Personal Development 1

SELF-CONCEPT
refers to your awareness of yourself. It is the construct that negotiates these two selves. In other words, it connotes
first the identification of the ideal self as separate from others and second is that it encompasses all the behaviors
evaluated in the actual self that you engage in to reach the ideal self.

The self-concept is represented by several aspects of the self. It is conceived as collection of multiple, context-
dependent selves. This construct believes that context activates particular regions of self-knowledge and self-
relevant feedback affects self-evaluations and affect. A deeper look on the different aspects of self can identify
specific areas for self-regulation, stability and improvement.

ACTUAL SELF
The actual self is built on self-knowledge. Self-knowledge is derived from social interactions that
provide insight into how others react to you. The actual self is who we are. It is how we think, how we feel, look,
and act. The actual self can be seen by others but because we have no way of truly knowing how others view us,
the actual self is our self-image.

IDEAL SELF
The ideal self, on the other hand, is how we want to be. It is an idealized image that we have
developed over time based on what we have learned and experienced. The ideal Self could include
components of what our parents have taught us, what we admire in others, what our society promotes, and
what we think best interests us.

PERSONAL EFFECTIVENESS
Personal effectiveness means making use of all the personal resources-talents, skills, energy, and time to
enable you to achieve goals.
Our personal effectiveness depends on our innate characteristics-talent and experience accumulated in the
process of personal development. Talents first are needed to be identified and then developed to be used in a
particular subject area (science, literature, sports, politics, etc.)

Experience includes knowledge and skills that we acquire in the process of cognitive and practical activities.

Knowledge is required for setting goals and defining an action plan to achieve them and risk assessment.

Skills also determine whether real actions are performed in accordance with the plan. If the same ability is
used many times in the same situation, then it becomes a habit that runs automatically, subconsciously.
Here are some skills that will greatly increases the efficiency of any person who owns them:

1. Determination.
It allows you to focus only in achieving a specific goal without being distracted by less important things or
spontaneous desires. It may be developed with the help of self-discipline exercise.
2. Self-Confidence.
It appears in the process of personal development as a result of getting aware of yourself, your actions and their
consequences. Self-confidence is manifested in speech, appearance, dressing, gait, and physical condition. To
develop it, you need to learn about yourself and your capabilities, gain positive attitude and believe that by
performing right actions and achieving right goals you will certainly reach success.
3. Persistence.
It makes you keep moving forward regardless of emerging obstacles, problems, laziness, bad emotional state,
etc. It reduces the costs of overcoming obstacles. It can also be developed with the help of self-discipline
exercise.
4. Managing Stress.
It helps combat stress that arises in daily life from the environment and other people. Stress arises from the
uncertainty in an unknown situation when a lack of information creates the risk of negative consequences of
your actions. It increases efficiency. In the actively changing environment.
5. Problem-solving skills.
They help cope with the problems encountered with a lack of experience. It increases efficiency by adopting
new ways of achieving goals when obtaining a new experience.

6. Creativity.
It allows to find extraordinary ways to carry out a specific action that no one has tried to use. It can lead to
decrease or an increase of costs. But usually, the speed of action is greatly increased when using creative tools.
7. Generating ideas.
It helps you achieve goals using new, original, unconventional ideas. For generating idea, you can use a method
of mental maps which allows you to materialize, visualize and scrutinize all your ideas, which in turn
contributes to the emergence of new ideas.

UNIQUENESS is defined in different ways and here are some of the collective definitions:
1. Being the only one or SOLE.
2. A person who has distinct characteristics.
3. The quality of being unique or unusual in some special way.
4. A state or condition wherein someone or something is unlike anything else in comparison.

Things that make a person unique:

PERSONALITY that stretches from the day a person started to see and experience life in the world leading to
gathering information, knowledge, acquiring skills, possessing emotional responses, and making choices differently
from other people

ATTITUDE that becomes the anchor of becoming either positive or negative in life, perceiving how people act in front
of you, and an offshoot of your emotional landscape.

EXPERIENCES that shape you on how you act and behave today. If you experienced negative, you tend to behave
anxious or defensive; however, some would deal with it as a motivator while experiencing positive that improves
your senses in understanding the world.

HABITS that normally we do everyday in our lives such as our eating habit, personal hygiene practices, meditation
exercises, and trying new things. Cliché’ but as they always say and globally accepted and favored, “You are wha
you do, not what you say you’ll do” and that makes you unique from others.

CREATIVITY such as dancing, painting, singing, producing useful things out of scrap materials, defining beauty in a
different way and perspective makes you unique.

PERSPECTIVE saying that no other people understands the world as you do because they do not live like exactly 24
hours beside you. Your experience is not the same with others’, your body of knowledge is not the same as theirs.
That is why the gaps are filled from each own unique perspective to continuously develop and improve.

TASTE that is a unique facet of you because you have different likes and dislikes from other people.

GOALS that are set in different manners depending on how you create steps and procedures in achieving those.

HOBBIES that improves your personal growth and mental health such as gardening, cooking, and gaming.

PASSION that provides direction toward a goal or experience that will allow us to leave a unique mark in this world
such as involvement in philanthropic activities like giving and supporting people in need.

"Diversity" means more than just acknowledging and/or tolerating difference. (JPantaleo, 2020) Diversity is a set of
conscious practices that involve:
• Understanding and appreciating interdependence of humanity, cultures, and the natural environment.

• Practicing mutual respect for qualities and experiences that are different from our own.

• Understanding that diversity includes not only ways of being but also ways of knowing.

• Recognizing that personal, cultural and institutionalized discrimination creates and sustains privileges for some
while creating and sustaining disadvantages for others.

• Building alliances across differences so that we can work together to eradicate all forms of discrimination.

In a specific sense of being a unique person, Big Five, and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator can guide you in
determining your personality traits or characteristics by Costa and McRae (1992).
Big 5
Low Scores High Scores
1. Extroversion– the ability to socialize and belongingness is his Loner Joiner
concern. Quiet Talkative
Passive Active
Reserved Affectionate
2. Agreeableness - Possessing trust and openness to others. Suspicious Trusting
Critical Lenient
Ruthless Soft-hearted
Irritable Good-natured

3. Conscientiousness – the possession of mind setting and goal Negligent Conscientious

oriented. Lazy Hard-working
Disorganized Well Organized
Late Punctual

4.Neuroticism–a person who experiences anxiety, and emotionally Calm Worried

and physical conscious. Even-tempered Temperamental
Comfortable Self-Conscious
Unemotional Emotional
5.Openness to Experience– a person who goes with the flow, Down-to-Earth Imaginative
widening horizons, and being resourceful. Uncreative Creative
Conventional Original
Uncurious Curious

Thoughts:
We can retrain our brains to identify automatic thoughts which can be negative or unhelpful, interrupt them
and replace them with more constructive coping thoughts.

Feelings:
Learning to name and rate our moods and cultivating mindfulness can help us to connect to our emotions,
rather than being dictated to by them. Relaxation techniques can help ease the feelings of stress and anxiety
that can keep us stuck in unhealthy behaviors.

Behaviors:
When we are down, we tend to be less active; the less we do, the less we want to do, and the more we
continue to feel down.
Difference between Thoughts, Feelings, and Behaviors
Thoughts: Your internal summary or prediction about a situation or event.
Examples:
“This is going to be a disaster”.
“This is going to be great”.
 “Everyone’s going to laugh at me”.
Feelings: One word summaries of internal emotional states.
Examples:
Nervous
Scared
Excited
Behaviors: Can be both inward (invisible) and outward (observable).
Examples:
Tensing muscles
Skipping class
Turning down an invitation to a party
Jumping off a diving board

Geldard and Geldard (2006) explain that adolescence is a time in a young person’s life where they move from
dependency on their parents to independence, autonomy and maturity. The young person begins to move from the
family group being their major social system, to the family taking a lesser role and being part of a peer group
becomes a greater attraction that will eventually lead to the young person to standing alone as an adult.
Adolescence is a period that extends over a substantial part of a person’s life. However, each adolescent
experience individual changes and growth at differing rates, with some moving through the adolescent phase
quicker and more smoothly than others. Some adolescents have supportive families, others face this daunting period
of their lives alone. Some adolescents may remain at home with their families, but their families are emotionally
distant so the adolescent can feel as if they are “alone in a crowd.”

Self Discovery
- It refers to the ultimate reason for a continued search of understanding one’s own true and inner nature.

Self Concept
- It refers to the set of beliefs about oneself, including attributes, roles, goals, interests, values and religious or
political beliefs.

Social Development
- It refers to the development stage of adolescents which takes place in the context of all their relationships
particularly with those with their peers and families.

Middle Adolescence
- It refers to the development stage of adolescents where they intensify involvement with peer groups and gives way
to more intimate relationships and romances.

Cognitive Development
- It refers to the dramatic shift in thinking of an adolescent from concrete to abstract which gives them a whole new
set of mental tools.

Emotions
- It refers to the biological states associated with nervous system brought on by neurophysiological changes variously
associated with thoughts, feelings, behavioral responses and a degree of pleasure or displeasure.

Whole Person Development

- It refers to the “holistic development of a person’s actions and behaviors as compared to just acquisition of specific
content knowledge.

Sense of Identity
- It refers to a process which involves experimenting with different ways of appearing, sounding and behaving.

Physical Development
- It refers to the development of the adolescence in which they experience a growth spurt, rapid growth in bones
and muscles as well as sexual maturation.
Emotional Development
- It refers to the development of the adolescence where they are faced with the task of establishing a sense of
identity, give them the ability to reflect on who they are and what makes them unique.

The following are some of the challenges experienced by adolescents:

1. Physical Development
•Most girls have completed the physical changes related to puberty by age
•Boys are still maturing and gaining strength, muscle mass, and height and are completing the development of
sexual traits.

2. Emotional Development
•May stress over school and test scores.
•Is self-involved (may have high expectations and low self-concept).
•Seeks privacy and time alone.
•Is concerned about physical and sexual attractiveness.
•May complain that parents prevent him or her from doing things independently.
•Starts to want both physical and emotional intimacy in relationships.
•The experience of intimate partnerships.

3. Social Development
•Shifts in relationship with parents from dependency and subordination to one that reflects the adolescent’s
increasing maturity and responsibilities in the family and the community,
•Is more and more aware of social behaviors of friends.
•Seeks friends that share the same beliefs, values, and interests.
•Friends become more important.
•Starts to have more intellectual interests.
•Explores romantic and sexual behaviors with others.
•May be influenced by peers to try risky behaviors (alcohol, tobacco, sex).

4. Mental Development
•Becomes better able to set goals and think in terms of the future.
•Has a better understanding of complex problems and issues.
•Starts to develop moral ideals and to select role models.

Phases of Adolescence
Psychologists break down the age range for adolescent people into three distinct phases. These are early,
middle, and late adolescence. Each of these phases comes with its characteristics, challenges, and goals.
•Early adolescence occurs between 10-14 years of age
•Middle adolescence occurs between 15-17 years of age
•Late adolescence continues from age 18 to adulthood

The following are eight (8) simple rules which could help you, teenagers, to become a responsible adolescent prepared
for adult life:

1.Focus on your studies and do well in all of your endeavors. There is time for everything.

2.Take care of your health and hygiene. Healthy body and mind are important as you journey through adolescence.

3.Establish good communication and relation with your parents or guardian. Listen to them. This may be easier said than
done at this stage, but creating good relationship with them will do you good as they are the ones you can lean one
specially in times of trouble.

4.“Think many times before you do anything.” Evaluate the probable consequences/results before you act on a certain
situation. Practice self-control and self-discipline.
5.Choose to do the right thing. There are many situations in which it is better to use your mind rather than your heart.

6.Do your best to resist temptations, bad acts, and earthly pleasures and commit to being a responsible adolescent.

7.Respect yourself. You are an adult in the making. Do not let your teenage hormones get into you. If you respect yourself,
others will respect you too.

8. Be prepared to be answerable or accountable for your actions and behavior. It is a part of growing up and becoming an
adult.

Mental Development
- it is a positive concept related to the social and emotional well-being of individuals and communities.

Areas of life affected by mental Health

- work - energy level

- home - ability to think clearly / make decisions
- Relationship with others - physical health
- sleep - Life satisfaction
- appetite

Psychological Well-being
It refers to the positive mental states such as happiness and satisfactions

Influences in mental health and well-being

- Structural Factors
- Community Factors
- Individual Factors

Tips for mental health and well-being

1.
2. Get enough sleep and rest 8. Build your confidence
3. Take time out for things you enjoy 9. Be comfortable in your own skin
4. Be active and eat well 10. Set realistic goals.
5. Nurture relationship and connect with others 11. Reach out for help when you need it.
6. Learn to manage stress
7. Get involved and join in

Stress
- It is the physical, mental, emotional strains or tension from adverse or very demanding circumstances.

Stressors
- These are the things that makes a person stressed.

Eustress
- This refers to positive and healthy responses of the body from a stressor.

Distress
- It refers to the negative reaction of the body towards a given stressor.

Ways to reduce Stress - practice relaxation

- accepts your needs - exercise daily
- manage your time - set aside time for yourself
- eat well - meditate
- get enough sleep - visualize
- avoid alcohol and drugs - take one thing at a time
- Talk to someone - excercise
- hobbies
Tips for reducing or controlling stress - Share your feelings
- be realistic - Be flexible
- sned the “Superwoman/superman ” lirge

Coping strategies
- these are the actions we take to deal with stress, problems, or uncomfortable situations.

Unhealthy Coping Strategies

- Provide instant gratification or relief but have a long term negative consequences.

Healthy Coping Strategies

- Don t always feel good in the moment but they contribute to long lasting positive outcome.

COMMON STRESSORS IN THE LIFE OF AN ADOLESCENT

1. Physical appearance 6. Frustration

2. School/ academics Pressure 7. Romantic relationship
3. Family / home 8. Future
4. Social/ peer pressure
5. Loss

STRESS RESPONSE
- Your stress response is the collection of physiological changes that occur when you face a perceived threat—when
you face situations where you feel the demands outweigh your resources to successfully cope.
- The body’s mechanism for protecting or caring for the stressed individual.