Do you know what is personal development?
Have you ever come across the subject of personal development or self help? When you are browsing your local bookstore, do you notice that there is always a section devoted to self help, personal development or inspiration. Do you wonder what is personal development?
For those of you who are new to the subject on personal development, this is the best starting point for you in your journey to a better life. For those veterans in this area of study, it should be another point of view to a very familiar and important subject.
Defining what is personal development.
So, what is personal development? Wikipedia defines personal development as follows:
“Personal development includes activities that improve awareness and identity, develop talents and potential, build human capital and facilitates employability, enhance quality of life and contribute to the realization of dreams and aspirations. The concept is not limited to self-help but includes formal and informal activities for developing others, in roles such as teacher, guide, counselor, manager, coach, or mentor. Finally, as personal development takes place in the context of institutions, it refers to the methods, programs, tools, techniques, and assessment systems that support human development at the individual level in organizations.”
In summary personal development is the building and development of individual human potentials through various programs and roles so that the lives of people could be enhanced in this world. If you look carefully at what is personal development, it has got to do with the following five key objectives:
1. Provides meaning to life.
Personal development at its essence is about allowing an individual to discover his purpose and meaning of life. There are many techniques that a person can use to find his purpose and meaning of life. Once meaning of life is established, this becomes the centre piece of how this person can engage himself to create a better world to live in.
2. Equips you for life.
When people talk about what is personal development, they are also indirectly referring to the type of skills, competencies, values and aptitudes that could be learnt or created through personal development. Personal development is known to enable someone to be better at managing emotions, communication, self directed learning, goal setting, leadership, social skills, etc.
3. Contributes to life.
The central idea of what is personal development is about creating a better person with good skills so that she can contribute in life. Everything points back to how a spiritually aligned and trained person can make use of these and give back to society. Simply growing without purpose, defeats the true intention of personal development.
4. Improves relationships in life.
Everything that needs to be accomplished has to be done with other people. At the root of all personal development, is the need to create better relationships through personal development skills like communication, emotional management, etc. Only if relationships are improve at work, home and play will personal development be meaningful.
5. Creates a compelling future for life.
Personal development leads people to a better future in life. By investing the time in personal development, people become inspired to achieve goals that previous seem impossible to attain. What is personal development? It is really about growing oneself continuously to reach a better stage in life.
Eight Key Areas of Personal Development
As people embark on the journey of personal development, all the activities, learning, skills, development and programs tend to be focused on a few key areas that will help improve the all round living of people. In understanding what is personal development, these few key areas should be looked into equally so that a balanced and centered person is evolved.
We can remember these eight main areas of personal development by remember the acronym formed by P.E.R.S.O.N.A.L.
1. Physical Development
Here, we are referring to the improvement of your physical well-being. The two main areas are physical fitness and physical well-being.
2. Emotional Development
Emotional development seeks to increase your positive feelings while at the same time reducing the negative feelings in your life. In the words of motivation and self help guru, Tony Robbins, it is about how you can feel more pleasure and less pain in your life. Some people sum up what is personal development in the context of pain and pleasure as well.
3. Relationship Development
Relationship development builds up your relationships with people that matters to you. This category has a lot to do with working and living with other people. You cannot have a relationship alone. Somebody is certainly in a relation with you. Your job is to seek ways to improve the quality of the relationships with these people in your life.
4. Sporting Development
This is about the individual sporting challenges that people embark on to test themselves to the limit. In engaging and participating in these activities and programs, people learn about themselves and discover what they are really made of. This form of self discovery allows them to subsequently live a better life through the lessons learnt.
5. Occupational Development
Occupational development in the context of what is personal development will move you towards work that fulfills your purpose in life. In the process of doing this form of work you will also be rewarded. The world is also richly rewarded by what you are able to offer to the world.
6. Non-Material Development
This form of development in scheme of what is personal development is about the spiritual development of the person. The world is so clot up with materialistic desires. By seeking a way to give back to society, we return to the very original base of whence we were created. Non material development in the context of what is personal development is essentially about gaining and providing the non material things of this world.
7. Affluence Development
Personal development includes the development of a person to gain materialistic wealth too. All economic progress in human society has always been about making our lives more affluent. The mark of advancement in our world is about how much money and material wealth we can accumulate in our lifetime. Wealth allows humans to live better qualities of life.
8. Learning
When we talk about what is personal development and how we can attained the objectives of personal development, learning comes into the forefront. Only when we can embrace a learning culture to feed the mind ceaselessly will a personal grow to become a person of value of himself, his family and society.
What is your understanding of personal development? When you are asked what is personal development, are you able to explain what this means to you? Do you have anymore things to add on this article on what is personal development?
Hi Jimmy,
Indeed, no matter what we call it I have found that the only lasting help is self-help. It is about taking responsibility and seeing ourselves for who we truly are. The only thing that stops us from overcoming our doubts and expressing our ambitious
nature, is our misperceptions of ourself. A truth like this can jolt us free of the pull a thousand wrong ideas that we hold of ourself. When jolted free we are startled awake to new opportunities.
rob white recently posted..Life is in the Language
Hi Rob,
Thank you for your comment again. Personal development is about discovering yourself and finding enlightenment. Only in an enlightened state will we be able to move forth in a purposefully direction. I often wonder and feel that it is a mystery of who gets to experience personal development. Are we the fortunate soul or are we the destined ones? My aim in life is to get as many people to reach this enlightened state as possible through personal development.
Hello Jimmy,
You simply keep amazing me with your content – KUDOS! Personal development to me means to work on self – very simple! By working on self then we can do amazing things out of LOVE for the world around us!
To be aware of ourselves – Awareness is all part of personal development.
Living in the possibilities of life,
Nancy
Nancy Shields recently posted..TRANSFORMING FROM THE INSIDE OUT…..
Hi Nancy,
You made personal development really simple. And in fact it is. As long as we are improving any aspects of our lives we are engaged in personal development. I am particularly interested in making personal development more concrete and applicable. User friendly so to speak. What do you think of my personal development framework?
I’d like to add that Life is a personal development game, from the janitor to the CEO, everyone is always engaged in personal development, some are just more deliberate and conscious about it than others. :)
Hi Jason,
Welcome to Life Architects!
I have always wondered if personal development is a game for some fortunate ones. Is it a deliberate game for all? One of my dreams is to make personal development a compulsory curriculum for all students so that when they face life they will be equipped with the skills to live.
Personal development means different things to different people. You have a great post here and it sure covers many of the fields.
As a coach I agree with Nancy above it means being unsatisfied with the status-quo and working on ourselves to get better. It is mostly a mindset, and it starts with the question “Why not?”
Congrats on the blog design, cool, clean and crisp, it really reflects your brand :)
John Falchetto recently posted..How to get blog comments, and a community of raving fans
Hi John,
Welcome to Life Architects. I am honored to have you here.
Why not is a great start for most personal development. I always hear people limiting themselves about not being able to do things that are called for. Why not is a good wake up call. I like to follow this call with stories of impossible acts in the past. When people thought that flying was impossible, the Wright brothers came up with their first flying machine. When people say that space is out of bound, Kennendy put a man onto the moon. When people think horses can never be replaced, Henry Ford developed the Model T.
When we let our I can’t lot see that impossibility is possible, Why not sparks the creative and personal development journey.
Hi Jimmy,
Personal development! Isn’t this what life is about. Some people move through life, while others live life. The difference is personal development.
Take a person that moves throught life. It is always the same. the same things happen, because they are not growing and learning by mistakes, situations and lifes experiences.
Now you take a person that is living life, they are hungry for that growth. They see new opportunities, they learn when things seem to take a down hill slide. Life is an adventure for them.
What it comes down to for me when someone says personal development it is the adventure of life and living what we are meant to be.,
I do like the way you point this out with P.E.R.S.O.N.A.L. (Do you realize how hard that is to do on the key board?)
However I do not agree with this one 7. Affluence Development. To have and enjoy personal development we do not need a lot of material things. In fact this can get in the way of personal development.
Anyway that is the way I see it.
Thanks Jimmy for sharing personal development with us and the meaning.
Blessing to you always,
Debbie
Debbie recently posted..Lovers Alert: There is Life After a Break Up
Debbie,
You are most welcome and thank you for this sharp and thoughtful comment. We are all on the journey to greatest aren’t we? But first that awakening process is important. Once the mind is illuminated with the best ideas, everything will fall into place.
As Debbie stated above we are developing continuously and you can’t resume your ascension to some text lines. You need to accept that all your life will not be the same.
Agreed Radu. Our life is always evolving because of our personal development.