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Personal development is a phrase that refers to activities designed to improve talents, potential, employability, and even wealth. Any time you are consciously making an effort to improve yourself, you are participating in personal development. The importance of personal growth cannot be understated, as it allows individuals to become the best versions of themselves, giving them the skills and confidence necessary to navigate any situation.

How adults experience life is majorly dependent on factors such as employment, real-life experiences and interactions, neighborhoods, and many more factors. “Personal development” doesn’t refer to a specific timeline of adulthood; instead, it requires a lifetime of dedication and awareness to keep up with the natural ebbs and flows that life has to offer.

This could mean hitting a huge business milestone, getting the promotion you’ve worked for day-in and day-out, or taking steps to sharpen your skillset.

Why Is Personal Development Important?

If you’re looking for reasons as to why personal development is important, there are endless reasons to incorporate this tactic into your life. Here are only some of the benefits of personal development.

• Keeps You Motivated: A quick review of your personal development goals can reignite your fire and motivate you to be better. Many factors contribute to overall job joy in today’s world, with money only being one of them.
• Allows You to Reflect on Your Talents: oftentimes highlighting and unearthing some skills you didn’t realize you have. As you reflect on your development learning process, reflect on the current talents you possess in addition to the talents you wish you had.
• Refine Your Existing Skills: Stepping back and evaluating your current skills can give you the push you need to further lean into them and refine them. It’s only natural if one of your reasons for personal development is to improve upon your current skills and talents, even if it means failing along the way.
• Increases Your Confidence: Focusing your energy on personal development can ultimately increase your daily confidence in your career. This positive energy will shine through each of your conversations with clients and can also help improve your relationships with your boss and coworkers.

• Improves Self-Awareness: it helps individuals reflect on who they are at the core. It forces individuals to find happiness in their own lives while encouraging self-awareness and reflection.
• Provides a Sense of Direction: Understanding your purpose in life and mapping out the steps you need to get there can be an overwhelming and daunting task. If you are taking the necessary steps to reflect on your life and practice self-reflection, you’ll find it significantly easier to make decisions that will deepen your happiness.
• Increases Creativity: Your change in mindset will allow you to embrace creativity in all aspects of your life and lean into innovation. An open mind can go a long way in taking the pressure off of yourself; there’s no need to be “perfect” at everything you do.
• Increases Resilience: Life can throw curveballs your way. In fact, you should expect them. If you approach difficult situations with the mindset that they will only make you stronger and more well-rounded in the end, you’ll be able to navigate any situation with grace.

5 areas of personal development

According to Maslow, your basic needs need to be fulfilled in order to reach your fullest potential. Much like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, we see five different areas of personal development. Different personal development goals can fall into different categories:

Mental

Exercising your brain and staying mentally fit is critical to personal development. This comes to life in a few ways: coaching, learning opportunities, and career growth. For example, right now, I’m taking a creative writing course to help keep my mental creative muscles going strong.

Mental development can be anything from workshops, training sessions, or even just rest. And as your mental fitness improves, so does your resiliency, innovation, and self-awareness.

Social

Social connections and relationships are also a must-have for any personal development. After all, self-improvement is not a solitary pursuit. Humans are social creatures — we need that connection to learn and grow.

And from social connections, we gain important skills. Like communication skills, problem-solving, relationship-building, and the ability to receive feedback. We also learn from those around us and their experiences.

Spiritual

Personal growth and development can come through in spirituality. It’s important to recognize that religion and spirituality are not synonymous. In fact, far from it.

Spirituality means you’re investing in a deeper understanding of your own self in the world around you. It helps you get to know yourself and uncover your values.

Emotional

Emotional personal development often goes hand-in-hand with emotional intelligence. At its simplest, emotional intelligence is the ability to understand feelings. Beyond feelings, it’s understanding how those feelings shape our thoughts and actions.

Any number of experiences lends itself to emotional personal development. And those experiences can help you in your pursuit of self-improvement. If you’re looking back at your journey and identifying the growth, it’s likely you’ve fostered a sense of emotional development along the way. This requires emotional intelligence to understand what role your feelings and thoughts played.

Physical

A healthy body nourishes a healthy mind. There’s an intrinsic link between your physical, mental, and emotional well-being.

This aspect of personal development is focused on physical health — like nutrition, sleep, exercise, and movement. When your physical self is nourished, it’s likely your mind is also reaping those benefits. Consider ways you can build this area of personal development and take note of how your body and your mind feel.

Personal development skills to work on

If you’re not sure where to start, consider working with a coach. Personalized coaching can help serve as your guide while you’re building your roadmap to self-actualization.

We’ve identified some common areas of self-improvement and personal development you may consider investing in:

1. Communication and interpersonal skills
2. Problem-solving
3. Agility and adaptability
4. Self-reflection
5. Conflict resolution
6. Future-mindedness
7. Organizational skills
8. Growth mindset
9. Teamwork
10. Self-awareness

How personalized development can help

Personal development is just that: it’s personal. Every human is different. If our society cracked the nut on personal development, every self-help book would help everyone. Or every learning process would benefit every student.

It’s important to lean on personalized support like coaching to help craft a catered plan that works for you. You won’t have the same needs, strengths, opportunities, and skills as your neighbor. So why would your personal development plan be the same?

Push yourself outside of your comfort zone. By doing so, you'll be on the path to reaching your full potential.