Utilising Communication Skills for Personal Development (Part 1)

Getting and Becoming

By Babatunde Oladele

Man is innately selfish in varying degrees, depending on the extent of\; hence, the focus on what I am getting as opposed to what I am giving.

should The This is an anomaly, Rohn (2005a) notes that:

What you become is far more important than what you get. The important question to ask on the job is not, “What am I getting?” Instead, you should ask, “What am I becoming?“ Getting and becoming are like Siamese twins: what you have today you have attracted by becoming the person you are today.

…. Income rarely exceeds personal development. Sometimes income takes a Iucky jump, but unless you learn to handle the responsibilities that come with it, it will usually shrink back to the amount you can handle….

It is hard to keep that which has not been obtained through personal development.

With this background on the importance of personal development as an essential requisite to enhance one’s lot in life, let us proceed to examine the inherent potentials there are in communication skills to achieve personal development; and how we as communication scholars can utilize these skills to develop ourselves and ultimately build a life worth celebrating.  The objectives of this paper therefore are:

§  The draw our attention to the sacrosanct and utilitarian nature of communication.

§  To acquaint us with the different areas of personal development there are

§  To examine how we can use communication skills to explore the various forms of personal development training to enhance ourselves.

Meanwhile, it will be apposite at this point to define some key terms that we will come across in this paper to aid our understanding.

The Importance of Self Development

Men are anxious to improve their circumstances, but are unwilling to improve themselves; they therefore remain bound. - James Allen.

The desire to become great and a celebrity is common to all human right from the time they become conscious of self. Dale Carnegie, in his best-selling classic, describes this as the “deepest urge in human nature.”

While the majority of humankind nurse this, usually unexpressed, craving to become larger than life and be revered by fellow men, only a few individuals really choose to advance beyond desiring to pay the price required to build a great life.

The price for greatness is a disciplined and sustained investment in oneself, otherwise called personal development. Jim Rohn, a renowned business philosopher and self-development guru, once quotes his former employer and mentor to have advised him thus: “if you want to be wealthy and happy... learn to work harder on yourself than on your job.” While this may sound absurd, it is good counsel. The general practice is that most people expend their time and energy the other way round; working more and often on the job - in order to earn so much - while devoting little or no attention to improving themselves.

As normal as this may look, it is a misnomer. While it is important to be dedicated to your work and put in a good shift above the average mark, it is equally essential not to neglect the regular cultivation of your mind. Every individual who has a sense of self should have a self-development programme he or she is observing to unleash his/her potential, sharpen latent skills and bring out the champion within.

Not all of us are destined for the stage. Therefore, drawing out the champion within you does not necessarily mean that you will become a maestro with millions of followers. Your own niche may be to a few dozens of people, it doesn’t make you lesser than someone with a global fan base. The important thing is to develop yourself such that you are both useful and relevant to your world.

A personal development programme is nothing complex or far-fetched. It can be as simple as following a schedule of conscious reading, listening, speaking, and/or writing, as well as putting to practice what you are learning in the process of those exercises. It is important you are aware about your objectives for embarking on these exercises so that you can be able to track the results. You should also have a schedule for what you do, rather than merely follow your whims by doing them when you feel like it.

To Your Success!

How to Maximise your Potentials (Part 5)

Some Quotes on Potentials

The will to win, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your full potential... these are the keys that will unlock the door to personal excellence. - Eddie Robinson

The potential for greatness lives within each of us. The key to achieving greatness is found when we discover and then develop our dream. - John Maxwell

Adventure isn't hanging on a rope off the side of a mountain. Adventure is an attitude that we must apply to the day to day obstacles of life - facing new challenges, seizing new opportunities, testing our resources against the unknown and in the process, discovering our own unique potential. - John Amatt

No one fulfills his purpose, develops his potential, or consistently help others without goals. Your goals determine your priorities – and your priorities determine whether you’ll reach your goals. - John Maxwell

Nothing is more effective when it comes to reaching potential than commitment to personal growth. - John Maxwell

Continuous effort – not strength or intelligence – is the key to unlocking our potential. Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965) British prime minister during WWII

I’d rather reach 90 percent of my potential with plenty of mistakes than reach only 10 percent with a perfect score. - John Maxwell

To keep moving to a higher level and reach your potential, you… have to be willing to… trade security for significance. - John Maxwell

We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives... not looking for flaws, but for potential. - Ellen Goodman

How to Maximise your Potentials (Part 4)

Means of Expressing One’s Potentials

Potentials are expressed through the following:

• Actions
• WorkOutputs
• Interactions
• Service

Avenues for Expressing One’s Potentials

• The family
• The workplace
• The society
• Business ventures
• The church, associations or other voluntary societies

How to Maximise your Potentials (Part 3)

How Can You Maximise Your Potential?

¡By setting life and project goals

¡By drawing up a roadmap to achieve the set goals

¡By always taking actions – instead of idling away or procrastinating

¡By holding yourself accountable for living out your potential

¡By adopting a steward’sattitude toward your potential, knowing that you will have to give account to God on whatever potential has been besotted to you (remember the parable of the talents in the Bible)

¡By making the most of time and opportunities, and wasting none

¡By giving of yourself whenever occasion demands

¡By getting a coach, a mentor or an accountability partner who will guide or hold you accountable to your ideals

How to Maximise your Potentials (Part 2)

How Can You Discover Your Potential?

¡By self-examination and reflection

¡By self-expression or applying yourself in various activities

¡By being adventurous, learning from trials and errors

¡Through informal interactions with families, friends, colleagues etc

¡Through divine revelation

¡By chance and unpremeditated happenings

¡During a coaching or mentoring session

How to Maximise your Potentials (Part 1)

What is Potential?

Dictionary Definitions:

Capacity to develop: the capacity or ability for future development or achievement.– Microsoft® Encarta® Dictionary

Natural abilities or qualities that may possibly develop and make someone or something very successful or useful.– Longman Dictionary

The inherent capacity for coming into being.– WordWeb Dictionary

Personal Thoughts on Potential

Potentials are the gifts, the talents, the endowments, the riches, the resources as well as the blessings inherent in a human that are yet to be expressed in his/her actions, interactions and works. Once these find expression, they cease to be called potential and then become skills and abilities.– Babatunde Oladele

The fear of not 'starting rightly' is what keeps many a great man and woman from fulfilling their potential. It is what also robs us of ideas and solutions that could have made the world a better place for you and me. I will say, start; if you fail, start again and improve yourself (and your process) along the way. The tortoise makes no progress unless it juts out its head. After all, the Bible says, "the end of a thing is better than the beginning thereof." – Babatunde Oladele

Life is a marathon, but some live it as if it's a 100metre dash; that is why you see some people with so much potential in their youth looking so ordinary in midlife. They have burned out. – Babatunde Oladele

A potential is what you can become. – Babatunde Oladele