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There is an endless amount of benefits to personal development and growth. While the journey can get bumpy and it’s not always positive — it can be hard, lengthy, and scary, and sometimes the objective is not always achieved, there are many skills and experiences derived from personal development that lead to a richer, happier, more fulfilled life.
Here are 26 of the most important benefits of personal development.
1. You become happier
The main goal of personal development is to be happier. Naturally, when you improve yourself, your life, your relationships, achieve your goals, you become happier. This doesn’t always happen right away or all the time, but it happens in time with consistent and deliberate personal development.
2. Your relationships improve both with yourself and others
Personal development is about improving the relationship with yourself. It at least normally starts there. When you improve the relationship with yourself, people are naturally drawn to you and your relationships you already have with others also improves. The people you attract are also more likely to be better for you. You attract people who are at your level so once you start raising your level, the people who come into your life are going to be at your higher level.
Personal development can also be dedicated to improving relationships with others whether it be intimate relationships, friends and family, work relationships, or relationships to people and communities. Relationships and communication are topics within personal development.
3. You learn new things
A major component of personal development is education, learning, and knowledge. You can not only learn new skills and knowledge and education, but you also learn about yourself, about others, and about the world and humanity. Through learning, you learn about different viewpoints, values, beliefs. You learn skills that aren’t taught in school too like how to set goals and how to have healthy relationships.
A great resource I love to learn new skills is Skillshare. If you’re a visual learner and prefer to learn through watching videos or are interested in learning more technical and creative skills, Skillshare is a great video class platform for that. You can get a free 30-day trial here!
If you prefer to learn through books and reading, Kindle Unlimited can help you read more books for free. You don’t need a kindle either because Kindle eBooks can be read on any device. You can get a free 30-day trial here!
If you’re not much of a reader but still want to get the knowledge and ideas from books, audiobooks are also a great alternative. You can download two free audiobooks with Audible here!
4. You live better
With more happiness, better relationships, achievements, and a better you, your quality of life improves. Your life becomes richer in either or both the physical sense and the metaphorical sense.
5. You are better able to adapt to change
When you embrace, accept, and seek change for yourself and your life, you’re better at accepting and adapting to unexpected or out of your control change whether good or bad or the change you brought yourself from your personal development. But with a strong foundation, you’re more likely to be happy and fulfilled with your achievements, or you’re better able to deal with any of the anxiety and negative emotions that may arise.
Recommended reading:35 Proven Ways to Make Change Easier
6. You’re able to make decisions and solve problems better
Personal development is meant to help you live more effectively. This helps you become better able at making better sound decisions and being able better and more effectively solve any problems that arise.
7. You’re healthier
When you’re involved in personal development, you’re more likely to value and take care of your health. Better health is also a side effect to many personal development habits. This list shows some habits that help improve your mental and physical health. Happier people are healthier people.
8. You’re likely to reach your goals
Setting goals is a major component of personal development. Reaching your goals is one of the main goals of personal development. With knowledge and use of personal development techniques, you’re more likely to succeed at reaching your goals.
9. You’re more likely to have financial and career success
Because personal development affects all areas of your life and can be applied to the financial and career area of your life, you’re more likely to achieve success in that area. How to Win Friends and Influence People is one of the most recommended books by business leaders and CEOs even though it’s a self-help book. It can be applied to both personal and work life.
10. You inspire others
When you are personally growing and succeeding, others around you are probably going to notice. Your story, your progress, and your success can inspire others. This is great if you’re trying to influence or help others to make a change in themselves which I discussed in this article.
11. It feels goods
When you go after your goals and make progress and achievement, it feels really good. It feels a lot better than if you wouldn’t have worked on personal development. And the end result is a lot stronger feeling that makes everything that made it up that point worth it in ‘the end.’
12. It’s interesting
A lot of personal development involves psychology which most of us find interesting. There is a science to personal development. Hearing people stories of failure and unexpected success can also be interesting to us. Personal development is always expanding with new discoveries and studies that we didn’t know before or expected.
13. It affects all areas of your life
You can use personal development in all areas of your life. Personal development in general also affects all areas of your life even if it just being directly applied to one area. For example, working on and growing your confidence can positively affect and improve the relationship area of your life and the work area of your life.
14. You become more aware
Awareness is necessary for personal growth. It’s the first step. Awareness helps you notice and learn things about yourself and your life around you. Awareness is a highly valuable skill that allows you to realize and learn the facts and stay grounded in reality. Many people miss out on learning and growth opportunities because of lack of awareness.
15. You think better and become smarter
Personal development can help you make better and more informed decisions. It also tends to involve reading which actually does make you smarter. All the things you learn help make you smarter as well.
16. Better society
When more people are happier and more fulfilled with their lives, that makes for a better and happier society. People who are involved in personal development are also more likely to positively influence and inspire others around them.
17. It makes you more interesting
When you expand and grow yourself, you become more interesting because you learn more and you experience more through personal development. You’re also more open to different viewpoints and worldviews as well as being more aware both of yourself and others around you.
18. Self-esteem – you like yourself more
Personal development helps you improve your self-esteem and like yourself more because you become the person you want to become. You also learn to respect, accept, and love who you already are. You believe in yourself and know that you are capable of achieving growth and your goals.
19. Greater resilience
Personal development helps you build and develop the skills to better deal with adversity and when times get tough. You have stronger belief in yourself and confidence that you will overcome it as well as motivation to overcome adversity and failure.
20. Sense of direction – find your purpose
Personal development gives you a sense of direction and helps you discover what it is you really want out of life and yourself. It can also help you find your purpose because you become more in tune with yourself and your connection to the world. With successful personal development, you’ll want to give and contribute yourself to the world because you begin to value yourself and your ideas.
21. More opportunities and luck
Because you’re seeking advancement in your life, personal development opens doors to numerous opportunities. Personal development also helps you make your own luck. One study found that people who considered themselves as lucky were better and faster at completing tasks than people who considered themselves as unlucky. The reason for that was that they were more open to opportunities. The people who considered themselves as unlucky missed more change opportunities to succeed.
22. Overcome fear
A big part of personal growth is doing things that push you out of your comfort and can scare you. Personal development can help you face your fears and gain the courage to overcome them.
23. Overcome things you normally wouldn’t have without personal growth
Personal growth can help you overcome and fix problems that you otherwise would have to just live and deal with. This article shows what’s possible to be changed and fixed according to psychologists.
24. You don’t settle
With personal development, you’re continuously growing and improving. You’re less likely to stay stuck and stagnant in your life. There is always room for improvement with personal development. You’re more likely to achieve more and become greater than just “good” by getting involved with personal development.
25. Discover yourself
Personal development allows you to discover what you love, what you want out of life, your values, and your beliefs. It helps you learn who you want to be and then become that person. When you develop and grow, you learn and discover about yourself.
26. It makes you more creative
Personal development helps you become more creative not only because it helps you have more ideas and develop your artistic abilities and skills, but you’re more likely to value and cultivate your ideas. You’re also more likely to follow through with your ideas and stories because you have confidence and belief in yourself and you take more effective initiative with personal development.
With all that said, keep in mind personal development is not a magic pill or get-rich-quick scheme. And it shouldn’t be. Personal development takes effort, work, and time.
