Personal development includes activities
that improve awareness and identity, develop talents and potential, build human
capital and facilitates employability, enhance quality of life and contribute
to the realization of dreams and aspirations. The concept is not limited to self-help but
includes formal and informal activities for developing others, in roles such as
teacher, guide, counsellor, manager, coach, or mentor. Finally, as personal
development takes place in the context of institutions, it refers to the
methods, programs, tools, techniques, and assessment systems that support human
development at the individual level in organizations.
At the level of the individual,
personal development includes the following activities:
- improving self-awareness
- improving self-knowledge
- building or renewing identity
- developing strengths or talents
- improving wealth
- spiritual development
- identifying or improving potential
- building employability or human capital
- enhancing lifestyle or the quality of life
- improving health
- fulfilling aspirations
- initiating a life enterprise or personal autonomy
- defining and executing personal development plans
- improving social abilities
The concept covers a wider field than self-development or self-help:
personal development also includes developing other people. This may take place
through roles such as those of a teacher or mentor, either through a personal
competency (such as the skill of certain managers in developing the potential
of employees) or a professional service (such as providing training, assessment
or coaching).
Beyond improving oneself and developing others, personal
development is a field of practice and research. As a field of practice it
includes personal development methods, learning programs, assessment systems,
tools and techniques. As a field of research, personal development topics
increasingly appear in scientific journals, higher education reviews,
management journals and business books.
Any sort of development — whether economic, political, biological,
organizational or personal — requires a framework if one wishes to know whether
change has actually occurred. In the case of personal development, an
individual often functions as the primary judge of improvement, but validation
of objective improvement requires assessment using standard criteria. Personal
development frameworks may include goals or benchmarks that define the
end-points, strategies or plans for reaching goals, measurement and assessment
of progress, levels or stages that define milestones along a development path,
and a feedback system to provide information on changes.
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