Many aspects of life turn on the amount of time a person spends on personal development.
If you feel like you’re a victim of stunted growth, it could be you haven’t invested enough in your own development. Your relationships, career success, and your financial stability are all affected by your level of investment.
Here’s an opportunity to discover what working on yourself could mean for you. Read more about the many benefits of personal development.
Table of Contents
How Do You Define Personal Development?
Why do some people seem to move effortlessly through life while others stay stuck in the same old ruts? In part, the answer to this question is personal development.
Personal development helps break down walls that keep people stuck. When a person participates in self-development, they learn how critical growth is to future success. While the ability to learn and grow doesn’t guarantee an easy life, it can make life easier.
At work, professional development envelopes career training and education. It keeps employees current on industry trends and prepares them for career advancement. Many topics covered in professional development courses transfer to personal life as well.
Know Who You Are
Life and work often keep us so busy we don’t have time for thinking about who we are. This goes way beyond knowing our name, likes and dislikes, and other tidbits that make up how we (and others) view ourselves. We don’t make time for self-awareness.
Several key areas come under the umbrella of self-awareness, including:
- Personality
- Values
- Habits
- Needs
- Emotions
Even though it’s not always comfortable to work on self-reflection or receive personal feedback, both are essential components of self-awareness. Self-awareness is the first step of any personal development program.
You’ve Got the Power
Empowerment is a term thrown around by many self-improvement gurus. If you’re focusing solely on self-improvement then you focus on making your body, mind, and emotions better. It’s as if you’re not yet complete until those areas see improvement.
Real empowerment works on the premise that you are already whole.
Life’s circumstances often make people feel less than whole. Instead, they feel defeated and, at times, helpless. Your beliefs up to that point drive how you see yourself.
Courses like the Avatar Course help people understand their beliefs and give them tools to change what needs changing.
Participating in personal development can help a person see that they have control over their destiny. Once people reclaim their personal power, they have a new sense of confidence and purpose.
Stokes the Fire
What motivates you? It’s a favorite job interview question because it helps the interviewer determine your level of self-awareness. When an interviewee can explain what motivates them, it usually means they’re a self-starter.
Self-starters don’t need much external motivation. That said, most people go through times when they feel “blah” about life. A variety of life events can make us feel demotivated and without much drive.
If you talk to the most successful people, they’ll likely tell you they’re self-motivated. It’s as if they have some innate drive that propels them forward.
If you’re at a point in life where you feel like you don’t have the drive or energy to achieve dreams and goals, personal development can ignite the fire of motivation.
Motivation isn’t only fostered by what’s external. In fact, if you depend on external factors, whatever motivation you can muster up, won’t last long. Long-term motivation comes from within.
If your goal is overcoming personal or professional inertia, a personal development program can help since self-motivation is a key element of most programs.
The People in Your Life
When you work on yourself, you begin viewing others through a different lens. Another one of the benefits of personal development is a growing ability to evaluate your relationships.
You may find you’re not investing enough in people you should but spending too much time caring for relationships that aren’t healthy or productive.
Through personal development courses, you can learn how to grow relationships in a thoughtful way. You also learn how to create balance in relationships.
Developing new relationships, the next topic is also part of self-development.
Broaden Your Horizons
Our natural inclination is to hang out with the same social circle. Branching out allows you to meet people with new ideas different from your own.
Many people use personal development as an opportunity to meet new people, especially those that might help with future career goals. Through a development course or event, you can participate in networking events and workshops.
This works whether you meet up with people who share a common interest, such as reading, or people from your industry. Broadening your horizons is just one more of the benefits of personal development. Learning new skills is another.
Learn New Skills
People learn new skills for a variety of reasons. Sometimes your job requires you to learn about new technology or a new technique designed for improved productivity.
Learning a new skill doesn’t only affect your ability to keep your job. Learn and practice new skills and your brain chemistry changes. The more you practice, the better you learn.
Skill development might make you a better employee, and it could create more opportunities for career growth and advancement.
If you’re more into the personal aspect of skill building, people who constantly learn are usually well-rounded. Well-rounded individuals tend to be more interesting. When you’re interesting, you attract more friends.
It’s All About Attitude
Finally, when you work on personal development, you develop positive attitudes about yourself and those around you. If you’re wondering why attitude matters so much, think of the people you know who have a consistently poor attitude.
People with sour attitudes tend to struggle with success and have a hard time finding happiness.
It’s the people who learn the art of positivity that travel the trajectory of success. And they usually bring others along with them.
Why not bring your newly acquired positive attitude to all areas of your life. You’ll benefit, and so will those around you.
Want All the Benefits of Personal Development?
Personal development is a long-term, lifelong endeavor.
It’s a way for you to get to know yourself and reclaim your own power. It ignites the fire for self-motivation and inspires you to learn new skills.
When you work on your own development, you’ll see improvements in your relationships and may even cultivate friendships. And one of the most rewarding benefits of personal development is learning how to affect others with your positive attitude.
If you’re looking for more articles on wellness, finances, and learning, don’t stop with this post! We have more like this one in our archives.
