Personal Development

Module 2:
Understanding
Oneself During
Middle and Late
Adolescence
Reporters:
Miguel Luis Jumawan
Kyla Gica
Character and Personality Traits Defined
If you were asked to describe yourself, you may probably talk
about your physical characteristics, your interests, your hobbies,
your skills or abilities, or even your beliefs. Physical attributes
such as height and skin complexion, as well as psychological
characteristics such as temperament, may be inherited from your
parents; some attributes and traits, however, may be brought about
by environmental factors. Some of your traits may be similar to
your other siblings or to some of your peers, but no two
individuals are exactly alike. Thus, you are unique, and that makes
you special.
Character and Personality Traits Defined
We would all benefit from being more aware of our characteristics
and personality traits. That’s because they are significant
predictors of our behaviours and attitudes.

The world we live in is different from what it was ten, five, or

even one year ago. Thanks to social media, easy-to-use
communication tools, and globalization, the pool of possibilities
and available information are constantly expanding.
Character and Personality Traits Defined
Without a clear idea of one’s own preferences, making the right
choice can be extremely difficult and confusing. Everyone’s
personality is unique, and knowing what makes us, it can lead to
more life satisfaction, better life choices, and overall success in
both personal and professional spheres.

While character and personality are both used to describe

someone’s behaviors, the two examine different aspects of that
individual. One’s personality is more visible, while one’s
character is revealed over time, through varying situations
Character and Personality Traits Defined
In more concrete terms: “Personality is easy to read, and we’re all
experts at it. We judge people [as] funny, silent, energetic, positive,
confident, as well as overly serious, lazy, negative, and shy if not
upon first meeting them, then shortly thereafter. And though we may
need more than one interaction to confirm the presence of these
sorts of traits, by the time we decide they are, in fact, present, we’ve
usually collected enough data to justify our conclusions. “Character,
on the other hand, takes far longer to puzzle out. It includes traits
that reveal themselves only in specific and often uncommon
circumstances, traits like honesty, virtue, and kindliness”
(Lickerman, 2011)
Character and Personality Traits Defined
“Character, on the other hand, takes far longer to puzzle out. It
includes traits that reveal themselves only in specific and often
uncommon circumstances, traits like honesty, virtue, and
kindliness” (Lickerman, 2011).
While personality is easier to spot, it largely has a little change
and is slow to develop. Character, on the other hand, takes longer
to discern but is easier to change. That’s because character is
shaped by beliefs, and with enough effort and motivation,
changing one’s perspective and view of the world can lead to a
shift in one’s character.
Character and Personality Traits Defined
For instance, an individual who might have a shy personality can
learn to switch his attitude toward public speaking when stepping
into the role of a teacher. The new social and external demands
lead to an internal shift that changes his behavior toward others.
In this way, even if an individual’s inborn preference is to shy
away from the public, the beliefs and values that shape his
behavior can evolve to reflect the values of his immediate groups
and communities. Such awareness and adaptability help with
survival (Kurtus, 2011).
Character and Personality Traits Defined
The bottom line is, despite the significance of our inborn
personality traits, we can overcome them as required by personal
or cultural demands.
Habits
Habits are behaviors we perform on a daily or otherwise regular
basis. They’re not just any behaviors, though. A behavior is a
habit if some component of it is at least somewhat “automatic.”

Some studies estimate that habits make up 40% of our everyday

behavior. 11 With a habit, there’s some cue that triggers a
behavior. For example, if you eat at the same time every day, time
is the trigger, eating is the behavior that’s a habit.
Habits
With a habit, there’s some cue that triggers a behavior. For example, if
you eat at the same time every day, time is the trigger, eating is the
behavior that’s a habit.

Habits are reinforced by rewards. Sometimes the rewards are easy to

spot. Take our eating example: the pleasure of eating food is the
reward.

Sometimes the reward is not so easy to spot. If you’re in the habit of

checking your phone every time you’re bored, the reward is a bit more
subtle—and there’s a good chance it’s relief from the anxiety of your
own thoughts
So, from above, we can say that a habit is formed
when three things come together:

CUE BEHAVIOR REWARD

Habits
The more often the cue, behavior, and reward occur in close time
and proximity to one another, the stronger a habit becomes. This
is true whether we’re aware of it or not. Hence, bad habits often
can easily form if we’re not careful. Conversely, to create a new,
healthy habit or even to break a bad habit you’ll want to be as
intentional as possible with all three parts. That is, you can
manipulate your environment to introduce cues (cues) that you
can then intentionally start to associate with a desired behavior
and reinforce it all with a predetermined reward.
 Key Message
The more often a cue, behaviour and a
reward occur in close time and
proximity, the more likely you are to
form a habit for that behaviour.
Psychology and motivation
Every day we spend our time and energy on achieving our goals. But
even the same goal can be reached with different costs by different
people. It happens because we all have different personal
effectiveness.

Our personal effectiveness depends on our innate characteristics –

talent and experience accumulated in the process of our personal
development.
Psychology and motivation
Talents first are needed to be identified and then developed to be used in a
particular subject area (science, literature, sports, politics, etc.).

Experience includes the knowledge and skills that we acquire in the process
of cognitive and practical activities. Knowledge is required for setting
goals, defining an action plan to achieve them, and risk assessment. Skills
also determine whether real actions are performed in accordance with the
plan. If the same ability is used many times in the same situation, then it
becomes a habit that runs automatically, subconsciously.
Psychology and motivation
Here are some skills that will greatly increase your personal effectiveness:

1. Determination. It allows you to focus only on achieving a specific goal

without being distracted by less important things or spontaneous desires. It
may be developed with the help of self-discipline exercise.
Psychology and motivation
2. Self-confidence. It appears in the process of personal development, as a
result of getting aware of yourself, your actions, and their consequences.
Self-confidence is manifested in speech, appearance, dressing, gait, and
physical condition. To develop it, you need to learn yourself and your
capabilities, gain a positive attitude, and believe that by performing the
right actions and achieving the right goals you will certainly reach success.
Psychology and motivation
3. Persistence. It makes you keep moving forward regardless of emerging
obstacles, problems, laziness, bad emotional state, etc. It reduces the costs
of overcoming obstacles. It can also be developed with the help of self-
discipline exercise.

4. Managing stress. It helps combat stress that arises in daily life from the
environment and other people. Stress arises from the uncertainty in an
unknown situation when a lack of information creates the risk of negative
consequences of your actions. It increases efficiency in the actively
changing environment. It requires problem-solving skills.
Psychology and motivation
5. Problem-solving skills. They help cope with the problems encountered
with a lack of experience. It increases efficiency by adopting new ways of
achieving goals when obtaining a new experience.

6. Creativity. It allows you to find extraordinary ways to carry out a

specific action that no one has tried to use. It can lead to a decrease or an
increase in costs, but usually, the speed of action is greatly increased when
using creative tools. It requires the ability to generate ideas.
Psychology and motivation
7. Generating ideas. It helps you achieve goals using new, original,
unconventional ideas. The idea is a mental image of an object formed by the
human mind, which can be changed before being implemented in the real
world. For generating ideas you can use a method of mental maps, which
allows you to materialize, visualize, and scrutinize all your ideas, which in
turn contributes to the emergence of new ideas.

These are just some, but the most important personal effectiveness skills
which make the achievement of any goal easier and less costly.
Thank you
very much!