The importance of personal development in life

Personal development in individuals is a continuous learning process that helps in personal life, professional career development and also inters personal relationship development. However, this is an area that needs conscious investment of time, effort and practice to continually learn and develop.

And college life is a perfect point to get started on this direction. Let's explore a few ways students can get started while in college to design a plan and practice. But before we start, let's explore few reasons why this is such an important process each one of us should invest in.

As we progress in life, our circumstances and environment keeps changing and as an individual we keep getting into different roles such as a friend, spouse, parent, leader etc. Everyone's aim is to excel in the role they are given. This is only possible if you as an individual are prepared to adapt, face and handle different situations with utmost panache and candor.

And in the center of this journey lie two things i.e. positivity and openness to learn. Without these two, any effort is going down in vain. Before you get started, prepare mentally to stay positive and learn to be open to understand and master new things.

Find a mentor
Finding a right mentor can make a significant impact on your life journey and professional growth. A mentor need not be your faculty necessarily not your family member. Ideal mentor would be someone who has equal interest in mentoring you as much as you want to him or her to mentor you. The mentor should know you very closely and should be able to assess your strengths and shortcomings.

Often, the smartest of us often stumble when we are in the center of a problem and fail to see the big picture. A mentor typically is a few years’ senior to you, may or may not be in your career line but helps if they are. And one need not limit themselves to one mentor. You may have a mentor at workplace to navigate your professional path while another mentor to help you make right choices in your personal life.

A mentor will help you stretch your horizons, prevent you from underselling yourself. A good way to find a right mentor is to first visualize what you want to become as a person and identify who inspires you the most that comes close to this visualization in your known circles. Make a case for why you want to become their mentee and convince them on how you will benefit from this relationship. In most cases mentor has more to lose in terms of their time than to gain. Still people who understand mentor-mentee relationship often invest on this effort to help others.

Identify such a mentor and nurture a long term relationship. Never disappear after your interactions with your mentor. Always note what actions your mentor has suggested and make it a point to follow up and stay in touch regularly. It will be your responsibility to engage and retain your mentor with committed interest.

Read books
Read, read and read. This will be an indispensable personal development tool that one can just not afford to miss out on. From autobiographies of famous personalities in politics to business to any business and personal development book. Read anything and everything that comes your way. One book I personally recommend every wannapreneur to read while in college is Arise, Awake by Rashmi Bansal. It chronicles the journeys of ten college students or teams that got started while on campus with their entrepreneurial dreams. Reading is probably one of the best habits you can inculcate in your personal journey.

Build a belief system
When you read, read and read, you will start to place things, people, cultures and work environments in perspective. It is very important that this perspective is a well thought through, logical and reasonable one. This perspective is what comes out when you talk in public, when you take a stand on an issue and when you interact with people around you. Having a string belief and value system will become the foundation of your personality and is how you will be recognized and known by.

Once you have these three grounds covered, all other activities, initiatives, engagements and events in your life journey will be triggered, will be lead to and will take you through the journey of Personal Development. It’s a collective working of all these three and other aspects that constitute the effort in your personal development. The value of this is very hard to measure but very easy to recognize. Invest in this development of yours and you will never regret doing so and the rewards just keep coming.