PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

KNOWING ONESELF
The first step in personal development is to know yourself

Self – how you define by yourself

- A person’s source of consciousness

- Intangible entity that directs a person’s thoughts and actions
- The essence of a person’s thoughts, feelings, actions, experiences, beliefs, values, principles, and
relationship

THE CONCEPT OF “SELF”

 Self-concept – personality traits, social identity, physical character

 Self-complexity – difficult, those people who have richer struggles in life
 Self-esteem – confidence, motivation to do things
 Self-concept as a product of social relationship – people have different perspectives of you
 Self-awareness – you are aware of yourself, bad or good

PHILOSOPHERS ON “SELF”

1. Socrates – the most important thing to pursue was self-knowledge and admitting one’s ignorance is the
beginning of true knowledge
2. Plato – the beginning of knowledge is self-knowledge

Luft and Ingham – a person can use the Johari window to improve the self by widening the open area and
reducing the hidden and blind area

- Open area is where you and others are aware of your traits
- Blind area is where others are aware of your behavior or mannerisms but you are not
- Hidden area is where your behaviors or traits are only known to you
- Unknown area are the things you are yet to discover

Self-disclosure and sharing – sharing a part of yourself

Establishing trust – communicating based on trust; communication with trust

ASKING FOR FEEDBACK AND GIVING FEEDBACK

Euphemism – involves the use of pleasant or indirect language to conceal an unpleasant truth or harsh reality

- Avoids embarrassing or hurting others

SWOT analysis – identifying factors internally and externally

 Strengths – a person’s positive traits

 Weaknesses – negative characteristics or limitations
 Opportunities – chances, occasions, or prospects present in one’s environment that are external to the
person
 Threats – anything that hinders a person from pursuing goals or satisfying your needs

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT IN ADOLESCENCE:

Adolescence - the transition period between childhood and early adulthood

- Believed to be between ages 11 or 12 and lasts up to 18 years of age

- Starts with the biological change called puberty

Early adolescence – between 10-13

Middle adolescence – between 14-16

Late adolescence – between 17-20

Personality – the essence of who we are

 The embodiment of one’s physical, psychological, cognitive, affective, and spiritual self
 Set of behaviors, feelings thought, and motives that identifies an individual
 The unique and relatively enduring sets of behaviors, feelings thought, and motives that characterizes
an individual
 Pattern of habits, attitudes, and traits that determines an individual’s character
 NATURE + NURTURE = PERSONALITY
o Nature – genetic or hereditary make up
o Nurture – environment
o Complex combination of genes, environmental exposure, experiences, and cultural backgrounds
 Personality traits – reflects on people’s characteristic patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behavior
  Five-Factor Model by Costa and McRae (1992)

Measuring personality: a) observing people’s behavior; b) different kinds of behavior

Rorschach Inkblot Test – employed in diagnosing underlying thought behaviors and differentiating
psychotic from non-psychotic thinking

Keirsey Temperament Sorter – widely used personality instrument in the world; a powerful 70-question
personality instrument that discovers their personality type

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) – 16 types of combinations of personality

1. Extroversion (E) or Introversion (I) – how a person channels their energy when dealing with others,
inwards or outwards
2. Sensing (S) or Intuition (N) – how one prefers to process information through senses or intuitively
3. Thinking (T) or Feeling (F) – how a person prefers to make decisions, logical analysis or cognitive
senses
4. Judgement (J) or Perception (P) – how a person prefers to manage life, planned or flexible

DEVELOPMENT STAGES IN MIDDLE & LATE ADOLESCENCE

Erikson’s Stages of Personality Development

- Highly influenced by Sigmund Freud

o An Id psychologist (operates on the pleasure principle)

Erik Erikson – an ego psychologist

- His theory on psychosocial development has 8 distinct stages

- Each stage is defined with a crisis or conflict,
- Stages are borderless and flowing

Epigenic principle:

 Personality develops in a predetermined order and builds up each stage

 Successful completion of each stage results in a healthy personality and acquisition of basic virtues
o Basic virtues – characteristic strengths which the ego can to resolve crises
 Failure to successfully complete a stage can result in a reduced ability to complete further stages, a
unhealthier personality and sense of self

Stage Psychosocial Crisis Basic Virtue Age

1 Trust vs Mistrust Hope Infancy
2 Autonomy vs Shame Will Early Childhood (1 ½ to 3)
3 Initiative vs Guilt Purpose Play Age (3 to 5)
4 Industry vs Inferiority Competency School Age (5 to 12)
5 Ego/Identity/Role vs Confusion Fidelity Adolescence (12 to 18)
6 Intimacy vs Isolation Love Young Adult (18 to 40)
7 Generativity vs Stagnation Care Adulthood (40 to 65)
8 Ego Integrity vs Despair Wisdom Maturity (65+)

Stage 01: trust vs mistrust

- Infancy stage
- Occurs during the first year or so of life (birth to 18 months)
- The infant is uncertain about the world which they live in. To resolve these feelings of uncertainty the
infant looks towards their primary caregiver for stability and consistency of care
- Influential Figure: Mother

Stage 02: autonomy vs shame and doubt

 - Early childhood
- Occurs between the ages of 18 months to 3y.o.
- Children begin to assert their independence
- IF: Parent

Stage 03: initiative vs guilt

- Late childhood or preschool

- Around the age of 3 to 5
- The child regularly interacts with other children
- Central to this stage is play
o Provides children with the opportunity to explore their interpersonal skills
- IF: parents and teachers

Stage 04: industry vs inferiority

- School age
- Children will learn how to read and write, to do sums, and to things on their own
- The child’s peer group will gain greater significance, major source of child’s self esteem
- IF: Parents and teachers

Stage 05: identity vs role confusion

- Adolescence stage
- Children are becoming more independent
- The individual wants to belong to a society to fit in
- The child has to learn the roles he will occupy as an adult
Stage 06: intimacy vs isolation

- Young adulthood
- We begin to share ourselves more intimately with others
- Explore relationships leading towards longer term commitments with someone

Stage 07: generativity vs stagnation

- Middle adulthood
- Develops a sense of being part of the bigger picture (establish careers, settle down with a relationship,
etc)
- We give back to the society through raising children

Stage 08: integrity vs despair

- Maturity
- We tend to slow down our productivity, and explore life a retired person
- We contemplate our accomplishments and are able to develop integrity