What is Personal Development?
We cannot attempt a definition of the term Personal Development without first taking a look at the key word “development”. So what is development? Adesanoye (1995:4) citing Mabogunje, describes development as ‘a many sided process. At the level of the individual, it implies increased skill and capacity, greater freedom, creativity, self-discipline, responsibility and material well-being’.
Taking a cue
from this, we can then define personal development as a conscious, disciplined
and sustained series of investment in the self through the acquisition of
knowledge and skills, as well as applying the acquired knowledge and skills for
enhanced lifestyle.
Areas of Personal Development
The
development of the self is as composite an entity as the nature of man himself.
It consists of various interdependent forms of human, which all work together
to produce a better person when cultivated, or result in a debased existence
when ignored. These different aspects of man that need cultivation for
development are his:
§ Spiritual
state
§ Mental
state
§ Emotional
state
§ Physical
state
§ Social
status, and his
§ Profession
or vocation
Before we go
ahead to consider how communication skills can be used to develop these
different aspects of man, it will be appropriate to examine them briefly.
The
Spiritual State of Man
Man is a
tripartite being. He is mainly made up of a spirit, a soul, and a body. The
spiritual side of man has to do with the state of his spirit in relation to
God, his Maker. However, it is appropriate to state at this point that due to
my subscription to the Christian faith, all my discourse on the spiritual state
of man will be treated from the Christian perspective and the Christian scriptures,
the Holy Bible.
The
Mental State of Man
The Mental
state of man is one of the two components of his soul. The soul, which is said
to be the real man, comprises the mental faculty and the emotions. The mental
faculty involves the mind (thoughts bank) as well as the intellectual state of
man.
The
Emotional State of Man
This is the
second side of man’s soul. The emotion, according to Hargie (1997:38) has three
main components; “the direct conscious experiences or feeling of emotion, the
physiological processes that accompany emotions, and the observable behavioural
actions used to express emotion”. In simple terms, emotion comprises the
feelings and desires of man in their expressed and unexpressed form.
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