CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

This chapter is designed for young students to have a broad understanding about themselves and
their families to accept the rapid changes in the stage of adolescence, use their imaginations and
make discoveries to reach their maximum potentials. They develop their relationship with their
parents and sibling, recognize the role of each member of the family and help carry out goals set by
the family, to be able to lead a more satisfying teenage life and become a responsible member of the
family and an asset to their community.

Lesson 1: Developing a Sound Outlook in Life

Everyone has his/her own individual differences; even twins are not the same in many ways. It is
important for you to know yourselves, in order to be happy and contented with your life. You must
know your likes and dislikes, and beliefs that make you a unique individual, because if you
understand yourself it is easy for you to understand others.

Philosophy is the way we see life and the way we live life itself. It can help us decide in solving
problems and it serves as a guide in leading our life. Philosophy can either be negative or positive,
depending on the way you want to live it.

Factors to Consider in Developing a Sound Outlook in Life:

1. Customs and traditions – the habit or beliefs handed to us by our forefathers.

2. Family values – the way parents bring up their children.

3. Influence of media – the information we get from radio, television and computers, etc.

4. Socio-economic status – the economic condition of your family.

5. Physical appearance – the physical qualities of a person.

6. Religion – belief in God, a particular system of faith.

7. Education – the knowledge and ability acquired from teaching or training.

8. Success stories of other people – the inspiring stories of the achievement of others and setting
them as good example.

9. Community – the place where you live and were raised as a kid.

10. Experiences – the things that happen to you, whether good or bad.

Lesson 2: Strengths and Weaknesses

Personality is defined as an individual quality that makes a person different or act differently from
others. Our personality is made up of our physical self, intellectual self, social self and emotional self
and the combination of these four aspects is known as the ‘total self”. Your personality is also made
up of strengths and weaknesses.

Aspects of Personality

1. Intellectual self – it is the capacity of our brain to think. It includes being a fast learner, coming up
with accurate estimation and desire for facts.

2. Emotional self – it refers to our feelings, such as fears, childishness, happiness and feelings of
security and insecurity.

3. Social self – it refers to our relationship with others, like accepting peers, ability to enjoy people,
bad influence, and self-centeredness.

4. Physical self – it refers to the changes in our body.

5. Total self – it refers to our whole personality.

Your strengths are your positive qualities, such as being beautiful, talented, ability to express
yourself in the right manner and make friends with others. Your weaknesses in contrast, are your
negative traits like having dark skin, being thin, isolating yourself and having difficulty in coping
with your studies.
Dealing with your strengths and weaknesses makes you understand your self more. As you grow
older you become more aware of them and learn to make use of your potentials and capabilities to
enhance your strengths and overcome your weaknesses. In this way, you become confident and
develop a positive self-image.

ASSESSMENT TASK

1. Fill out the table below by listing down the factors that influence your beliefs in life and explain
how they affect you positively and negatively.

Factors Positive Outlook Factors Negative Outlook

1. Religion  For me that 1. Physical Sometimes I ashamed

religion may also appearance and jealous to other
make you feel better people who have
about yourself by perfect appearance on
making you feel part
their body. Sometimes
of your larger culture.
I lost my confident
For me as a christian
and they bullied me.
that being religious
have a higher self-
esteem and better
psychological
adjustment than
people who aren't.

2.Education Me as a learner, 2.Influence of media my assertion

education is big that media has
contribution in our a negative impact on
society. It helps me
people's lives
gain knowledge and
because it causes a
skills so that someday
dissatisfaction with
or later I’ll be able
body image, creates
to function in society.
addiction, and can
 Students need to be destroy
provided with the interpersonal
necessary skills so relationships.
that they can learn to
become productive
citizens.

3 Experiences having experiences in 3.Customs and In this generation that

life you feel good, traditions most of us we slowly
satisfied, engaged, forget where we came
invigorated, inspired.
from, and we
sometimes I blamed
discriminate our own
my for why did I enter
tribes, we are
this situation that can
gradually destroying
harm me or can risk in
myself then I realize
our own resources,

that our life will goes

by and its just a
lesson to adopt in a
better living.
We have own values
that we learned in our
4Family values 4.Community In the community we
parents like being
honest and trustworthy, have toxic people,
Being courageous.
Never giving up on trials,
corrupt leaders, etc.
Being patient and
Taking personal
responsibility.

5.Success stories of One of my inspiration 5.Experiences Sometimes we

other people that she took hardly to experience failure to
achieve her dreams achieve our goals like
which is my ”Ate”. you got fired in your
she has a brave job, and etc. It because
personality and a of our attitude to think
bright mindset that everything is negative
 you really can say that to happen.
any problems has a
solution. And now she
enjoy for being police.

2. Which of the factors you listed above greatly influenced you? In what way?
- the Education because education  equips learners of all ages with the skills and values
needed to be responsible citizens, such as respect for human rights, gender equality
and environmental sustainability.

3. State your strengths and weaknesses

Aspects of Personality Strengths Weaknesses

1. Physical Strong, handsome, and tall Exercise, acne pimples and

eating unhealthy foods,

2. Intellectual Strategic in life and creative Logical thinking

thingker

3. Emotional Excitement, craving, calmness, Anxiety,boredom,confusion,

fear

4. Social Making friends, helping Chatting with strangers, speech

people, sharing my idea on one infront of audience
person

5. Total Being I can achieve my goals in life Missing my love ones

4. Which of your weaknesses would you like to improve? Explain.

speech or preaching in front of the people because there’s a time I tried to share the words in our
church and I sudden out of my self (mental block), I don’t know what I;m saying and it was
embarrased and walk out on the stage. And I hope the lord give me strength to have a confidence to
speech better next time.

Read more!!!
Definition
of Personal
Identity

Personal identity is the concept you develop about yourself that evolves over the course of your life.
This may include aspects of your life that you have no control over, such as where you grew up or
the color of your skin, as well as choices you make in life, such as how you spend your time and
what you believe. You demonstrate portions of your personal identity outwardly through what you
wear and how you interact with other people. You may also keep some elements of your personal
identity to yourself, even when these parts of yourself are very important.

Have you ever struggled with the question, 'Who am I?' or thought about who you might become in
the future? These questions have been thought about and discussed throughout history, in particular
by philosophers who have immersed themselves in the search for knowledge about the nature of
being human. Such questions as, 'What does it mean to be a person?' and 'Do I matter?' have engaged
key thinkers and created conversations that we still grapple with in our society. Most people feel they
want to endure in some way, both in their lives and beyond death. The philosophy of personal
identity aims to address these matters of existence and how we even know we exist through time.

The Philosophy of Personal Identity

How do you know you are the same person you were as a child? Is it because you remember yourself
growing within the same body you have now? Or is it because you perceive that you have the same
mind? What criteria can be used to confirm you are, in fact, a 'person'?

When you ask yourself how you know you are the same person you were as a baby, this is a question
of persistence. In this context, persistence means our existence across time and how we can prove it.
In other words, we perceive that our self 'persists' through our life as the same human being, but how
do we know for sure? The philosophers Plato and René Descartes, as well as many religions, have
proposed that we persist because we have a soul, a timeless essence that continues in some form even
after the death of our living, breathing human body.

Descartes, in particular, aimed to provide a scientifically-oriented argument for this enduring inner
self. He used rational arguments and examples to demonstrate that the mind and body are distinct. He
promoted the view that the mind can exist and persist without the body. This distinction between a
person's mind and body is known as mind-body dualism and has been an influential and powerful
theory in our society. Here's an illustration of mind and body dualism by Descartes:

Even today, you may often hear the phrase, 'body and soul'. This way of thinking has evolved from
the ideas of religious traditions as well as philosophical ways of viewing our personal identity.

Development of Personal Identity

Personal identity develops over time and can evolve, sometimes drastically, depending on what
directions we take in our life. For instance, a person who at 25 identifies himself as part of a
particular political party, of a particular faith, and who sees himself as upper-middle class, might
discover that at 65, he's a very different person. Perhaps he's no longer interested in politics, he's
changed his religion, and he's living on less money than when he was 25. Any variation is possible
during a person's life span.

Children developing their sense of self may experiment with different ways of expressing personal
identity. This can include various ways of dressing or wearing their hair, and it will also include a
variety of ways of behaving and thinking. They might find that some ways of expressing themselves
work well and feel right, while others do not last. Throughout life, we have a sense of who we are
that continually changes.
Personal development

Personal development consists of activities that develop a person's capabilities and

potential, build human capital, facilitate employability, and enhance quality of life and the
realization of dreams and aspirations.[1] Personal development may take place over the
course of an individual's entire lifespan. It is not limited to self-help, but can involve formal
and informal activities for developing others in roles such as those
of teacher, guide, counselor, manager, coach, or mentor. When personal development
takes place in the context of institutions, it refers to the methods, programs, tools,
techniques, and assessment systems offered to support positive adult development at the
individual level in organizations.

Among other things, personal development may include the following activities:

 Improving self-awareness
 Improving self-knowledge
 Improving skills and/or learning new ones
 Building or renewing identity/self-esteem
 Developing strengths or talents
 Improving a career
 Identifying or improving potential
 Building employability or (alternatively) human capital
 Enhancing lifestyle and/or the quality of life and time-management
 Improving health
 Improving wealth or social status
 Fulfilling aspirations
 Initiating a life enterprise
 Defining and executing personal development plans (PDPs)
 Improving social relations or emotional intelligence
 Spiritual identity development and recognition
Personal development can also include developing other people's skills and personality.

Personal-development frameworks may include:

 Goals or benchmarks that define the end-points

 Strategies or plans for reaching goals
 Measurement and assessment of progress, levels or stages that define milestones
along a development path
 A feedback system to provide information on changes

Psychology became linked to personal development in the early 20th century starting

with Alfred Adler (1870–1937) and Carl Jung (1875–1961).

Adler refused to limit psychology to analysis, making the important point that aspirations
look forward and do not limit themselves to unconscious drives or to childhood
experiences. He also originated the concepts of lifestyle (1929—he defined "lifestyle" as an
individual's characteristic approach to life, in facing problems) and of self-image, a concept
that influenced management under the heading of work-life balance.

Carl Gustav Jung made contributions to personal development with his concept
of individuation, which he saw as the drive of the individual to achieve the wholeness and
balance of the Self.

Daniel Levinson (1920–1994) developed Jung's early concept of "life stages" and included
a sociological perspective. Levinson proposed that personal development comes under the
influence—throughout life—of aspirations, which he called "the Dream":

Whatever the nature of his Dream, a young man has the developmental task of giving it
greater definition and finding ways to live it out. It makes a great difference in his growth
whether his initial life structure is consonant with and infused by the Dream, or opposed to
it. If the Dream remains unconnected to his life it may simply die, and with it his sense of
aliveness and purpose.

Research on success in reaching goals, as undertaken by Albert Bandura (born 1925),

suggested that self-efficacy best explains why people with the same level of knowledge and
skills get very different results. According to Bandura self-confidence functions as a
powerful predictor of success because:
 1. It makes you expect to succeed
2. It allows you take risks and set challenging goals
3. It helps you keep trying if at first you don't succeed
4. It helps you control emotions and fears when the going gets rough

In 1998 Martin Seligman won election to a one-year term as President of the American

Psychological Association and proposed a new focus: on healthy individuals rather than on
pathology (he created the "positive psychology" current)

We have discovered that there is a set of human strengths that are the most likely buffers
against mental illness: courage, optimism, interpersonal skill, work ethic, hope, honesty and
perseverance. Much of the task of prevention will be to create a science of human strength
whose mission will be to foster these virtues in young people.

During the 1960s a large increase in the number of students on American campuses led to
research on the personal development needs of undergraduate students. Arthur
Chickering defined seven vectors of personal development for young adults during their
undergraduate years:

1. Developing competence

2. Managing emotions

3. Achieving autonomy and interdependence

4. Developing mature interpersonal relationships

5. Establishing personal identity

6. Developing purpose
7. Developing integrity

Research Work