What is personal development?

Great question and depending on who you ask you may get a different answer. This article is intended to describe as near as possible the breadth and scope of self development. Self development is a broad category with expansive topics and opinions. Thus, this article will describe the range of content that unselfishhelp.com will cover within its articles.

Fundamentally, personal development is the process or act by which a person develops skills, methods, and awareness of oneself or their environment, and the ability to perform or cope with persons or situations. Personal development can be done as a self-development activity (the act of personal development upon oneself) or as a trainer, mentor or coach of another person, which can include articles, tools, and reference material or in a classroom or seminar setting. It is a life project that ends at perfection, which means that for most of us our life project will never be completed. Although, we will obtain levels of personal development over time. As in any project a life project (personal development throughout our lives) will include goals, plans, activities, and measurements that are all designed to meet our ultimate life purpose. Two great articles on life purpose are Passion and Purpose and 12 Step Purpose Test for Self Development. If you have not read those articles you will find that they add a deep perspective to the concept of purpose.

While the terminology of personal development may differ slightly from source to source, most definitions fall into a similar line. Subtle differences in definitions and approaches should not be looked at as wrong or right, but as perspective, approach and philosophy. Consider them all and form a definition and approach that best meets your needs.

Ingredients of Personal Development

Within this section we use two terms that must be defined - goals and life purpose. Goals, also sometimes called objectives, are the marked steps along the way to achieving your life purpose. Achieving your goals, which you may have dozens, take you closer to the fulfilled and completed life. Your life purpose is the reason for your goals and living your life purpose is the intent of personal development. Goals are the building blocks of a life purpose.

Following is a list of personal development elements:

improving self awareness - the ability to be aware of oneself, to judge your own motives, actions, activities, emotions and how all of those are manifested in your life actions and outlook. I wrote two helpful articles on self awareness Self Awareness a 5 Step Process and Observing Others a Self Awareness tool.
improving self knowledge - knowing oneself. To understand what makes you angry, happy, grumpy, sad, nervous, or passionate. It is the deep knowledge of how you are and who you are, with the intent of using that knowledge to improve oneself overall and in specific circumstances. The knowledge and acceptance of one's strengths and weaknesses.
building or renewing identity - how to shape, improve, heal an individual's opinion of oneself, as a discrete, separate entity with self-worth and viable reasons to exist, be successful, and to be loved. Renewing your identify involves being happy with oneself and taking control of the definition you have for who you are.
developing strengths or talents - which is to develop skills and capabilities to achieve goals and interact with people, for the purpose of capitalizing upon oneself to accomplish greater levels of existence.
identifying or improving potential - potential is the farthest you can reach in life, a skill, or strength for the purpose of personal development. Potential does not represent where you are, but it established how far you can go. Personal development is the process of identifying how far you can go and increasing how far you can go.
building employability or human capital - increasing ones marketability to employers, contracts, or customers. Increasing your human capital in increasing what your skills are worth in monetary value. True personal development addresses both the quantifiable and the qualitative value of your human capital. In other words your employability and market value in annual salary may be meaningless depending on your life purpose.
enhancing lifestyle and quality of life - enhancing lifestyle is adjusting your environment in which you live as well as the way you live. While increased income may play a part in enhancing your lifestyle in many cases it is not necessary. The activities, location, people, and approach which you take to live your life all play a part in enhancing your lifestyle. It can begin by making life changing choices to eliminate non-lifestyle enhancing activities and replacing them with activities that are aligned with your goals and life purpose. Quality of life is to increase your level of happiness with your life. Quality of life and lifestyle adjustments should align with each other bringing you closer to your life purpose. The more satisfied with your lifestyle and quality of life the more energy you can devote to that life purpose.
work, life, and personal development balance - do not forsake one for the advancement of the other, because they all must balance to achieve your final goals, and the play a large role in work, life and personal development balance. Be aware of the top distractions to success when balancing your life.
self worth or value - believing that you are a valuable member of society just as worthy to success and life purpose actualization as anyone else, and also worthy of being liked and loved.
self confidence - beleive in yourself and your ability to achieve your goals and life purpose.
realizing dreams - Dreams take on several forms. First are the dreams that are fulfilled as an intricate part of your journey to achieving your life purpose, up to and including the dream of a fulfilled life purpose. Other dreams are those that you realize along the way, that may not directly take you closer to the end goal, but they add to the quality of life that you lead along the way.
fulfilling aspirations - aspiration is the desire for personal achievement. Personal development is striving for and obtaining those aspirations, but just as importantly it is about aligning your aspirations correctly with your life purpose and with the enhancement of your lifestyle and quality of life.
physical and mental health - personal development is the quest for greater physical and mental abilities - sharpening your physical body, memory, analytical skills, etc. as a necessary part of complete success at achieving and living your life purpose. A physically and mentally healthy person is happier and more able to achieve their goals and life purpose.
complimentary skills - personal development can overlap into skills that may be required to meet your goals and life purpose. This is a long list that cannot be contained here, but review these examples and consider what may need to be added or removed from this list to meet your personal development needs: management, leadership, communication, interpersonal skills, writing, family values, time management, stress management, web skills, health programs, education, psychology, sociology, economics, philosophy, religious and spiritual, business, artistic skills and expression, and the list goes on...
human and moral values and skills - integrity, honesty, respect, emotional intelligence,interpersonal relations, family values, influencing others, and other topics as appropriate.
life purpose determining and setting your life purpose. Shaping that life purpose. Validating your life purpose
defining and executing personal development plans - all of the above items should fit nicely into a cohesive plan. The most robust plans contain each element listed above with an approach to obtaining your life purpose, risks which may derail your plan, costs for achieving your final life purpose. (which can be both monetary, personal, social, family, political, etc - what will you pay to achieve your life purpose?) tasks, milestones, quality metrics, stakeholders (those who have a vested interest in your plan such as family and friends) and resources (what do you need to achieve your plan). You may not find that a plan of this detail is required, but at the least each item should be considered.

Personal Development Helps

The above items describe what personal development consists of and its objectives in your life. Additionally, personal development has means to achieve the final desired state. Personal development can utilizes the following:

methods, tools and techniques - what can we use to help us along the path of personal development, just like a tool box that a carpenter would use to carry his tools. You can achieve more and do so faster with the correct tools. Here are just a few examples:Tickler Tools and Your Daily Routine
programs - personal development programs are larger methodologies that are designed to be followed for extended periods. They are like prepackaged plans or building blocks of plans.
assessments - the assessment of your personal development. While these may be methods, tools and techniques, assessments play a specific role in personal development because they specifically measure or assess your progress, future state, or current state of personal development.
coaching and mentoring - enlisting those who are experts and experienced in the field of personal development to guide you in your own personal development either in a role as a coach which is to work with you in practicing and implementing tools, methods, techniques, or as a mentor who is a sounding board and someone to hold you accountable, showing you how to succeed with their life as an example.
Feedback - feedback about yourself not just from a coach or mentor, but from others in your life. Accepting it without judgment, but with cautions consideration to applying that feedback for your own personal development, even if you don't like what you hear.
Self assessment - learning the ability to look in upon yourself to make adjustments. learning to see yourself in truth, not as what you want to see but what you are. Self awareness methods and techniques.

Personal development, including self help which is a subset of personal development, is a broad and far reaching subject. This article covers many of the parts, but should not be considered exhaustive. Use this as a guide, a tool for evaluating yourself, your life, your approach to personal development, and an educational resource.

Please submit any ideas, tools, or components of personal development that can be added to this document. Our goal at unselfishhelp.com is to have a comprehensive definition and yardstick against which to measure personal development content , methodologies, and programs.

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Author: Jeff Harris