Five Stages of Personal Development

I’ve been thinking about a mentee’s personal development goal. We’d been on the issue for more than six months with no discernible improvement. As my mentee is hardworking, I knew something deeper was at play.

Finally, it hit me. What I was confronting was a personality and not a problem. Here’s an analogy to describe it:

There are some people who walk into a room and immediately notice a picture is askew. Their unprompted reaction is to straighten it. Someone else walks in and doesn’t even see the picture frame.

The first person saw something amiss because their brain is wired to resolve chaos while order is a core value. The second person is optimistic & carefree and is rarely aware of problems to be solved.

If you have an employee who keeps making the same “mistake” over and over again, has it occurred to you that perhaps they are really trying but can’t comprehend what the fuss is about?

This observation led me to write down five important stages of personal development. By the way, shouting at people is not one of those stages and it rarely works.

Here are the five:

1. Self-awareness

2. Skills Development

3. Process Improvement

4. Resourcing

5. Delegation

Self-awareness

Personal development begins with self-awareness. An understanding of your personality, strengths, and weaknesses. Also, an assessment of the tasks that energize you, and those that drain you. Draining assignments often lead to procrastination or avoidance.

Because you can only know what you learn, knowledge and training are important ways to improve self-awareness.

To understand your work personality (or those of your team members), I recommend reading Surrounded By Idiots by Thomas Erikson. Once you understand your core, then you can proceed to EQ training or other courses to build your professional strengths and manage your weaknesses.

Constantly correcting people is tiring. What people hear is criticism and condemnation. But a book, course, or training about an issue explains it in a way they can grasp while giving actionable steps for improvement.

Skills Development

Once you understand who you are, the next step is to plug the gaps, as you may have a deficiency of skills.

For instance, you might need to get better at using a software or learn how to delegate to a team.

Perhaps you need a plan for setting up a department or for “managing” your new boss.

Whatever it is, check whether you require upskilling, and then look for a relevant course by yourself.

Stop waiting for your company to train you. Train yourself. Your company’s HR development schedule should not determine your destiny.

Process Improvement

Sometimes, tweaking a process can lead to better work outcomes.

Decluttering your desktop and closing dozens of open applications speeds up your laptop. Creating shared documents enhances collaboration, cutting down physical meetings.

Waking up early to plan for the day improves prioritization. Working in the quiet of the night or away from a shared office promotes focused work.

Using a checklist ensures you don’t forget things, and renegotiating your delivery deadline creates more time for a second look, improving quality.

Sometimes, a process tweak may be all you need to turbocharge your development goals at work.

Resourcing

If you’re hamstrung by a lack of resources, start saying so now before your company thinks you’re incompetent.

Additional resources are not always as expensive as you think. There are tons of free AI-enabled tools out there and inexpensive interns who can be hired.

Document your need and justify it to your company by stating how much efficiency or profit it’s going to add to the system.

Budget owners love numbers. So frame your request using numbers. Don’t just complain and whine.

Delegation

Finally, if you’ve spent more than six months trying to solve a problem, maybe you’re not the person to solve it. It might be time to delegate to someone else.

Since you are the one delegating, the credit still comes to you or your team. So let the task go to someone else, and supervise the outcome instead.

The ability to find ways to solve a problem, without being prompted, is a leadership skill.

Knowing how to find the right resources and putting them together to create the desired outcome is a management capacity. Suffering in silence and repeatedly failing at a task is not.

In Summary

This year, take charge of your personal development goals. Start with self-awareness and work your way up to delegation.

I wish you success.