4 Personal Development Tools to Support You in Creating Your Dream Life
written by Isabel Carrington
Whether you’re craving new beginnings, want to leave your 9-5 to do a job you love, are searching for more authentic relationships or are simply interested in creating a beautiful, fulfilling and purposeful life, you can have it all.
The possibilities for your life are endless, as long as you believe them to be.
Sometimes though, creating the life of our dreams can feel pretty overwhelming, especially when we’re trying to achieve everything at once.
Instead, let’s take a deep breath and slow down.
It’s okay to want more for your life. We can recognize where we are in this present moment, and know we’re meant for more; that we’re meant to keep moving and learning and growing.
We can also find gratitude for where we’re at now – shifting our awareness to appreciate how far we’ve already come, and how strong and resilient we’ve been while trying to build a life we admire.
And even better, we can find a balance or harmony between both sides of the spectrum: basking in gratitude and self-compassion for the present AND moving forward, continuing to take consistent baby steps towards our bigger vision.
Below we’ve shared some self-development tools that will help support you in creating your dream life in a healthy, sustainable and most importantly, blissful way.
personal development podcasts & recommendations
Downloading an inspirational podcast can be a great way to learn and grow, even when you’re a little preoccupied.
Consider adding a podcast to your daily commute, or listening when you’re on a long walk or having a shower to make the most of your time.
Listening to personal development podcasts can offer insight and encouraging words on achieving your dream life and cultivating happiness. Here are a few of our favourites.
Earn Your Happy
In her podcast Earn Your Happy, Lori Harder aims to teach you the tools and strategies to grow yourself so that you can take action towards your goals. If you’re looking to work on your confidence, increase your income or grow your business, you’ll likely find this podcast serves as some inspiration!
Boss Babe (more specifically for entrepreneurs)
Natalie and Danielle are the founders of Boss Babe, a female empowerment community for budding and existing entrepreneurs.
In the Boss Babe Podcast, the ladies bring on guests and share great solo episodes speaking on money-making insights, social media hacks and secrets for creating a life and business that you absolutely love.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
In his podcast On Purpose, Jay Shetty has conversations with what he describes as the most insightful people. Some of the topics discussed on his podcast include love, spirituality, productivity and stress management.
If you find that you tend to live on autopilot, his episodes can encourage you to take action towards a more conscious and purposeful lifestyle.
personal development books and recommendations
Authors of self-development books generally condense years of learnings into the pages so we can absorb their wisdom without experiencing the same extent of trial and error as them.
We can find comfort in reading about the experiences of others or discovering a quote that resonates. The below books are the favourites of many for a reason and we hope that they serve a purpose for your own personal journey.
You Are A Badass
You’ve probably come across the work of Jen Sincero before. You Are a Badass is an upfront and humorous self-help book written for those that want to improve their lives.
Jen shares inspiring stories, advice and easy exercises you can practice on a daily basis.
It’s a great book for those just starting to dip their toes in the waters of personal development, even if you’re still a little skeptical!
Some of the topics discussed include:
Embracing who you are
Determining what makes us unique and what we’re doing here on this earth
Procrastination and perfectionism
Fear
Taking action
Practices to support you with tapping into the energy of the universe, your intuition, and your inner badass
If you aren’t ready to grab the book yet, you can read our key tips and takeaways from the book here.
Big Magic
If you resonate as a creative soul, you’ll likely love the book Big Magic. In it, Elizabeth Gilbert shares her understanding of creativity and how easy it can be if you allow yourself to let go of fear and be inspired.
Throughout the book she describes ideas and inspiration like they are spiritual beings, rather than inanimate objects. These ideas are constantly floating around our universe looking for a worthy home: a creative who will be able to take the idea and present it to the world in their own beautiful way.
Think about the ways inspiration is trying to send you messages in your own life. Are you allowing inspiration to work through you or are you rejecting it?
Gilbert also talks about:
Fear and courage
Permission
Motivation
Success
And more
If your dream is to write a book one day, create art or start living out your long-term dreams on your own accord, this book is one to consider reading! Here are our key tips and takeaways.
The Power Of Now
As mentioned earlier, our dreams can seem stressful when we rush the process to achieve them.
In The Power of Now however, Eckhart Tolle speaks about the importance of simply being; encouraging us to surrender to the present moment. If you’re looking to reconnect with your sense of true self, take your power back from unhelpful thoughts and distractions, and learn more about your soul desires, this book is for you.
He discusses:
The concept of enlightenment
Why you are not your mind (and freeing yourself from your mind)
Letting go of psychological time
Fear
Learning continuously
And more
Read our key tips and takeaways here.
visualization meditation
Visualization meditation is the process of cultivating imagery in your mind to help you calm your mind, evoke certain emotions, or dream big.
When we meditate we’re inviting a focus on our body and breath as we are in the current moment, to help us relax, let go and rest both the mind and body. When we’re in this calm state, we can solely focus on our inner being.
Meditation allows us to start to let go of expectations we’ve placed on ourselves or what others say we “should do,” and instead allows us to explore and follow the light of our own vision.
Jason Stephenson has a powerful guided meditation for visualizing your ideal life that revolves around the law of attraction and goal setting. If you struggle to picture things clearly or connect with your highest self, you may find that this specific meditation benefits you.
It’s important to bear in mind that meditation can look different for everybody. So, if you find it hard to envision a clear picture of what you want to bring into your life, please be gentle with yourself.
A certain meditation technique may not be the right fit for you or perhaps your past thoughts and stories need a little more time to drift away to make space for new ones. Practice patience and don’t give up. Healing is never an easy or linear journey.
journaling
Journaling is not only a therapeutic practice but can also provide a way for us to manifest beautiful things into our life that match our energy.
The Five Minute Journal is well-known and liked because it consists of simple, thoughtful questions for both your morning and evening routine. If you’re looking for a consistent, structured journaling practice, getting a journal like this might be a great place to start.
Alternatively, you may prefer a more flexible journaling approach like scripting. This technique is meant to raise your vibration and help you visualize your desires.
You can script by writing about a day in your life or what your dream life looks like in general. It’s important to be as specific as possible because that’s how we can manifest what we want more clearly.
Consider these prompts:
Begin to get clear on what you want and how you want to feel. The emotions that come up while thinking about your dreams are an important part of this practice.
Where would you like to be in the following years?
What would it look like to start embodying parts of that vision now?
How do you feel about achieving your dream life?
Finish your script by expressing pre-emptive gratitude (gratitude before the event happens) for the life that is yours, thanking the universe that your blessings were received in a timely manner.
Another simple journaling exercise is morning pages, which we’ve written about in the past here. Morning pages are a simple way to upgrade your morning routine to allow for more clarity, comfort, and flow throughout the rest of your day. They are 3, long form written pages of stream of consciousness writing, which means there’s no judgement about what is being written – you just write whatever’s on your mind.
The idea is that clearing your mind in the morning allows you the opportunity to open yourself up to other thoughts and ideas throughout the day because you aren’t blocked or overwhelmed already by what’s already filling your mind.
final thoughts
Whether you decide to start integrating all of these personal development tools into your life, or one is speaking to you more clearly, please remember to take it slow! This journey of personal development is not meant to be stressful or overwhelming, in fact it’s meant to help you in relieving some of the stress and pressure of your daily life.
So, take what resonates, and begin to explore these tools at your own pace, not only to improve your life in the present, but to support you in crafting a beautiful dream life that excites you.
Remember that when we throw our energy into the things that light us up the most, that’s when we'll be more likely to be guided towards all that we desire — the dream home, the financial goals, love for ourselves and for others, and so much more.
Our intuition is strong, and our energy is a beautiful indication of what is meant for us and what isn’t.
You are widely capable of living the life that you are truly meant to have. Our dreams were given to us for a reason and we can choose to live into them.
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about the author
Isabel Carrington is a wellness enthusiast and content writer who cares deeply about living consciously.
She is most passionate about following daily rituals that support who we want to become. Like many, Isabel has often felt disconnected to herself both internally and outwardly.
While struggling through these emotions, she came to the realization that self-care and a safe space to heal is essential. Isabel has since started a business of wellness boxes, spread the word of self-compassion through different platforms and collaborated with like-minded brands and individuals.
She is always seeking to support educational, sustainable and ethically-minded projects. Her beliefs are that in order to live a fulfilling life, we must build a relationship with ourselves and be authentic to who we are.
