One positive thing that has come out of this uncertain world economy is that it has paved the road for incredible personal development within us all. Many of us are getting “back to basics” and remembering what is important in life.

In times when people are forced to step out of their comfort zone, true personal growth and fantastic breakthroughs can occur. But, how do you know if you’ve actually begun to change?

Some people wouldn’t change anything about themselves and I think that is great! I am not suggesting anyone make changes, but for those that are on a constant journey of growth and change, here are my notes from that pivotal speech.

Here are 10 signs that real change has begun in your own life:

1. Growing craving for nature (when trying to connect with yourself, you inherently crave nature)
2. Growing discomfort (uneasiness about what the future holds)
3. Growing sense of loneliness
4. New skills emerge that you didn’t know you had
5. New relationship with time (instead of psychological time, which is worrying about past or future – You enter clock time, which is living in the moment)
6. You no longer crave for the old bad ways of life
7. The depression and exhaustion doesn’t make sense anymore
8. New sense of self-curiosity
9. Suddenly you feel like everything that happened in the past is irrelevant
10. Instead of praying for “things” you start to pray for “strength” or “truth”

If you are feeling any of these things, you are on your way to achieving more personal satisfaction in your life.

You may be the best developer in the world, or you may be able to diagnose any network problem in three minutes flat, but that does not automatically make you a good candidate for a manager. That’s like saying “I play a mean cello, so I should conduct the entire orchestra.” These are two different skill sets.

The Manager tag should not be your goal. It is not something by which to measure your personal worth. It’s a responsibility, and it’s a lot of work. It’s also very unfair to team members to take on their management if you don’t really know how to do it.

If you think you deserve to be in management, ask yourself these questions:

* Could you lay off an employee that you like very much because upper management needs to make cuts?
* Could you confidently promote one of your employees above others?
* Would you be able to tell an employee he or she needs to attend to his or her hygiene better?
* Can you lead a team to results without micromanaging?
* Could you say “no” to upper management when they make unreasonable demands of your staff?
* Could you take responsibility for failures of your team even if only one staffer screwed up?