Personal Development What Is It?
What does it mean to actively work on one’s “personal development” on a day-to-day basis? “Personal development” is a word that is frequently used by academics, mentors, coworkers, and even family members. The term “personal development” refers to any endeavor undertaken with the intention of enhancing one’s skills, capabilities, employability, and even financial standing.
- Participating in personal development is actively working toward the goal of becoming a better version of oneself, and this action can take many forms.
- It is impossible to overstate the significance of personal development since it enables people to become the greatest versions of themselves and equips them with the knowledge, abilities, and self-assurance required to successfully navigate any scenario.
The way in which individuals perceive life is largely determined by a variety of circumstances, including job, the experiences and contacts they have in real life, the communities they live in, and many more. It takes a lifetime of commitment and awareness to keep up with the natural ebbs and flows that life has to give in order to maintain what is referred to as “personal development,” which does not relate to a predetermined age at which one becomes an adult.
However, the term “personal development” may apply to more than just enhancing the areas of our life that are directly related to us. This is also true in terms of professional growth, as well as the actions you can take to advance your career and broaden your knowledge in order to become an employee who is more well-rounded and productive overall.
This can be reaching a significant professional landmark, being awarded the promotion you’ve been toiling away at day in and day out, or taking the necessary measures to improve your skill set.
What are the examples of personal development?
An Overview – Some of the Things That Might Be Considered Part of Personal Development Are the Following Activities
- Enhancing one’s own sense of self-awareness
- Enhancing one’s own awareness of oneself
- Developing existing abilities and/or picking up new ones
- Developing or refreshing one’s sense of identity and self-esteem
- Developing skills or capabilities
- advancing in one’s profession
- recognizing or developing one’s latent abilities
- Increasing one’s employability, or more broadly, their human capital.
- Improving one’s way of life and/or one’s quality of life while also improving one’s ability to manage their time
- Enhancing one’s health
- Increasing one’s riches or one’s social standing
- achieving one’s goals and dreams
- Beginning an endeavor that will last a lifetime
- articulating and carrying out various ideas for one’s own personal growth (PDPs)
- Developing either one’s social relationships or one’s emotional intelligence
- Formation of a spiritual identity and acknowledgment of it
The development of one’s personal abilities and personality might also encompass the growth of those of other individuals. This can occur through positions such as that of a teacher or mentor, either through a personal competency (such as the supposed talent of some managers in developing the potential of staff) or through a professional service.
- Methods, learning programs, evaluation systems, tool sets, and approaches for personal development are all part of the realm of professional practice that is known as personal development.
- Research in the field of personal development may be found in psychology journals, education research, management journals and publications, and human-development economics, among other areas.
If one is interested in determining whether or not a change has taken place, they will need a framework to evaluate any type of development, whether it be political, biological, organizational, or personal. When it comes to one’s own personal growth, the individual frequently serves as the primary judge of whether or not there has been progression or regression; nonetheless, the confirmation of objective improvement needs assessment in accordance with predetermined criteria.
- Objectives or indicators of progress that serve to define the endpoints
- Methods or schemes devised with the purpose of achieving an objective
- Evaluation and monitoring of advancement, as well as the levels or stages that serve to establish milestones along a route of development
- A mechanism that collects and relays information regarding alterations
Is personal development an investment or a cost?
The location of employment – Abraham Maslow (1908–1970) established a hierarchy of needs, with self-actualization at the top. Self-actualization is described as “the drive to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of being.” Maslow is credited with coining the term “hierarchy of needs.” To put it another way, the goal of self-actualization is to improve oneself to the fullest extent possible so that one can become everything that one is capable of being.
Since Maslow himself believed that only a small minority of people self-actualize — he estimated one percent — the consequence of his hierarchy of needs was that organizations came to regard self-actualization or personal development as occurring at the top of the organizational pyramid, while job security and good working conditions would fulfill the needs of the mass of employees.
This was the result of Maslow’s belief that only a small minority of people self-actualize. The responsibility for one’s own growth moved away from the corporation and onto the shoulders of the person as the world’s organizations and labor markets became increasingly interconnected.
In 1999, the management thinker Peter Drucker wrote in the Harvard Business Review that we live in an age of unprecedented opportunity: if you have ambition and smarts, you can rise to the top of your chosen profession, regardless of where you started out. This was in response to the question of whether or not it is possible for someone to rise to the top of their chosen profession.
However, with each new door that opens, comes further responsibilities. Companies in the modern era do not manage the careers of their employees; instead, knowledge workers are expected to act in the capacity of their own chief executive officers. During a working life that might last up to half a century, it is up to you to carve out a niche for yourself, to recognize when it is time for a shift in strategy, and to ensure that you remain interested and productive.
In their article “Managing Individuals Individually,” published in 1997, management academics Sumantra Ghoshal of the London Business School and Christopher Bartlett of the Harvard Business School argued that businesses need to construct new work contracts and manage people on an individual basis. On the one hand, the company is expected to acknowledge that individual growth is the primary driver of economic value creation, as stated in the following quote: “market performance flows not from the all-knowing wisdom of top managers but rather from the initiative, creativity, and skills of all employees.” On the other side, workers need to acknowledge that part of their job description involves personal growth and “embrace the energizing power of continual learning and personal development.” The publication of Ghoshal and Bartlett’s Individualized Corporation in 1997 coincided with a shift in the approach to career advancement, which shifted from a system of predefined paths defined by companies to a strategy defined by the individual and matched to the requirements of organizations within a landscape of open possibilities.
One other thing that women’s careers have contributed to the study of career development is the understanding of the fact that women’s professions reflect particular personal demands and different growth routes from those of men. The research conducted on women’s working lives by Sylvia Ann Hewlett in 2007 Off-Ramps and On-Ramps have a significant effect on the way in which businesses think about careers.
- Herminia Ibarra’s research on the relationship between career shifts and identity shifts, which she detailed in her book Working Identity, provided additional support for the concept of a career as a process of personal development.
- Ibarra found that priorities in both one’s work and one’s lifestyle shifted over the course of a person’s lifetime.
The supply of employee perks and the nurturing of growth methods are the two primary focuses of personal development programs offered by businesses today. The findings of employee surveys are used by firms to build benefit programs. These surveys can assist organizations in determining employees’ personal-development requirements, preferences, and issues.
- Harmony between work and life
- Time management
- Stress management
- Programs for health care
- Counseling
Personal development programs are viewed as an investment with the objective of either expanding human capital or significantly boosting productivity, innovation, or quality. In reality, proponents of such programs view them not as a cost but rather as an investment with returns that are connected to the strategic growth goals of a business.
Employees get access to these investment-oriented programs through a selection process that is based on the value and future potential of the employee. This selection process is typically defined within a talent management architecture that includes populations such as newly hired employees, perceived high-potential employees, perceived key employees, sales staff, research staff, and perceived future leaders.
In addition, businesses could make available to some or perhaps all of their staff members additional programs that are not focused on investments. In addition, management tools, such as personal development planning, assessing one’s level of ability using a competency grid, or receiving feedback from a 360 questionnaire that was filled out by colleagues at various levels in the organization, all include a component for personal development as one of their components.
Personal development programs are frequently criticized for being used as arbitrary performance management tools, to which lip service is paid but which are eventually ignored. This is a common complaint that is leveled at these programs. As a result of this, many businesses have made the decision to replace their personal development programs with something called SMART Personal Development Objectives, which are updated and evaluated on a regular basis.
Employees who set personal development objectives are more likely to attain their professional ambitions and enhance their overall performance.