Starting Your Personal Development Journey w/ Notebook Mentor

AD – This is a paid collaboration with Notebook Mentor but all thoughts are my own

Since around March 2020, I’ve devoted a LOT of time and effort into my own personal development. I’ve gone deeper than I’ve ever gone before. I’ve done three separate coaching programs. I’ve listened to a ton of podcasts, invested money in courses and opened myself up to learning and receiving more than ever.

If you’re someone who hasn’t yet started off their personal development journey, this might all sound a little overwhelming. And it’s really no wonder people don’t know where to start sometimes! You might feel like starting a personal development journey is some big and scary thing – but it absolutely doesn’t have to be.

Who are Notebook Mentor?

Notebook Mentor create career journals / books to help ordinary people grow, develop and be happier at work.  Something we could all use, right? Written by career development experts, they say it’s like having a ‘mentor in your pocket!’. That’s something I can totally see.

Their journals are ideal for adults who might be out of work or who are perhaps thinking about a new career path. But if you’re into personal development, then Notebook Mentor would be great for you too.

Getting To Know Me Better Journal – £19.95

I was sent their Getting To Know Me Better Journal for the purpose of this collaboration and as someone who obviously loves personal development and works on their own personal development pretty much every single day, I can definitely vouch for this journal as being absolutely BRILLIANT. 

It’s a very in-depth and involved journal, with a lot of questions and sections to work through. So obviously at this point, I haven’t done it all myself. But even just upon flicking through the different chapters and sections, I can already tell it’s going to be incredibly helpful.

If you love journaling and writing in general, then you’ll absolutely love this too. It’s an incredibly high quality notebook as well, even the paper inside feels thick and durable (enough to take all the writing you’re going to be doing in it!)

This book contains chapters on everything from looking back into your mentoring history, developing more self awareness of who YOU are, your values and skills, your personal brand and much more. In each chapter, there are activities to do and questions to answer to help you along your personal development journey and motivational quotes to guide you.

Honestly, I’m a little taken aback at the amount of help, advice, guidance and content in one small notebook. 

There’s actually content in here that I’ve worked through in my program too, such as looking at your values and the “energy ledger” which helps you identify what gives you energy and what drains it. So it’s really interesting to see the different mediums in which you can learn this important personal development work!

If you’re someone who hasn’t really yet started your personal development journey, then this book would be a perfect place to start. I know there is personal development advice ALL over the internet now, with coaches and courses and eBooks everywhere you look. And whilst I’m all for those resources, if you’re new to this, then they can certainly feel a bit overwhelming.

And not to mention, they can cost a lot of money. I’ve invested a lot of money into life coaching but that’s because I was already at the point where I knew this was the sort of mentoring and guidance that I needed. If I had started that particular coaching program a year ago, I would have been completely out of my depth.

The Getting To Know Me Better journal is a good starting point if you want to delve deeper into yourself. If you want to figure out what makes you tick, what makes you the person you are, what you value the most in life and much more, this book will helpfully and gently guide you through that process as a great starting point before really diving below the surface. 

5 small steps to help you start your personal development journey:

• Journal it out! Ask yourself, “What is it I want to improve on? WHY do I want to start this journey? What am I hoping to gain from this process?” and see what comes up. No judgment, be totally honest.
• Do your research. Like I said, there are a LOT of coaches, influencers, podcasts, books, videos etc out there about personal development. And not all will be relevant to you.
• Start small! What isn’t aligning with you in your daily routine anymore? Do you need to switch up your morning routine? Are you craving something in your day to day?
• Don’t compare! It’s easy to compare your journey to someone else’s especially in the beginning stages but this will get you nowhere. Use others as inspiration but notice when you start to compare.
• And finally, invest in a Notebook Mentor journal! These will only set you back £20 but the value you’ll get from them will be worth it and MORE!

I want to hear about your personal development journey! Is this something you’ve started since the pandemic or long before that? Are you looking to enhance your self growth even more? Let’s chat!