How to start your self-development journey | tips from Joseph Tabet

Joseph Tabet is CEO and founder of Pragma Investments Management in Dubai. He is also a believer in the power of self-development.

If you’ve ever bought a self-help book or signed up to an app only to abandon them soon after, you’re not alone.

Starting on the path to self-development can take many false starts. The whole concept of the self-development journey can seem vague and overwhelming. Where do you start? What does it even mean?

What drives people towards starting a self-development journey?

The driver for self-development is always the wish or the need to create a better life. We all want to live well and get the most out of our time here on earth. But most of us struggle to do so.

The pressures of work, earning money, family, illness or any other one of the myriad challenges that face us all can make it difficult to even consider self-development.

However, it’s my firm belief that every single one of us – even the most outwardly successful and confident – should work to be a better version of ourselves as long as we live.

Self-development can feel complex and confusing

The self-improvement sector is massive. There are literally hundreds of thousands of books, authors, thought leaders, fitness and wellness experts, guides, plans and strategies out there. It’s all too easy to quickly become overwhelmed with too much information and give up before you even start.

There are ways you can change your life in the ways that you want. We all have different goals, and by no means should they be confined to the material world. Getting richer, having a successful career and being at the top of your game may well be your self-development goals, but if you find that you are looking for something less obvious, you can find that too.

Here are my tips on starting on the long – but always rewarding – road to self-development.

5 steps towards a successful self-development journey

1. Less is more – always

Don’t try and change everything you don’t like about yourself at once. Instead, create a list – and it doesn’t matter how you do this – of your dream goals. Want to move jobs? Write it down. Want to lose 10 pounds and gain muscle? List it.

When you have a list, take some time to meditate on your goals. These came from you, and they are there for a reason. Listen to your inner self and honour your own wishes by taking time to sit with each goal.

This will help you to prioritise and sort out what you really want. And then I want you to start with just one area of your life. If that’s personal finances, for example, work on that until you have figured it out. When you have this area of your life under control to your satisfaction, move on to the next area.

This could be your relationships or your health. Maybe it’s productivity or a healthier lifestyle. The point is, by concentrating mindfully on one area of change at a time, you have much more of a chance of achieving your goals. You will become more confident and more in control of your own self-belief.

Whenever we start something brand new, enthusiasm tends to get us through the first weeks. But this will begin to wane, and when it does, you will want to give up. If you have built up a level of self-belief, your odds of getting to the end are massively increased.

2. Find a mentor

Take some time to find out about a mentor/author/writer/thought leader who will work for you. It’s all too easy to buy every book you see or sign up for all kinds of programmes online only to feel flooded with too much information.

Wellness and self-development is a major industry sector, and people will try to sell you stuff. It’s important to look into who these people are and find a mentor that aligns with your values, outlook and strategy—someone you can trust to guide you through every step of progress.

Of course, this mentor could be someone you already know, a friend, relative or someone at work. Or it could be an author or celebrity, paid coach or online influencer. There is plenty of choices!

Look at what they say, what they offer and how they cost it to get an idea of the likelihood of their offering actually helping you. This isn’t about acquiring information and failing to make the necessary changes. Your mentor should encourage you into action with a clear direction.

While you could go it alone, I recommend finding a mentor or guide because it saves precious time. By choosing someone who has gone through similar life experiences and has proof that their strategies can help, you cut out the trial-and-error part of your journey.

3. Start your journey with someone else

Going it alone makes your path to success more difficult. That’s not to say it’s impossible, but it can lead to lonely times. If you can find someone, whether a friend or family member, who wants to follow a similar path to self-development, then working together is your best option.

Alternatively, recruit a loved one, friend, colleague or therapist to be there to talk about your self-development. It helps to understand your own motivations and to focus on what you are achieving day by day. This will help to minimise the chances of you giving up too soon.

If you’d rather not do this with someone in your immediate circle – and remember there is no single correct way to do this – have a look online. There are endless Facebook groups, Twitter communities, online forums, and websites to sign up and communicate with others in the same boat. This can be very motivational and ensure that you keep going, even when it feels too difficult.

4. Organise your goals

Remember in point 1 where we talked about writing down your overarching goals? Now’s the time to refine and hone them. Understanding your true goals is very important for your psyche, and it’s also motivating.

Listing and organising your goals also gives you the structure you need to formulate an action plan. It helps you think more clearly, prioritise tasks and stick to your guns. It’s the shift from random bursts of action to systematic, focused and intentional changes.

Be detailed with your goals too. Writing down the goal of “lose weight”, for example, isn’t going to get you there. It’s far too vague and doesn’t give you the parameters that encourage you to do what you need to do. Instead, try a goal specifying exactly how much weight you want to lose every week up until a goal date.

Always make your goals measurable and include a deadline. Without these two things, your goals are likely to fade from your immediate consciousness and go unfulfilled.

Don’t fall into the trap of writing a huge list of goals. Many people do exactly that when they decide they want to make changes in their lives. But this leads to being overwhelmed and feeling pressured. You only have a finite amount of energy, remember, and you need to create realistic goals that will fit into your life and commitments. I recommend focusing on one or two goals only and making sure you meet them.

5. Get started!

I don’t want you to take too much time reading books, Googling self-development experts and writing things down. If you are disciplined at the start of this endeavour, you are far more likely to get to the second stage much faster – and that is to take action.

You will undoubtedly come across barriers when you begin this kind of self-development strategy. It’s not easy; otherwise, there wouldn’t be a multimillion-dollar market behind it!

But it is achievable, bit by bit, day by day. If you find that you’re losing motivation or that you’ve let it all slide, that’s OK. Just dust yourself off and start again. When you make profound changes, you will inevitably feel resistance. There will more than likely be old, limiting beliefs that are holding you back. Or you could even get resistance from people close to you. Either way, accepting that you will have to deal with times of uncertainty and face up to challenges will help.

There is not a successful or fulfilled person alive in this world who hasn’t had to jump barriers, work through challenges and get up and start all over again at some point in their lives. Good luck!

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or management of EconoTimes