Personal development
When you practice personal development, you’ll notice the benefits in all aspects of your life. You are you: on the surface, this is an obvious statement. But what does it mean to be you? No one else is. Understanding your natural tendencies—why you act and think the way you do—is incredibly powerful. With this knowledge, you’ll work more effectively toward your goals, grow in your career, and relate to others in more meaningful ways. Becoming the best you is an ongoing journey, but you’ll find rewards in every step.
Is personal development important?
Personal development is a way of trying to make yourself a better person or to better understand your own behaviors and choices. Many people who choose to take a personality assessment are interested in personal development. They are seeking answers to these questions: Who am I? Who do I have the potential to become? Who do I want to become?
We see how we are active agents in our own lives. We become more aware of how we tell our own stories to ourselves and others, and on what parts of the story we want to focus.
There’s a growing recognition of the importance of emotional intelligence (EQ) and soft skills in the workplace. Personal development includes increasing our EQ and our empathy, and placing our own subjective experiences in the context of others. As we attend to ourselves, we will also benefit from nurturing our relationships with friends, colleagues, neighbors, and our communities. Through personal development, we can learn how to ask for what we need and better understand what we have to offer others.
At its center, personal development is the way we become the best versions of ourselves. We become more confident and have greater self-esteem as we aim toward goals that are meaningful to us and build better relationships with others.
Pursuing personal development creates a shift in perspective from “life is something that happens to me” to “I am making choices while living my life.”
Career growth
From becoming a better teammate to public speaking, we offer tips for increasing the skills you’ll need on your career path.
Sales & DiSC®
We’re all in sales in one way or another. As consumers, as individuals trying to pitch an idea to a supervisor, or as direct salespeople, there’s a lot to learn from DiSC®.
DiSC for relationships
Everything DiSC® may be focused on relationships in the workplace, but the model also works at home.
How does personal development happen in real life?
There’s often a trigger that motivates someone to engage in personal development. Something happens that makes us aware that we need to make a change. It could be a birth or death, a role change, a performance review, a reunion, travel, or just about anything. It can feel like a negative event, but it can also be an awareness that you could experience something great if only you can rise to the occasion.
For some, being asked to take an assessment like Everything DiSC Workplace® or going through a 360-degree review will surface issues we want to address. We might not have taken the time to consider our strengths, our uniqueness, or our challenges until we’ve received feedback of this type.
It’s hard to avoid personal development. We do not generally live stagnant lives. We have experiences; we fail; we learn. But development really begins when we take charge of it ourselves. We make forward progress when we change our behaviors or change our thinking. We evaluate where we are now and consider where we want to go, then take steps in that direction.
Examples
Self-directed: Hannah has cousins in Argentina. She has always wanted to visit them, but was so embarrassed about not knowing Spanish that she never went. Now, Hannah chooses to take a Spanish class and practice with her grandmother. She books her trip.
With the aid of another: Chris is struggling with imposter syndrome. They’re not sure where to start, but they have an acquaintance who had been working with a leadership coach. They interview a few coaches and select one to work with.
With the aid of technology: Jacob has been experiencing insomnia, making him irritable at work. He decides to tackle this by increasing his exercise and working on his sleep hygiene. He uses a monitoring device to motivate him, to help him gather data about his progress, and to identify what might trigger sleep interruptions.
Each person in these examples discovered something they wanted to change. It might have been something they were well aware of, something newly important to them, or something pointed out by others. They made personal choices on how to respond positively and develop new skills, new habits, or new mindsets.
Exploration of your own personality traits, motivations, and values helps you know when and how to leverage your self-knowledge for your own growth.
Personal development assessments
Now is a great time to make a career change. Our personalities can shed some light on why it might be hard to do.
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