Personal development

Personal development consists of the lifelong activities that: improve a person's capabilities and future potential; build human capital in knowledge and skills, facilitate employability (including self-employment), enhance quality of life, and facilitate the achievement of dreams and aspirations (consider their aims in life and set goals).

Personal development best practices

SMART goals are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.

Key personal development practices include:

1. Set clear goals

2. Regular self-reflection: Assess strengths, weaknesses, and growth opportunities.

3. Having a growth mindset

4. Development of good habits

5. Lifelong learning

6. Enhancing emotional intelligence

7. Seeking feedback and mentorship

8. Prioritize health. See: Self-care and Mindfulness.

9. Learning from failure: Consider setbacks to be experiments. Analyzing them in order to build psychological resilience and adaptability. See also: Problem solving and Creative problem solving and Decision making

10. Build a quality social support network: Surround yourself with growth-oriented and successful individuals and contribute to their success. See: Social networking and Friendship

11. Time management: Use tools like such as Eisenhower Matrix or apps to place a higher prioritization on high-impact tasks and minimize distractions. See also: Concentration and Focus

12. Practice gratitude: Keep a gratitude journal to boost positivity and resilience, celebrating small wins.

Additional ways to accelerate personal development:

- Getting out of one's comfort zone. See also: Adventurousness

- Carefully track progress

- Iterate and Adapt: Treat personal development as a personal experiment. Test out various strategies, evaluate the results, and adjust your approach based on what is more effective

Articles:

• Develop a personal development plan, AI
• What are the best practices for personal development?, AI
• What is the fastest way to advance personal development?, AI
• What is the fastest way to turn around your life?, AI
• What are the most effective ways to turn around your life?, AI

Focus and personal development

See also: Focus (personal development)

In personal development, focus refers to directing one's attention and energy towards a specific area or areas of personal improvement that most align with your most important goals and/or values. It's especially about intentionality when choosing which aspects of yourself to develop and work on to achieve peak performance in an area of better overall version of yourself.

By focusing on key areas, one can create a more intentional, deliberate and effective personal development journey which leads to greater self-awareness, skill development, and overall personal growth.

The 5 hour rule

Benjamin Franklin, 1767.

See also: Lifelong learning and Habit

The 5 hour rule is having the habit of spending 5 hours a week learning new things for personal development. The 5 hour rule was coined by entrepreneur and journalist Michael Simmons. Benjamin Franklin spent 1 hour a day on 5 days a week learning new things.

Articles on Benjamin Franklin's 5 hour rule

• 5-Hour Rule: If you’re not spending 5 hours per week learning, you’re being irresponsible
• 5 Hour Rule: A Learner’s Success Model
• The 5-hour rule: How to turn a wasted day into a successful one, Big Think website
• Why Constant Learners All Embrace the 5 hour rule
• Build a Lifelong Habit of Learning With the 5-Hour Rule, Inc. Magazine

Personal development quotes

• "What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals." - Zig Ziglar

• "The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark." - Michelangelo

Michelangelo

How to overcome resistance to personal change

Photo depicting comfort zone and areas outside comfort zone.

See also: Self-motivation and Achievement orientation and Comfort zone

Below are some methods to overcome personal resistance to change:

1. Begin by acknowledging your resistance and think of the positive effects of making the change or changes. Create a compelling vision. See: Visualization and Imagination

2. Explore the causes for your resistance (Fear, potential losses, objectively look at risk of change via risk management, limiting beliefs, negative thinking, etc.). See: Self-awareness and Self-reflection

3. Break down actions necessary to make the positive change into steps/processses in order to achieve goals. Learn any necessary skills.

4. Be action oriented and avoid procrastination.

5. Practice self-motivation and confidence.

6. Set goals and rewards for making goals. Engage in planning.

7. Learn to be more open and flexible. Develop a growth mindset. See: Openness

8. Learn the soft skill of change management

9. Realize that change can take time and mistakes are made along the way. Practice self-care and self-compassion.

10. Get any needed assistance and/or moral support. See also: Mentor and Accountability partner and Friendship

Articles:

• 12 Ways To Overcome Your Resistance To Change 12 Ways To Overcome Your Resistance To Change, Forbes

• Overcoming Resistance: How to Push Past Your Own Opposition to Growth

• Resistance to Change: 7 Causes & How to Overcome Them

• How can you manage resistance to change in personal coaching?

• Resistance To Change: 10 Keys To Overcome It

• How to Overcome Your Resistance to Change for a Better Self, Lifehack.com

• 6 Ways To Overcome Your Resistance To Change For Better Self

Personality changes and its effect on income

See also: Personality changes and its effect on income and Neuroplasticity and the ability of individuals to change their personality

Big Five personality traits

Ben C. Fletcher D.Phil., Oxon writes:

“

In their paper Boyce and colleagues went on to put a monetary value on changes in each of the Big Five personality traits. Their results showed that every standard unit increase in personality change was equivalent to an increase of between $92,000 and $314,000 in annual household income (US dollars). To put this another way, people needed an increase of between $91,000 and $309,00 in annual income to achieve the same increase in life satisfaction produced by a unit change in personality. Change in the different personality traits were associated with different monetary values, with change in neuroticism being worth $314k, extraversion $225k, agreeableness $149k, conscientiousness was worth $91k and openness to experience $62k. If we bear in mind that the average annual household income was around $88,000/year it seems to pay really well to Flex!

”

Journal articles:

• The Big Five personality traits and earnings: A meta-analysis, Journal of Economic Psychology, Volume 94, January 2023, 102570

• Is Personality Fixed? Personality Changes as Much as ‘‘Variable’’ Economic Factors and More Strongly Predicts Changes to Life Satisfaction by Christopher J Boyce, Alex Mathew Wood and Nattavudh Powdthavee, Social Indicators Research (2013) 111:287–305DOI 10.1007/s11205-012-0006-z

• Uncovering the Power of Personality to Shape Income, Psychol Sci. 2017 Nov 20;29(1):3–13. doi: 10.1177/0956797617724435

• Disentangling the within- and between-person effects of personality on income for men and women, Royal Society Publishing, 2024

Big Five personality traits and how to improve them to raise your income

The Big Five personality traits (the basis for the five factor model) are the five traits psychologists use to describe an individual's personality. While other traits exist, these are thought to define a large part of individuality. Hans Eysenck initiated this concept, but only included two personality traits, extraversion and neuroticism.

Traits

• Conscientiousness - Self-control/Self-discipline/willpower, efficiency/productivity, orderliness/organizational skills and dependable. Conscientiousness is positively correlated to a desire to perform a task well. See: Self-efficacy and Skill and Work ethic

• Extraversion - Assertive, energetic, and personable. See: Interpersonal skills and Interpersonal relations and Social intelligence and Conversational skills and Communication skills and Affability and Friendship and Social networking and Conflict resolution

• Agreeableness - Understanding and cooperativeness. See: Empathy and Collaboration

• Neuroticism - Anxiety/fear, vulnerability, and sensitivity. See also: Courage and Confidence and Mindset and Growth mindset and Optimism and Mental toughness and Psychological resilience and Comfort zone

• Openness - Creativity, imagination, imitativeness, intellectual curiosity and innovation

Big Five personality traits and how to improve them in a way to increase income

• Neuroticism - How to reduce neuroticism: Neuroticism, mental health and reducing neuroticism
• Extraversion - How to improve extraversion: How to increase extraversion
• Agreeableness - One can be assertive and still be an agreeable person who believes in having empathy and engaging in collaboration. In addition, one can be agreeable, but still have negotiation skills.
• Conscientiousness - - How to improve conscientiousness: Developing conscientiousness
• Openness - How to improve openness: Increasing one's openness and Adventurousness

Limitations of personal development. Low self-motivation and the spiritual strength to turn things around. The limitations of self-motivation

The Resurrection" by Carl Heinrich Bloch.

Quotes

The Christian author John Noe wrote in his book Peak Performance Principles For High Achievers:

“

Now in my own life, I go one step farther in setting my goals. I set what I call God-sized goals. A God sized goal is one that is so far outside your human capabilities that you will never reach it unless God intervenes on your behalf... However, self-motivation theories eventually begin to cave under their own weight because there is only so far they can go. People begin begin to say, Oh no. Not another self-motivation speaker - we had one of those last year! Management circles, I've found are tired of the hype. the rah-rah pep talks, the glorified weather reports and the positive thinking. For many of them, self-motivation has lead to frustration. It's superficial in its effectiveness... The basic building block of out of self-motivation is that there is only one person in the universe who is worthy , who has enough to offer, to become the center of our lives - Jesus Christ , God's son,. The goal is, then to become Christ-directed . Out-of-self motivation is based on the biblical principle of receiving a 'higher self' by surrendering our old selfish nature to Jesus Christ. Then and only then can we receive God's wisdom and power in our lives."

”

• "Most of all, I knew that God, my 'Guide of guides' had made it possible for me to accomplish this great feat. The greatest delusion in the world is that of the so-called 'self made" person. There is no such thing in high achievement." - Author John Noe on climbing on the Matterhorn mountain. See: Peak Performance Principles For High Achievers by John R. Noe

• "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." - Saint Paul, Philippians 4:13

• “Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” - Jesus Christ, Matthew 26:41

• "Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned." - Jesus Christ (John 15: 4-16)

Article

• If Your Motivation for Work is Low, God Can Fill It Up, The Gospel Coalition

See also

• Achievement orientation
• Peak performance
• Growth mindset
• Self-motivation
• Change management
• Neuroplasticity and the ability of individuals to change their personality
• Comfort zone
• Performance goal quotes

Book:

• How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be

External links

• What is Personal Development?
• 7 Ways To Improve Your Personal Development Skills
• Meeting Your True Potential: What Is Personal Development?, Sucess magazine
• Personal Development Plan Examples & Templates For Success
• Personal Development, ToolsHero.com
• 36 Personal Development Goals Examples for Work and Life
• How To Set Personal Development Goals for Work
• 25 Positive, Life-changing Ways Personal Development Will Better Your Future
• What is the quickest was to achieve personal transformation?, AI
• How do you transform your life as quickly as possible?, AI
• What is the quickest way to be a high-performance individual?, AI