Personal development and growth embodies all the steps and actions that develops a person’s quality of life, capabilities and pushes them towards realisation of their dreams/goals/aspirations.
To develop and grow personally means to increase your self esteem, self awareness and improve your skills.
Core areas of self development and growth
There are 5 core areas of development when it comes to an individual. Personal development can encompass improvement in some or all of these areas. More impactful personal development means you should seek to develop and improve in all core areas of personal development and growth.
Mental
The functioning of our brain and mental faculties is crucial to how we develop as human beings. To grow mentally, exercising the brain and keeping mentally fit is important.
What we do to improve our mental ability can include studying/reading, taking part in training sessions, rest (this cannot be overemphasized as weariness takes a toll on our mental well-being).
Social
Man is more or less a social being, designed to interact with others as part of the survival and development process.
There is always the part of us that requires social interaction to grow. We learn from social interactions and experiences. Thus the social aspect of personal development is equally as important.
Spirituality
Whether you are religious or not there is always the innate human need to connect with the soul or sense of being.
Our spirituality stems from our continuous self and the world around us. Your spirituality impacts on how you see yourself and the world (including other people around you).
Emotional
Emotional personal development relates with emotional intelligence. As humans one part of our personal development is the ability to understand feelings and respond/react to them.
When we grow and develop as humans our emotional development is also a part of that growth.
Physical
Obviously the physical is usually what is seen and there is a link between physical development and the other aspects of our growth and development.
The physical aspect of our personal development focuses on physical health through nutrition, sleep, exercise, movement etc. When we take care of our physical development it usually rubs off on other aspects of our development such as the mental and emotional.
Here are some tips to achieve significant, all round personal development and growth
Discover Yourself
Self discovery is a key part of the personal development process. As you discover yourself more, you are able to find areas you need to improve on. You will find what makes you tick and what reduces your efficiency and productivity. You will learn to ask yourself questions. These will help you become a better version of yourself and that is the whole essence of personal growth.
Self Acceptance
You are likely to improve and become better when you accept who you are. Only then will you be able to look at your qualities and weaknesses dispassionately and decide what to improve on. Self acceptance will be a natural progression from self discovery. The more you study and learn about yourself, the more you accept yourself. Acceptance is key to finding ways to improve yourself.
Find Your Passion
Your work may be different from your passion. But to be alive and live more vigorously, finding that one or few things that bring you alive is important. The more you learn about yourself, the more you find out about what you can live for. A passion driven life channeled in productive directions will yield wonderful results. For eg if you find you are passionate about educating/empowering less fortunate children it could become a burning driver that spurs you on to achieve significant results in your work/professional/business life (so you can channel resources towards your passion).
Keep Learning
One sure way to improve your mental and even emotional well-being is to always keep exercising the brain through learning. And when you improve mentally it contributes to your overall personal development. Learning can have a multi-dimensional impact on our personal growth and development. Constantly learning new skills, ideas etc could improve your mental ability, improve your earning power and impact your spirituality, all of which contributes to personal development.
Deliberately Grow the Right Circle
The people we interact with and spend time with, in many ways, impact on our thinking, happiness and emotional growth. Your circle of friends can also drive you towards your goals or away from them. This is key to the social aspect of personal development.
Practice Reflection and Gratitude
Self reflection and gratitude play important roles in our personal development. During self reflection we evaluate our emotional and behavioural processes. We assess ourselves and find what needs changing or improving. This impacts our personal development.
Gratitude is the art of being thankful. It doesn’t mean we do not strive to achieve more. Instead it creates the balance we need to appreciate what we have while still going to achieve more. Gratitude in our personal relationships also help to attract more opportunities for us.
There are certainly more tips to achieving personal development in life. These are some of the ones we believe will help anyone in their journey to personal growth and development.
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