5 reasons Personal Development should be a priority for you.

Have you ever wondered why some individuals are perceived as though they have life put together?

You probably have friends you have great admiration for because they seem to inspire you in one way or another. These people may seem to have mastery of a variety of life skills. Skills that are considered crucial to leading a life of fulfilment and impact.

You may have even asked one of them to become your mentor. You want to know what they are getting right or what you may not be getting at all!

Eventually, you are let in on the open secret. Oh, you guessed right! You have left Personal Development on the back burner! 

I would define Personal Development as a lifelong process in which an individual intentionally puts measures in place to develop themselves in specific areas towards maximising their life and fulfilling their given purpose.

In this blog post, I will highlight 5 reasons it is important to be devoted to Personal Development.

Reason#1– Improves your self-awareness

The process of Personal development more often than not starts from doing an introspection to understand oneself vis-à-vis areas of weaknesses that may need improvement and those of strength that you can leverage. 

Self-awareness plays a major role in facilitating the genuine expressions of our unique abilities. As we become more self-aware, we gain insights into our true values, habits, personalities and emotions. This ultimately propels us to effect the change that we desire for ourselves.

By just being aware of what area of improvement I desire in my life, I have seen how this has meant that I intentionally set goals to make progress towards attaining the ideal picture that I desire of myself.

Reason#2– Equips you with more knowledge and skills

Have you ever met a person given to personal development who does not read self-development books or voraciously seeks new knowledge? Or how would you maximise your potential if you are not well equipped with the required knowledge?

People who are intentional about self-improvement are usually well respected, not because of their titles but because of the wealth of knowledge they exude. 

The other angle to this is that usually, personal development would push one out of their comfort zones, meaning you get to learn skills that you never thought your human brain could comprehend.  

For instance, by virtue of building my website, I would say I could pass for a web designer! Designing a website is not something I would naturally do, it required going out of my way to learn something new. 

Plus, the interesting thing about seeking new knowledge or learning a new skill is that it causes a chain reaction of learning and more learning! 

Reason#3–Helps you build healthy social skills

One of the key areas of personal development is developing one’s social skills. Humans are social beings. We are wired to interact and form connections with one another as no one is an island. 

With this in mind, a very important area of personal development is improving one’s ability to socialise.

As you start to hone your communication and networking skills, you will soon realise that you are better able to start and sustain conversations with complete strangers and in the process grow a network of people with desired attributes in your circle. 

This will in turn help you form meaningful relationships that would benefit both your personal and professional life.

Reason#4- Boosts your chances of professional development

Personal development helps you acquire skills that make you valuable in your professional life.

Say, for example, you have mastered the skill of effective time management, this would mean you are punctual at work and complete tasks efficiently and in a timely manner. Ultimately, your team members are likely to find you dependable and valuable.

The golden truth is every employer is result-oriented and an employee that delivers this from time to time is deemed indispensable.

This would in turn mean that you achieve visibility at work, and in return get the recognition that you deserve!

Reason#5–Makes you happier

This is one benefit that I would say I have personally enjoyed in my Personal Development journey.

Personal development clarifies what you need to do and how to achieve your goals. Clarity makes the mind less cloudy and able to feel joy.

Moreso, the more you learn a new skill or gain insights from a book you have read, the happier and satisfied you become. You would not necessarily need the world clapping for you to make you happy. You would find the inner joy that the world cannot explain but you!

One experience for me was the rush of joy I felt when I hit the launch icon on my website. I found myself reminiscing at that moment about how I suddenly became a web designer! I was literally on cloud 9 at that point. No one else or nothing could dampen my joy. I felt proud of myself!

To sum things up, 

I would hope that by now, endorphins have been released in your brain to get you started on your personal development journey. Of course, the benefits of deliberately improving oneself are enormous and not far-fetched once we set the ball rolling and commit to achieving daily progress.

Asides from the ones highlighted above, what other benefits have you derived from Personal Development?  I would love to learn from you.

I will be in the comments!

Yours,

Aarin.