Personal Development

Growing in popularity, personal development is a process embraced by more and more people as a lifelong activity undertaken to improve their lives in a number of ways.

For a person that yearns to do better in life, be a better person and achieve all the goals they set for themselves, the development of the self is the orchestrating concept.

Doubtless you have found this page because you want to know more about this concept and how you can incorporate it into your own life in order to improve your place in life.

Let's explore what this process is and how it can be harnessed to realize the very improvements that you define as being appropriate to your life.

What is Personal Development?

This process is a way for people to determine what their skills and qualities are, consider their main aims in life and then set themselves goals designed to realize and maximize their potential.

By developing your personal attributes in ways that improve and increase their effectiveness in achieving the life you want to lead, you can actually achieve that life!

The goal of undertaking to improve oneself is to identify the skills that you need to set and achieve life goals which should enhance every aspect of your life in many ways.

If you wish to improve your employability prospects, hone your business acumen, raise your confidence and strive for a more fulfilling, higher quality life, developing your personal qualities, mindset and outlook on life is the way forward.

The way to do that is to begin by planning to make relevant, positive and highly effective life choices and solid decisions for the present and the future to enable empowerment on a personal level.

While early life development, environmental factors coupled with early formative experiences that occurred within the family, while at school and during the formation and solidification of friendships and associations can help to go toward shaping us as adults, the continued personal development process should continue later in and throughout life.

Why is Personal Development Important?

There are a number of ideas and theories surrounding the concept of personal development.

It is important because through continued and persistent use, the process can cause improvements to be made in life circumstances in all areas that are focused on.

This is vital if a person wishes to improve their lot in life, as to embrace and practice certain personal development practices will make positive change inevitable. Whereas to ignore them and allow external circumstances to guide your life will result in no change other than what is dictated by those external forces that are not under you r control.

An important one of these ideas is the process of self-actualisation conceptualized and developed by Abraham Maslow.

Self-Actualisation

In 1970, Abraham Maslow suggested that all individuals are in possession of an in-built need for personal development and this occurs through a process referred to as self-actualisation.

The extent to which a person is able to develop will depend on certain of their needs being met. These needs can be visualized to form a hierarchy (see diagram below).

It is only when one level of need in this hierarchy is satisfied can a higher or greater one be developed.

However, as changes occur throughout life, the level of need that motivates a person's behaviour at any particular time will similarly change. Let's discuss the diagram outlining Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs:

• Starting at the foot of the hierarchy are what we know as the basic physiological needs: i.e. food, drink, procreation and sleep which represent the basics needed for survival.
• On the next level we find the needs to satisfy safety and security, both in the physical and the economic sense.
• On the third level we progress to satisfying the needs for love and belonging.
• On the fourth level we meet the need for self-esteem/self-worth. At this level we find ourselves most closely related to the point of self-empowerment.
• On the fifth level relates to our cognitive need to understand along with more abstract ideas including curiosity, seeking meaning or purpose with a deeper understanding.
• On the sixth level we relate to the aesthetic needs: beauty, order, symmetry and design.
• On the top of Maslow’s hierarchical triangle is the need for self-actualisation and becoming.

While it is true that that all individuals possess the need to view themselves as being fully competent and autonomous, the reality is that few strive to achieve these qualities in their greatest form.

Yet is is also true that every person possesses limitless room for growth, should they push out in that direction.

Self-actualisation is that desire to become everything you are capable of becoming. It refers to achieving self-fulfilment and your full potential as a unique person.

References:

Maslow, A. H. (1970), Motivation and Personality, (2nd Edition), Harper & Row, New York.
Personal Development - creationbythought.com

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