7 Principles For Optimal Personal Development

Welcome back to the Journey Principles. I'm Steven Scoggins and I wanted to bring this up today. Have you ever looked at your actual methodology when it comes to personal development? The reason is, is because they either make you a million dollars or cost you a million dollars. So you're going to want to stay tuned to figure out how to make it work for you.

Gosh, I guess I was about 16 years old when my father's employer actually pulled me down off my. My father's framing crew. We had been working in Subcontractors Forum for some time now. Interestingly enough, I'd actually met this man, Steve Myrick, that you guys have heard me talk about so many times when I was roughly 13 years old. And one thing was very interesting. He'd always pull me down off the framing crew and put me in his Jeep Durand Cherokee and actually began to mentor me and tell me about flipping property and helping other people and helping single mothers and things of that nature. He spent all that time trying to help me understand that my perspective was different. One of the greatest stories he really ever told me was actually about my grandfather. You see, my grandfather actually survived Pearl harbor. And as a result, he came back a changed man. Now, he was still the very hard worker that he had always been. He was still the guy that literally, you shook his hand, you knew it was a great deal, like he would actually protect the word that he gave you. All of that was still true, but unfortunately, he started getting into some things that my. That have kind of hit her to the backside of one of my lines of my family for some time, ie, alcohol. Right. Steve was trying to help me understand that I had a choice to make and I didn't have to live the life that I'd always lived. Instead, if I actually took his advice and began to work on the personal development that would actually help me live the life I've always wanted. Which is when he asked me my signature question that I've shared with you guys many, many times for those of you who have been with us for a while. And that is, what's the difference between a rich man and a poor man? Now, I won't go into the story in too much more detail right now, but what you need to understand about that is he was trying to give me a perspective shift. You see, I wasn't focused on personal growth at all at the moment. I was focused on living the life that I had, doing no better than I did yesterday and just kind of being stuck in that kind of area and Then he taught me to choose to be different. He taught me to choose to become the unimaginable. And you know what? As I look back over the last, gosh, I don't know, two decades, three decades, and becoming almost a nine figure earner, I can honestly say that nothing makes a dream more possible, more of a real, a tangible, realistic thing than actual the intentional piece behind personal development. And I wanted to give you the seven principles that kick started my own journey and hopes that they'll help you do yours and become simply amazing in your own life and in any endeavor that you go after. So use these seven principles and make sure you begin to win with them.

Okay, guys, so here's the first principle. Here's the one that got me started. I had to design a clear destination, you see, in the moment in time, in that particular story, I was essentially content with just making a few bucks an hour. Well, intentionally, I'll be able to tell you this much. Inside, I knew I was worth more. I knew I could do more. I just wasn't sure what that is. So I had to take the time to do what Steve first taught me to do, which was to lay out a clear expectation about where I wanted to go. He asked me to create a vision board, if you will, and began to cut magazine pieces out, if you will, and like put up the houses and put up the cars and some of the nice things that he thought that I would probably want to aspire to. He asked me to lay out a five year plan of where I thought I might be in five years. All things that I kind of took for granted. So when it comes down to actually making your life work for you and actually taking the time to make personal development part of your life, one of the first things we're going to have to do is design a clear destination, right? So make sure when you look at principle one, it's defined and designed a clear destination. That way you actually know what you're shooting for and that can actually help us to go to principle number two.

Now, principle number two builds off of principle number one, like most of our principles are laid out, and that's discover how you learn best and take advantage of it. In a not too recent video, both in Face to Face and also some of the whiteboard lessons, I covered your learning styles, both the modality and the methodology in which you learn these specific things help you understand how you actually need to learn essentially the information that you're going to use to change your life, to change your behaviors, and to change your skill set. So you're going to have to take the time to actually do your best to use your learning styles and take advantage of that for yourself. So discover how you learn best and use it on a regular basis to help you move the needle. All right, principle number three.

Now, as we look at principle number three, I like to call it focus on mastery, not instant gratification. And here's why. One of the biggest mistakes I made when trying to transform my own life and trying to take myself from where I was to where I wanted to go was nothing more than focused on the instant gratification side. Like I instantly wanted to be from here to there. And the reality is, it just doesn't work like that. Instead, what I chose to do or what I was taught to do was to actually focus on mastery. In other words, take a specific area of your life that maybe you're not so great at, and then do what it takes to learn, grow and mature that area. So much so that it actually becomes muscle memory. Muscle memory in the stance that you've now mastered that skill, allowing you to move on to another one. The reason mastery is so very important is because mastery allows you to create a solid foundation that not only you can build from, but you can also teach from, allowing you to make a legacy rather than just basically the end of every day. So make sure you take the time to focus on mastery and not instant gratification. Always be willing to play the long game. And that's going to be vital as we move into principle four.

Now, principle number four is kind of builds off the others, and that is you need to choose your. Your mentors carefully. One of the things that Steve Meyrick taught me the most is that character, integrity matter. You really can't get further faster with a mentor unless you understand the character and integrity that actually go into that. Would you follow someone to make a million dollars if you found out the million dollars were stolen? Of course not. Now, would you follow someone to make a million dollars if that million dollars was actually part of building a business or building a career? Probably so. And when all else fails, I want you to go back and check out the whiteboard lesson called the mentorship matrix, where I identify four specific types of mentors that you can use in actually making your mentorship choices for you that actually work for you. So again, make sure you choose your mentors carefully. That matters. Otherwise, you'll follow the wrong people to the wrong places and never actually achieve your goal. Principle 5. Make sure you always amplify your strengths and backfill your blind spots. Now, one of the things that we did here is I created a free an ebook, if you will, called what drives you that you can find@journeyprinciples.com now, inside of that is a personality assessment that helps you understand what those things are. Right. It's free. So go ahead and tap into it and make sure you utilize it. The reason that's so important is because you have to uncover your strengths and uncover your blind spots before you know what to amplify and then what you know to basically replace with a or backfill with somebody else that you need to help you succeed. Okay. What I mean by that is there's things that you do really, really well, and there's things that are completely a blind spot for you, meaning you don't see it coming, and when it hits you, it knocks you off your hiney. So you're going to want to make sure you understand what that is. I have a blind spot with details, so I hire team members to help me with my details. Now, you may not have the resources to hire somebody, but what you may have is a good friend who's actually really good with that. With. Maybe you guys can trade some things off. Maybe they're good, really good with people, or I'm sorry, not so good with people, but really good with the details. Trade it off, right? Make it work for you, and then that way you can actually help yourself grow and actually make personal development personal and successful. All right? Principle number six.

Pursue impact over income. Zig Ziglar used to say, if you can help enough people get what they want, you'll always get what you want. I learned a long time ago that while I'm trying to build a career successfully, whether it be in business or whether it be my personal life of meeting people and helping people, no matter what I do, the impact is far more important than the immediate income. And if you do the impact well, the income always follows. So ask yourself what you could do today, tomorrow, next week, a month from now, a year from now, or the framework you may need to serve someone in such a way they would be glad to give you certificates of appreciation. Right? Use those things to help you uncover how you can best utilize that same impact skill to then create an income. But always focus on the impact first and the income second. So pursue impact over income, and that'll help you win. Now, let's go ahead and get in the final lesson for today or the final principle for the day. I've told you many times About Steve Myrick and a handful of other people that helped me literally change my life. If it had not been for them, I promise you today, I would not be looking at you right now. It never would have happened. I would have given up to my limiting beliefs and all the other problems and things that I. That I had to overcome. But Steve Myrick, Susan Batts, and Frank Wiesner, just to name a few, are people who radically changed my life because they change by how I thought. They changed my perspective, and they change the things that come with it. So the greatest thing that I can do for you and do for them is to honor their sacrifice and their stewardship and their teaching to me by teaching the same things that they taught me to you. Why? Because if we do this well, we do it together. What I teach you is gonna work. I know it will. If you apply it and you practice it, you put it into place, it will work. I have no doubt. At the same time, once it works, begging you to take that same skill set and help take that level to someone else, to help someone else that needs that encouragement in that training. So become the example of the person that used to represent that for you. Make sure you take the time to do that and you will be successful. Now, I hope you enjoyed the seven Principles. I have a ton more that we're sharing here on the YouTube channel. Make sure you take the time to do that. In the meantime, I want you to check out some of these other videos that can help you win it your life.

Hey, it's Connor with the Journey principles. If you enjoyed this video, I'd recommend you also check out our whiteboard lesson where we cover the personal development life cycle, especially if you want to take your personal development to another level. Also, we've put together an Entire Life Mastery 101 playlist right here on YouTube, so feel free to check that out as well.