Personal Development – What, Why & How?

What is Personal Development?

Personal Development is to improve awareness and identity, develop talents and potential, build human capital and facilitate employability, enhance the quality of life and contribute to the realization of dreams and aspirations.

Why it is needed?

A Personal Development Plan provides a framework that will help you identify the areas of your strengths and weaknesses and come up with a guide that will optimize and capitalize on your existing skills and capabilities. It is a snapshot of where do you stand at the time of the assessment that lets you reflect on your next steps. Start with “Why do I want to create this personal development plan?”

The same is true for professionals with many years experience in the workplace. Continuing professional development is important because it ensures you continue to be competent in your profession. It is an ongoing process and continues throughout a professional's career.

Benefits of Personal Development:

1. Self Awareness, 
2. A sense of direction.
3. Improved focus and effectiveness 
4. More Motivation 
5. Grater resilience 
6. More fulfilling relationship
7. Satisfaction of Self-actualization

Personal Development is a term much used but less practised. At times it is confused with Personality Development. Personality Development deals with personal traits, temperament, behaviour, appearance, body language, communication skills, etiquette, etc while the Personal Development deals with one’s furtherance of hobbies, acquiring new skills and honing old skills, further education, strengthening public rapport, etc.  then It is about taking the time and, making the commitment, to invest in your greatest resource – you. When you put the effort in to developing yourself, the rewards are amazing.

However, the greatest achievers in life know that the key to success is the ability to manage you in a variety of situations. That ability comes through personal development.

We should always understand that choosing the right career and flourishing in it, depend to a large extent on your level of passion in the field we chose. Rather running after something which is not your forte and you are not passionate about it, can spoil your career. Lay your hands where your heart lies and your head will follow it. This is why it is fundamental to know your passion, so you can make a living out of it, and be happy and successful. Your run for the bread becomes a fun and not a job.

What is passion at work?

In the simplest of terms, passion is doing something that excites you every time, and makes you feel happy and contended at the end of the day. It is a feeling that enthuses you to work more in a field because you find happiness doing it. This passion can be different for every individual, and can be just about anything from sweeping to sculpting, and everything in between.

Why is passion important?

If you want to be truly successful in life, you will have to follow your passion. When you are enthusiastic about something, you will automatically find ways to overcome all the obstacles that come in the path of your success. Also, when you love what you do, you're more likely to do it better. Further, you'll be more willing to learn at work because your interest will drive you to do it.

There are many examples of people who have been highly successful simply because their driving force at work was their passion.

For an example Bill gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Richard McDonald, Kevin Plank, Walt Disney, Dr. Seuss and Jim Koch. For each of these successful entrepreneurs, passion has been their driving force, and this is what has propelled them to where they are today.

If you want to achieve similar success, the first step is to chart out your Personal Development Plan and act on it. If you are a habitual offender of breaking New Year Resolution, think twice before charting out the plan.

Anyway, consider the following points while preparing your Personal Development Plan:

•    Your motivation for pursuing for Personal Development Plan? (Motivation can be just self-satisfaction, financial benefit, promotion in career, promotion of business, advocating a social cause, etc.)
•    Fix quantifiable goals to be achieved in a given time frame (so that you can evaluate your progress).  Your vague goal to reach “Some Where” will land you “No Where”.
•    Goal should be realistic and achievable.
•    Its relevancy to my present job and how much it will improve my productivity.
•    Availability of resources (time, money, health, etc) to pursue the plan? Mind well, no gain is without pain – pain may be physical or may to be to your pocket.
•    Your past record of achieving self-declared goals.
•    Support from the family members, employer, Government, Non-Govt Organisations, Philanthropists, etc
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