Self-Improvement & Personal-Development
As
an author and professional speaker, I often refer to two seemingly like
concepts; self-improvement and personal-development. If you every hear me speak, initially, you
may ask yourself; isn’t self-improvement and personal-development the same
thing? Somewhat but there is a
difference. Both are important, and both
are necessary for personal growth. Here
is the difference between the two.

Self-Improvement
Self-improvement
is all about ending negative behaviors.
It is discontinuing destructive activities and habits; putting an end to
those activities that we know are bad for us.
More importantly, we substitute those negative habits with constructive
and positive activities and habits.
Self-improvement activities are geared to improving one's knowledge,
status and character. These efforts can
be aimed at improving any part of your life.
Self-improvement addresses areas that align with a healthy state of mind
and body. You self-improve in one area
of your life, and you move on. You can
self-improve in one of The Seven Life Areas: Mind, Body, Spirit, Leisure,
Relationships, Profession & Finances.
But, when you address and correct one life area, the benefit is that
usually, other life areas benefit as well.
Personal-Development
Personal-development,
on the other hand, is about learning, growing and further developing as a
person. Personal-development efforts are
activities that expand awareness and identity; develop talents and potential;
they build human capital and facilitate employability. These are activities that enhance quality of
life and contribute to the realization of dreams and aspirations. The two, self-improvement and
personal-development work together; each performing their respective
roles. As previously stated, self-improvement
addresses areas that align with a healthy state of mind and body. Once all life areas are in a healthy state,
personal-development provides a stronger foundation to build upon—you further
develop, taking your life to the next level.
Personal-development takes place over the course of a person's entire
life and involves both formal and informal activities.
By
formal, I am referring to the things that we learn at home, in our communities,
in school, from society, and in our religious practice. By informal, I am referring to the things
that we learn when we open our minds, explore, drop our defenses and look
beyond ourselves. This can involve
efforts such as reading, studying, traveling, trying new things and looking
within ourselves. Now that we have a
better understanding about the distinction between self-improvement and
personal-development, you now have understand that self-improvement and
personal-development must be life-long efforts.
You
see, we don’t imrove or develop and then we arrive. For life is not about working to reach the
top of a mountain. Such mountaintop
doesn’t exist. Therefore, we cannot
improve and stop. Because whatever
stops, begins to die. But rather, life
is more like an expanding journey where we continue to learn, grow and develop
in one life area or another.
So,
if you wan to be truly successful, happy and fulfilled, you must continue to
self-improve and develop yourself as a whole person.
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