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What are Personal Development Skills?

G. Wiesen
G. Wiesen

Personal development skills are skills or attitudes that a person can develop or embrace as an effort to find greater satisfaction from his or her life. These various skills are primarily meant for personal development, as the name would imply, and therefore are intended to make a person happier and more satisfied with the things that he or she does. On the other hand, many of these concepts can also be extended into a person’s professional life and therefore may be promoted as a way to make someone stronger as an employee or manager as well. Personal development skills are often promoted by life coaches and therapists as ways for people to take control of their lives and begin to affect positive change on a personal level.

The personal development skills a person might consider important or work on will typically depend a great deal upon what someone wishes to achieve. These skills are fairly subjective in nature and not always easy to define. If someone is working with a therapist or life coach, then that professional will often establish the skills the person should be developing. The nature of these skills, however, can often relate to increasing personal performance or happiness in order to achieve a greater sense of well-being.

Positive thinking is a common personal development skill.
Positive thinking is a common personal development skill.

Some common personal development skills include concepts such as positive thinking, individual excellence and a private sense of accomplishment, and honesty and integrity. By focusing on these types of skills or attitudes, a person can learn to have a sense of personal and intrinsic self worth or appreciation, allowing him or her to develop in other ways. For example, someone who has developed a strong sense of honesty may, as a result, have a greater feeling of self-confidence that stems from knowing he or she behaves in a way that is forthright and sincere.

Good interpersonal communication may help a person find greater satisfaction in their job.
Good interpersonal communication may help a person find greater satisfaction in their job.

Other common personal development skills can include ongoing learning and education, interpersonal communication, a greater sense of learning from mistakes, and learning to welcome change. A life coach, for example, may recommend that someone who is terrified of making mistakes work on a better understanding of the importance of mistakes in the learning process. By developing this understanding, the person may be less frightened of the prospect of making a mistake, and therefore be free to act in ways he or she would have previously thought impossible. Someone else, for example, may work on personal development skills such as embracing change, to be more open to the idea of a job promotion or new career.

Discussion Comments

Arcoh

In the paragraph on positive thinking, the author has touched on a different, but equally important concept - digging deep inside, finding out who you really are and what your core values are, and then living according to those values. I call this "Alignment".

cafe41

Oasis11-I know that Stephen Convey has written at length about this topic. He offers personality development tips in order for people to find out how to make their lives more meaningful and productive.

He has written a series of best selling books that include the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and now he has an 8th habit book along with a forum that allows subscribers to discuss their goals and how to be more successful in achieving them.

He offers personal development workshops that include certification training in order to allow you to teach his methodology to others.

In addition, his site offers free webcasts and small personal development tips. I think that he stresses to make the most of each day by waking up early and developing small measurable goals that you can add on to.

Day to day the difference might not seem significant, but over a six month or a one year period they will be. This is among the best personal development training, or personal development program out there.

oasis11

Sneakers41-A personal development plan sample might include walking every day for 20 minutes for one month.

Making small focused goals like this allow you to easily integrate this new behavior into your lifestyle which will ultimately yield the success that you are looking for.

This could be your personal development template and the second month you might want to add journaling and keeping a food diary for the entire second month.

At this point, you have developed two positive development goals that will aid in weight loss. It will be easy to incorporate additional goals each subsequent month when you start seeing positive results.

The problems with most personal development goals is that people try to do too much too soon and often give up before they have had a chance to adapt their lifestyle to the changes. This is the main reason for the failure in setting personal development goals.

sneakers41

A personal development plan should address one area at a time. Once you list the areas in which you would like to develop, it is important that you focus on the most important or impactful first.

Focusing on that particular area for a full month should give you time to adjust to your personal development plan.

For example, if you would like to lose weight as your personal development goals, instead of looking at all of the weight you would like to lose or all of the things you would like to make in order to lose weight, a more effective strategy would be to focus on one aspect that will contribute to weight loss.

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    • Positive thinking is a common personal development skill.
      By: Antonioguillem
      Positive thinking is a common personal development skill.
    • Good interpersonal communication may help a person find greater satisfaction in their job.
      By: WavebreakMediaMicro
      Good interpersonal communication may help a person find greater satisfaction in their job.
    • Taking courses can help someone develop different skills.
      By: Syda Productions
      Taking courses can help someone develop different skills.
    • Personal development can improve relationships and interpersonal communication.
      By: micromonkey
      Personal development can improve relationships and interpersonal communication.
    • Basic hygiene can be part of personal development skills.
      By: Gang
      Basic hygiene can be part of personal development skills.
    • Learning different cooking skills is part of personal development for many young adults.
      By: llhedgehogll
      Learning different cooking skills is part of personal development for many young adults.
    • Personal development skills help people quit harmful habits.
      By: Gajus
      Personal development skills help people quit harmful habits.
    • Personal development in childhood may take the form of participation in athletic activities.
      By: cfarmer
      Personal development in childhood may take the form of participation in athletic activities.
    • Personal development skills might focus on lifestyle changes.
      By: javy
      Personal development skills might focus on lifestyle changes.