Importance of Personal Development

Personal development is the act or process of understanding and developing oneself in order to achieve one’s fullest potential. Personal development is a vital part in a person’s growth, maturity, success and fulfillment. It is the foundation of mature personality, better relationship, happiness, success and prosperity.

Unfortunately, however, not everyone is aware of the importance of personal development. It was not given much attention at home, work or in school. People give more importance to academic and professional achievement rather than personal growth. This has caused a lot of emotional struggles that many people go through in life because they lack the soft skills which are crucial to one’s success and happiness. Such lack of self-understanding and principle-centered way of living blocks one’s ability to live an enjoyable and successful life.

I admit that I didn’t know the importance of personal development until I was privileged to attend one personal development training back in 2008. Before that event, I was living my life focused on achieving corporate success in my career as professional accountant. I was eager to achieve career and professional growth that I neglected all the other areas of my life, such as physical health, social relationship, financial growth and stability, and emotional growth. My career-driven lifestyle resulted for me to live a stressful, tiring and boring life. I was easily irritated, I complain a lot and I always see the negative side of things rather than the positive. I was too strong-willed and closed-minded that it was too hard to cross a point with me.

All these attitudes and actions changed when I learned about personal development. The change is what I often refer to as a great “turning point” in my life. Such turning point created so much positive transformation with who I am and how I live my life now. It turned my negative and closed mindset into an open and positive one. I minimized complaining on what life brings, and instead, I started to see life as my own blueprint. I became more practical and realistic that lessens my idealism and perfectionism. I became much conscious on how I spend my time that which helped me prioritize and minimize fatigue. These changes cannot happen if I ignored personal development.

If you find yourself feeling negative all the time, and you can’t stop complaining with a lot of things, I encourage you to start learning and understanding personal development.

Here are some of the reasons why personal development is important:

It helps you understand yourself better
It assist you in creating your goals and life purpose
It guides you in managing and spending your time effectively
It enhances your ability to handle stress, adversity and change
It supports you in managing your finances more wisely
It teaches you to build better relationship with people
It allows you to live a balanced lifestyle
It provides an opportunity to take care of your health.

Imagine personal development is like a plant. If you take care of it by giving it the reasonable amount of water, sunlight and soil, it will grow into a healthy and beautiful tree. But if you neglect it and won’t pay attention to what kind of nourishment it needs, then expect that plant to get dry and eventually die.

Personal development is like how you nurture of a plant. If you don’t recognize the importance of personal development, you will continue living through life’s hard circumstances feeling like a victim instead of a victor. You will stick to your belief that you cannot do something to change and improve your situation. As such, you will continue complaining and being negative with almost everything in your life. You will constantly feel lost with your own life purpose, struggling to find who you are and what you want to become.

But if you open yourself in learning personal development, you will experience a great leap in your life. You will start to become more positive in your outlook, you will be more proactive rather than reactive, you will start to create your life rather than letting circumstance create it, you will be able to find your own purpose and enjoy your life to its fullest.

Remember,

“There’s only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self. So you have to begin there, not outside, not on other people. That comes afterward, when you’ve worked on your own corner.” –Aldous Huxley.

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