Example of how personal development happens in real life
This article will mainly focus on the example of how personal development happens in real life. It’s certainly not as easy as it sounds. Every person is unique. So, it only makes sense that personal development will look different for everyone. But what does it actually mean? Personal development is looking inward and focusing on ways to better yourself. Personal development increases your self-awareness, your self-esteem, increases your skills, and fulfills your aspirations.
At BetterUp, we’re big believers in the practice of Inner Work. In many ways, personal development is a form of Inner Work. It is the act of looking inward to achieve a purpose or result, especially in the pursuit of clarity, purpose, and passion in life. Personal development is much larger than just career development or self-development. It encompasses all aspects of your life where you’d like to see personal growth — and it doesn’t discriminate on where it shows up for you.
When it comes to personal development, it’s hard to not reference Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. According to Maslow, your basic needs need to be fulfilled in order to reach your fullest potential. In other words. To reach self-actualization means we’re reaching the highest levels of self-awareness, self-confidence, personal growth, and self-realization. Much like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, we see five different areas of personal development. Different personal development goals can fall into different categories.
Exercising your brain and staying mentally fit is critical to personal development. At BetterUp, this comes to life in a few ways: coaching, learning opportunities, and career growth. For example, right now, I’m taking a creative writing course to help keep my mental creative muscles going strong.
And BetterUp foots the bill as part of our learning stipend. Mental development can be anything from workshops, training sessions, or even just rest. Rest is just as (if not more) important than mental exercise. And as your mental fitness improves, so does your resiliency, innovation, and self-awareness.
Social connections and relationships are also a must-have for any personal development. After all, self-improvement is not a solitary pursuit. Humans are social creatures — we need that connection to learn and grow. And from social connections, we gain important skills. Like communication skills, problem-solving, relationship-building, and the ability to receive (and give) feedback.
We also learn from those around us and their experiences. Personal growth and development — whether you’re religious or not — can come through in spirituality. It’s important to recognize that religion and spirituality are not synonymous. In fact, far from it.
Spirituality means you’re investing in a deeper understanding of your own self in the world around you. It helps you get to know yourself and uncover your values. And in the context of Inner Work, the spiritual personal development tool can bring greater awareness to self and change. Emotional personal development often goes hand-in-hand with emotional intelligence. At its simplest, emotional intelligence is the ability to understand feelings.
Beyond feelings, it’s understanding how those feelings shape our thoughts and actions. Any number of experiences lends itself to emotional personal development. And those experiences can help you in your pursuit of self-improvement. Take your own Inner Work® journey so far. What experiences have shaped you into who you are today? When you reflect on your journey, what have you learned?
If you’re looking back at your journey and identifying the growth, it’s likely you’ve fostered a sense of emotional development along the way. This requires emotional intelligence to understand what role your feelings and thoughts played. It is essential to practice stress management to keep your mind and body healthy and improve efficiency at work. Stress management requires making changes to your daily activities to reduce stressful situations.
It also involves engaging in self-care routines and relaxation techniques and controlling your response to stressful situations when they occur. Many online articles and courses and self-help resources can help you improve your ability to manage stress. Conflict in the workplace is natural and inevitable, and knowing how to resolve disputes efficiently is essential to your career. This practice involves two parties in contention finding a peaceful solution to their disagreement. A dispute can be financial, political, personal or emotional, with negotiation between the parties involved often being the best course of action.
The ability to mediate and negotiate in a tense situation is helpful in conflict resolution. Time management involves scheduling your available time and managing the time you spend on specific tasks to increase productivity. With proper time management skills, you can increase punctuality and reduce procrastination. It helps you maximise your work-time to complete more tasks and affords you more time to relax. It also helps you develop habits that make you time-conscious, like committing to a timeline and starting a task early.
Active listening is a fundamental communication skill. This practice is a way of listening and replying to others that promotes mutual understanding, a crucial first step to defusing a conflict or seeking solutions to relational problems. An active listener understands what they have heard and considers that information carefully before responding or taking any action. This skill is the hallmark of a great communicator and can improve your relationship with your team members.
Fulfilling the requirements of your career role requires regularly making the right decision, ranging from strategic choices to managerial decisions and routine operational decisions. In business, this involves selecting choices or compromises to meet business objectives. It involves identifying the options for executing a task, gathering information about them and assessing the best alternative. Developing a step-by-step decision-making process can help you make more deliberate, thoughtful decisions by organizing relevant information and defining your options.
