A Definition of Personal Development

Personal Development is the conscious pursuit of personal

growth by expanding self-awareness and knowledge and
improving personal skills. [Tweet this!]
Those skills include my mind, my body, my spirit as well as my level of
success in all areas of life, however I may define that. The ultimate
goal of Personal Development for me is to be a self-realized human
being. That means living consciously at my full potential and reaching
real happiness in my life.
By progression I mean that there are essential steps to take when
starting out with Personal Development. I believe that in the process
of personal growth there are specific milestones to reach, and that
without tackling these, personal growth is not really possible or at least
not complete.
Maybe you are still not convinced that Personal Development is for
you and you may still ask „Why?“ The reason is simple:
Life is just better when we have done work on ourselves. [Tweet
this!]
And that includes our mental, physical, emotional, social and financial
life. I think it’s fair to say:
Personal Development makes you happy. [Tweet this!]
You can’t really argue with that goal…
How to Start Personal Development
So how can you get started on your own journey of personal growth.
Or if you have already started to consciously follow personal
development, how can you get to the next level? During my now over
10 years work on that topic, I identified several of those milestones
mentioned above.
There is the basic motivation to improve yourself. It’s either coming
from inspiration and you are looking to get better than you already are,
or it comes out of desperation: something unpleasant challenges you
to grow. For instance, what brought you here today?
One of the first things you need is something I would sum up
as acceptance. Acceptance means to see your life / your situation as
it really is and accept that. Stop rationalizing things you are truly
unhappy about and tell yourself the truth. That may also mean you
 have to look at areas of your life where it really can be painful to
accept the status quo. If you connect to the truth you have laid the
most important basis to really grow. You have to know where you
stand. From there you can move forward. Without that it’s just not
working. Period.
I think the most essential things in Personal Development deal with
how you look at the world and how you see yourself in the world,
which then determines how you act in the world. Are you a victim or a
winner? Do you see yourself as self-confident or not? Are you in
control or not? Are you successful? Are you happy or not, and in what
parts of your life.
Making the Unconscious Conscious
Much of it is about making the unconscious conscious. That’s what
this blog is really all about (and then to do the work). It’s always the
first part to become conscious of how we really work on the inside.
Only then we can get control over it. For instance the idea from above
of telling yourself the truth, acceptance, is just the same: to make the
unconscious reality, that we may have ignored before, conscious. Just
that we can make progress now, while before it wasn’t even on our
radar – in was just unconscious.
In psychology this is called the four stages of competence:
Quote from Wikipedia:
1. Unconscious incompetence
The individual does not understand or know how to do something and
does not necessarily recognize the deficit. They may deny the
usefulness of the skill. The individual must recognise their own
incompetence, and the value of the new skill, before moving on to the
next stage. The length of time an individual spends in this stage
depends on the strength of the stimulus to learn.
2. Conscious incompetence
Though the individual does not understand or know how to do
something, he or she does recognize the deficit, as well as the value
of a new skill in addressing the deficit. The making of mistakes can be
integral to the learning process at this stage.
3. Conscious competence
The individual understands or knows how to do something. However,
demonstrating the skill or knowledge requires concentration. It may be
broken down into steps, and there is heavy conscious involvement in
executing the new skill.
4. Unconscious competence
The individual has had so much practice with a skill that it has become
„second nature“ and can be performed easily. As a result, the skill can
be performed while executing another task. The individual may be
able to teach it to others, depending upon how and when it was
learned.
Makes sense. And in Personal Development we are talking about this
process for our whole personality. During this process we make
unconscious beliefs that limit us conscious (see my article How to
Change Self-Limiting Beliefs). We take responsibility for ourselves and
stop pointing to others for results that we are responsible for.
(see Take Responsibility in Your Life). This moves us back to power
again, since we are the one in the driving seat. We are response-able,
which enables us to dream again, set a life-vision and set some
exciting new goals for our life (see The Fastest Way to Set Motivating
Goals).
We learn to get more energy (see How to Increase Your Energy) and
how to use it intelligently. We get more self-awareness and improve
our mental focus (see How to Develop a Laser-Sharp Mental Focus).
We develop a personal development plan that will guide us to where
we really want to go.
There are a lot of more things to improve in our own personal growth.
But with those mentioned tackled, I think we start to lay a strong the
foundation for Personal Development.
So, next time someone asks me  „What is Personal Development?“ I
may just give him a link to this post.
And coming back to the question, what would you have said?
What is Personal Development for yourself?
“Personal development  involves mental, physical, social, emotional, and spiritual growth
that allows a person to live a productive and satisfying life within the customs and
regulations of their society. This is achieved through the development of life skills.”

“Psychology  is the study of behaviour and mind, embracing all aspects of conscious and
unconscious experience as well as thought. It is an academic discipline and a social
science which seeks to understand individuals and groups by establishing general
principles and researching specific cases.”

They present an interesting relationship in my opinion, as they relate to each other in

several different ways and are (arguably) inseparable aspects in the studies of human
behaviour.

If you are talking about psychology as the study of one's psyche, personal development
is a big part of that. Although, one could also say that personal development is
dependent on one's psychological state. So, therefore, they are parts of each other, yet
also dependent on one another.

One could psychologically analyse the idea of personal development or implement

knowledge of one's inner self to develop themselves further. If you meant ones personal
psychological state in the question then this also conveniently applies.

I am, however, As you might be able to see, not a psychologist, and am therefore
probably not qualified or knowledgeable enough to give you the answer you want.