What is Personal Development?

Personal development means when an individual makes extra efforts to

improve his personality and to improve the quality of his life. It is a life long
process. There is no specific age to start personal development. One can
begin his development process at any age he wants. Sometimes, a kid at a
very young age realizes that he needs to become a particular type of person
to achieve specific goals.

On the other hand, some people spend their whole life without making any
personal development because of the lack of clarity of goals. Sometimes a
person makes deliberate efforts for personal development, and on other times
personal development takes place due to the various life traumas faced by the
person in life.

For example, many students start working hard at studying when they face
failure in school. In addition to the inability at studies or in career, people start
working on their personal development when they are in love or have faced
rejection in love.
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An employee starts working on his progress and skills development to get a
promotion or salary hike at the workplace. There could be numerous reasons
for personal development.

Similarly, there are various methods for developing your own self, and people
adopt a way that suits them the most. For example, a person can develop his
personality or improve his skills with the help of self-help books or by taking
the help of a mentor or a teacher.

Moreover, there are professional institutes that offer courses that help people
in their personal development and to boost their confidence. In addition to this,
many organizations provide training to their employees to help them improve
their personality and skills.

Importance of Personal Development

Personal development is very important for an individual to grow in personal
as well as in professional life. By developing your own self, you not only
improve your personality but also improve the chances of getting successful
professionally.

A confident person is more likely to succeed than the person with low
confidence. In this section, you will learn about the importance of personal
development for a person.

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1. Personal growth is necessary for boosting confidence

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Confidence is essential to become successful in any field. Personal
development helps to increase the confidence of an individual. Let us
understand this with an example. For example, you will feel less confident to
take on a task when you are not good at something. One can gain confidence
by working on the things that they feel less confident at and by practicing.

For example, Training is important to become good at conversating in a

foreign language. Having the right training and a lot of practice will make you
confident.

2. Self-development strengthens your skills

When you develop your own self, you not only learn new skills but also
enhance your existing skills. When an individual wants to become better on
something, he has to work on several other things too.

For example, if you want to become good at public speaking, then you need to
learn the tips to speak in public and the use of language and the knowledge of
the subject. That means, to become good at one thing, you are required to
work on several other things too.

Therefore, in the process of personal development, you also strengthen your

existing skills.
3. It gives clarity of vision

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A person gets more clarity of vision when he becomes aware that he needs to
develop his personality, or he is required to learn specific skills. He makes a
plan to achieve his goals.

He gets a clear idea of what he is needed to do in the next 2-3 months to get
closer to his goal. The clarity of vision helps a person to utilize his time
effectively.

4. Improving yourself motivates a person

Development of your own self always motivates an individual. When a person

becomes good at something, he becomes confident and feels achieved, and
this motivates him to put more effort to become successful.

The employees of an organization become motivated and loyal towards the

organization if the organization includes a personal development plan as a
part of its training program.

5. It provides satisfaction

Learning new things and becoming better at things provides both personal as
well as professional satisfaction to an individual.

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6. It helps in career growth

An employee who continually makes efforts for personal development has a

more successful career than the employee who does his job and sulks
around. Efforts of an employee never go unnoticed.

The employers will feel confident in providing opportunities to the employee.

Moreover, the employee will also feel ready and confident to take on a chance
when it comes his way.
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Techniques

7. Essential to become happy

It help in providing focus to an individual and provides satisfaction on

achieving something. Satisfaction brings happiness. Therefore, Constant
personal development is necessary to become happy in life.

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8. Helps you get more opportunities

A person comes across more opportunities when he focuses on his personal

development.

9. Helps your talent shines

The talent of a person goes waste if not recognized with constant practice and
efforts for improvement. With personal development, a person can not only
improve his talent but also feel confident to show his talent to the world.

10. Helps you in creating a positive attitude towards life

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When a person focuses on personal development, he plans and utilizes his
time correctly. Therefore, personal development not only improves the skills
but also helps the person in creating a positive attitude towards life.

Because a person determines to learn will fail multiple times while learning,
but he will never give up on learning.

9 Steps of Personal Development

In the previous section, you learned about the importance of personal
development. But personal development is not something that you can do
overnight. It requires a plan, dedication, and a will to keep trying until you
become successful. In this section, you will learn about the different steps
involved in personal development.

1. Set your goal

Setting a goal means you have a clear idea when do you want to achieve your
goal. For example, as a student, your goal could be to finish your revision
before the end of the year 2019, or your goal could be to obtain at least 80%
marks on boards.

Or as a professional, your goal could be to learn a new skill that will help you
enhance your employment status.

2. Decide a deadline
The next step and most important step in personal development are setting a
deadline. A timeline will give you motivation, and you will achieve your goal in
a decided period.

And once you have reached your one goal, you can start working on other
goals without wasting any time.

3. Make a list of your strengths and weakness

Improving your existing skills and working on your weaknesses to convert

them into strength. Therefore, before you start your personal development
process, make a list of all your strengths and weaknesses so that you know
where you need to put more effort.

4. Make a Time Table

Once you have decided the deadline. Now, you need to determine how you
are going to take time out daily to work on your goal. To make it easy, prepare
a time table and paste it in your room.

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Try to follow that time table every day. In the beginning, you might find it
challenging to keep up with your time table, but with constant efforts and
dedication, you will start following your time table.

5. Divide your goal into small goals

Decide a daily goal. For example, if you have 15 chapters of physics to study
in one month, then you need to study half a chapter a day to reach your goal
on time. Dividing your goal into smaller goals will help you achieve your goal
quickly.

Moreover, you will feel motivated each time you meet your daily goal.

6. Prioritize your work

This step is essential in the present world full of distractions. If you want to
achieve your goal of personal development, then you are required to prioritize
your work.

For example, rather than wasting your time on useless things like social media
and video games, dedicate it to your personal development goal.

7. Take actions

Your plan will be ineffective if you don’t take action. Take steps as you have
planned. You might fail, face unexpected events or feel distracted, but don’t
lose hope and get back to your plan every time you fail.

Make efforts to turn your planning into reality and achieve your goal. Sooner
or later, you will be successful in achieving your goal if you don’t give up and
put effort every time you fail.

8. Take Help if Required

Don’t hesitate to take the help of others if you need it. If you want, you can
take help from many sources available around you. For example, you can
seek professional advice from an expert.

You can always take the help of your seniors or someone with experience in
the field. Moreover, don’t forget to Google for help. You will find online
classes, forums, and experts who can help you with your learning.

9. Measure your progress

It is very important to measure your progress to achieve your goal within the
time decided. Make sure that you review your whole day’s work before you go
to bed. If you can’t measure your progress daily, then make it weekly. By
doing this, you can make all the modifications required in your plan in the
decided time.

Conclusion on Personal Development

We hope this article helped you realize the importance of developing and
improving yourself and how it can be done over time. To help you organize
you thoughts, you should check out this article on making  a personal
development plan.