600 Personal Development Exercises
do one a day - every day!
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PRODUCTIVE INCLUSION Inclusion is much more than including. It’s much more than trying to involve everybody. Inclusion in the active promotion of every person for the benefit of everyone. Inclusion is a process that expands the possibilities of the whole by realising the potential of each person. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. How can you expand the possibiltites for each person that you know?  Day 538 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS It’s okay to be religious. It’s okay not to be religious. It’s okay to be spiritual, but not religious It’s okay to believe in God. It’s okay not to believe in God. It’s okay not to be sure, about God. You see ‘I’m okay, you’re okay’ means that we are all okay. We can be together, in our own way. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. How do you see others who have different views about Religion or God? 2. Are you open to friendly chats with others to explore our different understandings - or do you just ignore these topics? 3. How can you help us all to be 'okay'? Day 450 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
EQUALITY FOR STRAWBERRIES It’s time to give equality back to strawberries. You see, years ago we could just buy a punnet of strawberries. Now we have labelled our favourite summer fruit and separated former friends and family, into at least four categories. Those at their peak come with the highest price. Those in their later days get rapidly discounted, and have a reduced label plastered across their front. Those with disabilities are called ‘wonky’, as we highlight some perceived ‘imperfection’. And those who have less, become ‘essentials’ or own brand. I bought these four different packets of strawberries and emptied them into a bowl. They all looked fabulous together and tasted wonderful! PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. Find and celebrate what might be seen as different or imperfect in all that you encounter today. Take a photo or write down what you see.... Day 445 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
THE JIGSAW OF EVERYONE Without you, this world would be incomplete. Like a thousand-piece jigsaw your absence is all that we would see. That one empty space. It is because you are here that everything is complete, and all is as it should be. You are irreplaceable. You are the one that makes everything worthwhile. You are the one that we all need. For without you our jigsaw is nothing. And when we understand this, we understand inclusion. We understand everything. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. What does your piece of the Jigsaw look like? Draw it. Describe it. 2. What is the overall picture on the Jigsaw of Everyone? Day 435 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
WHEN INCLUSION ISN'T WORKING I was asked to advise the Senior Team of a leading UK University on how to make inclusion work. They had four values of 'innovation', 'collaboration', 'determination' and 'diversity and inclusion' in their strategy. But inclusion wasn’t happening. My queries seemed like a strange language to them. They totally disagreed with kindness and didn’t see it as relevant. They had no place for caring, compassion or helping. This was the view of the Head of Marketing and Communication. And the People Director. Others stayed quiet. It seemed a strange position for a student led business. But this University is not alone. Many organizations are trying to bolt-on inclusion as a corporate behaviour, when really, it’s a personal one. It's human values that we must cherish, as well as corporate ones. Inclusion in practice, is about behaviours that encourage and enable us to help each other, as we work and learn together. We must care for one another. We must be compassionate and kind. For none of us, whether staff or students, know what others are carrying, or going through. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. What are the values that your organization actively promotes? 2. What does your Corporate Plan say are the inclusive behaviours that your organization values? Day 406 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
PEACE-BUILDERS 52 years on from the start of the Troubles, we still send our children to separate schools, to learn division. 52 years on from the start of the Troubles, we still align our lives to different churches, to promote exclusion. 52 years on from the start of the Troubles, we still send our politicians to lead our tribe, to represent us. 52 years on from the start of the Troubles, we send our children’s children to fight on the streets, to celebrate our success. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. What can each of us do to break the mould of schooling, church and politics and begin to build a different way of living together? 2. What messages can we send with our actions? Day 381 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercise
SELF AWARENESS Prayer seems like such an outdated process, when conceived as reciting words to a God we don’t know. Meditation seems like a bit of a wacky process, when conceived as sitting waiting to discover yourself. Contemplation seems like a bit of a self-indulgent process, when conceived as reflecting on our life or situation. But these are all just processes, people trying to work out what is going on and what we are here for. So, if these processes don’t work for you, create your own, with your words and activities. Let’s call it self-awareness. Make this process your own. Give it form and structure. Allocate some time and then share what you learn. For the world needs your understanding, your compassion and your love. It needs your process. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. What is your process of self awareness? What do you call it? How does it work? Day 347 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
ONLINE COMMUNITY Our online business behaviour has largely been reduced to self-interest and personal promotion, that is unsustainable and fails to support everyone. We have apps where we do little or no networking, have so called friends who we rarely speak with, and email funnels designed to chase our money. We are capable of so much more. Collaboration can help us to leverage our experience, support each other, and get all the help that we need. We can be open to new relationships and business possibilities, not limited to selling stuff, ego massaging, vanity projects or holding onto what is ours. We can move to collective activities, freely offer our support and reach out to those who need our expertise and skills. Each of us can start a real online community. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. Will you begin today to reach out and support those who you can help? 2. Could you encourage others to follow the rules of your online community - to help and look after every single person in the group? 3. Could you use your collective skills, experience and knowledge to create something amazing with every person? 4. Could you then encourage others to create their own real online communities? Day 345 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
RSVP Inclusion is the ongoing invitation for collaboration, participation, sharing and caring, that we send out to others. Inclusion is our offer that requires acceptance. And not everyone will say yes. You cannot take them all with you. And so, inclusion is a continuous and everlasting invitation. It is our individual, organisational and global, lifelong purpose. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. Who will you send an invitation of inclusion to today? 2. How is you organisation being inclusive to all its staff, those it serves and the wider international community? 3. How are you reaching out globally to include others ? Day 333 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
BIRTHDAY PARTY There is a party in our village when a new baby is born. Families all get together on a Saturday morning at 11am to meet the new arrival, and welcome this new person to our world. We celebrate with smiles and hugs giving thanks for all our lives. We shed a small tear of remembrance for those who have left us. These little parties are literally, staging posts, and the lifeblood of our village. We call this a 'Birth Day' party, for the time of our first days. It’s the informal coming together of family, friends and community. It’s our call to journey with the child and for us all to begin again. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE. 1. How might you 'journey' with us and 'begin again' this Saturday morning at 11am? 2. Who would have been around at your Birth Day - and what do you imagine they said? Day 329 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION Diversity has been described by some as the reflection of God in the world for we are all made in His likeness. Each of us is a unique piece, needed for this complete picture of God. Inclusion is therefore our mission. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. How is your piece unique? 2. Why are you necessary? Day 271 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
BORDER CONTROL The Syrian family that drowned in the English Channel, preoccupies my mind. Seeking a better life, young lives were lost in a world of borders. Adrift in freezing water, a family fought, and lost, their desperate scramble. This is the ultimate price that others pay for our inability to help. We create boundaries not just by country, but in our personal world. We can look at the TV and think how bad this is, safe within our borders. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE. 1. Kurdish-Iranian Rasoul Iran-Nejad, 35, Shiva Mohammad Panahi, 35, Anita, nine, and Armin, six, and fifteen-month-old Artin all died. The family is believed to be from the city of Sardasht in western Iran, close to the border with Iraq. Let us think of them now. Day 220 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
BLUEBERRY MUFFIN A man in a yellow jumper is sitting on the bench just in front of me. He seems to be asleep. All around him is a collection of holdalls, carrier bags and a pull-along case. It seems like all his possessions are there with him. I am sitting with my Americano, and blueberry muffin. After a while my man gets up slowly, unable to really stand up straight. He begins to load himself like a donkey, with all his bags. He’s clearly done this many times, for most goes over his shoulders and around his back leaving his hands free for the final bags and the pull-along case. Off he shuffles. Twenty minutes later he comes back, with all his bags neatly packed into one shopping trolley. He heads off slowly, down the street. A police car arrives and travels alongside him, clearly checking out the situation. My man stops as the police get out. He follows them, with his trolley, to the police station. I write this and finish my Americano, and blueberry muffin. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE. 1. What should I have done? 2. What should I do now? Day 207 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
RELIGIOUS BELIEF Talking about God is not easy in our world. It's a conversation that gets closed down quickly. It singles us out and we get placed in a camp. It’s them and me. It becomes about exclusion. But their view of God and mine are worlds apart. They talk of religion or belief. I talk of love. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. What does the word 'love' mean to you? Day 165 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
HOLDING COMPANY It is the pot that holds the soup. It is our soup. It is the universe that holds the world. It is our world. It is the arm that holds the child. It is our child. It is the book that holds the word. It is our word. It is the face that holds a smile. It is our smile. It is the light that holds all life. It is our life. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. What do you hold in your life? 2. Who holds you? Day 152 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
FIRST RESPONDER When tragedy strikes around the world we see images of destruction and death. There’s pain and anguish on young faces. It’s easy to feel helpless. But there are six key things we can do in these moments. We can be with the families not just as onlookers but in our thoughts. We can feel and share some of their pain. We can send our message of love right now. Personal and direct. We can offer ourselves and all that we are to support them. We can give money through agencies. And we can encourage our friends to do likewise. Our one small gift can begin an avalanche. We can create and say a prayer of love. It’s our call to the power of God to rescue, change, heal and renew. We can commit to specific actions to help create a kinder and more caring world as we move forward in our own lives. And we can encourage our children, young people and colleagues to become First Responders when they too, hear the news. Those struggling are not in some far-off land or on our screens, separate from us. They are beside us, now. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. What is the role of a First Responder? 2. Think about the latest world tragedy and see how many of the six points you can do. 3. Imagine if we were the ones who were suffering, and it was our tragedy on the news. Day 139 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
COMMUNITY COHESION A new community will emerge. A new type of community will emerge and grow. Offering help and hope A new definition of community will emerge and grow changing the why and the how and serving all. For community is not an organisation or a structure. Community is not based in a place or even in a virtual space Community rests in each of us enabling us to reach outwards and to work with all others. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. How can you build a new type of personal community? 2. What will you work on? 3. Who will you offer 'help and hope' to? Day 124 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
TERRITORY MANAGEMENT God is not territorial. God is love. God does not need us to believe in anything but love. For love is all we need to unite us in common goals of peace, kindness and compassion. Love requires us to look beyond ourselves. It asks us to feed the hungry and care for the sick. Questions of belief or non-belief miss the point of all that is. We are not here to exclude others but to unite ourselves with all others. That is our purpose. There is no greater priority for mankind. Structures give authority and authority brings power over others. Religious structures too can divide us despite all the good words. We can walk through the doors of exclusion and re-write the rules that hinder the fulfilment of the true purpose, potential and happiness of all. Inclusion can grow quietly and gently within each of us, for this is our personal journey of love. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. What exclusive structures do we belong to or support? 2. Who are we not linking up with or reaching out to, that we should? Day 94 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
EXCLUSION It is no longer enough to stand inside the tent and call people to join you. Sometimes we need to go outside the tent and work with people, so that we can all walk in together. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. Who is in you tent? 2. How can I or others join you? Day 67 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
THE COMPLETE WORKS We only have one version of the story. We can only define what we see as reality from our perspective. We view everything through our personal filters. Others too have their version of the story. Each person tries to make sense of life through their personal filter. Billions of realities across the world and all different. And beyond all of this is the reality of completeness. This sees and links everything and everyone as we truly are. The complete works. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. Think of three people you know or work with. In a sentence describe how they each see you. 2. Where and how do these views differ from your picture of yourself? Day 48 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
INCLUSION Inclusion is made real through the rain watering all of our crops wherever they may be. No preconditions, no preferences, reliably and consistently. Inclusion is made real through the sunshine warming all of us wherever we may be. No preconditions, no preferences, reliably and consistently. Inclusion is made real through each of us reaching out to others wherever they may be. No preconditions, no preferences, reliably and consistently. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. Does you inclusion policy at work focus on everyone or only on certain categories of people? How might you begin to change this? 2. At a personal level, who are you reaching out to? Day 30 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
DIVERSIFYING Networking with flowers. Growing rainbows. Building waves. Talking to carrots. Waiting on seahorses. Holding time. Investing in mornings. Collecting clouds. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE 1. Can you escape from your normal thinking and behaviour? 2. Can you create totally out of the box concepts that bring you into a new space? Day 18 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
SOCIAL INFLUENCERS In these days of enforced isolation send out your message of kindness on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram or TikTok. You can change lives with your encouragement, stories, experience, guidance or expertise. And you may never know about it. So, do not worry about likes, shares or feedback. Those who need your help or advice will find you. The approval of others is irrelevant for this is only vanity. Capture your thoughts, be brave and put your love out there. Remember, the biggest ‘like’ is yourself and valuing all that you are. The biggest ‘share’ is when you offer this to everyone. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCISE Joe Karbo, fifty years ago, said that each of us knows more about something than half the people in the world. 1. What is your area of experience? 2. How can you help others? 3. How will you share your expertise? Day 7 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
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