To be happier, we need to develop personal growth skills. We need the right attitude to accelerate our growth, identify and learn the skills to be useful to the world and develop abilities to foster personal growth and foresight to develop traits for happiness. The skills that can help us excel in our work and personal life.
Skills development requires us to understand, remember, apply, and evaluate progress. This process needs to continue if we need to sharpen our skills. The world that we live in is a dynamic and fast-changing world. To keep pace with ever-changing surroundings we need to constantly sharpen skills for our personal growth.
Developing Personal Growth Skills
Personal Growth Skills – Soft Skills and Hard Skills
Personal Growth is about stretching our abilities to reach our true potential. The process involves reading/listening, reflection, and application of learning by engaging in activities that use our skills. In the process, we gain knowledge, develop our skills and improve our abilities. In the business world, many times the terms hard skills and soft skills are used.
Soft Skills
Soft Skills are the personal and interpersonal skills to communicate, manage time, solve problems, lead, and more. Soft Skills are the ones we need to focus more on for personal growth.
Hard Skills
Hard skills are task-oriented skills, like technical skills which are often measurable. These are important in life and can be very much required for work and money.
Learning is very important for personal growth.
We must realize that hard skills may become easily obsolete, whereas soft skills can last for a lifetime. Experiences in life teach us. However, to accelerate our own development, we need to pay conscious attention to learning personal development skills.
Personal Growth Skills, Ability, and Traits
We all are unique individuals. Each one of us is born with a unique combination of innate tendencies. These traits give us the ability to do some things well and some things need effort.
Skill development leads to improvement in the ability to do stuff. We need the skills for holistic personal growth, ie our physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being.
We can always pick up skills by learning and application of the skill. With practice, we improve our ability to do the things that we were not able to do earlier. Over a period of time, we may even become better at doing such things compared to someone who was born with these innate abilities.
Personal Growth Skills – What is most important to Learn?
4 Important Things to Learn for Personal Development
1. Develop an “Attitude to Learn”
An attitude of learning can have a profound effect on our ability to adapt, grow and be happy.
Some people are continuously learning. But what to learn is equally important. Acquiring knowledge but lack of application creates a split personality.
Integration of knowledge in life is needed for emotional peace, contentment, and alignment with one’s purpose in life.
“Attitude to Learn“
#1 Key for Personal Growth Acceleration
2. Develop Skills to Be Worldly-Wise
There are skills that are for specific purposes and there are some that are transferable across contexts. Unicef has identified 12 transferable skills across 4 dimensions. We can consider these as the foundational skills for learning, that help us for developing the personal growth skills that we need.
Prioritize Transferable Skills Development
| Learning To Know |
|---|
| Creativity |
| Critical thinking |
| Problem-solving |
| Transferable Skills Knowing |
| Learning To Do |
|---|
| Cooperation |
| Negotiation |
| Decision making |
| Transferable Skills Doing |
| Learning To Be |
|---|
| Management |
| Resilience |
| Communication |
| Transferable Skills Being |
| Learning To Live Together |
|---|
| Respect Diversity |
| Empathy |
| Participation |
| Transferable Skills Living |
These 12 skills can be applied to any situation, making it easier for us to adapt to new roles in life, changing environments, and challenges that we have to meet. They apply to diverse careers, industries, and all walks of life. People with good transferable skills find it easier to adapt in life. Within these skill areas, we could get into more specific skills we need in our own context to be happier.
3. Develop Abilities to be Financially WISE
4 Abilities
To Be Financially Wise
- Wealth Management
- Income Management
- Self-Growth Management
- Evolve in Happiness
8 Habits
To Be Financially Wise
- Invest in Health
- Manage Money
- Manage Lifestyle
- Invest Money
- Invest in Yourself
- Invest in Good Relationships
- Reclaim Your Time
- Share Your Wealth
4. Develop Skills for Happiness and Growth
Desire fulfillment leads to temporary happiness. For more lasting happiness, we need to develop habits that can shape our personality traits so that we are happy by default. In other words, we need to develop into a person whose nature is to be happy.
“If I rest,I rust”
Swami Chinmayananda
Although our body grows and changes, at the core of the mind, there is no aging and a sense of changelessness.
Learning to connect to the relative changeless core in us, creates the distance from the changes happening around us which helps us to figure out what we really want or need to do.
Choices improve our flexibility. An increase in flexibility gives a sense of freedom. Freedom helps us choose our life journey and improve our connection with our happy core
12 Traits to Improve Happiness and Growth
| Learning To Know |
|---|
| Sensory Awareness |
| Emotional Awareness |
| Mental Awareness |
| Happiness Traits Knowing |
| Learning To Do |
|---|
Focusing |
Concentrating |
| Persisting |
| Happiness Traits Doing |
| Learning To Be |
|---|
| Being Alert |
| Being Mindful |
| Being Open |
| Happiness Traits Being |
| Learning To Live Together |
|---|
| Self Acceptance |
| Respecting & Accepting Others |
| Letting Go |
| Happiness Traits Living |
We can not directly improve our personality traits. We need to incorporate lifestyle habits that can help us develop these traits that we need to be happier and grow to our full potential.
Personal Growth Skills – Summary
We all want to be wealthy, and wise and lead a happy life. The earlier we understand what to focus on, the more time we get to develop ourselves.
- An attitude to learn is a foremost requirement for personal growth.
- Transferable skills help us to be worldly-wise and adapt to the changing needs of society. Prioritize developing these skills for personal development and growth.
- Our investment abilities help us become financially wise. A financially wise person feels more secure and has the personal freedom to lead a happier life and focus on personal growth.
- Finally, the development of skills for growth in happiness through better self-knowledge and control of direction and time in life. These skills ultimately help one to rise to their maximum potential.
Personal Development – Some More Reading
- 20+ Personal Growth Tools For Success and Happiness
- 5 Simple Pillars of Weight Loss to Accomplish Your Goals
- Fasting for Good Health – 8 Profound Benefits for Health
- 25 Happiness Tips from Bhagavad Gita, the Manual for Life
- Ayurveda – Ancient Wisdom Useful For 21st Century Lifestyle
- Sleep Tips: 10 Simple Tips to Help You Fall Asleep Faster
- Kashmir – 8 mesmerizing days in the Switzerland of India
- Mt. Abu – 4 Days in a Mythical Hill Station of Rajasthan
- Bali – 14 Adventurous days on the Island of the Gods with breathtaking views
- 8 NLP Success Factors to Get What You Want
- Rapport for Better Communications – 10+ Techniques used in NLP
- Vipassana vs Vedanta Meditation
- Bhagavad Gita – Free Video Sessions on 18 Chapters
- 8 Simple Principles for Good Health
- Art of Happiness – 5 Challenges
- Awareness Days – 250+ Areas to Influence and Be Helpful
- Habits for Personal Growth – 7 Habits, 8th Habit
- NLP Communication Model -4 Powerful Mind Functions for Quicker Change
- Feelings and 3 Natural Paths to a Happier State
- Actual Hunger and 3 Tips to be Aware of Projected Hunger
- Why Goals are Important – 11+ ways to boost Happiness and Growth
- 10+ Useful Goal Setting Techniques