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Personal development or self-improvement consists of activities that develops a person's capabilities and potential, enhance quality of life, and facilitate the realization of dreams and aspirations. Personal development may take place over the course of an individual's entire lifespan and is not limited to one stage of a person's life. It can include official and informal actions for developing others in roles such as a teacher, guide, counselor, manager, coach, or mentor, and it is not restricted to self-help. When personal development takes place in the context of , it refers to the methods, programs, tools, techniques, and assessment systems offered to support positive adult development at the individual level in .Bob Aubrey (2010), Managing Your Aspirations: Developing Personal Enterprise in the Global Workplace. McGraw-Hill, , p. 9.
A distinction can be made between personal development and personal growth. Although similar, both concepts portray different ideas. Personal development specifies the focus of the "what" that is evolving, while personal growth entails a much more holistic view of broader concepts including morals and values being developed.
Personal development can also include developing other people's skills and personalities. This can happen through roles such as those of a teacher or mentor, either through a personal competency (such as the alleged skill of certain management in developing the potential of employees) or through a professional service (such as providing training, assessment, or coaching).
Beyond improving oneself and developing others, "personal development" labels a field of practice and research:
Any sort of development—whether economic, political, biological, organizational or personal—requires a framework if one wishes to know whether a change has actually occurred.Bob Aubrey, Measure of Man: leading human development McGraw-Hill 2016 , p. 15 In the case of personal development, an individual often functions as the primary judge of improvement or of regression, but the validation of objective improvement requires assessment using standard criteria.
Personal-Development frameworks may include:
Michel Foucault describes in Care of the Self Translated from the French Le Souci de Soi editions Gallimard 1984. Part Two of Foucault's book describes the technique of caring for the soul falling in the category of epimeleia from the Greek to the classic Roman period and on into the early stages of the age of Christianity. the techniques of epimelia used in ancient Greece and Rome, which included dieting, exercise, sexual abstinence, contemplation, prayer, and confession—some of which also became practices within different branches of Christianity.
Wushu and tai chi utilize traditional Chinese techniques, including breathing and qi exercises, meditation, martial arts, as well as practices linked to traditional Chinese medicine, such as dieting, massage, and acupuncture.
Two individual ancient philosophical traditions: those of Aristotle (Western tradition) and Confucius (Eastern tradition) stand out and contribute to the worldwide view of "personal development" in the 21st century. Elsewhere anonymous or named founders of schools of self-development appear endemic—note the traditions of the Indian sub-continent in this regard.For example: For example: For example: For example:
Paul Oliver suggests that the popularity of Indian traditions for a personal developer may lie in their relative lack of prescriptive doctrine.
In contemporary China, personal development remain a salient priority in social life, and is shaped by diverse traditions, including Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism, as well as modern influences such as communist ideas of citizenship and capitalist conceptions of human capital. Hizi, Gil. (2024) Self-Development Ethics and Politics in China Today: A keyword approach. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Young adults in particular must navigate different social roles and values as they seek to become socioeconomically competent citizens.
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Adler refused to limit psychology to analysis alone. He made the important point that aspirations focus on looking forward and do not limit themselves to unconscious drives or to childhood experiences.Heinz Ansbacher and Rowena R Ansbacher (1964), Individual Psychology of Alfred Adler, Basic Books, 1956. See especially chapter 3 on Finalism and Fiction and chapter 7 on the Style of Life. 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, as a concept that influenced management under the heading of work-life balance, also known as the equilibrium between a person's career and personal life.Lockwood, N.R. (2003). Work/life balance. Challenges and Solutions, SHRM Research, USA, 2–10.
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.Jung saw individuation as a process of psychological differentiation, having for its goal the development of the individual personality. C.G. Jung. Psychological Types. Collected Works, Vol. 6., par. 757.
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 personal life—of aspirations, which he called "the Dream":
Research on success in reaching goals, as undertaken by Albert Bandura (1925–2021), suggested that self-efficacyAlbert Bandura (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. New York: Freeman. best explains why people with the same level of knowledge and skills get very different results. Having self-efficacy leads to an increased likelihood of success. According to Bandura self-confidence functions as a powerful predictor of success because:Albert Bandura, Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control, W.H. Freeman and Company, New York, 1998, p. 184.
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)
Carl Rogers proposed a theory about humanistic psychology called Self Concept. This concept consisted of two ideas of the self. The first idea is the ideal self which describes the person we want to be. The second one is the real self which is the objective view of one self and who we really are. Rogers emphasized that healthy development is when the real self and the ideal self are accurate. Incongruence is what Rogers described to be when the real self and the ideal self are not accurate in their viewings. The ideal self is not lowered in order to compensate for the real self, but the real self is lifted by the ideal self in order to achieve healthy development.
It is important to note that real lasting personal development is only achieved through meaningful and lasting accomplishments. Viktor Frankl emphasized this by stating "Genuine and lasting well-being is the result of a "life well-lived". In an article written by Ugur, H., Constantinescu, P.M., & Stevens, M.J. (2015) they described that society has taught us to create positive illusions that give the appearance of positive development but are only effective in the short term. Additionally, they give two examples of personal development. The first is hedonic well-being which is the pursuit of pleasurable experiences that lead to increased personal happiness. The second is eudaimonic well-being which is living life by making choices that are congruent with authentic being.
In the UK, personal development took a central place in university policy in 1997 when the Dearing ReportThe Dearing Report of 1997: see the Leeds University website: http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/ncihe/ declared that universities should go beyond academic teaching to provide students with personal development. In 2001 a Quality Assessment Agency for UK universities produced guidelinesThese definitions and guidelines appear on the UK Academy of Higher Education website: for universities to enhance personal development as:
In the 1990s, began to set up specific personal-development programs for leadership and career orientation and in 1998 the European Foundation for Management Development set up the EQUIS accreditation system which specified that personal development must form part of the learning process through internships, working on team projects and going abroad for work or exchange programs.
The first personal development certification required for business school graduation originated in 2002 as a partnership between Metizo, a personal-development consulting firm, and the Euromed Management SchoolThe components of Euromed Management School's personal development programs appear on the school's website: in Marseilles: students must not only complete assignments but also demonstrate self-awareness and achievement of personal-development competencies.
As an academic department, personal development as a specific discipline is often associated with business schools. As an area of research, personal development draws on links to other academic disciplines:
Since Maslow himself believed that only a small minority of people self-actualize—he estimated one percentMaslow, A.H. (1996). Higher motivation and the new psychology. In E. Hoffman (Ed.), Future visions: The unpublished papers of Abraham Maslow. Thousands Oaks, CA: Sage, p. 89.—his hierarchy of needs had the consequence that organizations came to regard self-actualization or personal development as occurring at the top of the organizational pyramid, while openness and job security in the workplace would fulfill the needs of the mass of employees.
As organizations and labor markets became more global, responsibility for development shifted from the company to the individual. In 1999 management thinker Peter Drucker wrote in the Harvard Business Review:
Management professors Sumantra Ghoshal of the London Business School and Christopher Bartlett of the Harvard Business School wrote in 1997 that companies must manage people individually and establish a new work contract.Ghoshal, Sumantra; Bartlett, Christopher A. (1997) The Individualized Corporation: A Fundamentally New Approach to Management, HarperCollins, p. 286. On the one hand, the company must allegedly recognize that personal development creates economic value: "market performance flows not from the omnipotent wisdom of top managers but from the initiative, creativity and skills of all employees". On the other hand, employees should recognize that their work includes personal development and "embrace the invigorating force of continuous learning and personal development".
The 1997 publication of Ghoshal's and Bartlett's Individualized Corporation corresponded to a change in career development from a system of predefined paths defined by companies, to a strategy defined by the individual and matched to the needs of organizations in an open landscape of possibilities. Another contribution to the study of career development came with the recognition that women's careers show specific personal needs and different development paths from men. The 2007 study of women's careers by Sylvia Ann Hewlett Off-Ramps and On-RampsHewlett, Sylvia Ann (2007), Off-Ramps and On-Ramps, Harvard Business School Press. This book shows how women have started to change the traditional career path and how companies adapt to career/lifestyle issues for men as well as for women. had a major impact on the way companies view careers. Further work on the career as a personal development process came from study by Herminia Ibarra in her Working Identity on the relationship with career change and identity change, Ibarra discusses career-change based on a process moving from possible selves to "anchoring" a new professional identity. indicating that priorities of Employment and lifestyle continually develop through life.
Personal development programs in companies fall into two categories: the provision of and the fostering of development strategies.
Employee surveys may help organizations find out personal-development needs, preferences and problems, and they use the results to design benefits programs. Typical programs in this category include:
As an investment, personal development programs have the goal of increasing human capital or improving productivity, innovation or quality. Proponents actually see such programs not as a cost but as an investment with results linked to an organization's strategic development goals. Employees gain access to these investment-oriented programs by selection according to the value and future potential of the employee, usually defined in a talent management architecture including populations such as new hires, perceived high-potential employees, perceived key employees, sales staff, research staff and perceived future leaders. Organizations may also offer other (non-investment-oriented) programs to many or even all employees. Personal development also forms an element in management tools such as personal development planning, assessing one's level of ability using a competency grid, or getting feedback from a 360 questionnaire filled in by colleagues at different levels in the organization.
A common criticism surrounding personal development programs is that they are often treated as an arbitrary performance management tool to pay lip service to, but ultimately ignored. As such, many companies have decided to replace personal development programs with SMART Personal Development Objectives, which are regularly reviewed and updated. Personal Development Objectives help employees achieve career goals and improve overall performance.
Self-help writers have been described as working "in the area of the ideological, the imagination, the narrativized. ... although a veneer of scientism permeates their work, there is also an underlying armature of moralizing".
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