Your Essential Personal Development Quiz

The following questionairre is designed to be thought provoking and give you an idea of the positive things you can do in order to help you achieve success in yourlife more quickly. Simply answer the following questions as honestly keep a count of your score and refer to the score chart at the end.

1) Do you regularly look at yourself to see what is working for you and what is not in terms of your personal goals?
a) Yes, on a day to day basis. (3 points)
b) Yes, weekly. (2 points)
c) Yes, monthly or more. (1 point)
d) No never. (0 points)

Regularly assessing your progress and monitoring what is working for you and what is not is essential practice for success. By doing so you can constantly modify your behavior to include more of the practices that increase your success rate and cut out the not so productive practices.

2) When you have a problem do you...
a) Actively seek help from an expert source? (3 points)
b) Struggle on yourself? (1 point)
c) Give-up? (0 points)

Whilst never giving in is always an essential ingredient for success, they say 'success is on the other side of frustration' asking or seeking the opinion of an expert or some one more qualified than you is the best option here. This can be in the form of Cd's, tapes, books, friends, professional acquaintences or even life coaches. All of these sources have the potential to improve your learning curve dramatically and propel you towards your goals quicker than if you were trying to do so on your own.

3) Are you aligning your self with people of similar goals or with people who have already achieved those goals?
a) Yes, I seek out these people purposely. (3 points)
b) Yes, but more by luck than anything. (2 points)
c) No. (0 points)

Successful like-minded people provide you with the opportunity to both benefit from their expertise and to be the source of advice for others too. They can provide inspiration, motivation and are an excellent contact for future projects, joint ventures and so on. Modeling successful people is one of the keys to success, take the best qualities of the successful people and the skills they use and apply them to your own life. Don't be shy or worried about asking for help, you know, many people do like to help! Success is of course possible on your own but usually it's a great deal quicker and more pleasurable with others.
 
4) Do you have realistic goals written down with an appropriate timescale and plan?
a) Yes, all of the above. I know exactly what they are. (3 points)
b) Err, about two of the above. (2 points)
c) One of the above. (1 point)
d) None of the above. (0 points)

Of course goals are essential, if you don't know what the destination is how can you know which direction to drive in or even when you arrive? Also making them too challenging can be demotivating as you gaze at how far ahead they are, choose something that you believe is possible for you. Writing goals down has also been proven to be a key determinant of success many times over.

5) Are you trying new things and taking risks to see if you can find new way of doing things more efficiently?
a) Yes, daily (3 points)
b) Yes, weekly..ish (2 points)
c) Yes, monthly...ish (1 points)
d) No/rarely (0 points)

It often takes a risk to find a new way of doing something that will improve your situation, be bold.Of course you may make many mistakes that set you back but just one new discovery could put you miles ahead!

6) Do you make time for yourself regularly to rest, relax and re-focus on what is important for you and your life?
a) Yes, nearly everyday. (3 points)
b) Yes, once or twice a week. (2 points)
c) Yes, monthly. (1 point)
d) Less often. (0 points)

Giving yourself time to relax and re-focus is an essential part to staying healthy and mentally alert and on target. It gives you time to think and reflect upon your current progress and how you can make faster progress and also it lets you enjoy the journey towards your goals more.

7) Do you find yourself thinking the same negative thoughts of worry and fear each day?
a) No, if I think negative I am able to change this.(3 points)
b) Sometimes (1 point)
c) Yes, a few times a day. (0 points)

Developing your own tactics to avoid negative thoughts is very helpful to prevent you spiraling downwards. Some people have a favourite affirmation or quote in order to kick start their positivity other people have a favourite song or like to make a list of things they are thankful for in order to start thinking positive again. Remember, if you are worrying about something you are not really living in the now. If you are playing with your children then play with your children don't be physically with them and mentally someplace elsethe same aplies to your work, if you are worrying you are wasting energy and thought power.

OK, lets see add up your scores out of a maximum of 21

14 - 21 points: Good job you should find you are making progress towards your goals, just have a look where you lost a few points, jot down why and try and implement the ideas into your life. This should really give you an edge.

7 - 13 points: OK, you have the basics of a successful personal development outlook, however there are a few things that you can do that will seriously increase your chances of success. It would definitely be worth looking into your areas of weakness.

0 - 6 points: Lets cut to the chase, not the most inspiring score. The good things is about that is that there are lots of good things that you can start doing immediately to improve your progress towards your goals, presuming you have any. make this a new start and use the guidelines above to develop a new and effective plan for your future.

And lastly a few words of advice, If you are in a bad situation, get busy again. Rather than focusing on the bad situation do what you can do now to improve it, this will immediately draw your attention towards more things that you can do positively, then try and be thankful for those positive things and recognise that there is always a way out! Recognise that every moment is a new choice, consistently make the new choice about yourself that reflects who and what you want to be? The only guarantee in life is that it will not stay the same, keep choosing your highest good each and everyday.