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A PRACTICAL GUIDE FOR
SELF-DEVELOPMENT

Eng. M Y Zainudeen DTM

Based on Personal Experience and Different Articles from Internet
Contents

Chapter 1 Human Behavior

Chapter 2 Self Awareness - Discover Who You Are

Chapter 3 Developing Soft Skills- Part I

Chapter 4 Developing Soft Skills- Part Ii

Chapter 5 Pursuing Your Self-Development

Chapter 6 Planning For Self-Development

Chapter 1 Human Behavior
1. Introduction
Have you ever watched a group of children play? They might laugh and run around. They might fight
and hit each other. They might form a little group, with a leader naturally taking charge and the
others following. What they do can tell you a lot about what the children are feeling and thinking.
Their actions can also tell you about their relationship with each other. Human behavior is the term
used to describe a person's actions and conduct. What does our behavior say about us? And how
are behaviors shaped? Observing and understanding human behavior is a crucial part in the study of
psychology.
Imagine a wrapped gift. Can you guess what is in inside? You can make an educated guess if you
observe all the clues available to you: the size and shape of the package, the sound it makes when
you shake it, how heavy it is, even whether it feels hard or soft.
Human behavior is the same. Everything you do and say tells the world about what is going on with
you. Human behavior is the response of individuals or group of people to internal and
external inducement. It refers to the array of every physical reaction and observable emotional
expression associated with individuals, as well as the human race. Since the thoughts and emotions
of human beings cannot be observed, study of behavior has been an important part, since the very
beginning in the discipline of psychology. Human behavior is studied by the social sciences, which
include psychology, sociology, economics, and anthropology.
While specific traits of one's personality may be more consistent, other behaviors will change
throughout the life of an individual, as they move through different stages of life, for example,
adolescence, adult, parenthood and retirement. In addition to being dictated by age and genetics,
behavior is driven in part by thoughts and feelings. Also it is an insight into individual mind, revealing
among other things, attitudes and core values. Social behavior, a subset of human behavior, studies
the considerable influence of social interaction and culture. Additional influences
include ethics, social, environment, authority and persuasion.
The human behavior falls within a range, with some behavior being common, some unusual, some
acceptable, and some beyond acceptable limits. In sociology, behavior in general includes actions
having no meaning, being not directed at other people, and thus all basic human actions. Behavior in
this general sense should not be mistaken with social behavior, which is a more advanced social
action, specifically directed at other people. The acceptability of behavior depends heavily
upon social norms and is regulated by various means of social control. Thus human behavior is
meant to be studied through the social sciences, which include psychology, sociology, economics,
and anthropology.
Human behavior is shaped by various Psychological traits, Personality Traits (outlook) and
Character Traits (Core values). The easiest way to separate the two is to say personality traits are
surface-level observations, visible from the outside, while character traits are deep-seated, not
immediately obvious, and developed over time. Psychological traits vary from person to person and
can produce different actions or behavior by each person. For example, extroverted people are more
likely to participate in social activities like parties, than introverts.
Human behavior is not fully independent; it is influenced by character traits (such as beliefs, values,
self -confidence, attitude, creativity, being grateful and many more). Also it is anchored to many
external corner stones in the society and the environment, manmade as well as nature made, like
social norms, religion and spirituality, weather & climate etc. It is worthwhile to know how behavior is
influenced by these internal and external factors.
2. First let us see how human behavior is influenced by the character traits of a person.

2.1 Beliefs:

Our belief system is a group of ideas and concepts that we have adopted during our lives; from
the moment we were born until today, regardless of whether they are true, false, or helpful to our
existence. Usually these beliefs are based on certainties and as matter of faith. Sometimes these
beliefs come from our own experiences, acceptance of cultural and societal norms (e.g. religion)
and what other people say (e.g. education or mentoring). This leads to a condition that mostly we
gather new information that supports our already existing beliefs, rather than collecting
information from outside to form new beliefs. We filter information based on our beliefs and only
absorb the information that matches our belief system. For example, if we believe someone is
arrogant, our behavior will be changed in such a way that we will only focus on his mistakes and
ignore his good deeds.. This impacts our behavior by making us biased towards what we believe
in no matter how many proofs are provided. That is why persuading someone to believe into
something against his beliefs is hard.
Knowing our own beliefs consciously is helpful in understanding human behavior partly. Our
inner motives are driven by these beliefs influencing our purpose, characteristics, interests, and
uncommon attributes that determine who we are and what we achieve. Our belief system can
make great impact on our emotional and physical health, interpersonal relationships and
behavioral pattern since they are closely tied together. It is the main reason we think, feel and act
the way we do. Finally our beliefs are the fundamental traits that affect our behavior and then
shape and govern our lives.
By working directly with the belief system, it is possible to quickly improve many aspects of our
personality as well as physical and emotional health. Sometimes even with regards to things that
may seem impossible to remedy. Thus a strong belief system can take a person to greater
heights by c while a weak belief system can lead to distress.
2.2 Values:
Our personal values are the principles, morals, ethics and ideals that guide our lives and these
are based on our belief system. These are our convictions regarding what we believe, are
important and desirable. A belief will develop into a value when our commitment to that belief
grows and we see it as being important. Also it is possible to categorize beliefs into different
types of values – examples include values that relate to happiness, wealth, career success or
family. They become standards by which we arrange our lives and make choices. A person must
be able to articulate their values in order to make clear, rational, responsible and consistent
decisions, thus the behavior.
Each of us has a set of "complex of values", among this; there lie the values we hold and the
conflict, compatibility, and hierarchical relationships. Personal values come in two varieties;
terminal and instrumental.
 Terminal values are the desired end-states that a person strongly wants to achieve such
as "a comfortable life", "freedom", or "salvation." Each individual has a different set of
terminal values in his or her values complex.
 Instrumental values are convictions about a person's desired characteristics or ways of
behaving such as "ambitious", "forgiving", or "polite."
We possess instrumental values because we believe that each one helps us achieve our
terminal values. For instance, "ambition" may be an instrumental value that helps one progress
toward the terminal value of "a comfortable life."
On occasions, we encounter dilemmas where we cannot simultaneously act in accordance with
two of our values. We resolve such dilemmas by assessing the priority of the relevant values in
our values complex. Each of us has a set of core values that we rarely subordinate to
others. These core values are our personal principles. Making our family a higher priority than
our career seems to be a good example of subordinating self-centered values, yet debatable.
Stephen Covey and colleagues (1994) in their book “First Things First” caution that our principles
must contain more than self-centered values such as "self-respect" or "a sense of
accomplishment" because they can push us to develop arrogant, utilitarian relationships with
others.
There are enough examples in our society to this effect and people try to stick to their core
values. The author suggests that we need to develop core values that are more holistic and
anchored in to the fundamental realities of nature and healthy social relationships. Also having a
complete knowledge and understanding about our own values as well as that is prevalent in the
society is an essential part of our life as it has a greater bearing and influence on human
behavior. A lack of critical insight about our values can lead to a less rational attitude to choices
and ultimately to undesirable behavior.
2.3 Self Confidence:
Self-confidence is the trust we place in our own abilities, capacities, and judgments, based on
our beliefs and values; and help us to face our day to day challenges successfully. If our beliefs
and values are strong and positive we will behave like a confident person while if they became
negative our behavior will be changed to the opposite. This is the most prominent and positive
self-trait in human behavior. By being self-confident we value our self and feel worthy, regardless
of any imperfections or of what others may believe about us.
When we are feeling confident about our capabilities, we are more energized and motivated; we
tend to take action to achieve our goals; do what we believe to be right, even if others criticize
us. We are always willing to take risks and to go the extra mile to achieve better things while
admitting our mistakes, and learning from them. We as self-confident people are at ease with
ourselves and our work. We feel satisfied and happier due to the successes we achieve based
on our self-confidence and invite trust and inspire confidence in others.
As a person with strong self-confidence we become more positive, behave confidently and
smartly in the society than a person with low self-confidence. This makes us as attractive
characteristics and our presence in the society is felt very well; admired by everyone. We will be
happier when others congratulate on our accomplishments and accept compliments graciously.
Self-confidence provides assurance in a broader and more stable trait concerning an individual’s
perceptions of overall capability.
It is not always easy to be self-confident, particularly if we are naturally self-critical, or if we are
susceptible to others adverse comments. But these can be overcome by taking the steps to
increase and maintain our self-confidence. As these examples show, low self-confidence can be
self-destructive, and it may manifest itself as negativity.
Being capable is important yet being self-confident is paramount for displaying positive behavior
in the society.
2.4 Attitude:
An attitude is an expression of favor or disfavor towards a person, place, current circumstances
or an event; it differs with each individual. We primarily form our attitudes from underlying values
and beliefs. Passion for a sport, dislike for a certain actor and negativity toward life in general are
each an example of attitude of a person. Everyone has different attitudes towards different
things. The main factor that determines attitude is likes and dislikes. The more one likes
something or someone, the more one is willing to open up and accept what they have offered.
When one doesn't like something, one is more likely to get defensive and withdraw from the
seen. An example of how one's attitude affects one's human behavior could be as simple as
taking a child to the park or to the doctor. Children know they have fun at the park so their
attitude become willing and positive, but when a doctor is mentioned, they become upset and
negative with the thought of pain. Attitudes can sculpt personalities and the way people view who
we are. People with similar attitudes tend to stick together as interests and hobbies are common.
This does not mean that people with different attitudes do not interact, in fact they do. What it
means is that specific attitudes can bring people together (e.g., religious groups).
Our mind is a machine of thoughts and ideas. If it is filled up with positive, inspiring and
motivating thoughts, it will turn into a beautiful garden, in contrary it will turn in to a jungle of
negative thoughts. Our mind is a beautiful garden, if we do not plant and nurture sapling of
beautiful flowering plants in it, it will turn into a mess of wild creepers, bushes and thorny plants.
Our mind is a huge factory charming out ideas and thoughts. We are the supervisor of this
factory. We have two foremen at our mind stream and call. Mr.Yes and Mr. No. As soon as our
factory produces a great idea, we invite both the foremen to discuss its execution. Both of them
give suggestions as their names go. It is up to us to follow their advice or not. If we begin to
follow the advice of ‘Mr. No’ more and more, we begin to develop a negative attitude. A time
comes when ‘Mr. No’ has taken a complete control of our thought process. By and by a time
comes when before we could let a great idea seep within us, ‘Mr No.’ comes and thrushes it out
of shape, so much so that ‘Mr. No’ takes a complete control over us.
Similarly if we begin to follow Mr. Yes more and more, we begin to develop a positive attitude
and eventually Mr. Yes will take the complete control of our thought process. By and by a time
comes when before we could let a great idea seep within us, ‘Mr Yes’ comes, promotes and form
it in to proper shape so much so that ‘Mr. Yes’ takes a complete control over us to an
overwhelming level.
Success is what something really attracts us, and sure do everyone and then we must make a
deep association with ‘Mr. Yes’, our positive foreman.
Positive attitude can do wonders. It can make possible what is seemingly impossible for others.
Positive attitude is the seed out of which positive traits, which are essential for success sprout
forth. It is the positive attitude again which waters and feeds the sapling of positive traits.
Human mind is the home where all the beliefs, values, likes and dislikes are residing. Attitudes
are formed by these traits is present before making decisions that influence the human behavior.
Also human behavior depends a lot on the instantaneous attitude formed by looking at a
particular situation and what they expect to gain from it. However factors which may not have
been internalized as beliefs and values can still influence a person’s attitudes at the point of
decision-making. Typical influences include the desire to please, political correctness,
convenience, peer pressure, and psychological stressors.
This shows that attitude is a complicated process and needs in depth study to understand this
phenomena.
2.5 Creativity:
Creativity is a fundamental human trait backed by courage, confidence, and the willingness to fail
and try again. It can be seen in tribes' adaptation of natural objects to make tools, and in the
uniquely human pursuits of art and music. Creativity is multidisciplinary having no professional
boundaries. It is practiced in many different mediums and the benefits are applicable to almost all
the professions. Creativity promotes innovation, fostering new development and its’ creative
impulse explains the constant change in fashion, technology and food in modern society.
Creative people have high degree of dedication and commitment towards their endeavors like art
and literature and use them to distinguish themselves within their social group. They also use
their creativity to make money, livelihood and persuade others of the value of their ideas and
products.
Creativity allows us self-discovery; express ourselves as well as the opportunity to share the
hidden side of ourselves. Creativity helps to develop confidence and promotes thinking and
problem-solving abilities helping us become a better problem solver in all areas of our life and
work. Also by pursuing creative projects we can enjoy the process as well as the outcome. Just
the act of creating inspires a sense of contentment and allows us to reduce stress and anxiety,
enter our happy zone and have fun leading to feelings of accomplishment and pride. Creativity
improves our ability to focus on creating things and helps to find likeminded people and feel less
alone in the world. Further this reminds us to know that there is always room for improvement
and a commitment to continue challenging our ideas and ability until new growth occurs.
 The above discussion shows that creativity, like other character traits, has a greater influence in
our day to day life and brings huge effects on our behavior.

2.6 Being Grateful

Feeling and expression of gratefulness is an important character trait that prevails among the
majority of the people. However, different people have different level of inclination to experience
and express gratefulness. Being grateful follows a meritorious act by a person or a group of
persons towards another and the response extended by the beneficiaries or one can be grateful
for what he already has. It is a process of recognition devoid of monetary value. This response
take place in two forms, one is the inner feeling of the beneficiaries and the other external
expression extended by the beneficiaries, appreciating the meritorious act. As a result, gratitude
is said to exist both as a temporary feeling and as a dispositional trait. In both cases, gratitude
creates a cohesive bond among the people in the society and induces positive behavioral
change. There are some more positive effects of being grateful thus gratitude opens the door for
more relationships, improves physical health psychological health and self-esteem,
enhances empathy and reduces aggression. Also Grateful people sleep better with increased
mental strength.
We have discussed some of the character traits of human briefly above to suit the needs of this
chapter and these inner feelings will be discussed in detail in the forthcoming chapters as required.

3. Now let us see how these character traits play in the behavior of the human.
Explaining human behavior is the most difficult task and puzzling since it is highly
unpredictable. People behave in different ways as influenced by their inner feelings and to
suit their needs and comfort, perhaps complying with social norms, religion and their beliefs.
Before attempting to explain human behavior it is worthwhile to make an attempt to
understand it. The basic question arise in this exercise is why they do what they do. When
this is deeply analyzed it is clear that people will not do anything without a benefit; thus they
have a belief to say that if they do certain thing there will be certain benefits, a desire. That is,
people in everyday situations use both beliefs and desires to demonstrate why they do what
they do. Dr. Gregg Henriques Ph D, an American Psychologist has studied this subject
extensively and put forward a concept named “Belief-Desire” to explain human behavior. He
uses the ‘Belief-desire” frame to explain the three core processes that influences human
behavior and why people do what they do.
The following illustration is presented to explain the human behavior, using the concept
Belief-Desire” frame put forward by Dr. Gregg Henriques Ph D through three core
processes involved in human behavior.
Let us illustrate this difficult to understand phenomena with an example. Consider a middle
aged person Amith attending a speakers club meeting sessions. Here Amith’s action is
attending the club meeting session; he could have at least two desires, one is that he
improves his communication skills and the other being meeting people and social networking.
He could do this to fulfill an assignment in his work environment since he is employed in the
marketing field, sales promotion. If he does not have belief in at least one of the desires, he
would not attend the club meeting. How did this belief come in to his mind, obviously from
external influences, may be from the desire for self-development inspired by someone, social
influence or even employment condition for promotion. When we look at this behavior of
Amith via a common frame, three key processes come in to our understanding.
The first key process is investment: From our example above whether Amith is headed
out because he needs to have self- development, wants to expand his net-working capacity,
or wants to get his promotion in his job, his attending speakers club is a form of investment.
As suggested by the term investment, work efforts spent (which involve expenses, time,
energy, opportunity costs, risks, and so forth) are directed toward particular outcomes. The
return might be found in from the self- development, having wide circle of friends, or the joy
by getting his promotion. Framed as such, we can then ask: Where do our tendencies toward
investments come from? We are evolved primates, so evolution has primed us to value
certain states of affairs (e.g., self- development, safety, territory, food, higher social status)
over others.
The second key process is social influence: As Aristotle noted, we are an incredibly social
animal, and one of the most important features of our environment is other people. And our
action-investments rarely take place in isolation/on an island, but they take place in the
context of a social matrix. Social influence here refers to two things.
 First, it refers to the process by which one person’s actions impact the
investment of another person. In the current example, it would refer to the way
Amith was attending the speakers club (did he look for it, did someone inspired
him, was there any cordiality in the process, etc). Important social influence
processes involve motivation, cooperation, competition, and whether exchanges
move people closer (i.e., become more dependent) or make them further apart
(become more independent).
The second meaning of influence is as a resource. When considered as a
resource, it refers to the capacity to move other people in accordance with our
interests. Here it refers to the levels of respect and social value other people
show us, the extent to which they listen, care about our well-being, and are
willing to sacrifice for us. So, if Amith is attracted to this speakers club and
attends is an indicator of social influence as a resource. The harder Amith had
to work to get his communication skills developed results in raising questions
about the social influence on him. If he does not get his communication skills
developed as desired, that is a powerful indication of a loss of social influence.
The third core process is justification. You can think of justification as anything that
involves questions and answers which lead to claims about what is and what ought to
be. For example, if Amith explains to his soul that, “many of my friends have attended
this speakers club and they have become great speakers,” or says, “I am sure that I
can get my promotion” both are “justifications.” Likewise, if Amith (as a sales person)
gets an inquiry from his boss and asks if he has succeeded in any new sales, there is a
shared, if implicit, justification that Amith needs to do what his boss wants. Arguments,
reasons for and against things, rationalizations, laws, and even scientific truth claims all
are "justifications" in the unified language system. This discussion is a justification for
thinking about three core processes that explain why people do what they do.
If you want to achieve a better understanding of why people do what they do, consider
starting with these three core processes. Human behavior is first and foremost a kind of
“doing” or investing. Individuals do what they do because of either implicit or explicit
cost-benefit analyses directed at certain outcomes. Then we can look to the social
matrix to see the influence such investments might have on others or how the
investment itself might be shaped by social influence factors. Finally, there is the
explanatory system that people are using to make sense of the world around them and
legitimize what they are doing and why. Keep in mind that even your analysis of the
person's activity in terms of investment, influence, and justification is itself a kind of
justification system. These processes line up quite well with common sense belief-
desire behavior.
4. Now let us see how human behavior is influenced by the external factors.
4.1 Social norms
Social norms also impact behavior; often- the unspoken rules of a group, which shapes not only
just our behaviors but also our attitudes. The behavior of an individual largely depends and
varies on the social norms of the group(s) he is a part of, allowing the social norms to make
impacts on the society, creating a vicious circle. Due to the inherently conformist nature of
human society in general, humans are pressurized to follow certain rules and display certain
behaviors in society, conditioning the way people behave. Human society would not function as it
currently does without these social norms. Different behaviors are deemed to be
either acceptable or unacceptable in different societies and cultures; thus humans have to be
choosier in their behavior, since one cannot expect a pre-tested 'normal' standardized lifestyle.
The institutionalization of norms is, however, inherent in human society perhaps as a direct result
of the desire to be accepted by others, leading humans to adjust their own behavior in order to 'fit
in' with others. Depending on their nature and upon one's perspectives, norms can impact
different sections of society both positively (e.g. attending birthday celebrations) and negatively
(e.g. racism, drug use).
4.2 Religion and spirituality
Another important aspect that affects human behavior is religion and spirituality. Different people
in the society have different religious beliefs and corresponding spirituality, creating self-identity
based on their religious belief. Every religion teaches and preach desirable way of life to improve
the spiritual life enhance the behavioral pattern of human. Based on this teachings every society
has formed some kind of religious social norms which make a huge effect on the behavior of the
people. According to a Pew Research Center report, 54% of adults around the world state that
religion is very important in their lives and it affects their behavior towards others. They have
different religious worship methods, rituals and socializing mechanisms based on the religious
beliefs. Religions, when seriously followed, can minimize arrogance, enhance patience &
empathy and forgive others for their mistakes, affecting the person’s behavior. Also this could
improve their other personality traits helping to build improved social harmony. Further people
practice different charity methods based their religion and beliefs, in order to help others, shaping
up their behavior. For example, one of the five pillars of Islam is Zakat. This is the practice
whereby Muslims who can afford to are required to donate 2.5% of their wealth to those in
need. Buddhists offer meals for the pilgrims on Vesak day commemorating the birth,
enlightenment and attainment of nirvana of Lord Buddha. Similarly Christian and Hindus
celebrate their religious events in different ways, attending services with other members of their
religion regularly. Spirituality and meditation helps people to realize the deep meaning of human
life; thus changing their understanding, thoughts and empathy towards the society.
4.3 Weather and climate
The weather and climate vary from country to country, from region to region on micro and macro
levels throughout the world and have a significant influence on the human lifestyle. The average
temperature of a country affects its traditions and daily aspects and routines of life. Food
preferences, dress, culture, housing patterns and behavior are the main. As a result, there
 comes an impact on human behavior positive as well as negative. The positive effects include
the vigor that makes people very energetic to take part in different activities and relaxed
behavior. The negative effects are aggressive, violent and depressive behavior. Throughout the
world, human adopt different strategies to cope up with different weather conditions and the
adaptive strategies include weather prediction to avoid surprises; dressing appropriately for the
season and coming up with positive attitudes towards all the seasons by finding activities to
participate in every season. In tropical countries like the middle-east and African countries they
adopt different work schedule to avoid harsh effect of hot weather. This has induced a different
culture, eating pattern and optimizing the consumption of available resources. If someone is
used to lower temperatures, a heatwave will have more negative effects on his mood and bodily
comfort than if he is used to living in a hot environment.
Although we have attempted to illustrate effect of inner feelings of a person and prevailing
external influences in two separate distinct segments it is absolutely not possible to do so
because most of the inner feelings are strongly connected and influenced by the external from
the birth of a person. Therefore the inner feelings and the external influences make their effect
on human behavior as a composite mechanism.
5. In Summary ...
People in this world are actively processing and interacting with the daily happenings of their life in
this ever-changing world, exhibiting different behavioral patterns which display a diversity of how
they think, act and make decisions. They are influenced by internal factors like psychological
traits, personality traits, and character traits. Also they are subjected to different kinds of external
influences and pressures like social norms, religion and spirituality and weather and climate when
they endeavor to navigate through this world. This compels them to adapt and learn certain
behaviors accordingly in order to survive. They differ in their thinking patterns and respond to their
inner feelings and outer influences differently. This shows that their behavior is diverse & complex
and sometimes unpredictable.
It is difficult to understand this complex nature of human behavior. Having a proper understanding
about their, personality, lifestyle, social background and the way of thinking may pave the way to
have a reasonable understanding about human behavior while a deep knowledge about other
variables such as beliefs, values, self-confidence, integrity etc. that affect their behavior directly or
indirectly would further enhance such understanding. When trying to understand human behavior
examining a single input factor would not bring favorable results without examining all the influencing
factors in the system on a level ground.
It is believed that the illustration of Amith to explain “Human Behavior” would have given a deep
insight in to “why they do what they do?” with the explanation through “Investment, Social
Influence and Justification” approach.

Final Thoughts on Human Behavior

Hopefully this write up has given you some insight to human behavior. As human we live in different
societies made up of diverse people and we have to interact with them on a daily basis while making
our lives. The main intention of introducing this chapter on the way to “Personal Development” is to
make the readers acknowledge a deep insight in to the importance of having a broad understanding
about “Human Behavior” which provides the basis for the functionality of the society and the world.
We may have enough wealth and health, may be academically qualified with flying colors yet those
alone will not help us to make a progressive move towards our “Personal Development”. There are
lots of input materials we have to extract from other people in order to facilitate our “Personal
Development” journey a success and joyful one. Let us Move!
Chapter 2 Self Awareness - Discover Who You Are
In this Chapter, we will understand self-awareness and its importance in self-development. Further it
explains key areas of self-awareness and covers six specific actions we can take to become more
self-aware on a daily basis. If interested in building a better life, then it is recommended reading on
to learn how this powerful concept of self-awareness helps to review each mistake that we make, to
overcome obstacles, and to face challenges, in order to have a positive impact on your life.
1. Introduction
Self-awareness is having conscious knowledge of our thoughts, emotions and actions and the ability
to monitor those. It allows us to know our strengths, weaknesses, triggers, motivators and other
characteristics. Being self-aware means that we take a deeper look at our feelings, why we feel in a
certain way and how our feelings could turn into actions. Those who are self-aware tend to act
consciously rather than passively, meaning that they make better decisions, have higher levels of
psychological health, and have a more positive outlook in life.
Self-awareness can be best viewed from the standpoint of self-development of an individual. It truly
means that we can have a rational and meaningful discovery and deep understanding of our values,
strengths, weakness, habits, beliefs, emotions and purpose of life. While this leads to acknowledge
our faults and draw backs, allows to be constantly focused on multiple strategies, to help improve
our judgment and to identify opportunities for self-growth and self-development.
With our busy daily life it might be difficult to find time to think about who we are, what are our
strengths, weaknesses, drives and personality traits, habits, values etc. Besides, many of us are not
inclined to spend much time on self-reflection. Even when a personal feedback is offered to us, we
are seldom open to it, since a honest feedback is not always flattering or sugar coated. This leads
many of us to have a pretty low level of self-awareness. That is rather unfortunate, because self-
awareness is the essential first step towards personal development.
The scope of self-growth and personal development is broad and self-awareness lies at the core of
this powerful pursuit. Self-awareness can be understood at different levels. At the surface, it is
simply being aware of our actions. At a deeper level, it is recognizing the problems that we create for
our self and finding strategies to fix them. Self-growth and personal development largely depends on
the degree to which self-awareness has been rooted, understood and realized in our hearts and
minds. It is through this rooting, understanding and realization of self-awareness, a powerful driving
force is exerted to enhance personal growth and self- development, helping us to grow and improve
relationships, careers, wealth, health, and happiness.
Our perspectives on the happenings of our lives, our environment and the world around us largely
determine the state of affairs of our lifestyle. Thus probably the most vital lesson we can learn in life
is the importance of our thinking patterns. If we think of failure, we will find reasons to fail and
inevitably we will fail in it. Similarly if we think good health and wellbeing, we will make conscious
decisions to take the path that leads to greater health and wellbeing.
Unfortunately, many of us do not consciously choose the perspectives that we should take about our
lives, our environment and the world. Our thoughts, could be considered to have a concealed
behavior, may simply go on with life that become influenced by surrounding events, the media and
other people around us. When this happens, we, have given up our power to create our own lives
and our world around us, instead we have embraced slavery. In fact we are using our own power
against ourselves to make ourselves feel powerless. Lack of self-awareness brings many obstacles
and impediment to self- growth and self-development.
2. Importance of Self -Awareness
Being self-aware helps us not to just build a strong therapeutic relationship, but also helps a lay
person make more informed decisions and contributes to our overall wellbeing. Also becoming more
self-aware can help us to proactively manage our thoughts, emotions and behaviors, rather than
allowing them to manage us. If we are self-aware enough to know our strengths and weaknesses,
we will know which goals we need to set and the required strategies that will help us achieve them.
Self-awareness is the key to improve any aspect of our life. These are not the only benefits of self-
awareness; let us see some more aspects why it is so important.
2.1 Increases our Social Abilities
Human beings are social elements who thrive on relationships for which self-awareness is an
essential ingredient. Self-awareness induces emotional intelligence which motivates us to
organize our thoughts and actions get to get to know each other better, relate to our feelings and
feel good about us while dealing with others. We are able to realize exactly what we look for in
each person we meet helping us creating successful relationships. The best way to improve our
level of emotional intelligence is by learning our own emotional patterns. Lacking this skill can
leave us in conflicts and misery with others.
2.2 Promotes Versatility and Open-mindedness
Self-awareness can be instrumental in influencing our approach that we have on issues and
overcoming personality defects. Moreover, people with strong self-awareness are always
physically and psychologically healthier and maintain a positive outlook. Knowing our self itself is
the ability to actively communicate with our own body and mind to know our natural response to
changing circumstances with an open mind. This self-consciousness can thus help us to have a
clear focus when dealing with issues, building the ability to accept opinions, feedback, and
criticism from other people without being subjective. This makes versatile to many different
functions or activities we come across. At the end, we will create a situation in which multiple
solutions to a single problem are inevitable. People with high degree of self-awareness live their
experiences deeper and are more emphatic with others and with themselves; leading to success
in every endeavors.
2.3 Promotes Productivity
People who are self-aware are fast thinkers. They understand themselves and are able to focus
on the challenges of the day without hindrances. We can be held back unnecessarily by
uncertainties in the absence of self-awareness. This leads to big challenges, resulting in waste of
time caused by pondering over many different courses of action, even when a swift decision is
needed. This is directly related to decision making ability, a vital attribute of leadership trait.
Knowing ourselves eliminates internal fear and encourages focusing on important matters
objectively. People with sound self-awareness are also self-confident and promote objectivity;
and they are quite efficient in decision making without being clouded by poor judgment. Timely
decision making is the key to enhance productivity.
3. Key Areas for Self-Awareness
Human beings are complex and diverse. To become more self-aware, we should develop an
understanding of ourselves in many areas. Key areas for self-awareness include our personality
traits, character traits and the psychological traits that drive our behaviors. Having a thorough
understanding about these traits will enhance our self-awareness and help to speed thorough our
self-development process. We have discussed about beliefs, values, self-confidence, attitudes,
creativity and being grateful in Chapter 1 and it is not intended to repeat the same here, although
those are also key areas of self-awareness. However some of the important personal traits and
attributes related to self-awareness are elaborated below.
3.1 Personality:
We do not normally change our personalities, values and needs, based on what we learn about
ourselves. But an understanding of our personalities can help us to manage adverse situations
and incidents which are potentially capable of inducing excessive stress. For instance, if you are
a highly introverted person, you are likely to experience more stress in a sales position than a
highly extroverted person would. So, if you are highly introverted, you should either learn skills
to cope with the demands of a sales position that requires extravert-type behavior patterns, or
you should find a position that is more compatible with your introvert personality. Awareness of
our personality traits helps us analyze such a situations and come to a wise decision.
3.2 Emotions:
Emotional self-awareness has become a hot topic of discussion in the recent past because it is
one of the five facets of emotional intelligence. Understanding our own feelings, what causes
them, and how they impact our thoughts and actions is emotional self-awareness. If we were
once excited about our job but not now, can we get excited again? To answer this question, it is
necessary to understand the internal processes associated with getting excited. That sounds
simpler than it is. Here's an analogy: I think I know how my car starts--I put gas in the tank, put
the key in the ignition, and turn the key. But, my mechanic knows a lot more about what is
involved in getting my car started than I do--he knows what happens under the hood. My
mechanic is able to start my car on the occasions when I am not because he understands the
internal processes. Similarly, a person with high emotional self-awareness understands the
internal process associated with emotional experiences and therefore has greater control over
them.
3.3 Passion:
One way to live a fulfilling life is to ...... follow your PASSION.
Passion is one of those words that people use often without really understanding the original
meaning of the word. When most people refer to "passion", they use it to mean strong emotions
reflecting an intense desire or boundless enthusiasm towards someone or something. But the
original meaning of “Passion” is “A Willingness to Suffer for What You Love”
The most famous example for being passion is the passion of Jesus Christ, prophet Mohamad
and Lord Buddha. Therefore it is no longer ethical to use it to describe something that a strong
feeling about or that excites. It is to be used to describe an activity, goal or cause that someone
cares about so much that he/she is willing to suffer for it. This new standard makes it easier to
discern whether something is truly one’s passion or simply a strong interest.
People who make a difference in their own lives and the world do so by following their passion.
This means making the conscious decision to give up other enjoyable activities to focus our
energy on the most important activities. Great parents naturally do this when they have children.
Similar to raising kids, doing what we love is very hard work yet rewarding at the same time. The
good news is when we pursue our passion; we will not only like where we end up but enjoy the
journey along the way. Therefore knowing our level of passion is an important part of self-
awareness.
3.4 Habits:
Having a deep understanding about our habits is utmost important because these habits can
build or ruin us. Our habits are the behaviors that we repeat routinely and often
automatically. Although we would like to possess the habits that help us interact effectively with
and manage others, we all can probably identify at least one of our habits that decrease our
effectiveness. For example, if you are a manager who never consults your staff before making
important decisions, that habit may interfere with your ability to build your staff members'
commitment to the decisions and their decision-making skills as well. People with good and
admirable habits will reach greater heights in their life.
3.5 Needs:
There are two kinds of needs in human life, namely physiological needs and psychological
needs. Physiological needs are the requirements we all need individually for our survival.
If physiological needs are not met, the human body struggles to function and suffers.
Physiological needs are the basis of needs and include survival needs such as sleep, food, air,
and reproduction.
When we come to psychological needs, Klaus Grawe (2004, 2007) defines four basic
psychological needs: The need for Attachment; the need for Control/Orientation; the need
for Pleasure/Avoidance of Pain; and the need for Self-Enhancement. Of these
needs, attachment and control are developed first and thus are the strongest drivers of behavior,
with self-enhancement, or self-esteem likely to be the last of the needs to develop in an
individual.
One of the advantages of knowing which psychological needs exert the strongest influence on
our own behaviors is the ability to understand how they affect our interpersonal
relationships. For instance, most of us have probably known people who have a high need for
status. They are attracted to high status occupations, and they seek high status positions within
their organizations. Such people also want the things that symbolize their status. They insist
that they be shown respect, and they want privileges and perks that people of lower status
cannot have. Sometimes these people fight for things that others see as insignificant-like a
bigger office. Needs cause motivation; and when needs are not satisfied, they can cause
frustration, conflict and stress.
3.6 Resilience:
Resilience is defined as the capacity to recover from difficult life events. It is a hard fact that we
fail from time to time; it is an inevitable part of living, we make mistakes and occasionally fall flat
on our faces. Resilience is our ability to withstand these situations and bounce back when things
 fail. Resilient people do not groom or dwell on failures; they acknowledge the situation, learn
from their mistakes and move forward.
People experience all kinds of adversity in life. There are personal experiences, such as illness,
loss of a loved one, abuse, bullying, job loss, and financial instability. There is the shared reality
of tragic events in the media, such as terrorist attacks, mass shootings, and natural disasters.
People have to learn to cope with and work through every challenging life experiences.
Being resilient does not mean that people do not experience stress, emotional upheaval, and
suffering. Some people equate resilience with mental toughness but demonstrating resilience
includes working through emotional pain and suffering.
Resilience is not a trampoline, where you are down one moment and up the next. It is more like
climbing a mountain without a trail map. It takes time, strength and help from people around you,
and you will likely experience setbacks along the way. But eventually you reach the top and look
back at how far you have come.
Resilience is not a fixed trait. Developing resilience is both complex and personal. It involves a
combination of inner strengths and outer resources, and there is no universal formula for
becoming more resilient. Flexibility, adaptability, and perseverance can help people tap into their
resilience by changing certain thoughts and behaviors. Everybody is different: While one person
might develop symptoms of depression or anxiety following a traumatic event, another person
might not report any symptoms at all.
Usually resilient people display four elements in them
 They have a positive image of the future. That is, they maintain a positive outlook, and
envision brighter days ahead.
 They have solid goals, and a desire to achieve those goals.
 They are empathetic and compassionate, however, they do not waste time worrying
what others think of them. They maintain healthy relationships, but do not bow to peer
pressure.
 They never think of themselves as victims – they focus their time and energy on changing
the things that they have control over.
How we view adversity and stress strongly affects how we succeed, and this is one of the most
significant reasons that having a resilient mindset is so important.
3.7 Integrity:
Integrity is a term used to describe a person's level of honesty, moral commitments, and willingness
to do what's right. It is a human trait valued by majority and is expected from our leaders. But
what does it really mean to have integrity? We could say that it is adherence to moral and ethical
principles; soundness of moral character; honesty. Also we could say that integrity is always
doing the right thing, even when no one is looking, and even when the choice is not easy. Or, we
might see integrity as staying true to our self and our word, even when we are faced with serious
consequences for the choices that we are making. When we have integrity, we are whole and in
perfect condition, and we are not compromised by awkward "inconsistencies."
 Integrity and core values are closely knitted and therefore to develop and protect our integrity,
start by identifying our core values. These are the values that we refuse to compromise on, no
matter what. Then, develop a culture of integrity around us, work on building our self-confidence
and self-esteem, and develop relationships with others who live with integrity.
When we live our lives with integrity, it means that we're always honest, and we let our actions
speak for who we are and what we believe in. Integrity is a choice we make, and it is a choice we
must keep making, every moment of our lives.
4.0 Self-Awareness is the Driving Force
True leaders harness self-awareness to identify gaps in their leadership skills, in order to enhance
their overall performance. Also self-awareness helps leaders find critical situations in which they will
be most effective, assist with intuitive decision making; aids stress management and motivation of
themselves and others. Making an in-depth assessment of what we are gifted with, our passion and
our interests provides a complete picture of what and where we are presently and determines the
efforts that we need to strive for better performance and become a better person tomorrow.
Having an accurate sense of who we are at all aspects of our expertise is paramount to determine
what we should do to improve ourselves. Often, self-awareness helps us reveal about our strengths
and weaknesses. This in turn will reveal the skills gap that we need to work on and what we need
most from other people to have a successful team spirit. It explains what lies behind our successes
and failures. It provides the necessary base for having strong character, creating the ability to lead
with a purpose, trust, authenticity and openness.
In complex situations, intuitive decision makers equipped with self-awareness, process large
amounts of sometimes unstructured and ambiguous data and they choose course of actions based
on a "gut feeling" or a "sense" of what is best. Leaders who are highly emotionally self-aware are
better able to read their "gut feelings" and use them to guide decisions and increase their
effectiveness positively motivating their employees. Further, if we are someone who is good at
"seeing the big picture" that surrounds decisions, but not as good at focusing on the details, we
might want to consult colleagues and subordinates who are more detail-oriented in relation to that
major decisions making surrounds. Cooperation between big-picture-oriented decision makers and
detail-oriented decision makers can produce high quality decisions.
Skill development is also a sub set of self-development and plays the major role in our overall
performance. Improvement in skill development shall normally begin with an assessment of the gap
between the current situation and the desired situation, like in other cases. There are two kinds of
skill development required for everyone in support self-development, namely hard skills and soft
skills. A detailed discussion will be presented in Chapter 3 under Developing Soft Skills.
4.1 Motivation:
Self-Motivation is also an important personal trait in self development process, having a greater
bearing on our day to day activities. Some people remain motivated throughout their life focusing
on their goals and it is highly connected to their psychological need. For some people motivation
is a difficult commodity requiring intermittent alert or push up. Awareness of our psychological
needs can increase our motivation by helping us understand and seek out the rewards that we
really desire. Such desires are a sense of accomplishment, additional responsibility, an
opportunity to help others, or a flexible work schedule. It is very difficult to remain motivated with
 poor results when we do not understand what causes them. When we do not know what
behaviors to change to improve our performance, we just feel helpless. Self-awareness is an
empowering tool to enhance our degree of motivation as it can reveal where the performance
problems are and indicate what would be possible and potential remedial measures to improve
performance.
4.2 Education
Self-awareness plays a vital role in education both students and teachers, because it helps both
groups become focused on what they need to learn and teach. With increasing degree of self-
awareness student’s thinking capacity increases and the teachers observing and monitoring
capacity increases. One step further, mutual self-awareness of both groups in appropriate
blending could do wonders. When teachers work with students to teach them to reflect, monitor
and evaluate them, students are able to become more self-reliant, productive, and flexible. By
this way students improve their ability to weigh their choices and think about their options,
especially when the correct answer is not obvious. When students have a hard time
understanding a concept or idea, they use reflective strategies to acknowledge their difficulties
and try to fix them. This also gives students tools to self-reflect and grow in their emotional and
social lives. On the other hand this scenario provides an excellent observation and exploratory
domain for the teachers to understand their roles and develop themselves.
Self-awareness plays important role in many other areas of personal traits such as social
working capacity, counselling, hospitality services, stress management, etc. When we are
engaged in these activities our stakeholders are our clients and knowing ourselves; especially in
relation to their needs, wants and desires is vital. Perhaps our clients could be professionals,
classmates, colleagues and others who continuously work to challenge/remind us to be aware of
our feelings. While this could be a difficult task to do, it is a worthwhile effort towards desired
achievement of both parties. Knowing our own personal preferences and biases to a deeper
sense will ensure a need oriented, unbiased professional service towards the client so that they
can make sure we are treating every client equally.
5. Six Tips to Boost Self-Awareness
5.1 Look at Yourself objectively
Trying to see yourself, as you really are, can be a very difficult process, but if you make the right
efforts, getting to know your real self can be extremely rewarding. When you are able to see
yourself objectively, you can learn how to accept yourself and find ways to improve yourself in
the future.
So, what is an easy way to get started with this?
 Try to identify your current understanding by writing out your perceptions. This may be
things that you think you are good at doing, or that you need to improve. The key here is
to understand what makes you click, but NEVER compare yourself with others.
 Think about the things you are proud of, the areas you have excelled or any
accomplishments that really stand out throughout your life.
 Think about your childhood and what made you happy back then. What has changed and
what has remained the same? What are the reasons for the changes?
In the end, you will come out with a fresh perspective about yourself and your life.
5.2 Keep a Journal.
5.2.1 What is a Journal: A journal is a written record of our thoughts, experiences and
observations and serves as a container of the above. Journaling is about us, our thoughts
and feelings, and our successes and failures. We can write down anything that comes to our
mind including all the events in our life. Later we can look back on the recordings of important
events to recall how we felt at that time, even if it is not related to our personal goals. Let our
imaginations run wild and record it in our journal.
5.2.2 How and when to do it: We can write our journal on a daily basis, or only when we
feel the necessity. However, taking some time each night to write in our journal before retiring
for the day is much useful and recommended.
5.2.3 Benefits of Journaling: While Journaling has several benefits for our overall health,
particularly our emotional health, it will help us grow and move forward in all our endeavors.
Recording our thoughts on paper helps us to relieve our mind of those ideas, and clears it up
making space for new information and ideas. Also it facilitates a way to engage in a dialogue
with our inner voice. Dialoguing, whether verbal or written, is very healing — emotionally and
physically.
Sometimes our minds travel a mile a minute, especially during periods of high stress. Putting
those thoughts and emotions down on paper makes them more manageable. It helps us
better understand our thoughts; discard anxieties, frustrations and pains, in a relaxing mode.
Generally our memories become less clear and vivid as they fade farther into the past.
Maintaining a journal containing our thoughts, feelings and emotions of our past helps us to
remember them better. Also it will help us to learn from our past experiences.
Writing a journal is a great way to unleash our creativity. Everyone has the potential to be
creative; most of us have not discovered it yet. Our journal is the best place to start exploring
our inner creativity.
5.3. Write down your plans, priorities, and goals
It is important to write down our vision thoughtfully and break down the larger goals into sub
goals so it seems less complicated, and easy to tackle one by one. Subsequently breakdown
such sub goals in to practically implementable events and place them in a step by step array.
This write-up, let us call it as action plan, should give a clear picture about our goals, sub goals,
implementation methodology, time frame and realization process. Once we are thorough about it,
this could be inserted in our journal as action plans, indicting how often this action plans should
be referred and reviewed. It may not be easy at the first step as mentioned here, yet it is difficult
to describe a detailed methodology in this book to suit everyone. Only a thoughtful and
meaningful effort will make your exercise fruitful.
5.4. Performing daily Self-Reflection.
Everyone is moving through with busy schedules in our daily life and have become doing our
routines trying to maximize productivity and minimize time spent. Under this hectic life pattern it
is so easy to get caught up in the day-to day aspects of life and forget to pause, self-reflect and
look at the bigger picture.
Self-reflection, a vital part of self-awareness, requires setting aside some time, hopefully on a
daily basis, to honestly look at us as a person and a leader. Review all your activities of the day
in a critical frame and carry out an objective evaluation to ascertain whether your goals have
been actualized. Taking time to self-reflect allows for new ideas to emerge and counters the risk
of becoming stagnant. New ideas and continuous change is necessary, in overall self-
development process, irrespective of your situation. Thus self-reflection is extremely helpful in
creating a better sense of yourself, who you want to be, and how we will get there.
Also as a part self-reflection, as leaders, we take some time to think about our self to see as to
how are we doing our works, and how people working under us are likely to view us. Think about
what we could do to help other people, and if we could possibly do more. What are our values,
and what is most important to us right now?
Our daily review evaluation report will provide a great insight in to our daily performances,
highlighting good and to be improved performances. If we are really concerned on the to be
improved performances, the following day our performance will be remarkably improved and the
daily evaluation report will bring less to be improved performances and more good
performances. Self-reflection needs time to get inculcated, an isolated quiet place, free from
external distractions, will be ideal for this purpose. Allocating a minimum of 15 minutes a day for
our daily self-review process would suffice. Our daily review is the most effective exercise with
deep self-reflection in this process.
Self-reflection also helps to build emotional self-awareness. By taking the time to ask our self the
important questions, we gain a better understanding of our emotions, strengths, weaknesses and
driving factors. Once we understand important aspects of our self, we become better able to
adapt to changing situations and tough circumstances.
Further our integrity increases when we take time to reflect on core values. Having a clear
understanding of what values we deem most important puts them at the forefront of our mind and
strengthens our decisions.
All of these self-reflection events will help us get a better idea of who we are and what we want
out of life right now, making a successful self-awareness. However in our demanding busy
environment, daily self-reflection is easier said than done but if we start methodically and perform
it as a ritual, it will become a daily routine within no time. Committing to this practice can help
improve in a long way.
5.5. Practice meditation and other mindfulness habits.
Meditation is the practice of improving our mindful awareness. Most types of meditation focus on
the breath, but not all meditation and mindfulness need to be formal. Practicing meditation and
other mindfulness habits helps us find greater clarity and self-awareness. Learning how to be
more mindful can be a challenge for some people — especially in this fast-paced, hectic world,
yet there are enormous guidelines and helping methods to learn and practice mindfulness. One
of the most frequent forms of meditation you may practice comes from carrying out everyday
 tasks that give you a sense of therapeutic serenity, such as washing dishes, going for a run, and
going to church.
5.6. Seek for Constructive and Critical Feedback
How are we supposed to know what other people think of us? The best way is to get feedback
from others who may be our family members, trusted friends, our peers and colleagues at work,
our teachers and professional reviewers. The only condition is that there must be an open,
trusting relationship and that they are indeed supporting your personal development. Let them
play the role of a mirror. When we seek feedback, tell our feedback providers that we are looking
for open, honest, critical, and objective perspectives; and allow them to feel safe while they are
giving you an informal yet an honest feedback on us.
We can ask them for feedback about your personality, habits, needs and values. Research
shows that our coworkers, friends and family members can provide valid assessments of our
personality. People are not very likely to give a critical feedback if there is not a high level of
trust in our relationship with them. The validity and the relevance of the feedback largely
depends on many factors such as their understanding about what is sought, the inner
relationship between us and them, their beliefs, opinion and understanding.
Another limitation of the validity of the feedback we get from family, friends and especially
coworkers is that they may not be completely frank with you. This is where the trust factor looms
large. Unflattering feedback is the type that has the most potential for helping to develop our
leadership and management skills, but it is also the most difficult to give and to accept. For this
reason, it is suggested that leaders and managers find a way to get anonymous feedback from
staff members and co-workers.
5.6.1 (a)Seek professional help: Professional counselors and executive coaches can be a
great source of feedback to help develop our self-awareness. Executive coaching is a great
resource, and it is a growing area of management consulting. Coaches not only help us get
a better picture of who we are; they also guide us through self-improvement. Often coaches
collect anonymous evaluations of their clients from their subordinates, superiors or anyone
else who is in a position to provide helpful feedback. Good coaches know how to effectively
collect and digest the feedback.
5.6.2 (b) Questionnaires: One of the ways to improve the quality of the feedback that we can
receive from other people is by asking them to fill out an inventory of our personality, values,
needs, or habits as they perceive. Those surveys are composed and structured in such a
way as to maximize the accuracy of the feedback they generate. With the help of a
facilitator, the surveys can be completed anonymously. We can also fill out surveys our self
as a means of self-assessment.
Make sure your friends know that they are doing this to help, not to hurt. Also, feel free to ask
questions of your friends about topics they bring up if you feel like you need some more
clarity to completely understand.
6. In Summary ...
The best place to start self-awareness, to know ourselves is, to find out as who we are and our
beliefs, values, attitudes, personality, needs, habits, emotions, strengths, weaknesses, etc. With a
sense of who we are and a vision for us for what we want to become, a plan for professional or self-
development can be created. Moreover, self-awareness allows us to motivate ourselves and
manage our stress better, helps us with our intuitive decision making, and helps us to lead and
motivate others more effectively. Learning how to become more self-aware is an important skill for
many different careers, having the potential to have long-term positive impacts.
Learning how to become more self-aware is an early step in the creation of the life that you want
(self-development), taking control of your life, creating what you want, and mastering your future. It
helps you pinpoint what your passions and emotions are, and how your personality can help you in
life. While we develop self-awareness, our own perceptions, personal thoughts and interpretations
will begin to change. This change in mental state will also alter our emotions and increase our
emotional intelligence, which is an important integral factor in achieving overall success. Where you
choose to focus your energy, emotions, personality, and reactions determines where you will end up
in life.
It will take quite some time to increase your self-awareness and get to know yourself better. It can
even take years and input from many people around you. Building the necessary work habits to help
you become more self-aware can positively impact other aspects of your life, especially your
interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships.
This process could be expedited by being open to learning about you self and have the courage to
take feedback from others. Practicing the act of seeking feedback from the people who know you,
completing self-assessment surveys and/or and hiring a professional executive coach will help you
become more self-aware. By this we can objectively analyze our mistakes and find practical
solutions to change for the better.
When you are self-aware, you can see where your thoughts and emotions are leading you. Once
you are aware of your thoughts, words, emotions, and behavior, you will be able to make changes in
the direction of your future and to take control of your actions to make necessary changes to get the
outcomes you desire. Until you achieve this, you will have a hard time making changes in the
direction of your life is taking you.
A person with firm self-awareness demonstrates that he has a sharp realization of his personality,
including his strengths and weaknesses, his thoughts and beliefs, his emotions, and motivations.
Such people easily understand other people and detect how they perceive them in return. Many
people assume that they have a healthy sense of self-awareness, but it is best to look at a relative
scale to see where you fall on it compared to others. Being aware creates an opportunity to make
changes in one's behavior and beliefs.
Final Thoughts on Becoming More Self-Aware
Hopefully this write up has given you some insight to the question, “What is self-awareness?” and
how to boost yours.
It is not easy to develop a high level of self- awareness. Most people are somewhat afraid and
reluctant to be honest with themselves about their strengths, weaknesses, current challenges, inner
feelings and personal traits. But if you implement the six ideas that we have outlined in this Chapter,
you will develop a level of self-awareness that will help you grow as a person. More importantly,
practicing the said six tips should not be once in a life but as a continuous exercise for consistent
results.
Chapter 3 DEVELOPING SOFT SKILLS- PART I
1. Introduction
Corporate world is suffering so much today for want of self-developed human resources enriched
with soft skills. Many employers often complain about the amount of time and money invested in
training programs for developing soft skills in their human resources has resulted in disappointing
and discouraging returns. Although there are sufficient number of qualified subject matter specialists
(SMS) who are capable of handling issues in their respective disciplines, still there remain a huge
gap for all-rounders. All -rounder means people enriched with hard skills (subject matter) as well as
soft skills (interacting with people or human software). It is a hard fact that all of us assume we have
a certain level of soft skills which is quiet sufficient to manage any affairs and situation; can
communicate with reasonable proficiency and effectiveness, can lead a team if necessary, and so
on. It means soft skills are already there in a rough form within ourselves, yet we do not know to
what extent we are competent enough. What is required is to carry out a complete self-reflection and
self-awareness review to ascertain the level of soft skills what we possess and then take appropriate
action to get them transformed, developed, extended and added to, realize our visions. This no way
means that we should neglect or under estimate our hard skills. The real key to success in any job is
making our soft skills and hard skills complement each other. Considering every challenge in our
work environment as an opportunity to master our soft skills seems to be best approach in order to
deliver the best and to rise up in the ladder.
Soft skills are personal traits, a combination of many non-technical, non-vocational skills, suggesting
how cordially and effectively a person interact and communicate with others. There is a wide range
of skills falling under this category, and this set of skills enable people to navigate their environment,
work places well with others and achieve their goals complementing with technical and vocational
skills. Some soft skills we might have to study and learn while others might come to us naturally
through heritance.
Soft skills, also known as people skills, play a very vital role in every sphere of human life, especially
in the corporate world thus becoming an integral part on the professional arena. Its importance has
been felt and highlighted with increasing trend in the current era, like never before. Soft skill is a
composite expression, and each of the two words explains a defining aspect of the concept.
The word “skill” highlights the practical competency and function. The term alone has a broad
meaning, and describes a particular ability to complete tasks ranging from easier ones like “eating an
ice cream” to harder ones like “fixing a tire puncture.” In this specific instance, the word “skill” has to
be interpreted as the ability to master hardly controlled actions. The word “soft” the opposite of
“hard”, implies “subjective, fuzzy, and unreliable”. There is no need to over emphasize the fact
these skills are learnable, though they require practice, and accessible to most of us apart from the
temperament we were born with, the personality traits we may have inherited, and character traits
we have acquired. These are food for thought. Because of their subjectivity, soft skills could be
hardly assessed, and never fully mastered.
1.1 Concepts
Soft skills are a cluster of productive personality traits that characterize one's relationships in
a person’s environment. A definition, based on literature review explains soft skills as an
umbrella term for skills under three key functional elements: people skills, social skills, and
personal career attributes.
People skills are behavioral patterns and interactions. It is also an umbrella term
for skills under three related set of abilities: personal effectiveness, interaction skills, and
intercession skills. This is an area of exploration about how a person behaves and how
they are perceived irrespective of their thinking and feeling.

People skills are behavioral patterns and interactions and are the key to success. They are
defined as the ability to listen, to communicate and to relate to others on a personal or
professional level. It can also include problem-solving abilities, empathy for others and a
willingness to work together toward the common good. Yet they all depend on one fundamental
insight: nobody knows for sure what you are thinking or feeling - they can respond only to
your behavior. Getting the best from others, therefore, means monitoring and modifying how
you behave. This key principle should boost your effectiveness everywhere.
Social skills are the skills we use to communicate and interact with each other, both
verbally and non-verbally, through gestures, body language and our personal appearance.
Human beings are sociable creatures and we have developed many ways to communicate
our messages, thoughts and feelings with others. Practicing soft skills in this manner is called
socialization.
Personal career attributes refer to a large number of personal traits like, good manners,
maturity, judgment, problem-solving skills, loyalty, cheerful nature, good health, financial
responsibility and demonstrating that you finish what you start.
1.2 The Difference between Soft Skills and Hard Skills
In a more formal way Collins English Dictionary defines the term "soft skills" as "desirable
qualities for certain forms of employment that do not depend on acquired knowledge: they
include common sense, the ability to deal with people, and a positive flexible attitude”.
That is alright, but it is little broad and ambiguous. What does a “positive flexible attitude”
even mean?
The following explanation might provide more clarity on this. There are a large number of
subject matter skills (SMS), called hard skills which include technical, vocational or
administrative competence and are directly related to a particular job description or
profession. For example these could be accounting, drawing a plan, testing a blood sample,
navigating an aircraft, operating a machine, etc. and people are required to be
knowledgeable with all such skills and knowledge to work in a related position. Simply put,
hard skills or subject matter skills, as ones used in particular jobs or cluster, are generally
taught under class room based traditional education system, studying from a book or from
individual training and are relatively easy to learn, understand, practice and manifest. Further,
even the skills related to critical technical knowledge like Structured Query Language (SQL),
Systems Applications and Products in Data Processing (SAP), business development, or
mathematics can be acquired to perform in the industry. Also these are generally quantifiable
and measurable from an educational background, work experience or through an interview.
Soft skills are commonly used to refer to the “emotional side” of human beings in opposition
to the IQ (Intelligent Quotient) component related to hard skills. Hard and soft skills are
usually defined as similar concepts complementing each other, demonstrating the fact that
how these two different types of abilities are strictly related.
Soft skills are seldom taught under formal education system in schools or colleges but are
acquired in the work environment by the combination of practicing, learning from other people
and the environment. This makes development of soft skills much more difficult than that of
hard skills as it requires active interaction with others on an ongoing basis and being willing
to accept behavioral feedback. It is only after continuous and multidisciplinary self-learning
process soft skills can be developed. For this reason, learning does not depend solely on the
person, but it is influenced by different factors that make this education harder and
unpredictable.
Evaluating soft skills is harder than hard skills and has its own flaws. Quizzes or exams are
not effective tools to measure interpersonal and leadership skills accurately and objectively.
Group learning and peer evaluation seems to be a better option where an objective and
constructive evaluation could be provided maintaining the cohesion and good will among the
group members. Success of this option largely depends on the competence, interest and the
dedication of the group members learning, yet leaving some doubt about the success.
A great start to initiate this unique skill development would be to focus on our own young
generation who seek employment in the corporate world and Government services. Very
often we hear constant criticism about the service sector especially in the Government and
interestingly sometimes in the corporate world, including banks, for lacking soft skills,
particularly; in listening, collaboration, presenting ideas, following ethics and communicating
with teams and customers, which are highlighted as invaluable assets. This could vary
depending on the nature of the institutions and their corporate goals.
In the past success at work was seemed to be related solely to the technical ability of
completing the given tasks in the past. For this reason, employers and companies used to
hire new people based only on their objective competencies forcing the job seekers to
concentrate on developing hard skills. Our work experience further enhances our subject
matter expertise.
Subsequently the trend during the last few decades has changed, creating a greater demand
for people with competence in soft skills, indicating the short supply than workers with hard
skills. Although hard skills still represent a fundamental aspect, soft skills have equaled them
and become in par for importance. Accordingly tertiary education students are becoming
more aware of the importance of soft skills for their future jobs.
 Soft skills relate to intangible qualities and are often an inherent part of one’s personality.
Compound soft skills which bring about character traits and qualities in today’s business
world are; Personality Development with Effective interaction with others, Attracting and
retaining clients, Honing abilities to resolve conflicts effectively, Effective networking abilities,
Etiquette awareness, Ability to handle projects more smoothly and effectively, Capitalizing on
strengths, Engaging with passion instead of weaknesses and through it all gaining
confidence.
In this chapter, let’s see how can we develop five most important soft skills and take charge
of our career.

2. The Importance of Soft Skills in today’s Workplace and Real life

The importance of soft skills has been often undervalued in the past, and there has been far less training
provided for them than hard skills of any nature. Industry always preferred for the people equipped with
hard skills and expected the employees to know their own soft skills. Nevertheless, in today’s world
employers struggle to find leaders and workers who are competent enough to keep up with the
evolving job market. Today employers place greater emphasis on less tangible qualities such as;
good communication skills, leadership skills, interpersonal skills, intrapersonal skills, flexibility and a
positive attitude.
Every profession has its own hard skill components which empower them to perform their duties and
responsibilities in an effective manner. The hard skills component in certain professions which are
very close to public has close relationship to soft skills since they are dealing with general public
often. Such professionals invariably have the opportunity to practice soft skills in their day to day
official events. Hard skills and soft skills are intertwined for them to some extent. People in these
professions find it easy to embrace these soft skills quickly. This differs slightly in the case of
technocrats, especially the engineering and technical professionals, most of the time they are
dealing with technical subjects in the respective areas of their expertise. They are relatively less
exposed to the public and hence are expected to pay more attention on developing soft skills.
Recognizing this situation some disciplines leading to development of soft skills are now being
introduced to curricular. For them, marketing, economics, finance, communication, leadership, etc.
are treated as soft skills whereas their hard skills or core competencies are engineering and
technical disciplines. On the other hand, for professional marketers and similar groups knowing a
little bit of fundamentals in electricity, mechanics, etc. may be soft skills. However soft skills could be
a relative term, in relation to different professional disciplines, depending on the core competencies
required. This is more relevant to corporate world.
Currently, soft skills have become a major differentiator, indispensable commodity and essential
ingredient, (sine qua non) for employability and success in life. The Nobel Prize winner James
Heckman claims that “soft skills predict success in life that they casually produce that success, and
that programs that enhance soft skills have an important place in an effective portfolio of public
policies”.
Further the importance of soft skills lies in the fact that they are not restricted to a specific field and
consist of a group of abilities that can be used in every aspect of people’s lives, without any need to
readapt them based on the situation. Their flexibleness helps people to adapt and behave positively
so that they can deal effectively with the challenges of their professional and day to day life. Soft
skills make people flexible in a continuously changing world.
A recent study conducted by Professors from University of Michigan, Harvard and Boston College
are of the view that proper soft skills training has a positive impact in a workplace outcome such as;
productivity, retention, job satisfaction and most importantly professionalism. The ultimate benefits
are showcased in an increased return on employer investment and leadership development in a
sustainable way. In today’s world complex problem-solving, critical thinking, creativity, people
management and emotional intelligence have become among the most important skills required in the
workplace.
This has been endorsed by a recently conducted survey by the Wall Street Journal, that today’s
corporate world would look for the attributes mentioned below rather than direct technical
competencies in fresh graduates. Effective communication, Adoptability – working with different
teams, Embracing change, Quick learners, Taking initiatives, an Open and positive mind set,
Computer literacy and presentation skills, Well-versed in general knowledge including world affairs
and have a proper dress code, be groomed individuals with business etiquette.
A well-developed personality, with strong soft skills could ensure a healthy work environment; a vital
attribute for any organization in an increasingly competitive world. At a company you might be
negotiating to win a new contract, presenting your new idea to colleagues, networking for a new job, and
so on. You use soft skills every day at work and developing these soft skills will help you win more
business and accelerate your career progression.
On the other hand, a lack of soft skills can limit your potential, or even be the downfall of your position. By
developing strong leadership, delegation, teamwork, and communication abilities, you can run projects
smoother, deliver results that please everyone, and even influence your personal life positively by
improving how you interact with others.
Because of the rising importance and demand for the people with competency in soft skills, the need
to teach soft skills has become a major concern for educators from all over the world. For employers
who have not stepped in to this action and need to develop such skills in their employees, an ideal
first step towards personal development, would be to identify and acknowledge the areas in the
organization, which need improvement. This can easily be done through reflection and self-
assessment – it’s an evaluation of your business performance insufficiencies or through feedback.
Outside the office, soft skills such as communication skills are used to build friendship groups and meet
potential partners. You might be negotiating the price of your new house renovation, or mentoring your
neighbor’s children during the weekend. Soft skills are useful both in our professional and personal lives.
3. Top Seven Soft Skills
There are a large number of soft skills to be learned and practiced by every individual. Yet
employers, at least, will be pleased with the following "top seven" list of soft skills if could be taught
to employees, and, both tertiary education students and new workers
  Public Speaking Skills – Public Speaking, Communication, Self-Confidence, Passion,
Presentations Skills, Listening, Demonstration and Writing. Self-Motivation
 Leadership Skills – Vision, Teamwork, Integrity, Honesty, Critical Thinking, Strategic
Planning, Time Management, Delegation, Positive Attitude –Enthusiastic, Encouraging,
Innovative, Creative
 Time Management Skills- Importance of Time Management, Planning, Doing Things within
the Allocated Time, Using Time Management Skills
 Intrapersonal Skills – Self-Awareness, Resilience, Visionary, Analytical Thinking,
Delegation, Productivity, Resourcefulness And Strategic Thinking, Empathetic, Self-Control
 Interpersonal Skills- Courtesy – Manners, Business & Social Etiquette, Gracious,
Gratefulness, Sense Of Humor, Respectful, Professionalism.
 Negotiation Skills - Flexibility – Adaptability, Willing To Change, Lifelong Learning, Accepts
New Things, Adjusts
 Public Relations - Knowing the Organizations, Their Goals, Their Client Or The Public,
Creating A Cordial Interface With Both Parties For Their Mutual Benefits And Good Will.

A large number of personal traits come under the above seven top soft skills and their attributes.
However owing to the extreme importance of public speaking skills, and leadership skills and time
management skills in the corporate world, this chapter is devoted to deal with these three and the
rest of the soft skills are discussed in Chapter 4.
3.1 Public Speaking Skills
Public speaking is the number one trait of soft skills which helps a person to stand out of the
crowd. Public speaking is an art and science of expressing ideas, thoughts and feelings to a
group of people, clearly, consciously, and confidently and intended to inform, inspire, influence
and entertain, blended with excellent speaking skills.
This can be terrifying, but when you care about your career progression you need to find a way
to get your voice out that will help you to stand out from the corporate crowd, and get visibility in
your field. Unfortunately, if your public speaking skills are not up to the standard, it is likely that
no one will be focused enough on your speech to really receive your message.
Public speaking includes both presentation skills and communication skills as subsets which
differ slightly.
(a) Presentation is fewer dialogs more 'one-way' and therefore requires more planning and
forethought. You need to anticipate your audience’s needs and abilities and plan your
presentation accordingly.
(b) You are freer to follow your own thought sequence, and can therefore expect your
audience to 'bear with' you a bit more than in ordinary conversation. Presumably you're
the one making the presentation for a reason.
(c) You may have the choice about whether to ask people to hold their questions, or a
particular question until later. This reinforces point (b)
 (d) You are likely making use of (AV)-aids.
(e) Unlike pure writing, you can anticipate a certain amount of live interaction with your
audience. Therefore you do need to exercise listening and the reading of body language,
but to a lesser extent than in more verbally interactive forms.
Communications skills give more emphasize on interactive sessions and the implied feedback
from the audience is acknowledged by the speaker. Also it includes written communication in
official matters and implied communication in group conversations. Here are some scientifically-
proven characteristics of effective public speakers that you should emulate to become an
influential and inspiring leader.
3.1.1 Self Confidence
According to a study published by the University of Wolverhampton “A highly confident
speaker is viewed as being more accurate, competent, credible, intelligent, knowledgeable,
likable, and believable than the less confident uncertain speaker.”
When it comes to public speaking, self-confidence is a key. When speaking in public, it is
natural to be nervous; this is even common to experienced speakers.
There are two main antidotes for anxiety,
a. Excitement – If you are truly excited about your subject that feeling will shine through
any nervousness you may have while you are giving your presentation. Studies show
that people who label their anxiety as excitement end up feeling more comfortable
speaking.
b. Authenticity – Be yourself. If you have to deviate a little from your meticulously
written presentation, do so! Although you should practice your speech as often as
possible, you do not want to memorize! Memorizing a speech can cause you to
fumble over a section if you did not say it just right.
To excel in public speaking it is necessary to get rid of nervousness. You must also have
confidence in your subject and be yourself while you are on stage.
3.1.2 Passion
In order to really communicate to people through speech, you need to be passionate about
your subject. Without passion, your speech is meaningless. You need to display a level of
sincerity in your emotion when communicating to your audience if you want them to be
moved by your presentation.
There is no need to attempt to ‘practice’ sincerity by practicing your speech with a raised
voice and waving arms. Simply focus on how you feel about your topic and those that you are
communicating with.
It can be hard to be passionate about your topics unless you are really engaged in topic
related activities at the workplace or in your real life situations. Sometimes, a topic may not
completely excite you, unless you dig deep into the topic and find things that interest you.
3.1.3 Be Yourself

You do not have to be someone else on stage. All you have to do is just be yourself.
Sometimes, no matter how much you believe in your message or how well you have
rehearsed, if you do not act like yourself in front of the audience, your audience may view
your speech as insincere or calculated.
If a political candidate does not seem authentic, it is not likely he will win an election. If a
company’s social marketing strategy appears inauthentic, their sales will not go up. If you
create a page on a dating website but what you write is not authentic, the people reading are
likely to pick up on this inauthenticity and never contact you. Speaking is the same way.
3.1.4 Practice, not memorize – As mentioned earlier, in order to ‘be yourself’ on the stage,
you should not memorize your speech in absolutes. Practice your speech as often as
possible, but be willing to change the wording, if required. This makes it easier to change it
up during the actual presentation if things are not going exactly as planned. Memorization
can set up a barrier between you and your audience.
3.1.5 Speak in a natural voice – any connection you have made with your audience could
be broken by tones that seem ‘fake’ or ‘too perfect’. In general, you should try to speak in a
conversational tone. If you say few “ahhs” and “umms” that is ok, but do not allow crutch
words to undermine you.
3.1.6 Voice Modulations
If you want to be more engaging as a speaker, then avoid talking in a tone that seems too
well rehearsed, but you still want to take the speed and inflection of your delivery into account
when you practice your speech.
To practice proper cadence, record yourself giving your speech and listen to it later. You will
be able to tell exactly when and where you start to sound inauthentic.
You can still use effective voice modulations while employing your natural voice.
3.1.7 Keep it Short and Sweet

If you are only given 30 minutes to give a speech, do not force yourself to fill the entire time
allotted. Say what you need to say and use any remaining time for questions and comments
or to let your audience out a little early.
The main purpose of delivering a speech is to attempt to get your point across, and that
might not require a whole hour. You want to make sure that your presentation is easily
digestible for those listening to you. If you can complete your speech in 15 minutes, do so,
and leave.
Research conducted by Dianne Dukette and David Cornish (2009) shows that, on average,
adults can only sustain attention for around 20 minutes and that their short-term response to
the stimulus that attracts attention is only seconds. This means that when you stand up in
front of a crowd to present, you only have eight seconds to attract the audience’s
 attention. Additionally, if you are presentation takes longer than 20 minutes then you need to
break it up into smaller chunks with a maximum of 20 minutes per chunk of information.
3.1.8 Connect with Your Listeners
A speech is just like a conversation, which means you need to communicate your message
to someone else. In this sense, there is no difference between talking to one person or a
thousand.

The problem, however, is that we are all subject to a large amount of information in a short
period of time, and it can be difficult for you as a speaker to cut through that noise and prove
that what you are saying really matters.
While you are speaking people are likely to be on their phones, tablets, or laptops, reading
emails, surfing the web, searching who you are, or maybe taking notes on your speech. It’s
your job to make them put their devices down and pay attention to what you have to say.
You cannot ask the audience to turn off their phones, but you can make them set their
phones down by creating an atmosphere that excites and engages them. An attention
grabbing opening like a quote, a question to the audience or a little piece of physical activity
can get the audience engaged with you at the start. Subsequently you may use the following
to keep the audience in-tact with you.
The best ways to connect with your audience are;
 Tell stories
 Be willing to poke fun at yourself
 Work on your non-verbal body language
3.1.9 Paint a Picture through Storytelling
One of the best ways to really engage your audience is by becoming a good storyteller and
this aspect of public speaking is very important.
Storytelling is a powerful tool used by the best speakers. By employing context into your
speech for your audience to connect with, you are creating an easy to listen atmosphere in
which you are not simply shoving information at them in the hope that they will retain that
information.
The best presentations do not feel like presentations, they are simply stories told by people
with interesting experiences.
You can include stories of your own experiences, or use classic stories to bring context to your
speech. Martin Luther King was a master at establishing a historical context for his message. Take a
look at some of the most inspirational TED Talks. TED Talks, in general, are extremely story driven,
and that is one of the reasons why they are so popular. In addition they get the benefit of appropriate
body language in delivering their speeches.
3.2 Leadership Skills
A leader is someone who can see how things can be improved and who rallies people to move
toward that better vision. Leaders can work toward making their vision a reality while putting people
first. Just being able to motivate people is not enough — leaders need to be empathetic and
connect with people to be successful.
Great leaders find the balance between business foresight, performance, and character. They
have courage, integrity, humility, critical thinking and focus along with the ability to plan
strategically and catalyze cooperation amongst their team. The predominant quality of great
leaders, most of the time, is that they think about the future.
Leaders are optimistic. They see opportunities and possibilities in everything that happens,
positive or negative. They look for the good in every situation and in every person. They seek
the valuable lessons contained in every problem or setback. They never experience “failures;”
instead, write them off as “learning experiences.”
Most of all, great leaders have a sense of meaning and purpose in each area of their lives. They
have clear, written goals and plans they work on every day. Leaders are clear about where they
are going and what they will have to do to get there. Their behavior is purposeful and goal-
directed. As a result, they accomplish five and ten times as much as the average person who
operates from day to day with little concern about the future.
We have learned the important attributes of good leaders above and it is necessary for them to
have some special qualities over and above the normal people, to be good leaders and also to
make their visions to happen. Now let us see some of the important leadership qualities of grea t
leaders.

Eight Important Leadership Qualities of Great Leaders

Here are the most important eight qualities of great leaders and executives, described briefly:

3.2.1 Vision
“Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own t he
vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion.” – Jack Welch
Great leaders have a clear and compelling vision that is going far beyond the current reality.
They have a clear, exciting idea of where they are going and what they are trying to
accomplish and are excellent at strategic planning.
Such leaders are called strategic leaders who are aware of the fast pace of change and that
they cannot know it all. Their antennae are always on, as a seemingly minor detail might
challenge their current strategic plans and be the trigger for changing the strategy for their
organization or department. These leaders are able to communicate their vision in an
effective and inspiring way to mobilize commitment within their organization and sector.
3.2.2 Courage

“Courage is rightly considered the foremost of the virtues, for upon it, all others
depend.” – Winston Churchill
One of the most important qualities of a good leader is courage. It is not necessary to
overemphasize the fact that having the quality of courage means that you are willing to
take risks in the achievement of your goals with no assurance of success. Because there
is no certainty in life or business, every commitment you make and every action you take
entails a risk of some kind.
Among the eight leadership qualities, courage is the most identifiable outward trait.
3.2.3 Integrity
“With integrity, you have nothing to fear, since you have nothing to hide. With integrity,
you will do the right thing, so you will have no guilt.” – Zig Ziglar

Integrity is the practice of being honest and showing a consistent and uncompromising
adherence to strong moral and ethical principles and values. It is one of the fundamental
values that employers seek in the employees that they hire. It is the hallmark of a person
who demonstrates sound moral and ethical principles at work. Also it is the foundation on
which coworkers build relationships, trust, and effective interpersonal relationships. Integrity
requires that you always tell the truth, to all people, in every situation. Almost all in the
corporate world agree on the importance of integrity in everything they do, both internally
and externally. Truthfulness is the foundation quality of the trust that is necessary for the
success of any business.
3.2.4 Humility
The more you can contain your ego, you become more humble, more realistic about your
problems. Humility does not mean that you are weak or unsure of yourself. It means that
you have the self-confidence and self-awareness to recognize the value of others
without feeling threatened.
This is one of the rarer attributes – or traits – of good leaders because it requires
containment of one’s ego. It means that you are willing to admit you could be wrong, that
you learn to listen and admit that you may not have all the answers. You exhibit the
attitude that you can learn from anyone at any time. Also it means that you give credit
where credit is due – which many people struggle to do. Great leaders are those who are
strong and decisive but also humble.
3.2.5 Strategic Planning
Strategic planning is the art of formulating business strategies, implementing them, and
evaluating their impact based on organizational objectives. The concept focuses on
integrating various business departments (accounting and finance, research and
development, production, marketing, information systems, management) to achieve unified
organizational goals. The term strategic planning is synonymous with strategic
management, only that the former is used in the corporate world and the latter in the
academic setting.
The development and execution of strategic plans is a well-thought-out plan performed in
three critical steps: namely strategy formulation, strategy implementation and strategy
evaluation.
3.2.6 Critical Thinking
Critical thinking is the ability to think clearly, independently and rationally; understanding the
logical connection between ideas. Also to arrive at the best possible solution in the
circumstances that the thinker is aware of; in more everyday language, it is a way of thinking
about whatever is presently occupying your mind so that you come to the best possible
conclusion using your ability to reason.
Critical thinkers rigorously question ideas and assumptions rather than accepting them at
face value. It is about being an active learner rather than a passive recipient of information.
They will always seek to determine whether the ideas, arguments and findings represent the
entire picture. Critical thinkers will identify inconsistencies and errors in reasoning, analyze
and solve problems systematically rather than by intuition or instinct. Also it is the ability to
reflect on the justification of their assumptions, beliefs and values.
3.2.7 Focus
“Successful people maintain a positive focus in life no matter what is going on around
them. They stay focused on their past successes rather than their past failures, and on
the next action steps they need to take to get them closer to the fulfillment of their goals
rather than all the other distractions that life presents to them. – Jack Canfield
It is the ability to keep uninterrupted attention on the needs of the mission and the
situation aiming on results, what must be achieved by themselves, by others, and by the
organization. Great leaders focus on strengths, in them and in others. Also they focus on
the strengths of the organization, on the things that the organization does best in
satisfying demanding needs in a competitive marketplace.
Your ability as a leader to call the shots and make sure that everyone is focused and
concentrated on the most valuable use of their time is essential to the excellent
performance of the enterprise.
3.2.8 Listening Skills
Effective listening is a skill that underpins all positive human relationships and it is not the
same as hearing. Hearing refers to the sounds that enter our ears. It is a physical process,
provided that the recipient does not have any hearing problems, happens automatically.
However listening is much more than hearing, it requires focus and concentrated effort, both
mental and sometimes physical as well. It means paying attention not only to the story, but
how it is told, the use of language and voice modulation and how the body language
used. That means the listener is being aware of both verbal and non-verbal messages. Our
 ability to listen effectively depends on the degree to which we perceive and understand
these messages.
Listening is not a passive process but active. Listener can, and should, be at least as
engaged in the process as the speaker. The phrase ‘active listening’ is used to describe
this process of being fully involved. Active listening is an extremely important skill not only
for public speaking and for leadership skills, but also for normal conversation in socializing
to ensure better understanding and social harmony.

3.3 Time Management Skills

It is rightly said “Time and Tide wait for none”. Probably all of us have heard this phrase many
times in our life. What does that mean? It means that we are to get the right benefits from every
resource available, including time, as it does not wait at our ease. We need to be concerned
about the available time and our, to be done work schedule. Careful and thoughtful allocation of
time for each event and using it productively and efficiently is our prime responsibility. This
exercise is called time management. It can be called as the art of utilizing the time to do
everything that is needed, without feeling stressed about it. It sounds simple, but it is much
harder in practice. Yet the result of good time utilization is the cause for self-satisfaction,
increased happiness and stress relieving. This in turn will improve our performance and output,
boost our enthusiasm and minimize lethargic approach for work. Also this helps us to boost our
self-confidence and future performance.
3.3.1 Importance of Time Management
The importance of time management can neither be underestimated nor overemphasized.
Time management skills govern all our activities for a successful journey in our life. It is vital
for professional activities, project implementation, administrative mechanisms, health care
activities and every sphere of our lives. It is a key aspect of managing life events and
involves skills such as planning, setting goals and prioritizing for better performance. All of us
know that procrastination of even small tasks could multiply in to huge events over time. We
need to be more focused and productive by using our time effectively and productively.
People who practice good time management skills will surely improve their professional and
personal skills and become noticeable in the society and earn their respect and recognition.
Also they become trustworthy and role models in their community. Multi taskers practice the
integrated time management skills when they have many things to attend and succeed.
Actually this is realization of personal development.
3.3.2 Practicing Time Management Skills
Although time management is defined as using your time productively and efficiently, this is a
skill need to be acquired like many other (hard and soft). Only a few are inherited with good
time management skills while vast majority of the people need to learn and practice. At times
we may come across people who know nothing about time management and least bothered
to know even. Time management is similar to spending money on our day to day activities.
Under normal circumstances all of us have limited financial resources at our disposal to
facilitate our lives. People who spend their money wisely and carefully have a plan (budget
and schedule) on spending money. Time management also follows the same principles and
needs to be carefully planned, budgeted, utilized and reviewed for future reference.
At times we feel that we are working as efficiently and productively as possible, yet we
cannot get everything done? Some work is left out. This happens to most of the good time
management players, provoking to think differently. Usually people who are good at time
management are also good searching for new approaches to get their work done. In any
work plan work items are scheduled on a priority basis following a sequence. One way to
think about optimizing time management is to consider to our plan as a combined activity of
working productively and prioritizing. These items could be categorized on the basis of their
urgency and importance. Then it is possible to bring the urgent and important works what is
really needed to be done to the front and then delaying non-urgent and unimportant works in
the daily schedule or doing away with them.

Most of us have yearly, monthly and weekly plans for our both personal and career
objectives, at macro level. We need to have a daily work plan for implementation, at micro
level to accomplish our tasks. In order to facilitate the preparation of a daily work plan and
time schedule, we need to have a “to be done” work list, their order of priority (importance
and urgency) and expected time duration. These activities that are falling in to our daily work
schedule may be mostly within our control, yet there could be some works are beyond our
control and unexpected as well. For example: attending a meeting, a wedding function,
religious ceremonies, attending a funeral etc. We need to include such events also in to our
daily work schedule while planning, as appropriate.

Let us prepare a chart to illustrate this approach.

Work Item Within our Beyond Unforeseen/ Urgent Important

control our control unexpected
Picking the child to yes As Yes
from the school scheduled
Attending the board No yes No As Yes
meeting scheduled
Attending the funeral Yes No yes At May not
of a distance relation convenience be

Someone knocking No Yes yes yes May be

at the door
Dwelling in social Yes No No No No
media,

‘Urgent’ tasks demand our immediate attention, but giving that much of attention may or may
not matter, however 'Important' tasks matter, not doing them may have serious
consequences for us or others. This distinction between urgent and important is the key to
 prioritizing our time and our workload, whether at work, at home or when studying. It enables
us to work out what to do first, and what can be left either until later, or not done at all. For
example, if we do not attend an urgent but unimportant task, we may find that it becomes
unnecessary with time. Prioritizing could easily be done by the good time managers since
they understand the difference between urgent and important.
Using a chart like this to prioritize our work can help us to organize our tasks into their
appropriate categories and attend accordingly. Further, there is vast amount of information,
guidance in the internet and helpful people to give us a hand.
Time management, rather managing the available time is not a new phenomenon in our
society; our forefathers have been practicing this in an integrated manner, at a time when
there were no clocks, no electricity, no modern transport or any other modern technological
facilities that are available today. All what is required is to have a clear understanding about
our tasks, necessary time for each item to be performed devoid of distractions, absolute
priority of them and a strategic planning as to how to implement those. Our competence,
confidence, commitment and dedication play a major role in accomplishing our task within the
allocated time in a successful manner.

Effective Leaders are Also Strong Communicators

Another important trait that the best leaders strive to perfect is the ability to speak effectively and
persuasively. Also they are excellent in managing the available time efficiently and effectively.
In fact, many tend to practice public speaking within their own businesses until they are ready to
branch out into professional paid speaking assignments. Although talking in front of crowds is a
top fear for the majority of us, conquering this fear is what makes a good leader become a great
leader. If you are ready to overcome your fear of speaking and start leading more effectively, just
take the first step and the rest will become history.
Chapter 4 DEVELOPING SOFT SKILLS- PART II
1. Introduction
Owing to the extreme importance of communication skills, leadership skills and time management
skills in the corporate world, we have discussed them in Chapter 3 and the rest of the soft skills are
discussed in this Chapter.
2. Intrapersonal Skills
Intrapersonal skills are all about self-awareness and controlling our own internal attitudes and inner
processes. People who are self-motivated, focused, and confident are said to have great
intrapersonal skills. Those people exude self-confidence because they are confident. Their
intrapersonal skills form the foundation on which they build their relationships with others and they
help others to more easily navigate the interpersonal relationships. They know who they are and
what they are capable of doing and producing. Others seem to naturally gravitate towards them
because they carry an air of strength and positivity everywhere they go. The strength of
intrapersonal skills largely depends on the underlying traits such as visionary, analytical thinking,
delegation, productivity, resilience, resourcefulness and strategic thinking possessed by the person
and these also fall under leadership qualities and some them have been discussed in Chapter 3.
These soft skills are not learned in a classroom. Instead, they are a product of introspection and self-
reflection combined with a constant revision of the way you project yourself to the world. Like your
technical skills, intrapersonal skills are also an essential part of your professional tools.
2.1 Importance of Intrapersonal Skills in Self Development
When you have strong intrapersonal skills, you take personal responsibility for your own
feelings and emotions. This mindset is also known as intrapersonal intelligence. You learn
how to focus your attention, set priorities and goals, and engage in purposeful thinking and
problem-solving. When something goes differently than you expect, you know how to
respond with a thoughtful, intentional strategy to achieve the anticipated positive outcome.
This is why teams and organizations want people with intrapersonal skills, who have the
internal strength to approach every challenge or setback as an opportunity for growth.
2.2 Resilience:
A detailed explanation about Resilience has been given in Chapter 2 under self-awareness.
However, this attribute is explained here in a slightly different way.
Resilience is typically defined as the capacity to recover from difficult life events.
“It’s your ability to withstand adversity and bounce back and grow despite life’s downturns,”
says Amit Sood, MD, the Executive Director of the Global Center for Resiliency and Well-
Being and creator of Mayo Clinic Resilient Mind in Rochester, Minnesota.
Dr. Sood, who is a member of the Everyday Health Wellness Advisory Board, believes that
resilience can be defined in terms of five principles:
 Gratitude,
  Compassion,
 Acceptance,
 Meaning and
 Forgiveness
Developing resilience is both complex and personal. It involves a combination of inner
strengths and outer resources, and there is not a universal formula for becoming more
resilient. All people are different: While one person might develop symptoms of depression or
anxiety following a traumatic event, another person might not report any symptoms at all.

2.3 How Can You Improve Your Intrapersonal Skills?

The guiding force of your intrapersonal skills is awareness – awareness of your innermost
beliefs and the goals that drive you and awareness of how you are perceived by others.
Yet, it can be incredibly difficult to figure out how you are seen by others because they do not
tell you. Without that kind of information, your internal concept of yourself may not match
what you project to your peers.
Fortunately, you can get the feedback you need simply by asking! People will usually share
their thoughts and impressions if they are given a chance to do so. Regular, consistent
feedback can help you adjust the way that you convey yourself in the workplace so that your
inner strengths are clearly visible to others.
Personal growth is not achieved overnight. A single performance review only tells you how
you were perceived within a specific timeframe. Once you adjust your way of communicating
and interacting with others based on that review, you need more feedback to determine if the
changes you made helped (or hurt). You can work hard at being more self-aware and
conscious of how you project yourself to others, but you need continuous feedback to gauge
how much progress you are making.
Thus regular feedback can help you embrace a growth mindset and overcome both the
internal and external limitations that are holding you back.
3. Interpersonal Skills
Interpersonal Skills is nothing but the ability to interact and communicate at par with other
people. Interpersonal skills are traits you rely on when you interact and communicate with others.
They cover a variety of aspects where communication and cooperation are essential. In a work
environment, strong interpersonal skills are an asset that can help you navigate complexity,
change and day-to-day tasks.
The key to excel in it is “great communication”. When we are not able to strike a chord well with
people we are meeting for the first time, it is said that we lack interpersonal skills. For most
individuals, it is very difficult to get the social interaction simulated at the very first meet due to
their inadequate communication skills. Only a few are able to excel in having and showing they
have such communication skills. What matters more is the way we communicate, and how well
we are able to influence, listen, and negotiate with others.
These skills involve the ability to communicate and build relationships with others. They tend to
incorporate both our innate personality traits and how we have learned to handle certain social
situations. Effective interpersonal skills can help us during the job interview process and can
have a positive impact on our career advancement.
Interpersonal skills are both inherent and external to us and some traits we learn throughout our
lives. Also we acquire these abilities through our experiences. Some people have a natural talent
for interpersonal skills. They implicitly understand what is needed to get along with others,
perhaps without ever knowing what interpersonal skills are!
And that is the true beauty of interpersonal skills. With or without knowing how to define them,
you can possess and cultivate these life-changing abilities to sculpt and define your future for
better.
Many of the world’s most charismatic leaders can communicate their visions and influence to
others simply because they have highly-developed intrapersonal skills and a profound emotional
intelligence. Their growing mindset enables them to stay flexible, open to new information, and
willing to look for creative solutions to their obstacles. Their motivation comes from within and is
naturally infectious to others.
Intrapersonal and interpersonal skills are deeply connected at an innate level and contribute
greatly to our emotional intelligence and our ability to communicate with our needs, goals, and
ideas to others effectively. Interpersonal skills are essential for collaboration, leadership,
and influence, but these qualities cannot be projected until we develop good intrapersonal skills.
Some of the important interpersonal skills include Active listening, Collaboration, Problem-
solving, Conflict resolution, Empathy and Patience most of which also fall under, intrapersonal
skills, negotiation skills, communication skills and leadership skills and are discussed as
appropriate in the above sub sections.

3.1 Importance of Interpersonal Skills

It turns out interpersonal skills are of increasing importance in the workplace starting
from helping you get a job to effectively and efficiently communicate, collaborate and interact
with coworkers, resulting from the true and innate value of interpersonal skills coming into
play. Interpersonal skills are abilities that can transmute and transpose across every
spectrum of our lives with no exception. Interpersonal skills are not merely people skills, they
are life skills. We build the bridges with others that make our lives and the lives of those we
interact with, easier, simpler and better.

3.2 Empathy
A major component of interpersonal skills, at its simplest, is the awareness of the feelings
and emotions of other people. It is a key element of Emotional Intelligence (EQ), the link
 between self and others, because it is how we as individuals understand what others are
experiencing as if we were feeling it ourselves. It is a skill that can be developed and, as with
most interpersonal skills, empathizing (at some level) comes naturally to most people.
Daniel Goleman, author of the book Emotional Intelligence, says that empathy is basically the
ability to understand others’ emotions. He also, notes that at a deeper level, it is about
defining, understanding, and reacting to the concerns and needs that underlie others’
emotional responses and reaction.
Also emotional skills play a vital role, helping to exercise social interaction in a fruitful way.
They include the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary for anyone to recognize and
control their emotions and behaviors; establish and maintain positive relationships; make
responsible decisions and resolve challenging situations; and set and achieve positive goals.
A deep meaning of Empathy is that it goes far beyond sympathy, which is a shared feeling,
usually of sorrow, pity or compassion for another person, a ‘feeling for’ someone. Instead,
Empathy is stronger than sympathy. It is the ability to put you in the place of another and
understand that person’s feelings by identifying with him.
4. Negotiating Skills
Negotiation is a method by which people settle differences. It is a process by which compromise or
agreement is reached while avoiding argument and dispute.
In any disagreement, individuals understandably aim to achieve the best possible outcome for their
position (or perhaps an organization they represent). However, the principles of fairness, seeking
mutual benefit and maintaining a relationship are the keys to a successful outcome.
The circumstances of negotiation occur when two parties or groups of individuals disagree on the
solution for a problem or the goal for a project or contract. A successful negotiation requires the two
parties to come together and hammer out an agreement that is acceptable to both. This ability to
negotiate requires a collection of interpersonal and communication skills, which have been already
discussed, used together to bring a desired result.
4.1 Problem Analysis to Identify Interests and Goals
Effective negotiation skills include the ability to analyze a problem to determine the interests
of each party in the negotiation. A detailed problem analysis identifies the issue, the
interested parties and the outcome goals. For example, in an employer and employee
contract negotiation, the problem or area where the parties disagree may be in salary or
benefits. Identifying the issues for both sides can help to find a compromise for all parties.
4.2 Preparation before a Meeting
A skilled negotiator prepares for the meeting before entering the meeting. Preparation
includes determining goals and areas for tradeoff and alternatives to the stated goals. In
addition, negotiators study the history of the relationship between the two parties and past
negotiations to find areas of agreement and common goals. Past precedents and outcomes
can set the tone for current negotiations.
4.3 Active Listening Skills
Negotiators must have the skills to listen actively to the other party during the discussions.
Active listening involves the ability to read body language as well as verbal communication. It
is important to listen to the other party to find areas for compromise during the meeting.
Instead of spending the bulk of the time in negotiation expounding the virtues of his
viewpoint, the skilled negotiator will spend more time listening to the other party.
4.4 Keep Emotions in Check
It is vital that a negotiator have the ability to keep his emotions in check during the
negotiation. While a negotiation on contentious issues can be frustrating, allowing emotions
to take control during the meeting can lead to unfavorable results. For example, a manager
frustrated with the lack of progress during a salary negotiation may concede more than is
acceptable to the organization in an attempt to end the frustration.
On the other hand, employees negotiating a pay raise may become too emotionally involved
to accept a compromise with management and take an all or nothing approach, which breaks
down the communication between the two parties.
4.5 Clear and Effective Communication
Negotiators must have the ability to communicate clearly and effectively to the other side
during the negotiation. Misunderstandings can occur if the negotiator does not state his case
clearly. During a bargaining meeting, an effective negotiator must have the skills to state his
desired outcome as well as his reasoning.
4.6 Collaboration and Teamwork
Negotiation is not necessarily a one side against another arrangement. Effective negotiators
must have the skills to work together as a team and foster a collaborative atmosphere during
negotiations. Those involved in a negotiation on both sides of the issue must work together to
reach an agreeable solution.
4.7 Problem Solving Skills
Individuals with negotiation skills have the ability to seek a variety of solutions to problems.
Instead of focusing on his ultimate goal for the negotiation, the individual with skills can focus
on solving the problem, which may be a breakdown in communication, to benefit both sides
of the issue.
4.8 Decision Making Ability
People with negotiation skills have the ability to act decisively during a negotiation. It may be
necessary during a bargaining arrangement to agree to a compromise quickly to end a
stalemate.
4.9 Maintaining Good Relationships
Effective negotiators have the interpersonal skills to maintain a good working relationship
with those involved in the negotiation. Negotiators with patience and the ability to persuade
 others without using manipulation can maintain a positive atmosphere during a difficult
negotiation.
4.10 Ethics and Reliability
Ethical standards and reliability in an effective negotiator promote a trusting environment for
negotiations. Both sides in a negotiation must trust that the other party will follow through on
promises and agreements. A negotiator must have the skills to execute on his promises after
bargaining ends.
5. Public Relation Skills
“Public Relation is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships
between organizations and their publics.” Public Relation Society of America.
It refers to a strategic process carried out to manage relationships and communication, between an
organization and its public primarily with the objective of developing goodwill and shared
understanding, may include also attaining organizational objectives by communicating their message
to the desired audience. Also public relation includes the following activities: crisis management,
reputation management, event management, press releases, social media, public service
announcements and media advisories. In this regard, public refers to all those stakeholders who are
affected in some way by the organizational activities, including employees, investors, customers,
suppliers and partners.
Public relations skills include a wide range of capabilities and proficiencies that typically fall under the
category of communications and marketing. These skills can be put to use for a variety of purposes, from
introducing new products or services to enhancing the reputation of a company. In most cases, public
relations skills help shape public opinion, which is especially helpful if a company wants to reshape its brand.
Usually the public relation activities are performed by the employees attached to the public relations
department of the organization and they are expected to be well versant with interpersonal skills and
negotiating skills. In addition it is necessary to pay special attention to the following.
People who are engaged public relation activities are expected to master public relation skills which
includes mainly excellent communication (written and oral) in a creative manner, since it is really
essential to speak well. The essence of effective public relations is two way communications and
whatever expressed need to make sense and be well understood by target customers. Therefore
they must ensure the recipients have understood what they intend to communicate. They should be
able to think out of the box with innovative ideas to promote the organization and its products among
the target audience. They need to have a pleasing personality, dress smartly and be extroverts.
Public relations representative needs to have a strong association with people from media industry
(TV, Radio, Print - Newspapers/Magazines), employees, investors, shareholders, partners, etc.
Therefore it really becomes essential to be friendly to get the work done. Make sure that the
relationship with anyone not spoiled by any kind of undesirable behavior. If you do not like someone,
the best way is to ignore. You never know when you might need the other person.
t is extremely necessary to stay focused and have a record of even the minutest details. They are
not supposed to ignore any slightest doubts because such doubts can cause major issues in the
future. It is necessary check and verify every single observation and detail before arriving at the final
conclusion.
Public Relation is the Persuasion Business. We are trying to convince an audience, inside our
building or town, and outside our usual sphere of influence, to promote our idea, purchase our
product, support our position, safe guard our organization and recognize our accomplishments.
Possessing public relation skills at individual level is also of prime importance as it enhances your
networking capacity, relationship building skills, training yourself to pay attention in to minute details,
being ready to be flexible and adapt to changes. These will help you to become equipped with a
higher level of moral integrity, judgement and competence in dealing with people. This in turn will
boost your reputation at personal, social and professional levels and will help you to become an icon
in the society. All these qualities are pre-requisite for personal development and they will accelerate
your journey on personal development.

6. Practical Guide for Developing Soft Skills

We have all heard and read about the importance of hard skills in the job market to know data
analysis, be able to cloud computing, fix a faulty machine, etc. But what about being able to listen
well, to manage your time like a boss, and to lead a team meeting that leaves everybody smiling
afterward? While more difficult to measure and quantify, these types of skills – soft skills – are the
glue that hold together any workplace.
Being able to identify your soft skills and give examples of them is a critical part of any job interview.
Many people choose to list soft skills on their resume. If you’re having trouble identifying your soft
skills – or know what soft skills you have, but want to develop them more – you may follow the
guidelines below– which will ultimately lead to more successes in interviews and on the job.

6.1 How to identify your soft skills

You may have worked in a team environment in your past and could recollect your
experiences and feedback. Perhaps your experiences would have been sweet and also the
feedback you received would have been critical and encouraging. If that is the case you can
be happy, but if the experience and the feedback have been opposite, what would you feel.
In such a circumstance you must be able to review, evaluate such experience and feedback,
and draw conclusions about yourself honestly and confidently. This will help you identify your
own soft skill and the degree of appropriateness of your existing soft skills, creating an
encouraging and constructive platform to polish your soft skills. Identifying your soft skills is
not necessarily something you can do alone perhaps. Ask friends, colleagues, and even
former employers which soft skills come to their mind when they think of you. You can also
ask them to bring up specific examples of when you had well used that soft skill as well as
not so well. You might even discover things about yourself that you did not know before. For
example, if you think you are disorganized, but everyone you talk to points to
your organizational skills as somewhere you excel, you might want to consider changing that
perception of yourself.
Gaining self-awareness of your strengths and improvement opportunities, as mentioned in
chapter 2, is the base for your soft skills development. Once you identify true nature of your
soft skills, it is easy for you to focus and truly harness your strengths and develop your blind
spots. Attributes like showing empathy, having a strong presence, expressing
gratitude, effectively communicating, and managing stress are all critical skills to develop in
order to get promoted and to become an effective leader.

6.2 How to improve your soft skills

The following are some of the suggestions for you to improve your soft skills, yet none of
these alone will help you. You may follow a combination of two or more of them depending
on the availability, appropriateness and convenience for better results.

 Take an online course. You can teach yourself practically anything online today, from
hard skills like Photoshop and network engineering to soft skills like project management
and negotiation. But this alone may not help you to learn a lot since evaluation and
feedback are the essential part of soft skill development.
 Get feedback from others. “The best way to achieve these skills is to gain awareness on
personal strengths and weaknesses, through a feedback mechanism, observe and listen
to those who have an exemplary rapport with others, and practice the skill development in
all relationships.
 Get a coach. A coach can help you develop certain soft skills quickly and effectively
because they tailor the learning and practicing process directly to you. “Partnering with a
coach can have an invaluable impact on your success as a leader,” says Mikaela
Kiner, founder and CEO of uniquely HR. However, Kiner strongly recommends finding the
right coach for your time and budget.
 Practice with a friend. Let’s say you want to get better at negotiating. Sit down with a
friend and practice asking for what it is you want – whether it’s a salary raise,
a promotion, or a better benefits package. Have your friend play the role of your boss,
and then give you feedback about your proposal.

6.3 How to show soft skills on a resume

Now that you have a list of your soft skills, it’s time to showcase them. “Soft skills are like
desserts – quality is more important than quantity!” writes Anish Majumdar, career coach.
Quality has two requirements: first that you actually possess the soft skills, and second, that
they match up to the soft skills the employer is looking for. When applying for jobs, you might
consider making a list of soft skills described on each job listing, or if none are listed, qualities
 you think it might be helpful to have in the job. You can then match this list with the soft skills
you know you have – these will be the skills you present on your resume.
While writing your resume showing how you succeeded in previous positions, like “increased
sales by 17%” or “doubled average daily website traffic in three months” are important but
showing how your soft skills led to successes on the job is paramount. You cannot be a robot
in performing their duties and responsibilities; you cannot just bulldoze your way in and
mechanically drive results. Instead, you need to apply softer skills in order to achieve more
concrete outcomes, says Jacqui Barrett-Poindexter, professional resume writer.
“Incorporating soft skills articulately” means describing how you helped tame heated
meetings and how your ability to communicate orally or in writing helped forge alliances,
influence solidarity and/or move projects so they steamed ahead and achieved bottom-line
goals,” she continues.
If you include soft skills in your “skills” section, it is very important to make sure they match
up (at least for the most part!) with the examples of how you used soft skills in your
“experience” section. The listed skills will be flagged by the applicant tracking system, and
the examples you give will tell the memorable story to whoever’s eyes end up on your
resume.
In conclusion, although it may seem deceptively simple, and we think that we carry these values, we
all need a little bit of tweaking in our professional life. After all, the mainstream of soft skills is
cushioned by enthusiasm, positivity and confidence.
A planned approach with ethical attitude helps in excelling at resolving workplace concerns in a
professional and effective manner. That is: identifying the problem, collecting and analyzing facts,
understanding consequences, assessing alternatives, and then taking a decision.
7. In Summary ……
Possessing appropriate soft skills play an important role in a successful career as well as during
social interactions in the society. Due to a variety of reasons, today’s business environment is
becoming more complex, uncertain and competitive. All types of organizations consider human
resources as their key asset, which plays a critical role in organizational performance and success.
Most employers are willing to hire, retain and promote persons who are dependable, resourceful and
ethical, having soft skills, self –directed & growing, willing to work and learn, and having positive
attitude. Employers usually prefer to see their staff with a fine blend of competencies; discipline-
based knowledge and skills (Hard Skills), and adequate levels of soft skills are considered desirable
for moving forward in a career. They are of the view that professional and technical skills alone
cannot help achieve organizational goals and objectives. It is because their staff is also involved in
different levels of leadership and decision-making activities. Employees need to communicate
effectively within the organization, with their customers and other stakeholders. This does not imply
in any way that hard skills are undervalued or overlooked.
In chapter 3 and 4 author has identified communication skills, leadership skills, time management
skills, intrapersonal skills, interpersonal skills, negotiation skills and public relation skills as the top
seven soft skills that are required to be acquainted with for better performance. However, teamwork
and collaboration, decision-making, problem-solving and critical thinking skills are also held equally
important in this area of study. Soft skills development also does include an ethical attitude towards
your organization and its people. Practicing moral ethics at workplace is a way of applying
fundamental values to professional situations.
Finally the soft skills are decorations that make any place (home, office, industry, political arena or
any other) to live, to work with and to flourish. They play the major role in the success and growth in
any business organization, peace and harmony in home environment and effective social
interactions. The absence or lack of soft skills makes the people and entities to struggle and suffer
for a healthy breathing and smooth performance.

Final Thoughts on Soft Skills-Development

Hopefully this write up has given you some insight to “Developing soft skills” and how to improve soft
skills.
The basic knowledge you need to develop soft skills is about human behavior and knowing yourself (your
strengths, weaknesses, current challenges and their personal traits). This helps you to understand
your standing point on your journey for soft skill development. You may be strong in certain soft skills,
while weaker in others. For example, you might be a great team player to work well in a multi-disciplinary
team but struggle to interact with people at a busy networking environment. It is not uncommon to either
underestimate your importance or overestimate your own proficiency, this happens with majority of
people in every environment. This should not be an obstacle in your journey for developing soft
skills.
Strong soft skills is like a full-fledged commercial pilot licensee, you can fly anywhere in the world
successfully and victoriously with least obstacle and resistance. People will like you, respect you,
recognize you and appreciate your services.
Chapter 5 - Pursuing Your Self-Development
1. Introduction
Well-Done! You have invested your energy and time to read and learn about the basics of human
behavior, importance of self-awareness, and the process of developing soft skills on your self-
quenching journey to Self-Development. Author believes that you are well versant with the contents
of the previous chapters.
Self-development is a lifelong learning process covering activities that improve self-awareness and
self-identity, develop talents and potential, build human capital and facilitate employability, enhance
the quality of life and contribute to the realization of dreams and aspirations. This extremely
important process offers every individual an opportunity to gain a complete perspective about their
lives, eventually helping them to begin planning for their futures. Also this facilitates individuals to
evaluate their own lives, observe and assess the personal growth experienced and make their
judgement on their performance to determine whether they are satisfied or not.
Everyone is troubled by one problem or another on a daily basis. Regardless of the status (physical,
social, mental, economical, spiritual) people are likely to have problems relating to their past or
future. Such problems can bring serious setbacks and obstacles unless they are managed
effectively. However, the real situation is that many people are not aware of the fact that they can
exert control over their own minds, and maximize their potential in order to overcome such setbacks
and obstacles. Learning how to do this will be extremely beneficial to all individuals and will allow
them to improve their general functioning exponentially.
This chapter helps you to identify yourself, your existing skills and the skills you need to develop in
order to plan your future by establishing life goals which can enhance or raise your confidence,
personal growth, employability prospects, and lead to a more fulfilling, high quality balanced
life. Plan to make relevant, positive and effective life choices and decisions for your future to enable
personal empowerment. Self-development of a person depends on large number of personal traits,
thoughts and habits, which have been discussed extensively in the previous chapters, under
different themes. Now let us see some of the special features of self-development which have not
been discussed previously.
3. Objectives of Self-Development

The main objective of Self-Development is becoming a better person tomorrow in all aspects of life;
to be better person to oneself, to the family, to the work place, to the society, to the country and to
the entire world. This necessitates a person to become self-aware, develop good traits, good
governance, good behavior, improved hard and soft skills and many more. Further it extends to be a
better person in resource utilization, management, conscious about the society, environment and
contributing the sustained management of overall natural systems. This looks like very broad, in fact
it is so in the real sense. The limit for Sel-Development is the sky and it follows an upward spiral. The
objectives are broad, let us look at some primarily important aspects of Self-Development.
2.1 Reconciling Conflict
The process of personal-development is deeply concerned with resolving emotional conflicts
and issues that you may have with people you have interacted with, or even within yourself. It
is very easy to fall prey to your own emotions and feelings, and get caught within a spiral of
insecurity and anxiety. Escaping from this spiral is a challenging and difficult process that
requires dedication and hard-work. The self-development process can help you manage your
emotions and feelings in a way that does not affect your general day-to–day functioning.
2.2 Finding Meaning of Life
Many people in this world deal with a feeling of meaninglessness in life. For example,
someone who has a dull routine and a mechanical job is likely to grow disillusioned over time.
There can be little sense of purpose attached to a routine job that seemingly has no end in
sight. This induces demotivation and frustration among such people, thus creating a hopeless
situation. The process of self-development brings the priorities of a person into sharp
attention and focus, creating a sudden self-awareness. In doing so, people become inspired
to live more fulfilling lives, and begin to search for meaning of life in areas they would not
ordinarily look. The process can help you organize your thoughts and mind to ensure that you
are living a life of your choice fulfilling your passions and interests.
2.3 Developing Compassion
Compassion is an emotion that is a sense of shared suffering, most often combined with a
desire to alleviate or reduce the suffering of another; to show special kindness to those who
suffer. Compassion essentially arises through empathy, and is often characterized through
actions, wherein a person acting with compassion will seek to aid those they feel
compassionate for.
There are physical, emotional and spiritual benefits by being compassionate. The main
benefit is that it helps you to be happier, and makes others around you to be happier. If you
believe that it is a common aim of each of us to strive to be happy, then compassion is one of
the main tools for achieving that happiness. It is therefore of utmost importance that we
cultivate compassion in our lives and practice compassion every day.
Self-development exercises, by its principles, create conducive environment for developing
compassion for those who are in struggling relationships. More often than not, problems in a
relationship are caused because one person is not mindful of how his/her actions affect the
significance of other. The self-development process can help individuals become more
compassionate and empathetic towards their spouses or partners and the people around
them. In doing so, individuals in relationships will improve their social skills and learn to solve
their problems in a mature and effective way.
2.4 Growing Confidence
Self-development, in essence, is an ongoing process that will continue all through your life,
ensuring continuous personal growth which is strongly rooted and connected to the concept
of confidence, innately. Your personal growth begins to create, identify with, and solidify your
own thoughts, values and beliefs. This facilitates you to realize that you are simultaneously
growing more confident in dealing with the world around you. In this process, you will realize
that with the new confidence boost you have the energy and determination to follow through
with tasks and challenges that you would have evaded earlier. The process of self-
development can engender immense confidence in yourself, allowing you to push the limits
of your potential, and truly challenge yourself.
Let us see a few more dos and don’ts actions which will boost your self-development process
and empower yourself effectively and create a massive positive impact on your life.
2.5 top comparing yourself to others
The big mistake most people make is comparing themselves to others, forgetting the fact that
everybody is different from others. People simply believe that mathematical equations are
applicable in this context and this is where they are totally mistaken. They disregard the fact
that each person is gifted with different abilities, skills and talents by the nature.
Usually this comparison is done on the outlook rather than the core traits, habits and motives
of a person, mostly through social media. However, it is worthwhile to mention here about the
dirty little secret about postings in social media (especially pictures-based social media) is
that much of it is based of people pretending to be something they are not. You know nothing
about what is going on with people in their personal background, except what is going on in
the picture — and that can leave out a lot of significant contexts.
Therefore it is recommended to stop using social media in order to compare yourself with
others. Most people will are accessible through text or a phone call, for important and urgent
matters. Once you do away with this social media portray on exaggeration, you will most
likely find that your mental health has improved. You might also be surprised to discover all
the free time you did not know you had because you were previously spending it frivolously
scrolling through your social media feed.
2.6 Be as authentic and genuine as possible
What does it mean to be authentic and genuine? It means many things. Partly it means being
principled to your beliefs and values, partly it means not lying in an attempt to make yourself
look better, partly it means stating how you actually think and feel. Further when we are
confronted with authenticity, it is almost surprising because it forces us to become more self-
aware about our own lack of authenticity.
Let us take a look at an example where a lack of authenticity can backfire. The example is
that of a workplace. You have been unemployed for a while, and you are starting to get sick
of searching for a job. Finally, after a few months you have been called for an interview at a
company. The company is so-so, but you really need a job so you take the interview. You do
well in the interview, and a week later they call you offering a job for Rs 35,000 a month.
Here is the problem: they offer you less than half of what you think you are worth. What do
you do?
Most people in this situation would simply take the offer, because they believe that they will
not be able to get a better offer, displaying their lack of authenticity. Also they become
emotionally down considering their situation without a job for some time. That is the
inauthentic thing to do. The authentic course of action would be to voice your concerns to the
employer that you believe you are worth more than what they are offering. You tell your
employer that, given your experience, education and skills, you believe that their offer is
somewhat low but that you would be more than willing to take the offer if they gave you
anywhere between Rs 45,000-Rs 65,000 a month. If they do not offer you something within
that range, you tell them that you can go to another employer who is willing to offer that
amount of money.
The employer, recognizing that you will be an asset to the company’s success, might
say, “You know what, you are right. Let us give you Rs 47,000 a month and you can work
your way up from there”. You just made an extra Rs12, 000 a month because you were
authentic.
“But wait a minute,” you might think that “they might reject your offer.” Exactly! Authenticity
does not guarantee that you will always get what you want or that everybody will like you. It
just increases the probability that you will get things in your life that align with your true
beliefs and values.
2.7 Generosity and empathy can go a long way
Generosity and empathy are two incredibly undervalued tools in the current society. First it is
necessary to properly understand what they are before using them. Generosity is about
giving to other people without expecting anything back in return, may be wealth, kindness,
knowledge, consultation and so forth. Unfortunately many people view generosity one-
dimensionally, as the act of giving some money away, often to charities. However, this is
an incredibly limited view of what generosity is. You can be generous by giving a service, a
good, money, or some advice. Generosity is simply about the act of giving to others without
the expectation of return.
The second part of the previous sentence is the key — you cannot expect a return when you
are being generous. If you are giving money away simply because you expect it to raise your
status, or to lower your tax liability, then you are not being genuinely generous. Not sure how
to start? Go find a charity to donate to that you feel strongly about, or find an organization to
volunteer your time during the weekend. Not only will you be helping other people, but you
might also meet some interesting people along the way.
Empathy is also an incredibly a trait to adopt. People want to be listened to, and they want to
be understood. Empathy is about the ability to listen to other people’s problems and
understand what they are going through. You would be surprised at what people are willing to
tell you when you simply become empathetic to them and allow them to open up — there are
incidents where people tell secrets that they would not even tell their closest family members.
 When you are incredibly generous and empathetic with others, it allows you to grow closer to
the people that matter in your life. Even without an expectation of return, you will find that
your generosity and empathy will be rewarded eventually. Maybe a young entrepreneur
whom you have encouraged today will become the next big tech CEO in five years from now
and will be grateful to you for the encouragement. Or perhaps you help a friend with finding a
job today, and five years later he is able to get you a job when you are out of luck. That is the
power of generosity and empathy. We have already discussed the details of empathy in
Chapter 4.
2.8 Improve and change what is closest to you
Many people believe that changing the world requires you to focus on making tremendous
changes in the political and social structures of a country or the world. However, simply this is
not true. Many people who have changed the world did so, not by focusing on changing
entire nations at once, but by focusing on improving and changing the areas with which they
were already familiar.
Recognize that changing the world does not require making massive actions. Sometimes all
it takes is trying to fix and improve what is closest to you and affects you personally.
Perhaps there is an old family member you have not spoken to in a while — visit them or give
them a phone-call to see how they are doing and bring some positivity to their life. May be
they have got physical health issues that you did not know about, and that is the last time you
will be able to see them or visit them. By this way you can often make a bigger impact by
trying to change and improve what is closest to you rather than trying to change the massive
political and social infrastructures that exist.
3. Changing the World
World has been changing due to evolutionary process throughout the history while scientific
discoveries and technological development have caused tremendous changes in human life during
the last century. This is further complimented by so called development programs implemented by
human to improve the living standards of the people. Thus changes in our world are occurring at the
both sides of the spectrum. All these developments and associated changes bring results with
positive as well as negative effects. Improved environment, sustainable consumption patterns and
enhanced living standards of the people could be considered as for the betterment of mankind and
to make this world a better place to live. Negative effects on every sector have caused much
concern to the sustained existence of the human as well the planet. Deforestation, pollution and
global warming are the best examples for negative effects caused by these changes. Pollution is
taking place in every sphere of the planet; atmosphere, land mass, water bodies and the oceans.
Changing the physical world or its functionalities appears like an unconquerable task for the people
who are trying to change the world in an inappropriate manner. Such people have very little
knowledge about what could be changed and what not. Before continuing with this discussion it is
desirable to pay your attention to the most important aspects of the functionalities of the world. It has
two sides: one is that the affairs within our control and the other being the affairs beyond our control.
Some people focus on trying to create wide-sweeping changes in the political and social structures
around them which are beyond their control at the first instance. Only a few have been able to
change some of the manmade systems like political and social structures around them with untiring
efforts exerted over long periods of time.
Once people realize that changing the world is difficult, they begin to give up on those dreams they
had. They let those dreams wash away and replace them with so called “realistic” goals that other
people give them. Maybe you have even experienced this yourself. Have you ever heard the
following statements?
“Get realistic”, “Stop chasing a pipe dream”, “One person can’t make a difference, anyway”
May be you have heard them, listened to them, and now have got the opportunity to read this.
3.1 Changing My World (Your World)
Let us think for a moment, how we can go ahead with our knowledge and dream to create a
sustainable environment and a better planet for us to live. Please follow the rest attentively.
Before we discuss changing the world lets us critically look at the world to visualize what is
happening around us in an objective frame.
Wikipedia dictionary defines the world as follows:
The World is Planet Earth and all life on it, including human civilization. In a philosophical ... "World"
was also classically used to mean the material universe, or the ... regardless of the interpretations
that individual people may make of them.
3.2 My World Concept
According to the definition above, all the lives and the flora-fauna are the mighty owners of this
planet (Our World). There is another concept that every individual has his/her own world within that
mighty Our World, called “My World”. This is the virtual space in which all dreams, aspirations, and
success with regard to the future of the person concerned floating and scrolling continuously. This
“My World” is empowered by the perceptions, thoughts, traits, behavior, actions, etc. of the person
concerned. The actions include the dealing with the nature reserve, more importantly, consumption
and emission patterns of the individual. Let us call this empowering mechanism as “Input Source”.
Whatever the outcome produced in this “My World” primarily and mainly corresponds to the “Input
Source” of the person, the owner of “My World”. There are other external contributing factors to the
said outcome from “Our World” and mostly they are the corresponding complimentary top up
reactions to the actions in “My World”.
Physical needs of the human are enormous that include plant-based food and fiber products,
livestock and fish products, timber and other forest products, space for urban infrastructure etc. and
to discharge its waste, especially carbon emissions. They exploit the nature reserve in order to fulfil
their needs, sometimes exceeding the regenerating potential of the nature reserve. There are two
main aspects of these actions among many; one is that the withdrawals from the nature reserve to
fulfil his physical needs and the other is being the emissions let in to the nature reserve. These are
part of the actions taken by the individual under “Input Source” as mentioned in the previous
paragraph.
Foot Print Network organization is working on the human behavior in withdrawing natural resources
and discharging emissions in to the nature. This work is “Ecological footprint of human beings and
bio capacity of the planet” and paramount because they govern the entire process.
3.2.(a) Withdrawals
Ecological foot print is the impact on the environment, expressed as the amount of
biologically productive land and sea area an individual, a region, all of humanity, or a human
activity that compete for biologically productive space. This includes producing renewable
resources, accommodating urban infrastructure and roads, and breaking down or absorbing
waste products, particularly carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel. Biologically productive
land and sea includes cropland, forest and fishing grounds, and do not include deserts,
glaciers and the open ocean.
On the demand side, the Ecological Footprint measures the ecological assets that a given
population requires to produce the natural resources it consumes (including plant-based food
and fiber products, livestock and fish products, timber and other forest products, space for
urban infrastructure) and to absorb its waste, especially carbon emissions. The Ecological
Footprint tracks the use of six categories of productive surface areas: cropland, grazing land,
fishing grounds, built-up land, forest area, and carbon demand on land.
On the supply side, a city, state or nation’s bio capacity represents the productivity of its
ecological assets (including cropland, grazing land, forest land, fishing grounds, and built-up
land). These areas, especially if left unharvested, can also absorb much of the waste we
generate, especially our carbon emissions.
Both the Ecological Footprint and bio capacity are expressed in global hectares—globally
comparable, standardized hectares with world average productivity. Each city, state or
nation’s Ecological Footprint is compared to its bio capacity in ascertaining the sustainability
of these systems.
If the Ecological Footprint of a population exceeds the bio capacity of a region, then that
region runs an ecological deficit. Its demand for the goods and services that its land and
seas can provide—fruits and vegetables, meat, fish, wood, cotton for clothing, and carbon
dioxide absorption—exceeds what the region’s ecosystems can renew. A region in ecological
deficit meets demand by importing, liquidating its own ecological assets (such as
overfishing), and/or emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. If a region’s bio capacity
exceeds its Ecological Footprint, it has an ecological reserve.
Now the entire human being is in ecological debt meaning the collective ecological footprint
has exceeded the bio capacity of the planet by nearly 50% which means the mother nature /
planet is unable to re-generate the resources we utilize and to absorb or assimilate what we
put out to the environment as waste, at the present rate of consumption making the world
unsustainable. In other words, we need one and a half planets to satisfy our greed. If we
continue to live like this, it is predicted that by 2030, we will need 2 planets and by 2050 we
will need 3 planets to dwell. Given the enormous problems we are now experiencing around
the world such as fighting for natural resources, we cannot even imagine what the world
would be in 2050 if we do not change ourselves right now.
3.2.(b) Emissions
Although, the human were advocating environmental protection and mitigation of air pollution
by reducing fossil fuel emissions, deforestation and burning forest, final outcome is
disappointing and air pollution has exceeded safe levels to alarming levels in many cities
around the world, in the recent past. Increased air pollution has been identified as one of the
major obstacles in treating respiratory disorders, causing immense difficulties to patients as
well as the medical staff.
Every one of us has been critical with a bitter mind about the negative effects taking place in
the world around us and we had dreams about wanting to reverse these adverse effects. Lots
of discussions, debates, suggestions and proposals have been put forward to this effect by
many individuals as well as institutions, locally and globally, focusing to reverse/minimize
these negative effects, some mechanisms have been instituted to arrest the situation but the
success seems to be minimal.
Now let us look at the current scenario the entire world is undergoing, since early 2020.
Covid-19 pandemic has the taken the entire world under its virtual control. Millions of people
have been infected with Covid-19 virus causing severe acute respiratory conditions and
thousands have died around the world, majority being from developed world.
Recently published studies have explored the possibility of a link between pollution levels and
the lethality of Covid-19. While initial observations suggest that the virus is more dangerous
in heavily polluted areas, more work is needed to prove this conclusively.
The most polluted regions of Europe are also those where Covid-19 kills the most. A total of
78 percent of coronavirus deaths in Europe are concentrated in the five most-polluted areas
of mainland Europe, according to Yaron Ogen, a researcher at the Institute of Earth Sciences
at Martin Luther University in Halle, Germany, in a preliminary study published in the
journal Science of Total Environment on April 20.
Subsequent to Covid-19 pandemic almost all the countries have imposed lockdowns within
their respective administrative boundaries, to different levels. A large number of flight
operations have been grounded, cruise voyages have been suspended, a large number of
factories have been shut down, train trips have been halted and vehicle movement has been
reduced thus have resulted in reduced emissions, creating a cleaner atmosphere, leading to
a remarkable increase in the air quality all around the world.
In the absence of a positive response for the efforts taken by the human to reduce pollution,
Covid-19 virus has indirectly helped the planet to overcome the crisis by overtaking the
human activities to change the functionalities of the world since early 2020. In a way this
could be considered as a masked blessing with some kind of trade off as penalties. Most of
 the outdoor activities have been restricted introducing a new concept called social distancing
on many aspects of human life, probably for the first time in the history of mankind. This has
completely changed the human life style in all the sectors, administrative, social, education,
health, religious, and corporate in the entire world. Global community may have to continue
the life in this fashion for quite a long time. It is a difficult task to predict the future of these
changes until the scientists and the related professionals find a vaccine or successful
treatment process to defeat the Covid-19. The real change agent is neither the human nor
another creature but a virus of unauthenticated origin.
From the above it could be seen that the ecological deficit and air pollution have created
tremendous impact on the human and the world as a whole. In the coming years people will fight for
their basic needs, like food, water, air, all of which are in a negative trend. COVID-19 may be the first
fatal warning of the Mother Nature in this century for us to change ourselves to flourish or to perish.
Changing our perceptions, thoughts, traits and behavior alone will not help us to change ourselves, a
huge change in our actions- our dealing with nature reserve- is of immense importance in order to
fulfill the aspirations of “My World” concept.
Human has been individually and collectively exploiting the bio capacity of the region for all their
needs. The composite outcome of all these activities may be sweet or bitter depending on the
intensity of the exploitation, empowered by Input Source. Now it is clear that the Input Source of
every individual is the driving force having the power to create the corresponding outcome. This
Input Source comes from within us on an individual basis, molded by the perceptions, knowledge,
understanding, thoughts, traits, behavior, and actions. If this Input Source can be modified,
formatted or molded using the knowledge offered in the previous chapters, outcome of all our
endeavors will be sweet, memorable, fruitful and productive leading to long lasting happiness, thus
changing My World. Operating in My World with the Input Source in a safe mode will lead to
numerous positive results while minimizing the harm to Our World, thus contributing to change the
world.
If you browse the internet, you will get thousands of quotes about changing the world but none of it
says whether the change is on the physical universe or its parameters. However, changing the
physical world or its functionalities appears like an unconquerable task since these structures have
been sturdy for so long. Further some parts of the physical universe are getting changed due to
evolutional process happening continuously and also due to so called development programs
implemented by human civilization.
Ten of quotes related to changing the world are listed below for reader’s interest, copied from
internet.
1. If you want to change world-be the change Mahatma Gandhi
2. If a man does his best, what else is there? George S. Patton
3. I do the very best I know how - the very best I can; and I mean to keep on doing so until the
end. Abraham Lincoln
4. Just do the best you can. No one can do more than that. John Wooden
 5. Do right. Do your best. Treat others as you want to be treated. Lou Holtz
6. I spend my life building the world I want to live in.” - Robin Chase
7. No one changes the world who isn’t obsessed.” - Billie Jean King
8. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves
already: we have the power to imagine better.” - J.K. Rowling
9. Let us remember: One book, one pen, one child, and one teacher can change the world.” –
Malala Yousafzai
10. “Remember, each one of us has the power to change the world.” – Yoko Ono
When these quotes are carefully and deeply reviewed all of them suggest that the required change is
not in the physical universe or its parameters but in the human behavior, which is fueled by the
“Input Source”. Every individual is virtually in complete control of his behavior in his daily life
activities and by being persistent on this integrated “Input Source” with thoughtful activities and
good habits, accruing better results, better outcome, a better “My World”, is not difficult. A careful
study and digestion of the contents outlined in the previous chapters could influence and facilitate
your thoughts and actions in a positive manner for this exercise.
The truth is that it is possible to change the world, at least its functionalities to the extent it matters to
your life. In this process, as the initial step, you can change only Your (My) world, to do that, you
have to change yourself first, in all aspects of your life. You need to have a complete awareness
about your perspectives and understanding about yourself and the external world, reason why you
need to change, your vision, mentality, your habits, what you are going to change, and your actions.
Changing yourself may not be convenient as said; hence it is necessary to be persistent on your
efforts if you want to make a massive success on your endeavors.
This approach helps the individuals to change themselves to be better persons tomorrow in all
segments of life, personal, professional, social and spiritual and to enjoy a balanced life among the
segments. Further this will help the person to have a clear mind embedded with positive thoughts
about the life. This change in every person is the ultimate state of mind envisaged by every person in
the society free of negative thoughts and undesirable effects, as changing the world.
Since Covid-19 has given an alarming signal to the world about danger of increased air pollution, in
critical situation like this. It is up to us to take lessons from the detrimental effects of environmental
pollution inclusive of air pollution on human health and to minimize the pollution levels caused by
human activities. Now the prime duty of the human is to switch on to the recommended steps
proposed by the lockdown conditions permanently to facilitate the changing “My World” concept at
individual level.

4. Benefits of personal development

Working on your personal development is not only essential for your own self-improvement, but it
can also help you thrive professionally. There is a large number of benefits of personal development,
out of which five key benefits are given below:
 4.1 You will figure out what you want to do
By carrying out an ongoing personal development, you will be learning more about your abilities
and aspirations. You will figure out where your beliefs and values lie, and uncover a clearer
purpose of what you are doing – both on a personal and professional level.
4.2 You will be able to make clear goals
By figuring out more about yourself, you will be able to set clear and well-informed goals.
Whether it is taking a course to help you realize what career you would like to pursue, or learning
a new language which made you want to travel – expanding your knowledge is a great way to
help you make good decisions about your future.
Not only you will realize what you want to do, but you will also be able to rule out paths that might
not suit you as much as you thought.
4.3 You will be motivated
With clear and achievable targets, you will be more motivated to actually fulfil them – especially if
you have a personal development plan to track your progress. This means you will be more
productive in carrying out the tasks you set for yourself (whether it is at work, study, or home) –
and you will be more likely to complete them to a high standard. After all, it is the only way you
will achieve your goals.
4.4 You will get a better work-life balance
If you are not feeling fulfilled in your current job, allowing yourself some personal development
time is a great way to improve your work-life balance. By carrying out your own learning and
development, you will not only be improving your morale, confidence, and knowledge, you could
also be improving your career prospects – whether it is to gain a promotion, new job, or a career
change.
4.5 You will improve your career prospects
Perhaps personal development might seem separate from your professional life, yet it could
actually be a great way to achieve your career goals. It is not just what you learn that could help
you thrive at work; by making your commitment to personal development clear to employers, you
will be able to demonstrate dedication and an ability to learn and grow.
With most employers seeking candidates who are willing to progress within an industry, you
could be well on your way landing on your dream role.
5. Personal-Development Education and Training

Personal development takes place over the course of a person's entire life. Not limited to self-help, the
concept involves formal and informal activities for developing others, you being in different roles. This
may take place through roles such as those of a teacher or mentor, either through a personal
competency (such as the alleged skill of certain managers in developing the potential of employees) or
through a professional service (such as providing training, assessment or coaching).When personal
development takes place in the context of institutions, it refers to the methods, programs, tools,
techniques, and assessment systems that support human development at the individual level
in organizations.

Personal development also can be seen as new study program to be included in a formal way, in
colleges and educational institutions. This will attract more youngsters who are inspired in
developing the skills and personality. This is over and above the personal development of oneself
and helping for the "personal development" of others, creating a new field of practice and research:
 As a field of practice, training programs on personal development including personal-
development methods, developing soft skills, learning programs, assessment systems, tools,
and techniques could be developed and such training programs could be introduced in colleges
and tertiary educational institutions.
 As a field of research, personal-development topics appear in psychology
journals, education research, management journals and books, and human-
development economics.
Also it is necessary to establish monitoring and evaluation mechanism to assess the effectiveness of
the program, whether the anticipated change has actually occurred, like in any other development
programs — whether economic, political, biological, organizational or personal. In the case of
personal development, an individual often functions as the primary judge to determine the success,
but validation of objective judgement on the success requires an assessment using standard criteria.
Personal-development frameworks may include:
 Goals or benchmarks that define the end-points.
 Strategies or plans for reaching goals.
 Measurement and assessment of progress, levels or stages that define milestones along a
development path.
 A feedback system to provide information on changes.
6.0 In Summary
Self-Development is nothing but the continuous self-growth of an individual corresponding to his/her
vision and goals, based on his/her “Input Source” with the “My World” concept. The success of
self-development largely depends on the individual’s desires and the competence he/she exercises
in implementing his/her self-development activities. The owner of the self-development program is
the person concerned and he/she has to take all the initiatives and mobilize all the resources
required for the purpose. It is his/her vision, knowledge and the dedications which keep him/her
motivated in this exercise and also invite contribution from the external world. External contributors
can offer valuable insight and knowledge, as complimentary that will allow the individual to expedite
this learning process and achieve the desired goals quicker, and in more sustainable ways. The
person concerned is responsible for all the success and failures, if any, and he/she will be credited
accordingly while the external contributors will be appreciated for their services.
Covid-19 has provided a deep insight on changing the systems and on the efforts of the human to
change the functionalities of the world for better outcome. Busy and hectic nature of human
schedules has failed in achieving the desired goals, as a whole, despite a few successes here and
there. Also it has clearly demonstrated the nature of resulting trade off the world has to swallow
because of the busy and hectic schedules. Scientifically and logically Covid-19 is an eye opener for
the entire world, if taken positively. Also only a very few of the population has even a little knowledge
about Ecological Footprint, Bio Capacity and Ecological Reserve that governs the entire process.
Adopting sustainable consumption and production pattern at individual level in all of the dealings with
ecological reserve seems to be the best way to change “My World”, and subsequently “Our World.”
These are strong food for thought for those are interested in self-development and changing the
World.
The important phenomena here are that success of the self-development can only be compared with
that of the previous status of same person on a time scale. Any attempt to compare the said self-
development with that of another will be disastrous and dilute the importance of self-development
concept itself. This happens very often when a group of people (friends, class mates, colleagues)
work together in their self-development activities concurrently, may be in the same office, work
place, institution or territory. Previous chapters have provided sufficient background knowledge on
self-awareness, soft skills development, personal traits, authenticity, resilience, etc. It is important for
you to be yourself, under whatever the victories or adversities. Never imitate anyone or any activity
of another person, but you may capture the lessons to be extracted from their performance. If
everybody is trying to imitate the others, there is no authenticity in it, there is no learning it, there
cannot be any improvement in it. Moreover there is no “Change in You” which is the ultimate goal
of self-development.
Self-Development is a lifelong learning process which cease only when the person ceases. You are
not supposed to make it tiresome exercises that may prompt you take a break. Your self-
development process is similar to your breathing which happens inadvertently under normal
circumstances. Therefore please do not make it as a hassle but do it with a joy.
You are reading this write up because you are a blessed person, having had the opportunity of
learning English in this society which is considered as a privilege, fortune and luxury. Mind you there
are millions of people in your category (with same or higher education, age, social background,
desires and so forth) who have no means to read this book. Therefore you and I have the moral
obligations to learn good habits and develop positive mind sets to change ourselves towards a better
society, a better tomorrow, a better country and a better world.
Believe that you can change the world — starting today — simply by changing yourself. The above
steps and the explanations in the previous chapters are absolutely critical in making a positive
impact on the world. Changing me to change “My World” is the theme leading to Changing
Ourselves to “Change Our World”.
Now it is your turn and duty to make the necessary change in you to create a positive impact!

Final Thoughts on Self-Development

Hopefully this write up has given you some insight to the question, “What is self-development?” and
how to boost your self-development.
Self-development may look like not an easy exercise to a considerably high level for some people
under certain circumstances. Most people are somewhat afraid and reluctant to be honest with
themselves about their strengths, weaknesses, current challenges and their personal traits. But if
you carefully and attentively study the guidance we have outlined in the previous chapters and this
chapter, you will change your mind and find your ways to develop a level of self-development that
will help you grow as a person. More importantly, following and practicing the said steps on a
continuous basis is vital for consistent results.
In Chapter 6 you will learn the principles and the preparation of your Self-Development Plan and
hope that you will pay your utmost attention on it. When you are planning you will clearly identify
your strengths, weaknesses, areas to be improved and the actions to be taken. This is the first step
in Self-l Development which leads you to change yourself in a positive manner.
Chapter 6- Planning For Self-Development
1. Introduction
Human behavior and self-awareness are vital for everyone who is desirous of personal development;
a lifelong learning exercise, since a broad understanding about these two attributes are very
essential for this exercise. It is believed that you have studied the previous chapters and
comprehended the contents to the best of your ability and established a firm foundation to prepare a
Personal Development Plan. Now you have a reasonable understanding about yourself, your
attributes, and the required area of development in an informal way. It is necessary to document and
create a general picture of your assessment about your thoughts, feelings and ambitions, on paper
and proceed. What does your mind say? Are you fully in control of yourself, your desires, your
career, etc.? Do you have a clear and inspiring vision of what you want to achieve in the future? Are
you actively taking steps to pursue the career of your dreams? If your answer is “no,” then you risk
being disappointed. If you put your career into the hands of others – your organization, your boss,
your partner, or even your parents – you risk not going where you want to go, and not doing what
you want to do. After all, if you are not working to realize your own dreams, you are most likely
working to achieve someone else’s. Too often, this failure of taking responsibility for your career
happens even without you realizing it. You have to be proactive, take charge and change the way
you think about your career. When you take control, you will realize that the only way you will
achieve what you want, personally or professionally, is to think about where you want to go, put in
place a plan to get there, and then implement the plan and move. Usually it is difficult to remain
motivated when it comes to pursuing your true ambitions in the absence of any guidance, yet this
could become an easy task have you been told about an implementable way to make such
ambitions a reality. Here we go!
2. What is a Self-Development Plan?
Self-Development Planning is creating a long-term detailed action plan for self-development for your
future, used to fulfil academic, personal, social or career based goals. It is a written document which
doubles up as a detailed action plan. It is usually created within the workplace or in the study room
(with guidance from your manager, a superior or tutor), and it works by allowing you to establish your
goals, recognize your strengths weaknesses, opportunities, and threats and identify the needs for
improvement. A complete self-awareness and knowledge about your current status (thoughts, traits,
habits and other personal attributes) lay the foundation for this exercise. Your personal and career
objectives are put in place based on the areas you would like to improve on, and the plan consists of
your own personalized actions that will help you to achieve them.
Personal Development Planning is a structured way of doing just that.
• First, you understand yourself (self-awareness) and set meaningful vision and goals.
• Then you define the vision and goals in terms of what you want to achieve and the steps you
need to take to get there.
• Finally, you identify gaps in your knowledge, skills, expertise and experience, and create an
action plan to fill them, so that you can move towards your end goal.
Let’s start the process right now!
Review yourself, your abilities and the gaps you need to fill up. What are you good at? Where do you
need improvements? What opportunities are available? and, are there factors beyond your control
that could have an impact on your goals? List out!
If you carefully follow the clues given below you will understand what you need to know and the
purpose & benefits of creating your own Personal Development Plan.
2.1 Three Important Personal Development Aspects to Consider for Self-Growth
Many people aim to make daily self-growth in Self-Development as one of their lifelong goals,
because they see the need to grow in all aspects of their lives. However, what is unfortunate
is that many do not consider these three important self- development aspects are needed for
a healthy self-growth.
Self-growth in Self-Development is important, but the aspects that you aim to grow have to
be right in order for it to be effective in your life and I believe this is true for anyone.
So what are the 3 important personal development aspects? They are:
2.1.1 Improving Your Self-Awareness
Self-awareness simply means being aware of yourself. That includes your strengths,
flaws, talents and more. This comes first before the other personal development aspects
because without knowing yourself fully, you will not be able to know how to proceed with
your self-growth plans. This has been discussed in detail in Chapter 2.
The truth is, nobody knows you better than yourself, and if you are not sure about your
strength, weaknesses and more, you can take a piece of paper and jot them down,
It is important that you do not rush this through, because you want to make sure you got
them covered as much as possible without missing out anything.
Also, some people I have counselled say they have not been gifted with anything or do
not have any strength. I can tell you that they are totally untrue. Hard fact is that there is
no one born in this world without any gifts, blessings or strengths. However they could
differ from person to person, and there must be something you are better at than others.
So invest your time to do this to get a clear picture of yourself. But remember, do not
rush this through and be honest to yourself.
2.1.2 Knowing and Building Your Own Identity
Everyone is different, and each individual will only thrive if they know what they want.
Knowing what you want begins with first knowing your own identity. And that is the second
self-development aspect for self-growth.
From my experience, I know that if you rely on other people for your identity, you will be lost
and you cannot achieve expected personal growth.
 Find out what makes you. Please do not copy the way others talk and behave just because
they seemed to be well liked by others. Discover how you talk and behave, and then work
on improving your own identity.
I can promise you this. If you can be the best you, you will be well liked by others, despite
your identity. People want to experience who you really are, and when that happens, you
will be surrounded by people who will love to hang out with you, and you'll be able to
develop your character further.-How's that for self-growth?
2.1.3 Discovering Passion and Developing Your Talents
This final aspect of personal development deals with talents that you have, not talents
that others have but you do not.
Why do I say that? Because if you admire others for a talent that they have but you do
not, you might be tempted to pursue that talent though you do not have it. That will harm
your self-growth, so be careful, and be mindful.
Everyone has a God-given golden talent, including you and for you to have a healthy self-
growth, develop those God-given golden talents. You will realize that you are be able to
develop your talents much faster and much more easier than others because it is God-
given, you are inherited with them.
Sometimes, it takes a while before you discover what your talents are, so do not be afraid
to try new things. You might just discover what your talents are if you choose to be open
about discovering new things.
So there you have it, the three personal development aspects for effective self-growth. Keep them in
mind and remember to include them in your self-growth plan for a healthy self- development in your
life and by the way, remember that self-growth becomes much easier when you learn how to master
your thinking in relevance and also when you realize that all self- development aspects hinge on the
way you think.
2.2 What should I plan for?
A PDP can be used to plan for a variety of goals, including career progression, career
change, moving into further education, or to organize the actions needed to gain a new skill
for your own self-improvement and many more. However, in order to reach your long-term
goal, short-term goals must also be identified and documented in full in the process. These
would typically be based on the specific areas of improvement you are planning to pursue –
with your final goal in mind.
These areas are normally based around learning and development, such as taking courses
or professional qualifications, but may include things such as workshops, independent study,
networking, on-the-job training, joining a club/support group, or something more directly
linked to your current job or the company you work for. You may consider your social
relationship as well as your spiritual aspirations. All of these opportunities will allow you gain
new skills and knowledge, and could be the vital steps you need to take to ensuring you meet
your targets.
2.3 What should be included?
When creating your own Self-Development Plan (SDP), it is essential to make sure that it
outlines your personal goals accurately, why they are important to you, and how you plan to
achieve them. A SDP is specific to each individual. The plan will generally detail your ideal
future, based on your short and/or long-term ambitions. Areas of development will be specific
to you, and could be centered on work, education, or self-improvement. It also should always
recognize the potential obstacles you might face, and how you propose to overcome them –
and if the roadblocks cannot be tackled, include a contingency plan to help you keep moving
forward.
2.4 How do I track it?
One of the most important things to consider when creating your PDP is incorporating an
accurate way of measuring and evaluating your success. Not only will this be a great way to
prove your knowledge and skills, also it will keep you motivated to succeed, help you to take
corrective measures – and allow you to up your game or alter the plan if things are not
moving in the right direction.
Make sure your goals are realistic, and set on a clear timescale. If your dreams are so
farfetched that no doable plan would make them a reality, then it might be worth a
compromise. You may use the SMART (Specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time
bound) techniques in this respect.
2.5 When should I make one?
A PDP can be created at any point in your life – providing the targets you set are specific to
you and your individual status.
In a working environment, your SDP will be put together in conjunction with your manager to
identify your strengths and weaknesses, allow you to improve on them, and become aware of
any key areas you would like to progress in. A SDP can assist you in whatever way it can, to
make sure you are happy with where your career is going.
A SDP is used for a similar purpose in education. Through communications with your
tutor/teacher, you will be able to realize the areas you excel in, and the areas that you need
improvement.
A SDP can even be a useful tool if you are currently between roles. With a clear set of
objectives, you will be able to make the most of your time off, and add real value to your CV.
You can even take it with you to an interview to demonstrate your enthusiasm to your
potential employer.
2.6 What are the benefits?
From helping to plan a career change and build on your current skills, to bring the push you
need to learn something new and quantify your abilities, a PDP is a logical way of
accomplishing a range of different objectives.
Creating your own Personal Development Plan not only helps you effectively plan for the
future and manage your own learning and development, but also it can help you giving some
direction and to move forward in your career. It can help to define a particular career path or
area of study, and give you a realistic and well thought-out goal to aim for. Not to mention
making sure you stay motivated and can accurately track your career progression.
By documenting your individual development and achievement, you will be able to
demonstrate your dedication, enthusiasm, and ability to learn and plan – all being key skills
for any job or educational field.
Even if you do not end up achieving all of your goals, the effort alone could be enough to
show an employer your desire for self-improvement, which could be the perfect step in
helping take your career to the next level.
I have already covered the basics of what you need to know about Self-Development Plans,
but to help you plan in the right way I have put together a SDP template at the end of this
Chapter to get you started:
2.7 Important Tips to Develop your SDP
Establish your main objectives, first things first; you need to define your goals.
For some of you, these could have been dwelling in the back of your mind for years, just
waiting for the right time to make an appearance – but for others, it could take a bit of soul-
searching.
If you are stuck, ask yourself the following questions: ‘where do I want to progress in my
career?’, ‘will I be happier in a different job?’, ‘what new skills and knowledge would make me
more fulfilled?’, and most importantly, ‘what type of achievements is most significant to me?’
Once you have established your goals, consider prioritizing them – and try not to tackle too
many at once. Be realistic with what you want to achieve and remember that these goals can
be anything from short-term to long-term, big or small.
Examples:
‘I want to move up in my career as a College Lecturer’
‘I want to become a Public Speaker’
Identify your current strengths
Once you have decided on your main goals, it’s time to consider your relevant strengths.
What attributes do you already have that could help this goal become a reality? Are there any
transferrable skills you could utilize?
Even if you do not have any direct experience in the field your objectives are based in,
strength can be anything from passion, dedication, creative mind and keen interest in a
particular area of academia, through to excellent people skills.
Identifying your strengths can also lead you to potential areas for improvement. For example,
it might be that you have a range of experience in public speaking roles (strength), but no
qualifications to quantify your skills (weakness) and that is where the areas for development
come in.
Examples:
‘I’m great at talking to people and understanding their needs, and have a range of experience
in Customer Service based roles’
‘I often draw in my spare time, and have a keen interest in creative projects’
Decide on your key areas for development
Identify the main areas of your career, or skills that will need improvement to be able to
achieve your goals, and from there, you will be able to come up with realistic actions to turn
your weaknesses into strengths.
Make sure the areas that need work are linked directly to your main objectives, so you will
actually be motivated to improve on them.
Examples:
‘I lack the accredited AAT qualifications to be able to enter a career in accounting’
‘My web design skills are basic, and will need to be more advanced for me to be able to
progress in this field’

Research the skills you will need to gain to achieve your goals
Do some in depth research on what it takes to achieve your goals, and what kind of skills,
knowledge, or qualifications will help you overcome your key weaknesses.
For example, you want to become a Social Worker, but you have no previous experience,
you will probably need to consider gaining a specialized practical, hands-on experience in the
area by joining a Social Work movement or gaining qualification by doing a course, or
perhaps taking a more full-on approach and studying a related subject at University.
Examples:
‘I will need to gain an NVQ level 3 in Beauty Culture and Make-up’
‘I will need to be able to demonstrate at least a year’s experience in the Marketing field,
before I can progress further’
Put in place some actions
By identifying all of the above, you should be ready to set some concrete actions that will put
you on the right track to achieve your goals.
Your actions should be heavily based on your weaknesses and areas of improvement, and
what skills you will need to go ahead with fulfilling your ambitions. The amount of actions you
set for each objective is solely dependent on you, your individual plan, and the complexity of
your aims.
Academia is not for everyone, and neither is a practical approach, so do your research and
choose the one that suits you best. These actions could range from reading up on a
particular topic and doing an internship or apprenticeship, through to taking a course or
learning a new skill.
Examples:
‘Study a personal fitness trainer course’
‘Gain three month’s unpaid experience in a publishing house’
Give yourself a clear timeframe for each goal
Setting a deadline for each one of your goals will give you a visible target to reach for, not to
mention that it will ensure you are on the right track throughout your career.
Be realistic with your timeframes, and take into account how long each individual action will
take. You should also consider the potential obstacles that could delay you along the way,
because things may not always run as smoothly as you hope. By recognizing the obstacles,
you will be able to put in place new actions or alter your current actions in a way that better
fits in with your main objective.
This is real life, after all.
Track your progression
Finally, always track your development.
Not only does this help to emphasize where you have improved (which boosts your
confidence and motivation), it also shows you what areas you are exceling in, and what areas
might need more work.
Personal Development Plan
Main objectives…
Goal
1:____________________________________________________
________________________
______________________________________________________
____________________________
Goal 2:____________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________

Goal 3:____________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________

Current strengths that will help me achieve each goal…

Goal 1:____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Goal 2:____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________

Goal 3:____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________

Key areas for development with my goals in mind…

1.________________________________________________________________________________
2.________________________________________________________________________________

3.________________________________________________________________________________

4.________________________________________________________________________________

5.________________________________________________________________________________

Skills/knowledge/qualifications I need to gain…

Goal 1:____________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
Goal 2:____________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________

Goal 3:____________________________________________________________________________

What I need to do…

Objectives Action 1 Action 2 Action 3

Goal 1

Goal 2

Goal 3

Date I’ll achieve each goal…

Goal 1:_______________________________
Goal 2:_______________________________

Goal 3:_______________________________

Progression…

Objectives What I’ve Roadblocks I’ve What I need to

achieved so far faced improve

Goal 1

Goal 2

Goal 3
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