Personality Development
Learning objective: After reading this information sheet you must be able to learn on how to develop your personality.
What is Personality?
Ernest R. Hilgard a psychologist defines personality as the sum total of individual characteristics and ways of behaving and individuals unique adjustment to his environment.
Joseph I. Arnold, think of personality as the total of the behavior patter of a person.
Personality Consist of the ff:
- Physical makeup and your thought
- Memories
- Feelings
- Motives
- Reactions
- Experiences and even your dreams & wishes for the future
Why do we need to study Personality?
Components of Personality:
- Physical – mode of dressing, manner of walking, posture, body build , health & facial expression.
- Intellectual – how a person talks and what she talks about is what matters in the intellectual component of personality
- Social- Good manners, correct manners, to do the right thing at the right time, to act in the proper manner
- Emotional – person’s likes or dislikes, outgoing or shy, calm or nervous whether she is calm or nervous.
- Value system – A component of personality that involves persons attitudes, values, beliefs & philosophy in life
- character
Personality Differences:
We are all different because of 3 factors
- Heredity
- Environment
- Our experiences
Factors that made you what you are now:
- Where are you from
- How did your mother and father make you feel
- How do your friends look at you?
- How do your classmates see you?
- What names were you given when you were a child?
Self –esteem:
is the way you look at and feel about yourself
esteem- means to value something or someone, thinking & believing that something or someone is of great importance.
If you are always fighting with yourself and feelings, that makes you feel less valuable or not as important or attractive as other people, then you are suffering from “low self-esteem”.
Accomplishing high self esteem will not happen in an instant, it requires hard work & constant reassurance.
It can never & will never be achieved as long as you keep negative ingredients involved, such as giving up.
Boosting Process:
Begin by becoming a best friend to yourself instead of an enemy
- Look in the mirror & tell yourself that you do not feel sorry for yourself anymore.
- Stop comparing yourself to others.
- Concentrate on learning & knowing that you are special, lovable, capable & very much acceptable.
- Get up stop feeling sorry for your self.
Self Confidence & You
3 Steps
- Become friends with your mirror.
- just look at your face today
- you may have many choices – eyes, lips, dimples etc.
- pick just one thing today that you like
- then recite to yourself 3 times “ I love my eyes” “ I have the most beautiful eyes”.
- This time you will be looking at the rest of your body.
- Tell yourself something good about your self.
Boosting Process:
- Begin by becoming a best friend to yourself instead of an enemy.
- Stand up for yourself and face that low self-esteem.
- Look in the mirror & tell yourself that you do not feel sorry for yourself anymore and that you have the power & strength to feel & be happy, confident & successful.
- Stop comparing yourself the other “ you are you & not anyone else”.
- Concentrate on learning & knowing that you are special, loveable, capable & very much acceptable.
- Maintaining a healthy & high self-esteem will be successful if you continue to motivate and encourage it.
- So get up, stop feeling sorry for yourself & stare changing the way you feel about and look at yourself.
- You deserve to be happy & confident, because you are a fantastic and very special individual. “ you can do it….. and you know you can!
Ways to uplift your spirits:
- Pamper your self – shopping, bubble bath, exercising.
- Remember good times – take a stroll down memory lane.
- There’s no point in asking yourself why – “ what did I learn?”
Ways to boost your self-confidence level:
- No matter how you feel at this very moment, picture yourself in the situation you want to be in if at any time you find a negative thought creeping in to your mind.
- When faced with a problem, start to overcome it by, first concentrating on what qualities or positives you do have at your disposal.
- Do not give any problem or negative situation anymore credit that it deserved.
- Find & develop your own set of affirmation that you can use and repeat to yourself at times when you are feeling particularly low.
- Take a long hard look at your abilities & skills, assess them and their strength.
- If you have any sort of religious belief, them relax & remember the power of the God that you believe in is all around you.
Positive Thought:
- What are you thinking right now?
- thoughts are very powerful, they affect your general attitude.
- The attitudes you carry reflect on your appearance too- unless of course you are a great actor.
- Your attitude can also affects people around you.
- Positive thoughts are invigorating when you’re positive to people around you are energized by your vitality.
- Positive attitude attracts people, while negative repels them.
Negative thought:
.
- Have sapping effect on other people
- It makes you look gloomy & sad.
- People tend to shy away from those who carry a negative attitude.
Note: It’s all about how you look at the world. If you focus on the bad things that could happen or the sadness and cruelty that exists in the world, that’s your thought will be about”.
How to change attitude in 16 seconds:
How?
When everything is going wrong for you, try this.
Put a smile on your face, even if you have to fake it, then close your eyes & think of a funny thing that happened in your life – hold the thought for 16 seconds.
How not to annoy people:
- Respect
- respect the persons & their privacy.
- What’s sensitive to me may not be sensitive to you: so next time you make a joke on personal “material” keep the other person’s sensitive cue in mind.
- Trust
- It takes a long time to build, yet only a few seconds to break, Handle with care.
- Be genuine:
- Some people say one thing; mean another & do something entirely different.
- Use authority with caution:
- no one like to be ordered what to do.
- Avoid being self-centered:
- don’t make your life revolve around you & only you.
- make rooms for others on your daily routines.
- share credit generously, where it is due.
- Take responsibility:
- if you make a mistake, admit it as your mistake.
- we are human after all, and entitled to a few mistakes in our lifetime.
- Be flexible
- we can’t simply change the fact that each of us are different.
- Not everyone has your life experiences, your knowledge and level of maturity.
Techniques in Improving Personality:
- Realize that improvement is needed.
- Have a strong motive or desire to improve.
3 Take an inventory or make a checklist of the strong & weak points of what is to be improvement.
- Have a step by step plan for improvement.
