Personal development is a lifelong process. In general, it involves identifying skills and qualities, setting goals, identifying new opportunities for growth, and creating a path to improvement through skills you have or those you wish to develop.

Personal Development Helps You Find a Purpose or Evaluate, Adjust and Polish-up Your Purpose.

Many people lack a sense of self-awareness that will allow them to create a mission statement for their life. By focusing on self development, you engage with who are you and who you want to become, laying out exactly what you hope your life will look like. Below are some invaluable benefits of engaging in ongoing personal development and why continual personal development should be important part of your life:

• It will help you find a purpose
• It can stimulate your motivation
• You will have more appreciation for yourself
• It will create more opportunities
• You will be more resilient
• It will give you confidence
• You will have better relationships

There are a number of ways an individual or a professional can engage in personal development. Online courses on skills development or micro-skills education, working with a life coach, business coach, executive coach, career coach or counsellor, participation in personal development networking events, attending educational seminars and workshops, reading books and journaling, watching personal development videos or listening to podcasts, and increasing your physical and online presence on platforms that focus on personal development. Furthermore, in a 2017 book titled as  Positive Youth Development Through Sport, the author suggest that youth sport can facilitate participation, performance and personal development.

Continuing Education & Personal Development

Skills Academia and many other coaching, training and educational institutions provide continuing education and personal development programmes on online, face-to-face, or blended delivery mode. These personal development programmes and packages are usually on a stand-alone basis to increase your skills and may be used in a business and/or personal setting. This means you can either select a micro-skill or short course to focus on a specific area that you are aiming to improve, or work one-on-one with a coach or trainer to focus on a number of skills.

Don’t forget that when it comes to personal development programmes, THERE IS NO ONE SIZE FITS ALL. Individuals with different learning style, different level of intellectual and cognitive ability, and from diverse cultural background may require a specific form of personal development programme to suit their unique style. Hence, not for all, but for some individuals and professionals, customised one-on-one personal development programmes work perfectly better than packages and learning material designed in a generic format for a larger audience.

If you are more confident with online learning, or in the case you are time poor and need flexibility and freedom, my recommendation is to look for an online course or online programme that is self-paced and the content is simple, modern, and highly engaging.  However, face-to-face programs or blended learning mode can suit most people’s learning style and it can be highly effective to support their learning.

Some highly beneficial and useful courses in Personal Development can be done both in online programme format, or face-to-face. Below I give you a list of some of the most popular personal development programmes that that have proven to be beneficial and life changing for many clients:

• Essential Soft Skills for Students, Managers and Employees
• Assertiveness and Self Confidence
• Budgets and Managing Money
• Business Communication Skills (Written/Verbal/Non-verbal)
• Conflict Resolution
• Anger Management
• Managing Anxiety at School or Workplace
• Negotiation Skills
• Networking Skills for 21st Century
• Goal Setting

Some people skip every personal development opportunity because they either don’t have time for self development or have been so caught up in day to day life that they don’t remember that self development in an ongoing journey. They leave themselves unprepared in many circumstances in life where one needs to overcome unexpected obstacles and challenges, or take advantage from wonderful opportunities. So, don’t be afraid to allocate some time and resources to work on your personal development on on-going basis. After all, it is a lifelong journey and it is worth the investment.