5 Areas of Personal Development

Personal development, and the skills needed to apply it to your life, is not something that you learn overnight. It is not a one size fits all, and your journey will look different to the next person. You will have to put in the work and find what works best for you. Whether that may be through a personal development coach or taking workshops from home, you have to put in the time.    

We have to first define what personal development means to begin finding what works best for you. The most common definition of personal development is that it consists of activities that develop a person’s capabilities and potential, build human capital, facilitate employability, and enhance quality of life and the realization of dreams and aspirations. To make things simpler, we can break it down into five areas: mental, emotional, physical, social and spiritual.  

Mental

We have to begin with growing a healthy and happy mindset before even thinking about the other areas of personal development. Allowing yourself to continue to learn and absorb information will ultimately help to improve your relationships, education and career. Mental development and growth is an area that is never ending and that you can continue to improve throughout your life. 

Some tools that can be used to help with mental growth are reading personal development books. There are a vast amount of options when finding the books that speak to you. Whether you like something more factual and to the point like The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen Covey. Or something more down to earth like, You are a Badass by Jen Sincero is more your cup of tea. Either way there are endless options.

 As important as it is to expand your mind for personal development you also have to give your brain a chance to relax. Try not to burn yourself out with cramming as much information in as fast as possible, allow yourself to unwind. Maybe it’s writing in a journal or watching the next episode of Modern Family. It is just as crucial to take breaks and decompress as it is to grow mentally.  

Emotional 

Reading a book or taking a seminar to grow your mental development is easy, and quite literally by the books. When it comes to learning how to be an emotionally strong person it can easily get just that, emotional. It can be extremely difficult to learn to control your emotions and not let them control you. 

It is important to share your emotions as opposed to keeping them all bottle up. On the contrary, it can be a negative to allow yourself to get overly emotional. We have to find a happy and healthy medium which is part of our personal development journey. It will take time and practice and something we will continue to learn and master.

Social

Communication and sociability seem like terms from the past with all the technology that is constantly being pushed on us. Face to face communication is getting harder for each generation living in the world of ‘lol’ and ‘brb.’ More and more people have social anxiety and would rather hide behind their screens. 

It is dire for our personal growth to learn and improve our social skills. Learning better social skills, and learning to speak with all types of people can help in all aspects of your life. Giving a presentation at school or going on a job interview are all important things that require social skills. 

This area of our personal development journey can easily be overlooked because everyone learns how to talk at a young age. Like I mentioned before, technology has definitely changed the way we communicate face to face in a negative way. It will only help you improve your social skills by getting out there and meeting new people, and just talking. 

Spiritual 

Spirituality and beliefs can look different person to person. When talking about being spiritual or growing spiritually for personal growth many people think, religion, but these are two different things. Learning to be more spiritual can be easily described as growing a deeper connection and understanding with the world around us. 

Meditation or yoga is something that improves one spirituality and brings us peace. Some may turn to religion and prayer to heighten their spirituality, or some may turn to nature. Whatever helps you clear your mind and find peace will ultimately help you on your personal development journey.  

Physical 

That brings us to our last area of personal development, physical development. Growing a healthy mind goes hand in hand with growing a healthy body. Once we begin improving our mindset we have to make sure we are fuling our physical bodies accordingly.

This can entail many things like exercise, changing our eating habits and getting enough sleep. This may seem brainless and second nature to most, but there is more to it. Visiting your doctor for annual an check up, implementing a good skincare regimen or  letting your body relax are all important steps to creating a healthy and strong physical self. 

To put it all into perspective, personal development is a continuous process. This is not something you will master in days, months or years. It is something you will need to commit to and continue to improve and grow throughout your life time. Focusing on the five areas of personal development will help you grow in your success.