The 4 areas of personality development
1. Physical development - health / fitness / nutrition
Especially if you have not yet dealt with the topic of personality development more intensively, in my opinion, there is no better area than this to start with active personality development. The tremendous advantage, which will help you enormously at the beginning, is the visible & thus easy to register change or progress!
For example, if you start doing more endurance sports, you can see and feel the first results of your efforts in a relatively short time (e.g. weight loss, more energy, etc.). If you start going to the gym regularly, you can literally see your muscles growing.
This visual feedback is an enormous motivational booster, especially at the beginning, and ensures that you stick to your personality development & do not throw in the towel early on.
Personality development takes place mentally, but also physically!
Another plus point of this first area of personal development is that exercise and nutrition are incredibly practical. In other words, you don't have to deal with the theory for a long time & first adapt deep, but sometimes very daring & difficult to grasp conceptual concepts in your mind.
Instead, you can be directly active here, for example, by deciding to jog for 10 minutes every day or to ban certain foods from your diet (keyword: sugar).
Even if you are already advanced in personal development, you should never neglect your body and you should not fall victim to the mistake that personality development is only something spiritual.
If you train your body, you also strengthen your mind at the same time. It has been proven that exercise reduces stress and increases satisfaction. You will acquire more and more discipline and willpower. You strengthen your self-confidence and self-esteem, both of which have an extremely positive effect on your self-confidence.
Therefore, consider physical fitness as the greatest asset that you have and as an enormously important component of your entire personality development, which you should not ignore! Illness, constant malaise or a low energy level, caused by a lack of fitness & poor nutrition, affect the psyche almost instantly and thus block any further personal development! Please never forget that.
2. Mental development - building knowledge and skills
a) Expand knowledge
This area of personal development is a little more difficult in a certain way and yet it is no less important! More difficult because motivation is particularly valuable and not always easy to find a resource here.
Maybe you know the following situation:
There is still something you want to do to educate yourself. Either read an interesting book or watch an instructive YouTube video. But suddenly the urge to "relax" overwhelms you. Half an hour later you will find yourself on the couch in front of the TV or let Netflix shower you on the iPad.
Activities that are beneficial to your mental development unfortunately also have the crux of the matter of not delivering any direct and easily visible results and progress, which is why it is only too human that one quickly loses motivation and motivation.
But the bitter truth is that new knowledge is the spiritual nourishment for your mind and thus for your personality development. Without new ways of thinking and perspectives, your mental development will stop. Your creativity dries up. New ideas are not born just like that!
They need fresh approaches that you feed your brain with over and over again. These can then be continued and thrive in ways that you often cannot even imagine at the beginning.
Incessantly expanding your wealth of knowledge by reading, watching or listening to really valuable content is a long-term investment in your personality & your life, which is absolutely guaranteed to pay out the greatest dividends in the future!
And now that you know that, or have finally made yourself really aware of it again, it is up to you to decide whether you will give in to short-term satisfaction in the future in the form of television, gaming & Co., or you regularly give in to it Take the time to invest in your mental development as well.
b) Build skills
Where would you be today without your ability to read? You would probably not ask yourself this question now.
We use this ability constantly in everyday life. To acquire knowledge, to receive information, to exchange ideas or even to dive into distant worlds. Please keep in mind for a moment what this one ability alone made possible for you in the first place.
Let's go a step further.
With the help of the comparison above, you can at least guess how valuable it is to learn new skills. Building them up in a targeted manner so that you can enrich your life with them and, in particular, achieve your goals.
There is no tool that is as important for achieving goals as our skills and competencies. You can have an impressive wealth of knowledge on a topic, but without this knowledge, there are also mature skills that are always ready to implement this knowledge in action/practice, it is almost worthless!
Charisma and active listening can add quality to your existing social interactions. The ability to make new friends has helped me a lot. The many conversations with new, incredibly interesting people alone gave me an incredible number of impressions and other perspectives.
I don't even want to think about where I would be now if I hadn't decided then to actively work on my social skills. Skills such as conscientiousness, discipline and diligence can also be learned and improved.
But that's not all. If you don't know which skill you should acquire, you just need to open the book categories on Amazon, for example, or take a look at learning platforms such as Udemy or Skillshare. They're in English and you can't do that (so well)?
Great, then you already know which skill you should work on next!
3. Emotional development - building serenity / inner calm & learning to let go
Physical development as 1 pillar of personality development
Many people (if not the vast majority) have only matured and grown-up externally, but only very few have learned to grow & mature in their inner states as well. In concrete terms: To understand your own emotions better, to interpret them more intelligently and ultimately to control them more sensibly.
Science currently assumes that emotions are a quick analysis of our body for every imaginable situation. As is often the case with a first and quick analysis, it can be imprecise or sometimes even completely wrong!
And it is precisely this, let's say, not always optimally functioning emotion system, to optimize & learn to control it better, also belongs to an important task area of personality development.
You may know people who, when angry or jealous, just aren't themselves anymore. The truth is, of course, they are still themselves! Only in this aspect of their personality development, they are simply totally unconscious & undeveloped.
The first mistake you make is identifying with the feeling you are feeling. The second mistake is accepting emotion as pure truth. Most people now use the rational part of their brain to understand and analyze the emotions that have occurred. Instead of questioning, the emotion is now justified logically and you are given full control over your own personality!
What can you take away from it?
Your emotions are not your destiny! You can actively act differently or learn to feel differently. Namely, by starting to practice decoupling yourself from your emotions and feelings (technical language: disidentify) and in particular to actively control your thoughts. Because your thoughts have a massive influence on your emotions!
For example, the next time you are in a situation where you would normally indulge in your anger, you can stay calm and "just" let go of this negative emotion. That is active personality development par excellence!
And the topic of “learning to let go” is another essential aspect of this 3rd area of personality development. This goes beyond the "mere" letting go of negative emotions (that alone can sometimes be difficult enough). It is particularly about letting go of the past and the trauma it contains, as well as letting go of fears and doubts that are related to the future.
4. Spiritual development - mindfulness & happiness
Spiritual development as the 4 pillars of personality development
Please answer the following question honestly: What else do you have to achieve/have in order to be happy? Many people would say something like: “I need more money in my account!”, “A great house in a prime location!” Or “My dream car!” Or “My dream partner!”.
But do you really need all of this?
Please don't get me wrong now. There is nothing wrong with setting high, desirable goals per se. If used and controlled correctly, ambition is a great thing that can enrich, even accelerate, your personal development!
However, there is a very, very high probability that you will find something if you achieve your dreams & goals, but at the same time hardly develop any further spiritually. Namely: the dreamed-of, limitless happiness is missing!
Because other construction sites & "problems" in life can be found very quickly. Things that bother you, that was never there before, or that you didn't even know existed.
Spiritual development means: taming your ego!
What we are talking about here is referred to in the field of personality development as the ego and the 4 area of personality development in our eyes is exactly about that.
It is the spiritual development that focuses in particular on "dissolving/controlling the ego" & increasing one's mindfulness. Increased mindfulness ensures that you can accept the present moment more for what it is. Namely as everything that is true! As life in itself. As the only thing that is actually real & valuable, as opposed to any materialistic goals or desires/desires.
If you learn to concentrate more and more on all the great things that are right now, then you disconnect/free yourself from the mindset of achieving something or having to be something in order to be truly happy & grateful.
The rejection of the present ultimately creates an unconscious way of life. This creates space for fears, worries or grief in the first place.
So please reflect briefly here: Aren't most of your worries and fears or your grief/problems tied to the future or the past? Do you think you would feel more satisfied and relaxed if you could learn to let go of these things?
I hope you have just answered this question in your mind with a resounding "YES!" And the personal development in these 4 area, the spiritual development, leads to more mindfulness & presence, which are ultimately the most effective means to "shift" your focus and thus create more space for fulfilment and serenity in your life.
The 2 biggest mistakes in personal development
Since you have read this far, I think I can believe that you have already understood that personality development is a really great tool that you can use to get the best out of yourself and your life.
But I would like to warn you in advance! There are 2 things that are related to personal development that are anything but good & valuable. You could say that these are the 2 typical mistakes that quite a few people commit who believe they are committed to personal development.
Mistake # 1: Passive Personal Development
What is more tragic than never having heard of personal development? How about new knowledge and thus the potential for change, which is never used ?!
Personality development is not like school lessons!
What has been learned has a lot of practical relevance and should be tested and actually implemented under all circumstances. Have you read How to Make Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie? Good. Then go out into the world, be positive and meet new people. Start actually making new contacts! Don't hide behind the books!
You have "Now! Die Kraft der Gegenwart ”read by Eckart Tolle? Good. But actually integrate some of it into your everyday life. For example, stick a sticker on your arm or in places that you see often (e.g. in the car) and make yourself aware of the beauty of the current moment every time it falls into your field of vision.
Remember: You don't have to change the entire world or your entire life in one fell swoop. But you have to change a little thing every day! You have to implement! Don't just read, listen or watch! Otherwise, you pursue passive instead of active personality development!
Mistake No. 2: Never be satisfied with what is
Sharpening one's eye for realism & being able to control one's ambitions is also part of personal development. It becomes really problematic, however, when personality development becomes a compulsion and is more like an addiction than healthy growth.
Some people get to know the idea of personal development, but then unconsciously take it to extremes in their minds so that they permanently feel the need to want to be perfect in every respect & to have to continuously improve in all areas of their life.
Personality development is healthy growth - not perfection!
For them, personal development does not become a helpful companion, but an enormous burden and enormous pressure. The pressure to want to be better, faster, more beautiful or richer always & everywhere!
Please get such nonsense out of your head. Remember the 4 areas of personality development and the topic of “learning to control your ego”. Know that there are certain limits to personal development and that is completely ok. You don't have to be everything and have everything! It's not about perfection, it's about growth! 0.001% better every day. That's enough!
This is how you start your personal development today!
Start personal development
We are slowly coming to the end of this very long article. What I still want to do now is to give you clear action steps that can be implemented directly (today) with which you can start your ACTIVE personal development. I think the following point has already become clear from the previous lines, but still, better again:
Start small and don't overdo it!
Small steps & changes are better than overwhelming yourself in such a way that you completely ban personal development from your life again after a stressful week because you had resolved to read 3 books that week, go jogging 4 times and every day 60 minutes to meditate!
Therefore, here are a few very specific examples/ideas that, in my opinion, offer a really nice and as promising entry into personal development as possible:
6 ideas to start with personal development:
Limit cell phone consumption:
Work on your urge to check your smartphone every 5 minutes. Life is also (and above all!) Beautiful outside of the digital world.
Eating less sugar:
I don't know if you already know: Sugar is a drug for your body and makes us unconsciously totally dependent very quickly! I am sure that you are currently consuming far more sugar than is good for your health and probably even than you are even aware of. Keyword: You won't only find sugar in sweets these days!
Learning foreign languages:
New languages not only open a gate into the big wide world, but they also contribute to your mental development. Vocabulary is the absolute basis for this! Use an app, for example, to learn new languages. For example 5 new words every day. If that's too much for you, start with just 1 vocabulary per day. No joke!
Get more punctual:
Have your friends or family members let you know dozens of times that your lack of punctuality annoys them? Great, then take this directly as a task for your personality development and work on being punctual to the minute in the future.
Get up earlier:
You are a total late riser & you won't get out of bed tomorrow without snoozing 5 times? Top. Make it a challenge to go to bed on time and get up earlier in the future.
Become more communicative / more open:
You are more of the shy/calm/introverted type, but in truth, you would want a little more self-confidence. Class. Then your challenge from today is: to address at least 1 stranger daily (or at least weekly for the beginning) and try to involve them in a short small talk.