Personal Development is the process of shaping yourself into the person you need to be to achieve your goals. This ‘shaping’ takes the form of acquiring desired skills, knowledge, and character traits while also shedding off undesired traits of character. Being that every human being has different goals, the process of personal development looks different from one individual to the other.
If you were to compete for a spot in the Olympics, you would stretch yourself to the limit to achieve physical and mental endurance without which you can never achieve this goal. On the other hand, if your goal is to become a top executive at a lucrative company, you would focus on getting the necessary academic and professional qualifications, make social connections with important people related to your field, and work hard to stuff your resume with exemplified work experience, keep up with emerging trends and knowledge in your field, and so on.
To put it simply, certain doors that you desire to enter in life will not open until you have the necessary abilities and assets. Personal Development then becomes a process you deliberately embark on to attain these abilities and assets for these doors to open for you.
Why is Personal Development important?
Personal Development is important because it allows you to take control of your destiny in this life. It allows you to dictate the direction in which your life must go, as opposed to letting circumstances do that for you.
Without Personal Development, you will not amount to any significance in this life. Your potential will remain untapped until you die and you will rob yourself of the great life you could have lived.
Imagine you have a field. You plant seeds that you wish to harvest in abundance when the right time comes. For you to achieve this you would water the seeds, weed, apply manure or fertilizer, and protect it from pests. Leaving the field unattended will surely result in a very meager and lean harvest, if any at all.
Aspects of Personal Development
An individual’s life is made up of different dimensions as follows:
- Mental: the way you think
- Social: the way you relate with other people
- Physical: the way your body functions
- Spiritual: your beliefs regarding higher powers such as gods and devils
- Economic: the things or activities that bring money into your account
- Emotional: the way you feel about things
These domains are related and they affect each other quite a lot. For example, you might develop yourself in the economic domain and make lots of cash, but if your social skills are poor, you will likely keep screwing up your relationships with friends, lovers, and even your relatives. This will make you a miserable person. On the other hand, you might be a great person socially, mentally, and emotionally, but if you haven’t worked on your ability to make sufficient money, your relationships will most likely suffer because your true value will not be perceived or respected in this world. Sorry, that is simply how the world works.
Those who want to utilize their full potential, therefore, work on growing in all these dimensions
Where should you start?
The best place to start in the process of developing yourself is to identify your goals. Have a clear idea of what you want to achieve in the short or long term. Once you identify these, list down the capital that would make it possible for you to achieve this goal. This capital, as mentioned earlier, can be in form of academic or professional qualifications, social connections, money, mental and emotional abilities, physical well-being, or knowledge.
All-encompassing qualities you’ll need
Regardless of what your goals are, there are certain attributes that you must possess to achieve your goals or simply live a happy life. I list some of them below:
- Emotional intelligence
- Social capital
- Attention to details
- Ability to focus and concentrate
- Punctuality
- Communication
- Mental clarity
- Negotiation
- Integrity
- Self-awareness
- Courage
- Care about other people
- Promptness
