Group Writing Project: What Is Personal Development?

Today I’m kicking off the first ever Group Writing Project here on Personal Development blog!

I’ve been thinking about the topic for it a lot, and after many great ideas which will undoubtedly be expressed in the future group writing projects, I’ve finally realized that it’s hard to find a better question than the one I get asked by many people on a regular basis:

what is personal development?

So that’s the challenge for this writing project. Please think the question over and come up with the best definition of personal development in your book. There are no limitations – you can have a lengthy article about it or sum it all up in just one sentence – I’ll be interested in any opinions I will get.

Why I do this

You have probably heard about the Million Dollar Wiki project. It’s a wiki project which sells pages for $100 each, and has a limit of only 10 thousand pages to be sold. The aim of a project is to build a collection of most useful pages on popular topics. And I’m positive that Personal Development is one of them.

I have purchased my Personal Development page on that wiki a while ago, and would like to make it a hub of the most useful links to everything about personal development.

I obviously can’t do the justice to such a vast topic on my own, and that’s why I think I would like the community to help me make this wiki page the best resource possible.

I plan to compile an introductory page to topics around personal development on the wiki page, and will provide a list of links back to all the contributors throughout the page.

I would welcome any other ideas you have regarding this wiki page, too – please leave a comment to this post or contact me directly.

Reasons to participate

Every participant will benefit from this project in more than one way. Most obvious advantages will be:

• help others learn the benefits of personal development
• get your word out – let others know what you think
• use your chance to get onto the Personal Development page at the Million Dollar Wiki.
• get exposure to your website or blog
• explore new exciting blogs in personal development field
• get more traffic to your blog

How to participate

First of all, write your definition of personal development. Here are just some ideas to get started:

• What does personal development mean to you? Feel free to define the topics and areas comprising this topic.
• What characterizes personal development most? How does one decide what’s personal development and what is not?
• What are your personal areas of focus in personal development? Share your wisdom by identifying the most important things to concentrate on.

Once your definition is complete, please use the contact form to submit it – please be sure to leave your correct email and double-check the link to your article. I will be compiling and posting a list of submissions every week.

There’s much more to every project than just submitting your own work, though. Please take your time to:

• check out the submissions of other participants
• comment on other blogs, share new ideas and make friends
• link to the Personal Development wiki page, link to this post and link to the articles you particularly liked
• subscribe to the Personal Development blog feed and feeds of others

Get the most out of this project

These projects work best when those participating don’t only submit posts of their own but when they read and interact with others who submit posts. Here’s how you can do this:

• Spread the word – announce this project on your blog
• Read the submissions of others
• Make friends with those you like the submissions of (comment, email – get to know them)
• Link up to those who you resonate with (some bloggers write a top 5 or 10 list each day of the submissions that they like the best)
• Use social networks to bookmark participants – Stumble, Digg, and do anything else you like to help each other promote your posts

Thank You

It’s been great fun to be part of the personal development community, and I would like to thank you all for reading this blog, sharing ideas, suggesting links and being one of the most friendliest fields of the webspace I’ve ever known.

I can’t wait to see and share your first submissions, so wait no more and get writing! Good luck!