¶ Podcast Introduction and Part 1 Questions
Good day everyone and welcome back to another episode of the IELTS plus English podcast where today we are talking about personal development. Will you join me today feeling a little sad because I've just recorded this entire podcast already with my cable not attached. So, you know, I guess this is a bit of an admission to you that I'm going to perform quite well right now because I've gone through everything already.
Part one, part two, part three, the whole episode with my cable not attached. And now I'm going to redo it all again. So perhaps... Having practiced, my performance is going to be incredible, I hope. Let's see. Let's see how we do. So today's topic is personal development. I think we all love it. If you're here, you probably like personal development because you're working on your English, you're improving yourself. So certainly I love it. I love to develop myself.
Talking about development, we've got a lovely list of vocabulary, mindset. self-awareness, self-motivated. These are wonderful words that you'll hear on social media because they're kind of buzzwords. I think personal development is a really popular topic. And of course, this can be found in my textbook, the IELTS Plus Total Speaking textbook, which can be found on www.britplus.net. So let's do it again.
Let's go to part one, question one. We'll go straight into it today. And the first question is, what areas of personal development are you currently focusing on? I'm currently focusing on my physical health. I... Last year, I did a lot of boxing, as you may know, but I got a bit lazy with things and I wasn't working out as much as I should. So...
In December of last year, I joined a gym and I'm restarting my health journey. I'm taking care of my food, lots of muscle exercises, and I'm really enjoying it. Have you ever attended any personal development workshops or courses? I've attended plenty of workshops and courses, particularly courses. Right now, for example, in my gym, I have a personal trainer. So I think that that's a...
That's suitable for this question that in order to improve my personal health and the way that I exercise, a personal trainer teaches me and sets various goals for my health.
¶ Part 2: Personal Development Goal
Good. Okay. Well, let's do part two. And I know exactly what the question is already. The question is for you, describe a personal development goal you have set for yourself. So I don't need to think at all. Let's go straight into it. Two minutes starts now. I'd like to tell you about the gym. About two months ago, I decided to join a gym nearby my office, which is very new. It's a lovely gym. And I decided to start a new chapter in my personal physical...
health and really start working out and doing weight training in the gym. I'm someone who I'm quite a self-motivated person. And I have a lot of self-discipline. That's one of my strengths, I would say. So it's not an issue for me to exercise in the gym without personal training. But I did decide. in order to optimize my training and optimize everything, the diet, the way I exercise, etc., to get a personal trainer. So let me tell you a little more about...
this new physical exercise, which is an important part of my life. I go to the gym three to four times a week, ideally four. And I each time is an hour and a half. And I see my personal trainer once a week. We are focusing on bulking up. So adding muscle and getting bigger. And my specific target is to gain five kilograms by summer. And we're doing that through the diet.
so eating a lot of carbohydrates and um a very heavy weight heavy for me weight training exercises It's been a lot of fun so far, but it was very important for me because when I reflected on my time last year in boxing, I realized that I wasn't... Okay, time up. That was okay. I can tell you it was a little different to my other recorded podcast, but I was pretty happy with that.
It really stuck to my structure. I didn't get onto the opinion section, but I was happy that I used some of the vocabularies. There's some good vocabulary today.
¶ Part 3: Skills, Obstacles, and Conclusion
And let's get straight on to part three. I guess this is going to be a quick episode because I'm just, I've rehearsed. And I never rehearse. I've told you before, I always sit down and the questions are fresh to me, but they're not today. So part three, question one, what are the most important skills? for personal development. I would say that self-awareness and being self-motivated are the most important skills for self-development.
So firstly, self-awareness means that you are aware of your weaknesses or aware of your strengths, which you want to make stronger. Some people don't have self-awareness, so they wouldn't think. to develop themselves. And then being self-motivated, it's nice to have... buddies to to keep you accountable for example a gym buddy you go to the gym together to keep you accountable but if you can be self-motivated and keep
studying, training, whatever it is, that's a real strength which can help you in self-development. Next question, how can employers... Support the personal development of their employees. I think that firstly, they have to encourage the employees to have passion. for self-development more importantly the employers must set up a fund for each employee as a kind of self-development fund and then give the
employees, empower the employees to use that money how they want to use it. And I think that's really important rather than the employer. telling them what to do. Just give them the money and let them develop themselves as they want to. You can see that in Korea that a lot of companies give about $200 per employee. per month it's quite generous it's a reasonable amount of money and that allows them to join the gym learn english learn an instrument if they want so i think that's a good system
Good. I was happy with that answer because that was a very clear, direct answer, detail. And example, really specific example. I love it when I can give a very specific example that's not about me. Last question today, what are some common obstacles in personal development? I think that the most common obstacle is... motivation really um i think that having the right mindset for personal development and being motivated and not getting discouraged is
Easier said than done. It's very difficult. But that is the biggest obstacle. We can definitely talk about the environment and facilities and resources. Some people have better resources than others, but really you can develop yourself alone at home if you have the right mindset. Okay. I think I will leave it there. So the takeaway from today's podcast is, firstly, I'm sorry, I messed up.
And that meant you didn't get a truly authentic sort of first time experience of me answering the questions. It's the first time in the entire series that I've made that mistake. The takeaway is that when you go back over my answers today, they are quite clean. I use the vocabulary well and I use my structures. Hopefully that gives you value that you can review and compare it to my textbook or previous episodes. So easy one today.
And easy one next week. We're talking about pets. So I hope you have a wonderful week this week and study incredibly hard, as I always say. And I'll see you next Monday to talk about pets.