Self-Development is a complex process of advancing oneself to attain a certain

ideal fulfillment in life which maybe the pinnacle of a long awaited dream of every

individual. So many great authors were into the discussions about self development and

each one has its own unique way of understanding self-development and there are also

those that at a certain point of their discussions, has some meeting points with regards

to the idea of the other and arrived at the same conclusion about self-development.

In an article published by Destiny Odyssey (“Destiny Odyssey”, n.d.), self

development is simply define as a course of constant advancement to oneself through

the pursuit of harnessing personal skills, competence, talents and even knowledge and

achieve a certain level of self contentment (“Destiny Odyssey”, n.d.). According to the

article of Destiny Odyssey, Self-development can be construed also as personal growth.

It is a life journey embarking into a travel, wherein one has to evaluate the abilities that

he or she currently has and set objectives. Then, initiate steps to achieve those

objectives and strive to harness one’s abilities further developing the potential of an

individual. A person must assess himself either on a self-help or through specialist

advisory. It is the product of indulging into numerous activities to improve a person, and

in a lot of time, there is no one area to concentrate on, but a hodgepodge subjects

(Dunwill, 2015). Its most eventual goal is to become a self fulfilled person wherein it can

be measured by the real happiness one has reached. It even harness also our soft-skills

in the process (Dunwill, 2015). In the article about 5 Reasons Self Development is Key

to Your Success by Ethan Dunwill it identified such soft-skills as follows:

 Being a good listener

 Having more empathy towards others

 Becoming more efficient

 Learning to feel more confident

 Becoming more focus and organized

 Setting goals-personal and professional and for ourselves.

The mentioned soft-skills are also well elaborated by other books which shall be

mentioned in the following discussions, though some are just simply implied but others

are also explicitly discussed.

Self-development in the article of Destiny Odyssey expressed its approach in

self-development through dividing it into three sections (“Destiny Odyssey”, n.d.). It said

that, self-development is about:

1.) Skill Enhancement

2.) Mental Conditioning

3.) Habit creation.

These three sections are defined as it relates to the approaches on self development.

Skills enhancement is the harnessing of one’s personal skills, abilities and

competencies. It covers both interpersonal and personal efficiency talents. According to

the article of Destiny Odyssey, interpersonal skills talk about relating and mingling with

other people. And this includes about the skills on communicating and even leading

others. While personal efficiency, talents are those that an individual can do without

other people’s assistance and presence. These skills may include about the art of

controlling procrastination, planning, mounting of objectives and the skill of practicing

working happily without any anxiety.

Mental Conditioning is the practice of developing and enhancing a strong mind. It

will teach us how to stay and maintain positive focus especially in relation to our goals

and objectives. The skill on image projection, conceptualization and other techniques

may hone the mind to be more imaginative. Mental conditioning also relates on positive

images and having better feeling about ourselves. The final improvement we can gain

from mental conditioning is the increase performance on concentration and mind focus

and bringing in the positive thoughts.

Habit creation is the third section of self development as emphasize by the article

of Destiny Odyssey. His book elaborated that habit creation is the deliberate attempt to

develop habits that will improve one self. It is the formation of behavior or any kind of
tendencies that an individual will perform without necessarily minding about the action.

It is a kind of automatic action or intention which is unconsciously done. According to

the book, most of our actions and even our thinking and the way we make decisions are

dictated by our habits. Therefore the development of positive habit is a big help in self

development towards having self fulfillment.

Series of steps are needed to be taken in order to actually develop positive skills

and talents or any competencies that will propel self-development. This process of self

development may start with getting conscious of oneself and knowing what are the

current traits that one have and establish the level of the current traits and from there

move on to the next level where someone has to go. It may sometime sound ambiguous

but to put it simply, an individual must now know the kind of traits he wants him/herself

to become that makes him/her achieve true happiness.

One has to conduct a current assessment or self-awareness and self discovery,

so that from there an individual can project of what he/she want to become. As define

by the author, self discovery is the process of giving yourself a glimpse of your own

personality, your core values, tendencies and beliefs. It makes a person to plow down

and discover his/her values and find the most valuable things in life. It will also make a

person aware of his own shortcomings and could finally find ways to manage it (Dunwill,

2015) It is giving you a picture into what you would want to do and to become as a

person (“Destiny Odyssey”, n.d.). Self–awareness is an important part of Self-

development, there is no way of thriving any self improvement if you don’t have the

knowledge of yourself (Dunwill, 2015). You may begin to take real improvements, but

first you have to assess your existing or current personal tools, like your skills, talents

and competencies, which you need also to develop, because these will be the one to

carry you in achieving self improvement.

Self-assessment as described by Destiny Odyssey is the step of accumulating

data and information about person’s current proficiency or critical thinking,

competencies and talents and meticulously evaluating the current state of the
performance of one’s self (“Destiny Odyssey”, n.d.). It is very important to know the

level of your current performance so that you will know what and where to start in your

self-improvement. It talks on where and what more, which involves certain quantity and

quality and direction or we say measures to gauge the next amount of improvement.

Self assessment differs from self-awareness and self discovery, because the latter talks

only about your current state or the knowledge about your present standpoint on

yourself, whereas the former talks about the measure or the quantity of what you

currently have. One cannot start a project and set foot on where he wants to go, if

he/she doesn’t know what his/her current capabilities or the tools he has to start on

what more to improve, thus made the necessity of self assessment.

Wrapping up on your self-assessment, this will give you a better putting on

attaining your goals in life, because you already have the right information necessary to

devise your own self-developmental plan.

As pointed out by the article of Destiny Odyssey, development plan is the setting

of your goals that will show the way you intend to move on. Being conscious of the

particulars skills, talents and competencies you are to work on, you can zero-in your

attention on these traits and start elevating your capabilities on these qualities. This is

where you have to focus yourself in gaining further knowledge and utilize your assets,

and thus molding you to be more focused, systematic and efficient. The more you

become efficient, the more you are getting headways in your performance. The efficacy

that you developed proves to boast more in building your self-confidence.

The article of Destiny Odyssey further noted that with those improvements you

will also fortify your self-confidence that will further boast your self-esteem leading to a

better and happier life. Eventually you will be reaching a stage of self realization and

this even relates to an ultimate self-actualization. In however ways it is being titled, it

just connote to the fulfillment of one’s full potential.

The preceding discussions presented concepts and ideas which evolve around

the main concept of self-development. There are however numerous other concepts
that perfectly support to the idea on self development. It is becoming clearer, as the

discussions has go on, development of concepts which can be further construed to be

part or element of self-development some are explicitly stated and others are only

implied. Herein, the article of Destiny Odyssey enumerated its elements which have

been discussed above, which somehow also construed that it is in sequence order as

the first may have to be fulfilled first prior to the other. Each element is intrinsically

connected and are so closely related that sometime its differentiation is demarcated

only through a very thin line. The elements go on the following:

 Self Concept and self construct

 Self Concept

 Self Identity

 Self Image

 Self Confidence

 Building Self Confidence

 Self Efficacy

 Self Esteem.

Self-development, putting it in confined perspective, is the process of knowing

yourself first who you are, and has to discover and be aware of yourself. From there,

you have to set your goals, knowing what makes you to become happy. Real happiness

may not be define instantaneously may come by, in the later realization. IT is then at

this point that you have to start moving yourself, honing the skills that you have and

build self confidence. Becoming efficient by way of your honed skills will give you self-

confidence. When your efficacy is fully harness, you will be developing a very good self-

esteem, which as you work on, will eventually be developed for the maximization of your

full potential with an eventual product of self-realization.

Moving on forward, Self-development can also be dug down using the

approaches and the context of motivational psychology. Motivation is simply the

process of initiating and guiding in order to produce a good human behavior. (Kendra
Cherry, 2020). It involves biological, emotional, social and cognitive forces to activate

positive behavior. Motivation is triggered by human needs and sometime by human

wants. The needs propel oneself to immerse into self-develop going to higher level. Our

needs motivate us to develop, and as our need moves up a step higher so is our

motivation for development of ourselves.

One very good theory that is being used in the present era on motivation

psychology is the work of Abraham Maslow on his theory on the human hierarchy of

needs. Maslow is a prominent psychologist who is very well known for his impartation in

humanistic psychology. His interest in human motivation emanates from his experience

in his childhood and during the time of war in World War II. In his book Theory of

Human Motivation which was introduced around 77 years ago, Maslow presented the

topic on self-actualization as the peak of human needs with his famous statement,

“What a man can be, he must be. (Selva J, 2020). This need we may call self-

actualization.” His works actually has a good harmony with the works on positive

psychology wherein there is a good emphasis on self-development as it shares a very

common taste on its approaches (Selva J, 2020). Self-development perspective as

clearly presented in the latter, aims for its goal on building self esteem and finally the

self-realization.

Self-development can be very well related to the Human Hierarchy of Needs,

because in its peak, self-actualization is interpreted here as the state of optimizing the

use of persons capabilities, skill, competence, knowledge and resources, though it may

be different from person-to-person. In the same context, it can be viewed as the full

realization of one’s full potential in the whole aspect of his/her being but through the

internal drive which is happiness rather than the outward prize of money, status and

power.

Dissecting the perspective of Abraham Maslow, his ideas is about the ranking of

human needs from the most basic order and then climbing up to its pinnacle of full

human development. As a precursor, his perspective can be described in a presentation

of a pyramid. The most basic human needs got a very wider space, which represent a

large foundation which can be interpreted to be as a strong human putting which will

support all upper endeavors. It is then followed by the need on securing what a person

had built in his foundation and for himself. The first two, form parts of the human basic

needs for the satisfaction of his physical being. Having built a good standing on his

physical being, person may now seek to look on the surroundings and establish relation

on other people around. The establishment of relationship may start a person to feel the

sense of prestige and achievement for himself. These next two needs of relationship

and prestige can be well interpreted as the psychological needs of a person. From then

on one may strive to go notch higher and working to maximize the potential within, to

achieve the need for self fulfillment. The idea of the Hierarchy of Human Needs has

relevance reaching wider ranges, however it has to be considered within the framework

of Maslow’s theory.

It would be better then, to trace and enumerate the human needs as outlined by

Maslow in his paper on human motivation (Selva J, 2020).

 Physiological Needs

 Safety Needs

 Belongingness and Love Needs

 Esteem Needs

 Self-Actualization

Physiological Needs

The needs at this level is the very basic for human to exist, these generally

includes food, clothing and shelter. Expanding further, food, of course will include water

and even the air we breathed. Clothing and shelter is for providing convenience on our

physical body, to have a good sleep, the fending of coldness and the separation of us

human from animals. These are the needs that one has to meet to be continuously

satisfied. If these needs aren’t provide to a person, this will cause discontent and
sorrow. Such discontent will compel and drive the person to seek and meet these basic

needs.

Security Needs

This is the level following right away the Physiological Needs. The person has to

meet this need to ensure the survival of his physical body. This connotes to ensuring

physical security, security on income, ensuring that one can provide and meet the need

in the first level, and the confidence that all has all the needed things in order to survive

and comfortable enough for all the physiological demands.

Maslow further emphasize that, only when the first two level of Physiological and

Security needs are securely meet and satisfied that a person can try and extend on

doing more work on a periodic basis. The relations on self-development are starting to

sit-in at this point, to the fact that any person cannot proceed on a very good thinking

about his/her development once his basic needs are not yet provided securing his

existence.

Belongingness and Love Needs

At this level, needs are met having the impression of being extended with

affection like being loved, like and accepted by other people around especially those

close to him/her. This is the level where we search for purpose among our family,

friends and even on our own significant others. (First Family Counseling, n.d.). It is on

the external factors that we need to accept and be accepted and secure a place among

and within our society. At this level the need for emotional relationship drives human

behavior wherein seeking of attachment with others will be the motivating factors on

how someone will behave within his/her environment. Presumably, this will seek to

avoid problems and the feeling of loneliness, depression and anxiety. Here the drive for

self-development emerges as an offshoot of the motivation to seek acceptance.

Esteem Needs
 This is the level, where after the fulfillment of Love needs, development of self-

confidence may sits-in within the person, the acceptance from his/her surroundings will

be the driver for a person for a further self-development. Acceptance of people within

and around you can boast morale and build a vigorous self –confidence and the most

treasured Self-Esteem.

Self Actualization Needs

This is the highest level of needs that can be attained by a person. It is the need

to fulfill oneself by making maximum use of his/her abilities, skill and potentials. This

need can only be fulfilled once one has already met his/her physiological, safety,

belongingness and love and esteem needs.

Maslow asserted in his theory, that one cannot reach self actualization if he/she

cannot satisfy yet the Physiological and Psychological needs. (Selva J, 2020). You

cannot care about other, if you don’t know yet where to get your next meal for you to

survive and become physically able. One cannot focus on reaching out on helping

others if he himself doesn’t have a home to dwell unto. How can you seek for

belongingness and love, if you are busy thinking where to get the next resources to feed

for yourself. The dismal delivery for these very basic needs will hinder someone from

thinking and doing. It is an instinctive approach, Maslow’s argument settles more on

man’s basic instinct of having to survive first before he/she can do any other fulfilling job

for himself and for others. Hence, self development in the context of Maslow’s

motivation theory, the process of finding and developing ones skills and potential may

not commence, once you are still at the basic level of human survival.

In the former discussions, the focus is more on the higher level of human

responses of self-development. Its idea on self development has presumably assumed

or maybe, it is suppose to have neglected the instinctive nature of human survival. It

went directly on the level of psychological needs for self development and how to

emerge going to the higher level of self realization. It highlighted more on the human

psychological sense, looking more on his/her, character traits, the attitude and the
aptitude. It is talking directly about how one can improve from his/her present status in

his/her character and traits, what development needs to take place and how one can

mold him/herself in pursuit of real happiness. The achievement of self-realization is. If

one has found real happiness in exercise of his full potential, skills and positive traits.

Going into the context on Maslow, he is putting some conditions before anybody

could get into the level of looking how he/she could evolve and embark into self

development. The desired level of human stature where there will be a process of going

into self-discovery and self-awareness, to initiate self-development, may not be

reached, if one can even hardly provide for himself the daily physical nurturing of his

body. The mingling of these two intertwining thoughts will somehow provide a picture of

complementing theories on one over the other. It so seems, that Maslow’s is in

agreement of the previous notion only that he is qualifying that there should be first, the

satisfying of the physical body, before proceeding and start the process of self

realization.

However there are some caveats to the presented and emerging analysis. There

are crucial points to Maslow’s theory that maybe need to be pondered and understood.

The process of satisfying the physiological needs is already a part of self-development

effort. The fact that the bodily needs motivate someone to pursue on developing way to

provide the need, the satisfaction or the return of a positive result, will make one to

become happy. However again, it doesn’t stop there, once some has already been

satisfied over his physiological needs and is regularly and routinely achieving it, the

motivation that drives one for the provision of his bodily need may died down, and

maybe it is not as important anymore. The person will then strive for other needs

beyond those physical needs. Again, once it is achieved, motivation at this level will lose

its power, and the person will seek again for higher need, and so-on and so-forth. Thus,

the self actualization that maybe the full utilization of his potential maybe not the peak

level of one’s realization, because once he/she is there on that level and has already

fulfilled the need, the motivation will slowly losses its power to motivate. It will seek
again for another. And so, the notion of Maslow’s that the fulfillment of the musician is to

make music, and the poet must write a poem, may come to a certain point to crave for

more. The musician who has done a lot of beautiful music may start losing his happiest

moment in music as it has been achieved already maybe not once but in a lot of times.

In the application of self-development in this kind of presented idea will become

to an unending process in the pursuit of far more higher form of realization. It will not

stop while we are still conscious about this human world that we live in.

Reference:

Destiny Odyssey (no date) Self Development, Retrieved September 16, 2020
from https://destinysodyssey.com/personal-development/self-
development-2/

Dunwill, Ethan (2015, November 21) 5 Reasons Self Development is Key to Your
Success. Retrieved September 13, 2020 from
https://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/5-reasons-self-development-
key-success/

First Family Counseling ( 2015, July 10) Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: Love and
Belonging. Retrieved September 16, 2020 from
https://ffctexas.com/maslows-hierarchy-needs-love-belonging/

Horn, Katie (2019, February 27) Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: Why it still matter
in 2020. Retrieved September 16, 2020 from
https://digital.com/how-to-become-an-entrepreneur/maslows-
hierarchy/

Kendra Cherry, (2020, April 27) What is Motivation? Retrieved: September 15,
2020 from https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-motivation-
2795378

Selva, Jouaquin (2020, January 09) What is Self Actualization. Retrieved

September 15, 2020 from https://positivepsychology.com/self-
actualization/
 FEEDBACK

Self development in so far as I construed the varied concepts that I have read

thru, is becoming more intriguing. At the first glance it may so seems simply a topic, but

as you dig deeper down to some contributing ideas, it boggled my mind and made me

to wonder the application of the concepts. More than these, some of my elaborated

feedbacks are as follows

 Self-development had made me wonder about my own life story.

 It made me think of where am I now, am I developing?

 I don’t even if had gone through the process of self-discovery, though I

know I have the awareness of myself.

 I am beginning to wonder if self-awareness is synonymous of being self-

conscious.

 It pushed me towards thinking about “the when” about the timeline of my

success.

 It made me to have second thought of what is Success for me, is it the

thing called Self-realization?

 The process of self-development has so far made me to think that it is un-

ending.

 But how about those people with shallow contentment or those who don’t

want to strive.

 Self-development is a very good tool of improving our personality our life

as a whole.

 In contrast, digging deeper into self-development, it present a terminal

question about what is the real self-realization or self actualization, is it

happiness or there is something more to it.

 It’s intriguing.
 RECOMMENDATION

The topic on Self-development presented a wide array of ideas and concepts,

though I am having only a limited reading about this topic, but it made me to conclude

that there are far more deeper concepts both contrasting and complementing about this

topic. And as anybody indulged into profound reading on the concepts, it may start to be

even far deeper, that deciphering the concepts maybe well too vague to grasp. Thus,

given the chance I would recommend for the following:

 A new author maybe could come up with an article that intermingle all the

concepts about self development, in order to have one common

understanding about the topic.

 It would be better to publish article about the topic that will present

tangible and practical applications about self-development. Applications

that can be readily use in an organization or for a single person.

 Present also an article that will tangibly show the materiality of the topic in

the context of its application in managing public interest.

 And finally give emphasis on the topic in the subject on Humanities and

even on Social Sciences.