Personal Growth the Benjamin Franklin Way!

All too often, when coaching clients or just generally chatting with people about their personal growth and development, they tell me that they’re unhappy with certain aspects of their personality. When I ask them what’s stopping them from changing, they say things like “I was born this way”, “It’s just who I am”, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks”, “I’m too old to change” etc..

The good news for anyone wanting to change is that all of these excuses are just, well, excuses! Neural plasticity means that our brains are able to create new neural pathways no matter what our age! Which means that you can change any aspect of your personality that you don’t like. And it means that age is no barrier to personal growth.

So, let’s look at personal growth the Benjamin Franklin way.  In his autobiography, he tells how he decided that he wanted to change some aspects of his personality so embarked on a bit of personal growth.  He detailed 13 qualities that he wanted to develop in himself and in a little book, he set aside a page for each of these qualities and journaled the progress he made in his personal growth.

He realised that to try to develop them all at once would be futile so he decided to devote a week to each one; when, after 13 weeks, he had got through all 13, he began again. In a year, that meant he went focused on each aspect 4 times.

His approach encapsulates for me a very sensible approach to personal development: analyse yourself, find the change(s) you want to make, be realistic in how much change you can make in one go, journal your progress and be patient. Franklin’s results? People around him were amazed at the changes he made in himself.

I searched the internet for lists of qualities people admire in others, and from what I found, composed the following. In no particular order:

Honesty
Selflessness
Passion
Good Listener
Hard Working
Close With Family
Love
Humor
Humility
Dignity in Face of Adversity
Sense of Play and Fun
Patience

What qualities do you admire in others and would you like to change in you?

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