Mastering Continuous Improvement: Techniques for Personal Growth

A former neighbor used to claim that I reinvented myself every 5 years.

While I’m not sure about either the concept of reinventing myself or the 5 year cycle, it’s absolutely true that continuous change has been constant element of my journey through life.

Looking back on my life of change, I see my journey as the natural outcome of the combination of a growth mindset and my passion for learning.

By way of illustration, let’s have a quick look at how some of my most significant changes helped improve my life.

Off To University

On completion of high school, I made what turned out to be a disastrous decision to pursue a career as an accountant.?

Once I recognized how misguided this decision was, a mid-course correction took me to university in? a distant city, away from my and my family’s long time home town.

If being the first member of either of parents’ families to graduate from high school wasn’t enough, attending a large university in large city was totally mind blowing.?

For the first time in my life, I was recognized for who I was as a person… not extension of my brother, my father, this uncle or that cousin.

Looking back at this move, I recognize it as the release of the “me that nobody knew”.

Free of my perceived need to please my parents, I reveled in the breadth and depth of the exciting new learning opportunities in and around the university.

And what a joy to connect with so many compatible, like-minded people!

More by default than anything else, while living in my home town, I did what everyone else did—just because that’s the way it was.

But the good news is that it really doesn’t have to be that way.? I most cases we do in fact have choices about our actions—unless of course we choose to ignore those choices and do what everyone else is doing.

From A Small Town Lawyer To A Big City Consultant

Many years after graduating from university and law school, as well as qualifying as a lawyer, I made the really good decision to practice law in a small rural town.

For about a dozen years I enjoyed the benefits generated by the life of a small town lawyer.

Eventually the benefits became increasingly predictable and from there, kind of boring.

In recognition that I and my wife had run out of growing room in our small town, we made the decision to move.? With two young children in tow we moved to a very large city.

The move was about 100 times more stressful than we could have ever imagined.? But in the overall scheme of things, the move was well worth stressful challenges.

From my university experience, as well as the diverse activities associated with my life as a small town lawyer, I was fully confident that I had a wide range of skills and talents that I could market—and hopefully monetize.

Happily my confidence was well founded.? Following my transition from a small town lawyer to a self-employed professional in a big city there was no end to new and exciting opportunities that came my way.?

From consultant to writer, coach and educator, I had the honor of delivering professional services, primarily to owners and operators of small businesses.

Had anyone suggested that my move from the comfortable life of a small town lawyer to working as professional in a big city, there is no way I could have believed those encouraging words.?

Happily, no one told me that I could not do what I eventually achieved the results that I did.?

Instead of reacting against those well-intentioned words of caution, I just did what I could to create my ideal life.? Thankfully it worked out well.

Author To Podcast Guest

My current process of transformation involves making the change from creating and producing books or book equivalents to appearing as a guest on podcasts.

With the production and distribution of my current book complete, my next challenge was to promote and market it.? For a variety of reasons, I decided that appearing as a guest on podcasts was my best approach.? So that’s the process that I started.

In all honesty, guesting on podcasts has turned out to so much more engaging and rewarding that I had expected.?

Instead of diving deeper in specific topics of the book, most hosts ask questions that require more thought than standard memorized answers.?

As a result, I continue to learn more and more about myself—thanks to the insightful questioning by podcast hosts.

Who knew??

It’s Your Turn

In sharing these 3 examples of my transformations was to illustrate how the process of change can trigger, among other benefits, continuous improvement.

My move from my family’s long-time home town in order to attend university opened a variety of doors, which in turn offered endless opportunities for continued growth and by extension, continuous improvement.

So did our move from a small town to a big city—as well as my current transformation from writing to podcast guesting.

But enough about me…what about you?

What major transformations have contributed to you being who are today?

And what did you learn from these transformations that will make for a better you in the future?

To learn more about getting from where you are to where you want to be, see Your Transformation Connection.

Keep on keeping on being your true authentic self.