PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

QUARTER 1
Knowing And Understanding Oneself
During Middle And Late Adolescence
SELF-CONCEPT

Your ideal self is the self that you aspire to

be. It is the one that you hope will possess
characteristics similar to that of a mentor or
some other worldly figure.
Your actual self, however, is the
one that you actually see. It is the
self that has characteristics that
you were nurtured or, in some
cases, born to have.
Self-concept refers to your awareness of
yourself. It is the construct that negotiates
these two selves. In other words, it connotes
first the identification of the ideal self as
separate from others, and second, it
encompasses all the behaviors evaluated in the
actual self that you engage in to reach the ideal
self.
 The actual self is built on self-knowledge.
Self-knowledge is derived from social
interactions that provide insight into how
others react to you. The actual self is who we
actually are. It is how we think, how we feel, look,
and act. The actual self can be seen by others,
but because we have no way of truly knowing
how others view us, the actual self is our self-
image.
 The ideal self, on the other hand, is how
we want to be. It is an idealized image that we
have developed over time, based on what we
have learned and experienced. The ideal self
could include components of what our parents
have taught us, what we admire in others,
what our society promotes, and what we think
is in our best interest.
 There is negotiation that exists between the two selves
which is complex because there are numerous exchanges between
the ideal and actual self. These exchanges are exemplified in social
roles that are adjusted and re-adjusted, and are derived from
outcomes of social interactions from infant to adult development.
Alignment is important. If the way that I am (the actual self) is
aligned with the way that I want to be (the ideal self), then I will feel a
sense of mental well-being or peace of mind. If the way that I am is
not aligned with how I want to be, the incongruence, or lack of
alignment, will result in mental distress or anxiety. The greater the
level of incongruence between the ideal self and real self, the greater
the level of resulting distress. Personal development modules ultimate
aim is greater self-knowledge that will lead to higher alignment
between these two personality domains.
PERSONAL EFFECTIVENESS
Personal effectiveness means making use of all the personal
resources – talents, skills, energy and time, to enable you to achieve
life goals.
Your knowledge of yourself and how you manage yourself impacts
directly on your personal effectiveness. Being self-aware, making the
most of your strengths, learning new skills and techniques and
behavioral flexibility are all keys to improving your personal
performance.
Our personal effectiveness depends on our innate characteristics – talent and
experience accumulated in the process of personal development. Talents first are
needed to be identified and then developed to be used in a particular subject area
(science, literature, sports, politics, etc.).
Experience includes knowledge and skills that we acquire in the process of
cognitive and practical activities.
Knowledge is required for setting goals, defining an
action plan to achieve them and risk assessment.
Skills also determine whether real actions are
performed in accordance with the plan. If the same
ability is used many times in the same situation, then
it becomes a habit that runs automatically,
subconsciously. Here are some skills that will greatly
increase the efficiency of any person who owns
them:
1. Determination. It allows you to focus only on
achieving a specific goal without being distracted
by less important things or spontaneous desires.
It may be developed with the help of self-
discipline exercise.
2. Self-confidence. It appears in the process of
personal development, as a result of getting aware of
yourself, your actions and their consequences. Self-
confidence is manifested in speech, appearance,
dressing, gait, and physical condition. To develop it,
you need to learn yourself and your capabilities, gain
positive attitude and believe that by performing right
actions and achieving right goals you will certainly
reach success.
3. Persistence. It makes you keep moving forward
regardless of emerging obstacles – problems,
laziness, bad emotional state, etc. It reduces the costs
of overcoming obstacles. It can also be developed
with the help of self-discipline exercise.
4. Managing stress. It helps combat stress
that arises in daily life from the environment
and other people. Stress arises from the
uncertainty in an unknown situation when a
lack of information creates the risk of
negative consequences of your actions. It
increases efficiency in the actively changing
environment.
5. Problem-solving skills. They help cope
with the problems encountered with a lack of
experience. It increases efficiency by
adopting new ways of achieving goals when
obtaining a new experience.
6. Creativity. It allows you to find extraordinary
ways to carry out a specific action that no one
has tried to use. It can lead to a decrease or an
increase of costs, but usually the speed of action
is greatly increased when using creative tools.
7. Generating ideas. It helps you achieve goals using
new, original, unconventional ideas. Idea is a mental
image of an object formed by the human mind, which
can be changed before being implemented in the real
world. For generating ideas you can use a method of
mental maps, which allows you to materialize, visualize
and scrutinize all your ideas, which in turn contributes
to the emergence of new ideas. These are just some,
but the most important personal effectiveness skills
which make the achievement of any goal easier and
less costly.