What is Personal Growth?
Personal growth refers to ongoing efforts to improve ourselves on various dimensions – mental, emotional, physical, social, moral, financial, spiritual and so on.
Personal growth, when it works, leads to fulfillment and happiness.
Hopefully that is the aim of most people when they have gone through a bit of life.
Not money, success, fame, but fulfillment and happiness.
It is possible to spend a lot of time, energy and money reading self-help books, following gurus, or being coached. If it achieves the aim, that’s great. But quite often the results are mixed because of one reason.
There is no quick and easy path to personal growth.
Personal growth is achieved through the development of life skills, skills necessary for successfully living a productive and fulfilling life.
What are life skills?
According to Wikipedia,
Life skills are abilities for adaptive and positive behavior that enable humans to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of life.
This is also termed as psychosocial competency. The subject varies greatly depending on social norms and community expectations, but skills that function for well-being and aid individuals to develop into active and productive members of their communities are considered as life skills.
The UNICEF Evaluation Office suggests that “there is no definitive list” of life skills. Since it changes its meaning from culture to culture and life positions, it is considered a concept that is elastic in nature. Life skills can vary from financial literacy, through substance-abuse prevention, to therapeutic techniques to deal with disabilities.
WHO Study on Life Skills
The United Nations Inter-Agency Meeting held at World Health Organization headquarters in Geneva on 6-7 April 1998 went into this in detail and its paper is quite interesting to read. A few relevant aspects below.
The reasons why life skills are taught varies:
- Prevention of HIV/AIDS (Zimbabwe, Thailand)
- Prevention of adolescent pregnancy (Mexico)
- Child abuse prevention (United Kingdom)
- Prevention of substance abuse and violence (United States).
Five basic areas of life skills that are relevant across cultures:
- decision-making and problem-solving;
- creative thinking and critical thinking;
- communication and interpersonal skills;
- self-awareness and empathy;
- coping with emotions and coping with stress.
Words and phrases associated with life skills
dealing with conflict that cannot be resolved, dealing with authority, solving problems, making and keeping friends/relationships, cooperation, self-awareness, creative thinking, decision-making, critical thinking,dealing with stress, negotiation, clarification of values, resisting pressure, coping with disappointment, planning ahead, empathy, dealing with emotions, assertiveness, active listening, respect, tolerance, trust, sharing, sympathy, compassion, sociability, self-esteem
It went to distinguish the list above between desirable qualities and life skills. This is quite an important distinction.
Skills are abilities. Hence it should be possible to practise life skills as abilities.
Self-esteem, sociability and tolerance are not taught as abilities:
rather, learning such qualities is facilitated by learning and practising life skills, such as self-awareness, problem-solving, critical thinking, and interpersonal skills.
I always find it useful to understand the meaning of words as quite often the way we use them isn’t always what they mean.
Concept is “an abstract idea.“
Quality or Attribute is an “a distinctive attribute or characteristic possessed by someone or something.“
Skill is “the ability to do something well; expertise.”
Let’s understand this distinction with a few examples.
Example 1: Time is a concept, ‘Being Organized‘ so that you know what to complete and when is a quality, Time Management is a skill.
Example 2: Wealth is a concept, Financial Independence is a quality, Building Assets that Create Wealth is a skill.
Example 3: Mindfulness is a concept, Being Present is a quality, Meditation is a skill.
Read More Like This
Recent Articles