn our money and then give it (or use it), to help those who are less well off. Jenny took a different approach however, and ran only one course. On that course, she brought the women from Dubai and Kenya, to work together. One group paid and one group didn’t. But they all learned how to build their local food businesses together. The women shared stories of cultural difference, and built relationships that not only spanned continents, but were the beginnings of global businesses. This is different to the typical charity model where 'donors' and 'recipients' do not meet and are separated by an intermediary organisation. This is inclusive participation. One woman, one course, one group of women, one world and one amazing inclusion initiative from Jenny. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. What inclusive participation initiative could you create with your skills, experience and expertise? What is your passion? 2. What help would you like to make this happen? Who could help you?  Day 463 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises THE FIRST RULE OF COACHING Coaching is not a dominant relationship. The Coach is not in charge. The Coach is meant to facilitate, encourage and enable progress to be made. This means that the Coach is also part of the coaching process. In other words, the person being coached, should also be coaching the Coach. For example, this can be as simple as ‘What is your key priority this week?’ or ‘What is the one thing you need to achieve by our next session?’ In other words, being accountable to your Client makes you real. It makes the relationship more equitable. It makes the struggle a ‘two-way’ rather than ‘one-way’ process. It ensures that you are embedded in, and not detached from the process. So real coaching, is two-way not one. The coach has to invest in the process. It has to be a journey for them. The learning, benefits and outcomes then are not only for your Client, but also, for you as Coach, and for the journey that you undertake together PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. How can you apply the first rule of Coaching at work, with your family, and with your friends and colleagues? 2. How might we journey better together? Day 437 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
UNITY AND UNIFORMITY Uniformity is where we want and require everyone to be the same. To wear the same shirt. Unity is where we actively encourage everyone to come together. In their own clothes. Uniformity puts us all into a box created by others. Unity allow us to bring our own box. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE? 1. How do you bring people together? 2. What team are you seeking to build at the moment? 3. How might you incorporate Unity and Uniformity together? Day 424 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
DUAL RESPONSIBILITY We must love others as we love ourselves. This is called dual responsibility. This is a personal and proactive approach to inclusion, where we work with, and support all others. Dual responsibility is our individual way of working. It is us reaching in, and reaching out, at the same time. For when we reach out to help others, we become problem solvers, connectors, and creators. We get out of our heads to explore, make new links and find new possibilities. We make life better for everyone. Dual responsibility is so much more than simply helping others. You see, with every interaction, we are building a kinder world PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. Start a new discussions with others. Find out how they are, what they are doing or what their current challenge is. See if you can suggest some ideas to help them. Explore the possibility of working together to make it happen. Day 412 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
RULE OF FISHING We’ve been working on our own, for years. Trying to get things done and make things happen. There were many of us all in the same boat. And all fishing away on our own. We are now trying a different approach. We’ve got together and we're working with each other. You see, we’ve packed away our fishing rods. And, as one, we’re casting out our net. It's a huge net and we need your help. Then, we will get more done, and make more happen. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. Are you still fishing on your own? 2. What net are you going to help with? 3. What are you trying to get done and make happen? Day 407 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT Personal development is not a valid concept. It implies that we can take ownership of ourselves, grow in our own right, learn new skills and become happy. Personal development is, in fact, the opposite of what it says. Our real potential for growth lies with, and among all others, and all that we encounter. Personal development is about how we contribute to the whole, and not what we keep for ourselves. For the whole, is greater than the sum of the parts. This is where our real value is. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE. 1. What is your Personal Development strategy this year? Day 303 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
COMPARISON TABLE Have no doubt. We all have a role to play. Your life has a distinct and specific purpose. Each person is different and unique, but equally important and significant, no matter what we may think. Do not compare yourself with others or some worldly expectation. For your role is a collaborative and not a competitive one. To become, with God and with all others, all you can be today, PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. How might you collaborate today? Day 259 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
FUTURES To build a kinder world and a more collaborative way of working where people help each other, look after each other, share skills and actively work together, it’s not to the big organisations that we need to look. For they are lost in their agendas and policies, and trapped in old ways of working. Real change will come from millions of new workpiece groups where two or three ordinary people come together, wherever they live, and help each other to grow. For this is not just about more products and services. It’s the development of collaborations that reach into every aspect of our lives and the lives of all others. The power and opportunity rests gently with each of us, together. We are the futures. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. What would you like to really see happen in our world? 2. Who will you talk with today about this? How can you find a like minded soul? 3. How will you together begin to build your workpiece group.? Day 253 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
COLLABORATIVE WORKING Let’s sort it out. Let’s get going. Let’s not wait for others. Let’s join together. Let’s start the ball rolling. This is our task. This is our piece. This is our love. This is what we are about. And this is who we are. Let’s press the button. Let’s change things. Let’s lend a hand. Let’s share what we know. Let’s give what we have. This is our task. This is our piece. This is our love. This is what we are about. And this is who we are. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE. 1. What is your piece? 2. Who are you working with? 2. What are you going to sort out? Day 217 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
STAMP COLLECTION The world demands outputs and results, achievements and success. But we long for love and peace, happiness and health. We can be dominated by external events, or we can choose to work together, and create a different way. We can be continually stamped upon in an uncaring and demanding world. Or we can come together, and gently put our stamp on all before us. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. How has the world stamped on you in the past? 2. How are you gently putting your stamp on all before you? Day 176 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
GIFT SHOP There is no lock. The door of the gift shop is always open. We are invited in and we are able to take what we wish. This is fantastic! Free gifts galore. Let’s take more of these. And then we realise, that if we continue, soon the shop will be empty. So we stop taking. Instead, we begin to bring and to share our own gifts. For we see now, that together, we can create the best gift shop in the world. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. What gift can you bring to the best gift shop in the world? 2. What do you enjoy most about the gift shop? Day 171 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
POSITIONING STATEMENT I had a mentoring call with an author in New York yesterday from my rural base in the UK. ‘How are you today?’ she asked. ‘I’m brilliant!’ I responded. She looked at me quizzically. After a pause, she said ‘Here in the US that means you’re like Einstein, a genius, incredibly clever?’ I laughed. ‘No, I just meant I am in really good form.’ And we arrived on the same page. I learned about her work, empowering those who felt inadequate and the millions of people she had helped. At the end of the call, she said ‘Thanks!’ I smiled and said, ‘You are brilliant!’ And we laughed. How are you today? PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. What do you say when others ask, ‘How are you today?’ 2. How often do you tell others that they are brilliant? Day 161 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
RAT RACE We have inherited a world where jobs and work are allocated to people. Employers decide on the tasks that need to be done and carve up the activity. It’s an out-dated economic model where we are paid to do what we are told. And where many people have no jobs. With technology we can now create work in different ways, driven by what really matters. We can link up with others and collaborate on projects that are important to us as individuals. We can take responsibility for creating and shaping all of our futures and a better world. We can share resources rather than waiting, like rats, for the food pellet to arrive. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. How can you use your skills, experience and passions in new ways? 2. Who can you start to work with today to create your new projects? Day 147 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
OUTSOURCING Don’t do everything yourself. Share your dream with the world. Collaborate with others. Reach out and build your team. For when we don’t try to do everything, we can do anything. Don’t do everything yourself. Create projects and initiatives. Let others work with you. Set out the plan and make it happen. For when we let it all go, we will all do everything. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. How will you work with others so that they can help and support you? 2. Who is (and will be) on your team? 3. We all have a dream to share with the world. What’s yours? Day 137 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
COLLABORATION The sky gives me perspective. Ideas create my map. Random thoughts plot co-ordinates. Crazy dreams show alternatives. Harry sits on the roof to help wherever I go. Time has stopped for me as friends fuel the dream. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. Who or what is collaborating with you? 2. What is the dream? Day 112 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
HANDS-ON I can remember you washing your hands in the kitchen sink. You'd just come home from work with garage grease up to your elbows. And Ma rescued the situation with a towel whilst serving us our tea. I can remember you asking me to hold out my hands So that you could wind the wool into balls. And then you'd sit at night knitting Aran jumpers that were admired by all. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. Being hands-on means that we are actively involved. We make things happen with others. What are you making happen at the moment? 2. What hands-on activities do you have with your partner and/or children in the daily activities of home life? 3. How are you working with others who are holding out their hands, asking for help? Day 66 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
BUILDING SERVICES There are people looking to build a better world. They’re looking beyond business models and consumerism. They’re looking at the development of a collective approach with a collaboration of ideas and support defined by service. This is a different model and way outside of the business box. It is defining what we are about in a different way. It is about setting different expectations of ourselves, proactively supporting those we know and those we do not know. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. What is your model for working with others? 2. How are you proactively working with others to build a better world? Day 59 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
OWNERSHIP There is no such thing as mine. It is there for all of us. For as soon as we claim something for ourselves we lessen its potential and we limit our capacity for growth. Let us shift from ownership and self to potential and possibilities. Let us leave all in that sacred space that we cannot own so that we become all that we should be. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. What do you own? 2. What is it that are you be holding onto that in some way may limit you? 3. Where is your real potential ? Day 49 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
RESPONSE RATE When I shake the little tree every single leaf responds. Instantly, hundreds of leaves all wave back to me. They shimmer enthusiastically as one, each in their own unique way. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. What tree will you shake today? 2. What are you responding to enthusiastically with others as one? Day 44 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
GIVE AND TAKE In the world of want I strive for more. More income, a bigger house or a better job. Recognition, popularity or a sense of importance. In the world of plenty I have more than I need. From this place I can reach out to you, free to share all that I have and all that I am. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. List 5 times or situations when you have been in the world of more. 2. List 5 times or situations when you have been in the world of plenty. 3. What do these 10 points tell you about yourself? Day 32 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
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