How You Can Transform Your Career through Personal Development? Essentials Points to Consider for Making Wellbeing in Life!

Abstract:

Personal development is a lifelong process. It is a way for people to assess their skills and qualities, consider their aims in life and set goals in order to realise and maximise their potential.

Self-discovery leads to self-knowledge which will enable you to guide yourself towards situations and experiences in which you will thrive.The self-discovery process includes:

Self-ReflectionS

Self-Awareness

Interest Awareness

Hopes & Dreams

This article helps you to identify the skills you need to set life goals which can enhance your employability prospects, raise your confidence, and lead to a more fulfilling, higher quality life. Plan to make relevant, positive and effective life choices and decisions for your future to enable personal empowerment.

Keywords:

Personal, Development, Empowerment, Life, information, Self Discovery.

Learning Outcomes

You will learn about personal development and it's Importance in shaping your future. The article is coupled with the techniques of personal development.

1. Introduction:

Although early life development and early formative experiences within the family, at school, etc. can help to shape us as adults, personal development should not stop later in life.

This page contains information and advice that is designed to help you to think about your personal development and ways in which you can work towards goals and your full potential.

‘Personal Development’ and ‘Personal Empowerment’ are two areas that overlap and interweave, so it is advised to go through my another article on Personal Empowerment.

2. Why Personal Development is need of the hour?

There are many ideas surrounding personal development, one of which is Abraham Maslow's process of self-actualisation.

Self-Actualisation

Maslow (1970) suggests that all individuals have an in-built need for personal development which occurs through a process called self-actualisation.

The extent to which people are able to develop depends on certain needs being met and these needs form a hierarchy. Only when one level of need is satisfied can a higher one be developed. As change occurs throughout life, however, the level of need motivating someone’s behaviour at any one time will also change.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. 1. Physiological Needs, 

2. Safety Needs, 

3. Love and Belongingness, 

4. Esteem Needs, 

5. Cognitive Needs, 

6. Aesthetic Needs and 

,7. Self-Actualisation.

At the bottom of the hierarchy are the basic physiological needs for food, drink, sex and sleep, i.e., the basics for survival.

Second are the needs for safety and security in both the physical and economic sense.

Thirdly, progression can be made to satisfying the need for love and belonging.

The fourth level refers to meeting the need for self-esteem and self-worth. This is the level most closely related to ‘self-empowerment’.

The fifth level relates to the need to understand. This level includes more abstract ideas such as curiosity and the search for meaning or purpose and a deeper understanding.

The sixth relates to aesthetic needs of beauty, symmetry and order.

Finally, at the top of Maslow’s hierarchy is the need for self-actualisation.

Maslow (1970, p.383) says that all individuals have the need to see themselves as competent and autonomous, also that every person has limitless room for growth.

Self-actualisation refers to the desire that everybody has ‘to become everything that they are capable of becoming’. In other words, it refers to self-fulfilment and the need to reach full potential as a unique human being.

For Maslow, the path to self-actualisation involves being in touch with your feelings, experiencing life fully and with total concentration. For complete go through on Maslow need hierarchy refer the following book

Maslow, A. H. (1970), Motivation and Personality, (2nd Edition), Harper & Row, New York.

3. How to Manage Your Personal Development?

There are a number of steps to take in managing your personal development.

1. Craft your Vision and Set Personal Goals:

Developing a Personal Vision

Personal development can simply be for fun. Most of us, however, find it easier to motivate ourselves to learn and improve if we have a purpose in doing so. Developing your personal vision - a clear idea of where you want to be in a few months or years, and why - is a crucial part of developing this purpose.

There is more about this in our pages on Developing a Personal Vision, Refining and Narrowing Your Vision, and Setting Personal Goals.

2. Planning Your Path of Personal Development

Once you are clear about where you want to be, you can start planning how to get there. Drawing up a personal development plan is not essential, but it does make the planning process more realistic.

If you are struggling to identify which areas to target for development and improvement, you may find it helpful to read our pages on Personal SWOT Analysis and Identifying Areas for Improvement.

You start by setting up specific projects. What do you need to get them done?

• What resources will you need? Books to read, courses to take, tools to subscribe to…
• What people will help you do it? Friends, mentors and so on.
• What will success look like? Set specific criteria for measuring that.
• What is the timeframe? Either put in a general deadline or milestones for different parts of the project.

3. Initiate the Improvement Process 

There are a number of different ways in which you can learn and develop.

First, think about what you already have going for you – what are the strengths and skills that are already relevant to your dream? Maybe you want to move into a new work field – then your natural networking skills will help you get to know the industry more quicker.

Then, make a list of skills you need to develop and projects you can start working on to move you closer to your goals. Think about the people you can contact and who can help you along the way. At this point you don’t have to be too specific – think of it as a kind of brainstorming. Jenny Blake has a handy template on this, as well.

After you’ve created a long list, look at the different points and group them to form clusters. You can use a format that’s well known by most business students – the SWOT chart. 

4. Recording Your Personal Development

It is often a good idea to keep a record of your personal development. By writing down key developments in your learning and development as and when they occur, you will be able to reflect on your successes at a later date.

This reflection may well help to motivate you to learn more skills in the future. Try keeping a learning log or journal as you develop your skills and knowledge. This is possible through self awareness.

Self-awareness is about knowing and understanding the core of who you are:

your beliefs and principles

your own emotions

what motivates you

your thinking patterns

your tendencies to react to certain situations

what you want out of life

5. Reviewing and Revising Personal Development Plans

For more effective learning, it is important to reflect on your experience, and consider what you have learnt from it. Regular review of your personal development plans, and your development activities, will ensure that you learn from what you have done. It will also ensure that your activities continue to move you towards your goals, and that your goals or vision remain relevant to you.

Learn how to set yourself effective personal goals and find the motivation you need to achieve them. This is the essence of personal development, a set of skills designed to help you reach your full potential, at work, in study and in your personal life.

It’s good to validate your personal development plan with several key people. These can be co-workers, family members, close friends. In a best case scenario, they will be diverse enough to cover all of your plan’s areas.

4. How do you Plan for Personal Development?

We tend to think about our careers and personal development as one ongoing process – like a river flowing constantly. But if you’re swimming in that river, every so often you need to stop to take a breath. Taking a moment to create a personal development plan is like taking a very deep breath.

Now, imagine your life in, say, 2 to 3 years and go through your imaginary day:

What’s the first thought that passes your mind in the morning?

What’s the reason you get out of bed?

How’s your day structured?

What’s your workplace? What do you do there?

How much time do you spend with friends and family?

What makes you feel accomplished at the end of the day?

What gives you energy moving forward and what drains your energy?

Now take one step back and review. What are the areas that will make you feel successful? This will help you determine your values. Map them out – you can use anything, from a note-taking app to a blank sheet of paper, from a simple bullet list to a fancy visual board. 

The professional, personal and social fields domains in personal development are

Emotional

Physical

Spiritual

Marital

Parental

Social

Financial

Vocational (career-related and professional)

Avocational (hobbies and interests)

You may preferably consider 60 to 70 % of domains as suits you. If you can do more than you will get added advantage.

Accordingly you may plan or replan your success in personal development.

So briefly, the outline of steps of personal development are

• Know yourself. Who are you? ...
• Get out of your comfort zone. ...
• Develop a thick skin. ...
• Learn to assert yourself. ...
• Adopt good habits. ...
• Create a plan and a list of goals. ...
• Be kind and generous. ...
• Remember the simple and the most important things in life.

5. Benefits of personal development 

Working on your personal development is not only essential for your own self-improvement, but can also help you thrive professionally.

Here are four key benefits of personal development:

 

1. You’ll figure out what you want to do

By carrying out ongoing personal development, you’ll be learning more about your abilities and aspirations.

You’ll figure out where your values, beliefs, and values lie, not to mention uncover a clearer purpose for what you’re doing – both on a personal and professional level.

 

2. You’ll be able to make clear goals

By figuring out more about yourself, you’ll be able to set clear and well-informed goals.

Whether it’s that taking a course helped you realise what career you’d like to pursue, or learning a new language made you want to travel – expanding your knowledge is a great way to help you make good decisions about your future.

Not only will you realise what you do want to do, you’ll also be able to rule out paths that might not suit you as much as you thought.

6. Conclusions 

Learning doesn’t end when you finish school. Learning is a lifelong journey. Take up a new hobby, whether it’s crafting, designing, coding, painting, learning to play a musical instrument or taking up a new sport. 

Adding more strings to your bow is quite impressive and it shows that you are a well-rounded person. Your personal development therefore is a continuous process.

It can take time to learn about yourself and your needs and decide how to approach personal growth. You can stay positive during this important process by reflecting on how you're improving your personal well-being and developing professionally. 

Remember that by taking the time to evaluate your strengths and establishing goals to improve in other areas, you prioritize yourself and your success.