After reading a whole lot of literature on coaching and personal development, I started forming a clearer picture of who I wanted to be and what my core values are. In order to fortify certain characteristics about myself, I began playing a little game I had learned from Sir Winston Churchill. In his younger days, the famous politician had his desired traits for his own personality written on a set of flashcards . In order to develop his character,  he then drew a card every day and practiced behaving accordingly to the specific characteristic.

Using a mobile app makes behavioral training fun for tech enthusiasts

Nowadays, thanks to modern technological advances, we no longer need to carry a batch of flashcards around with us. There are several flashcard applications available directly for your smartphone, which can make this training even more delightful.

Priming is a powerful tool to get focused on whats really important in life

For quite a while now, every morning I use the iPhone app „flashcard deluxe“ which randomly picks my personal behavioral goal for the day. Doing this right after waking up takes advantage of the powerful phenomenon known as „priming“: A clear mind in the morning leaves your thoughts open for information which can easily be remembered and recalled throughout the rest of the day. So, whenever you have a quiet moment for your thoughts, remembering your behavioral goal for the day can help provide guidance on how to react to certain situations. I found it helpful to make my personal development game more precise by reflecting how certain characteristics might best be expressed in specific actions, then summarizing these actions on the back of my flashcards. For example, one can practice confident behavior by focusing on an upright posture and by speaking in a loud and clear voice. Or, being more relaxed might best be expressed by making sure to smile often, breathe deeply and generally taking things slowly.

Practicing behavioral pattern leads to personal development

Practicing behavior patterns forms and strengthens personal traits and widens your scope of reaction mechanisms. This will give you the freedom to choose how best to deal with different situation in your life. Mixing this training experience with randomly picked goals from your mobile device adds more fun into the equation, and you can easily get back to your training instructions whenever you need them. In my opinion, the experience of interacting with a mobile device in order to train personal goals is a simple showcase of a whole new palette of personal development tools and products which we will soon see popping up in the future.