PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT WITH READING AS A TOOL

If we take a short walk down man's history, we will notice something very intriguing. There were those that made things happen, those that watched things happen and those that asked, "what happened?" The role of those that make things happen is that of one interested in personal development.

Let me give a definition of personal development before we move further. Personal development is a life long process — a way for people to assess their skills, talents and qualities and consider their aim in life and set goals in order to realise, maximize their potential and fully be in tune with their original self.

Personal development is not only concerned with acquiring skills here and there but draws more to the process of "becoming." That is, to be transformed into the best version of one's self. It cuts across all facets of our lives and I've learnt that income rarely exceeds personal development. Sometimes, income takes a lucky jump but unless you learn to handle the responsibilities that come with it through personal development, it will usually shrink back to the amount you can handle. "To have more than you've got, become more than you are."

Now that we've known a bit about what personal development is about, we'll go a step further to "managing your personal development." Below are a number of ways by which we can manage our personal development:

1) Have a Vision: Vision is synonyms to seeing the destination before the walk. Have a clear picture of what it is you so desire in your personal development walk. Let it burn within you, whether it is a new skill you want to acquire or an habit you want to build.

2) Have a Plan to Achieve the Vision: Draw out a step by step plan in which you're going to take to actualize that vision and let it be workable. There are so many guides available in drawing an effective plan, however, tailor it to meet your personality.

3) Start the Plan: Most people easily pass through the first and second level but this stage is mostly their biggest obstruction. After having a concrete plan, take that leap of faith and trust the process. Fear will always try to stop you but as Ryan Holiday puts it, "the obstacle is the way. I know we've all been at this stage before. It's just like buying food items and being too tired to cook it.

4) Record your Progress: The importance of records cannot be overemphasized. It helps you to checkmate yourself, where you have fallouts and where you wowed yourself. It can also help you prepare for another phase of achieving your vision (don't only record the good things, record the bad ones too).

5) Review your Plans: Being flexible is one of the greatest improvements to plans. There are times our plans just don't work the way we so desire, most of us get frustrated here. One of the ways forward when we meet an obstacle on our path is to bend (bend it like Beckham). Losing a task on our personal development plan doesn't mean we've failed, it only gives us the opportunity to try a better way.

Reading as a Tool to Personal Development

During the era of slavery, slave masters took a very punitive precautionary measure in a bid to prevent their slaves from learning to read and write. One would ask why they were so much against the slaves being able to read and write. They understood the implications that if a slave was liberated in his mind through what he read, then he was already liberated physically. Men have been transformed from mediocres to the epitome of greatness by using the tool of reading for personal development. A few of them are:

J. B Fuqua
Fuqua grew up on a small tobacco farm in Virginia and living in a rural community meant he didn’t always have access to the resources he wanted when it came to learning. So, he borrowed books by mail from the Duke library, helping him get an education on his own terms. It seems to have done him well, as Fuqua would go on to make millions through his various business ventures, become a respected politician and even found his own school in rural Virginia.

Abraham Lincoln
One of the best known and best loved presidents of all time, Abraham Lincoln, spent his early days growing up on the frontier, where the family didn’t always have access to schools. Lincoln only had one year’s worth of classes between the ages of 6 and 15, taught whenever the community could find a teacher. Lincoln instead educated himself through reading books. He was fascinated by them and spent nearly every minute of his spare time with his nose in a book, learning about history, philosophy, and literature. He later rose to be one of America's finest presidents. ["Lincoln no too fine o but we dey remember am! Forget that face thing." I was only just kidding o] Okay, let me get you properly... Is it his wealth that's mysterious or his development over time?

Edith Whatorn
Although Edith Wharton was the daughter of a wealthy family, she was not sent to school with her brothers beacusee she was a girl. At the time, that was the standard practice for a young lady who was expected to be a debutante. A bright young girl, she was not deterred by her lack of formal education but instead took matters into her own hands by reading books from her father’s library and working on lessons at home with her governess. She ended up writing loads of books!

I deliberately  chose this selection of people because they all had very little or no formal education unlike us but see what they achieved through reading books alone! The best investment you can do for yourself is to get yourself a book. I remember Bishop Oyedepo talking about how he traveled abroad and bought a box full of books and mummy Faith was a bit angry and he said, "the treasures in these books can help you own the companies of the things you wished I bought."

Books develop our personalities and help us to find who we really and truly are. "Lose yourself in books and let knowledge show you the way." Malcolm X, K. F. Kennedy, Awolowo, Mandela, etc were crazy addicts of books. Some of them used the dark times in their lives to develop themselves. Malcolm learnt to read in a prison, Mandela read in the prison. The list goes on. Reading can help transform you from where you are to where you want to be.


Teacher: Alli Oluwatomisin Farouk