Introduction

“Some people are more talented than others. Some are more educationally-privileged than others. But we all have the capacity to be great. Greatness comes with recognizing that your potential is limited only by how you choose, how you use your freedom, how resolute you are, in short, by your attitude. And we are all free to choose our attitude.”

– Peter Koestenbaum

We all want the same things: We all want to be happy, to have security at various levels, health, wealth, and to live without much struggle and pain. We simply all want to be successful and to have become something in the end, to have made our lives count.

Becoming problem-solvers

We need to become problem-solvers. From the minute we are born until the day we die, we all face problem after problem. As infants, we are totally dependent on our parents for food, shelter, love, and all the rest of life’s needs. Consciousness of self continues to develop throughout childhood, adolescence, and hopefully adulthood. I say ‘hopefully’ because this is not always the case. Most parents desire their children to enjoy the unblemished childhood that they never had – but this dream rarely comes true.

Sadly, the unresolved problems of the parents continue as they are passed on to their offspring, generation after generation. Low levels of awareness cause all kinds of unnecessary suffering, but we survive and become unique individuals: We plot our way in this world to make life significant for ourselves, and hopefully for others, until we become old and return back to a state of total dependence. Throughout this entire process of growth, it is our level of awareness that enables us to overcome destructive beliefs, bad habits, and anything that prevents us from fulfilling our human potential. Our awareness is a direct result of our personal development. Our level of personal growth will make all the difference in our world regarding the quality of life we enjoy, the level of success we achieve, the love we experience, the purpose and meaning we find, and even our salvation. The need for personal development has never been greater for our success, no matter how you define it.

The three core characteristics that separate humans from the rest of creation are consciousness, creativity, and choice.

Consciousness – This means believing that you, and only you, know your true wants, needs, and desires, and that only you can make the right choice; that you have a ‘conscience’. Through engaging in the process of seeking, searching, defining, and answering life’s questions, you can gain tremendous clarity, confidence, and the ability to be extremely effective as a human being.

Creativity – This is the ability to create, design, and change. By engaging in The Life Goals Planner’s⁴ processes and personal development, one can create new habits and bring about almost anything that they desire, and achieve their goals.

Choice – This is humans’ amazing ability to make new choices to bring about different results. In other words, that we are not a product of our past but a product of our choices, that past experiences many have an effect, and that while we can not necessarily control our emotions, we can control our responses to them, and that we make new decisions to move us rapidly toward our goals.

Human beings are blessed with this wonderful gift of free will. The ability to choose separates us from all other creatures and gives us the incredible opportunity to change any, or all, aspects of our lives. It is simply a matter of choice: Simple, but not always easy, especially if you are not even aware of a specific problem, belief, or attitude that needs to be changed. All most of us know is that we want something more, different, or better – the basic drives of the human being.

Developing on the inside

In Freud’s view, our drive is for pleasure, while Alder says our drive is for power, and Frankl that our drive is for purpose. In the developed nations, it seems the drive for purpose is leading the way. David K. Reynolds, in his book Water Bears no Scars, points out that:

“We live in an era of leisure, that technologically-advanced countries or developed nations live with a freedom from life-threatening insecurity like never before in human history. Without the purpose of the struggle for everyday survival, we find an increasing number of people drifting into lethargy, drugs, and suicide.”⁵

We have become highly developed on the outside, and now it’s time to become highly developed on the inside: Personally, professionally, and throughout all of our relationships, growing to new levels of awareness is the key to resolving our problems and achieving success. I believe it is key for our personal health and the health of our organizations, and the world, itself.

It is my belief that the sole purpose of mankind is to simply grow, develop, and fulfill our human potential: To be a little better at life tomorrow than you were yesterday because now you have learned and gained experience that can point you in new directions. The key is to consciously act toward goals that will cause you to grow. From the day you are born to the day you die, all this universe asks of you is that you grow. We start off growing physically, maturing and growing emotionally, and then we develop mentally and possibly end growing spiritually. It is not important that you live up to anyone’s definition of success or what you ought to be or should do, but to grow from one stage to another, consciously becoming more aware, healthy, and whole, all while trying to become the most that you can be. To “become the most that you can be” is our ultimate purpose, which is best achieved through our personal development.

M. Scott Peck has a wonderful understanding of this phrase “become the most you can be”. In his book, A World Waiting to be Born, he describes physical health as a process:

“Some part of us is always in the process of healing. Consequently, the condition of health is not a static state of perfect wellness, it is among other things a condition of ongoing healing. Physicians are increasingly coming to think that most disease may best be defined as a failure of the healing process.”

He says this is crucial because the principle applies not only to our physical health, but also to our mental health, the health of our institutions, and that of our organizations. He continues:

“Health is an ongoing process of becoming the most that we can be. The words ‘health’ and ‘healing’ come from the same Anglo-Saxon root, to be ‘whole’ or ‘holy’. Becoming the most that we can be is also the definition of ‘salvation’. The term literately means healing as we apply a salve to the skin to heal it, just as we can learn to apply the principles of mental health to our lives to heal, to make us whole, to save our souls.”⁶

The need for heightened awareness, growth, and development are crucial for your health physically, mentally, and emotionally through your success as an individual and our collective salvation as a species. To become the most that you can be – or to fulfill your human potential – is a definition of personal development.

Defining personal development

Since I have never really come across a definition of ‘personal development’, I would like create one to describe the perspective I am coming from.

I recall a friend asking me once what personal development was. Without too much thought, I recall summarizing what it meant to me after reading hundreds of books and thousands of dollars spent on seminars and workshops. I concluded that personal development was the study of one’s self, becoming aware of one’s strengths, weaknesses, insecurities, and false beliefs, to ultimately growing to new levels of awareness and understanding.

I remember saying, “Life rewards you for the problems you solve,” a quote I had on my fridge to remind me of what I needed to do when things weren’t working out quite right. At that time, I believed solving the issues in my life would reward me with the health, happiness, and income I desired – and it was true. Personal development means all of that, and more. Because the words together – ‘personal development’ – don’t have a formal definition, let’s start by combining some definitions to see what we come up with. I will use Webster’s New Illustrated Dictionary for the following:

Develop: to expand or bring out the potentialities or capabilities; to cause to come to completeness or perfection

Development: gradual evolution or completion; the result of gradual evolution or completion

Personal: pertaining to or characteristic of a particular person

Person: a human being including body and mind

Conscious: immediately aware of; mentally recognizing, to some degree and extent, one’s own inner feeling or thought, or their objective reference

Consciousness: the state of being conscious, sensation, knowledge; the power of self-knowledge, internal perception

Conscience: moral consciousness in general: the activity or faculty by which distinctions are made between right and wrong

Aware: possessing knowledge of some fact or action; conscious; cognizant

Combining some of the key parts of these definitions, we may get something like this:

The gradual evolution or growth of a particular individual or organization to bring out their potentialities or capabilities, making them more aware of their own inner feelings or thoughts.

Personal development is definitely the gradual process of expanding one’s potential and capabilities. It is also the process of becoming a more fully-aware and -conscious human being. This is certainly a good definition, but personal development is still more than that…

Personal development is about being sensitive, attentive, and aware of your own feelings, attitudes, behaviors, and working on them: Working through them to grow to new levels of awareness and understanding. It’s about becoming more conscious and being able to relate better to one’s self and others. It’s about being proactive and overcoming faults, weaknesses, and insecurities, which is the second point in the definition of ‘develop’.

Personal development is noticing the subtleties that make life work well and those that don’t. It’s about fulfilling our human potential, creating new realities from our mind, and experiencing new experiences with all our senses. Personal development is not something that you gain from formal education, though the process of gathering knowledge is fundamental to growth. Personal development is about the maturing and development of our mind. The Dalai Lama clearly expresses in the book, The Art of Happiness, that training and development of the mind is crucial to happiness. Add all of this up and personal development may finally be defined as:

The deliberate growth or development of a particular individual or organization to bring out their potential and capabilities, making them more aware of their inner feelings and belief systems to become a more conscious, whole, or healthy human being.

What personal development looks like

We will begin with that definition for now and see what we end up with as we look at how personal development applies to various areas of life.

So what does one do for personal development? What does it look like?

I have often wondered what it really means to engage in personal development. I ask people if they are into personal development, of which almost all respond, “Yes.” I then ask what they are doing, of which some look at me with a blank stare, while some will tell me of books they are reading, or classes or workshops they attended. But what I have found most interesting is that most people – a very high percent – do not seem to be making much progress with their lives, at all. Year after year, they struggle with the same issues, get beat up by the same problems, and carry the same burdens and dissatisfactions.

Now, allow me to ask you a few questions:

1. How much have you really grown over the last year or two?

2. How would you know, or how can you check, if you have grown?

3. Are you fulfilling your potential in your job, in your relationships, and in your life?

4. Is it important to you to become the best you can be?

Or how about some straight-forward questions? These are questions that are answered with numbers – things you can actually record and quantify:

1. How many classes have you taken in the last year or two?

2. How many books have you read? (Some fiction is very valuable, but I mostly mean non-fiction.)

3. What does your résumé look like? What can you actually write down that could count as personal or professional development?

Now, to ask questions that cannot be quantified but answered with an honest ‘yes’ or ‘no’:

1. Are you more successful in your job?

2. Are you more successful as a parent, spouse, daughter, son, or friend?

3. Do you have the same personal problems you had 1, 3, or 5 years ago?

4. Are you more successful in your ability to relate to others?

5. Do you find yourself reacting to someone’s words or actions like you did when you were a child?

6. Do you find yourself held back by some fear or false belief, or prevented from moving forward in life?

Now, let me ask you some questions that I feel are the ultimate result of personal development as we have defined it. These questions can be difficult to answer and may take some careful introspection:

1. Do you have a greater understanding of yourself, your strengths, your weaknesses, and your character issues that affect your overall health and well-being?

2. Do you have a greater understanding of others, more appreciation of their differences, and respect for them as individuals?

3. Do you have more courage to face life’s challenges, live by your values, and pursue your goals?

4. Are you a more honest person?

5. Are you a more aware and conscious human being?

Ultimately, having a positive answer to all of the above questions is the result of personal development, according to my definition. Being a healthier human being is what we all strive for, one way or another: Consciously or unconsciously, we are all moving away from pain and toward pleasure.

It is time now for us to be more consciously aware of our growth and strive to become the most that we can be – not better than someone else, but the most that we personally can be by fulfilling our human potential and contributing our uniqueness to making this world a better place.

The following chapters will conclude with an application to help us in this process of growth, which will be summarized in the last chapter to make for a good personal development plan to move us forward with confidence and courage in this journey of life.