Personality development in preschool age
Stage 1 - Infancy
The period of infancy begins from the first minute of birth and ends at two years.
In addition to a set of reflex abilities, such as: eating, feeling pain and danger; Soon after birth, babies may react to:
- visual images, including the human face;
- sound, including the human voice.
By the middle of the third month, the child recognizes his mother simply by seeing her, and perfectly senses the tone of voice in human speech (for example, he gets scared when someone swears).
It has been established that children under one year of age are able to perceive distance, shape, direction and depth. And by the end of the first year, they distinguish a person from an animal, a toy from a food product.
Infants quickly develop cognitive memory, increasing their ability to anticipate the consequences of any action and events happening around or to them.
The awareness that there are external objects that can influence him encourages the baby to move from simple reflexive movements to coordinated actions. Moreover, he repeats these manipulations intentionally, because they are interesting to him or because he understands that with their help he can achieve the desired goal (for example, pick up a toy).
By 18 months, the child can already mentally imagine certain events and the results to which they will lead. He does not need to experiment and act by trial and error.
By three months of age, the infant exhibits behavioral responses indicating emotions appropriate:
- surprise;
- experience;
- relaxation;
- joy;
- excitement.
Read more: 5 qualities of a successful person
And conditions such as anger, sadness and fear begin to appear in the first year.
The emotional life of all infants is centered on attachment to the mother and other family members. Through interactions with loved ones, babies learn to love and trust them.
From two months, babies smile in response to any affectionate voice, but by six months they accurately distinguish the voices and faces of familiar people and begin to smile only at them. This psychological development of infant personality forms the basis for emotional health throughout childhood.
Stage 2 - Childhood
The second important stage in human development is childhood, which begins at the age of two and continues until the age of 12–13.
The first years of typically developing children are marked by enormous gains in understanding and using language.
In general, children begin to understand speech several months before they utter their first words.
The average child clearly reproduces the first word at 12–14 months, and by the 20th month knows about 50 words.
At first, the baby, even having the maximum number of words in his vocabulary, uses a bunch of “two words.” Three-word combinations are then added. Development progresses and conjunctions and prepositions are added to a sentence consisting only of a subject and predicate.
By the fourth year of life, most children reproduce participle and participial phrases in sentences, and are at the stage of mastering complex rules of literate speech.
In their cognitive abilities, children, to complete logical tasks, cease to rely solely on physical sensations and begin to navigate the world of symbolic images.
By the age of seven, the child no longer needs to control the environment with the help of symbolic thinking or language, he becomes capable of solving new types of logical problems and begins to use mental operations as an elementary, primary form of cognition.
At the age of 7 to 12 years, qualification of ideas, understanding of numbers and time are added to logic. Children develop self-awareness.
Read further: The process of social development of personality
At the age of 10, a child knows exactly what action he will take will cause pain or entail punishment. He needs not only the love of his parents, but also their support, respect and approval. In addition, children of this age are able to control their emotional state and understand the emotional state of other people. This means that at this stage they understand the feelings and point of view of other people, and how they react to this predetermines their moral development in the future.
At 12–13 years old, thoughts about life begin, some begin to feel guilty and/or self-rejection, which means the transition to adolescence.
Biological factors
Personal self-development depends on internal factors.
Genetic characteristics are passed on from parents from birth. Traits acquired through inheritance form the basis of personality. The perception of the surrounding world and the assessment of other people depends on the hereditary qualities of the individual, his abilities and physical characteristics. From the point of view of biological heredity, no two people are alike. Parents pass on certain qualities to their children; they are embedded in the genetic program. Anatomical and physiological structure, various physical characteristics and physiological characteristics, as well as the structure of the nervous system are inherited from parents. Additionally, genetics contains anomalies in the development of the body, a predisposition to certain diseases that are hereditary in nature.
For example, people with a congenital cleft lip will feel different in society. During preschool development, they may develop complexes and internal fears.
At this moment, it is important for a person to provide support, show the possibilities of equal interaction with others, and should not show violence towards such a child or adult. Integration into society and social adaptation will help him in life
Personal development in adolescence
Stage 3 - Adolescence
Physically, adolescence begins at 12–13 years of age and culminates at 19–20 years of age.
Intellectually, adolescence is the period when a person becomes able to formulate hypotheses or assumptions, as well as test and rationally evaluate them.
At this time, the psychology of a teenager’s personality development is that he learns to control himself, be aware of his sexual impulses and determine what and who he likes, and what he prefers to avoid.
By the end of adolescence, an individual's emotional dependence on parents weakens and his own set of values arises - as soon as material independence from parents is added to this, the teenager moves into adulthood.
Stage 4 - Coming of age
The period of maximum mental functioning when an individual's intellectual, emotional and social capabilities reach their peak development. It is during this period that people get married, give birth to children, promote their business, or master a profession of a lifetime.
Some psychologists divide the period of adulthood into three phases: early (20–30 years), middle (30–50 years) and late (50 years and older).
In the early phase of adulthood, individuals come to realize their goals and obligations. They receive professional knowledge necessary for later life.
Read further: TOP 6 services for planning and organizing work processes
At this time, young people are psychologically stable, they are full of hope for a wonderful future and do not dwell on troubles.
In the middle phase, the psychology of personality development reaches a completely different level - a person develops a sense of time limitation, it seems to him that it is impossible to accomplish anything in this life.
Even financially secure people suffer emotional breakdowns, which can be reflected in the abandonment of seemingly unshakable values. There is a revaluation of not only tastes, but also preferences, which sometimes leads to a sudden change of job, an adult’s passion for some subculture (for example, when a 40-year-old successful businessman abandons everything and becomes a rapper), etc. It is in this phase that families most often break up.
In the later phase, emotional “storms” calm down, due to the fact that emerging age-related diseases change the pattern of life, or the individual understands that he has reached the limit of his capabilities and accepts it. Those who do not want to come to terms develop a feeling of lack of self-realization, which “poisons” their mature years.
What is personal growth and self-development?
American psychologist Carl Rogers in 1959 answered the question of what human personal growth is. He identified the general “law of personal growth” based on the “if-then” formula. It sounds like this: if the necessary conditions exist, then the process of self-development is actualized in a person, that is, changes aimed at his personal maturity.
- It is a constant and never-ending process of learning something.
- Thanks to this, a person grows and develops both qualitatively and quantitatively, noticeable changes occur
- Knows yourself better and improves your personal qualities
- Gains new skills and finds his purpose
- Improves quality of life and lives more consciously and interestingly
- Life becomes more harmonious, and this makes it joyful and happy
This is, in fact, the most profitable investment - an investment in your self-development, personal growth.
Growth is always quantitative changes that a person can track himself, and development is qualitative changes; as a rule, the environment takes part here.
What gives a person personal growth?
- Get out of stress
- Financial stability
- Recovery from depression and nervousness (from illness)
- Relationships normalize, it happens that people next to you begin to grow or leave
- Getting rid of addiction
- Marriage
- Feeling good
The development of personal growth first of all changes a person’s consciousness. If, for example, he wanted to lose weight and couldn’t, then first of all he changed a lot of existing attitudes in his head to others (psychological ways of influencing his body). Physically changed my habits, started eating healthy and adjusted my lifestyle. Time needs to pass. And only then can you count on results.
How psychology affects physiology
The starting point is always in your head. Analysis of events can be carried out independently or better with a psychologist. Each time you delve into “adverse events,” you can become completely bogged down in them. And not only fail to pull yourself out of stress, but, on the contrary, get even more bogged down.
Therefore, it is better to do all this with a psychologist who will competently guide you through all the labyrinths of your memory and help you correctly adjust these settings.
Where to start personal growth...
If you have a question: “Personal growth - what does it mean?”, then you are already on the verge of a big leap. Now the main thing is to start: first we set immediate goals, involve time management, then we automate processes and develop a global strategy. And at the same time, we understand what is included in the concept of personal growth.
We set upcoming tasks
A good place to start is to identify your weaknesses and strengths. Based on this, set goals for the next month, quarter, year and formulate an action program to achieve them. It sounds complicated, but if you look at an example, everything is pretty clear.
Jack Dorsey and Biz Stone were ordinary employees of an American IT company. In 2005, they came to the conclusion that Livejournal and similar services would soon disappear into another world, and therefore it was time to come up with an alternative. Dorsey understood that his ideas and creativity alone would not get him far, and that he needed a team: an advanced and very focused technician and a good producer-investor. Fortunately, the first, in the person of Biz Stone, kept him company every day over a cup of coffee, and the second, Evan Williams , sat in the office across the wall. This is how the trio “idea-implementation-promotion” was born. According to Dorsey, it was the division of responsibilities, taking into account individual traits, that helped turn a small prank into a big deal called Twitter . In just 2 weeks, the service was ready, and it took less than a year for it to become one of the three most popular social networks in the world.
Simple guys who created Twitter. Photo source: Twitter
We connect time management
Time is one of the most important factors in self-development; there should be enough of it for everything. Time management is not just living according to a schedule, it is setting priorities, delegating tasks, planning work. That is, this is the skill of doing more in less time - and without compromising your life. And if you master it, you can move mountains.
English industrial designer, inventor and champion of perfectionism James Dyson spent more than 15 years developing the ideal vacuum cleaner. Before introducing the Dyson cyclonic vacuum cleaner to the world, he made 5,127 “unsuccessful” prototypes. Despite the lack of money, the huge amount of work and the lack of optimism, he always allocated time to be with his family, chat with friends and build the next prototype. As a result, today he is a happy family man and the father of three children. It was the friends he never forgot who helped him promote the brand, and now his net worth exceeds $3 billion.
Happy inventor of vacuum cleaners. Photo source: dyson.com.ru
We automate processes
Automation helps save time and avoid mistakes. An IT product such as a CRM system is ideal for business automation.
CRM is software that helps keep records of customers and transactions, automates sales and compiles reports. CRM saves the entire history of communication with clients and call recordings, helps to monitor employees, manage tasks and projects, and receive reports online. The program itself will create tasks at each stage of the funnel, remind you of deadlines and automatically send SMS notifications to clients. After implementing CRM, you will have a unified database of clients and transactions, managers will call clients back on time and fulfill the sales plan, and you will be able to monitor the company’s work and receive reports from anywhere in the world.
For example, this is what the SalesapCRM CRM system looks like.
Organization
It is the ability to organize personal activities and determine the importance of goals and activities to increase the likelihood of success and minimize costs.
It appears when a large number of unordered, chaotic tasks appear, the implementation of which may be ineffective due to the waste of resources on less important tasks
Such matters are described in detail, the connections between them are determined, their importance and usefulness for self-realization and achieving the goal of life is determined. The main means for organization are planning and systematization of its activities
To do this, you can use various systems of lists, folders, categories, etc. You can also delegate important tasks to more competent specialists. Tools for organization are described in more detail in the method Organizing personal goals and affairs. You can also start using a powerful, free online organizer right now.
The main means for organization are planning and systematization of its activities. To do this, you can use various systems of lists, folders, categories, etc. You can also delegate important tasks to more competent specialists. Tools for organization are described in more detail in the method Organizing personal goals and affairs. You can also start using a powerful, free online organizer right now.
With low organization, a person has many things to do, the usefulness and dependence of which is unknown to him. He makes decisions chaotically, usually depending on his mood and desire to complete the most interesting, but not necessarily useful, task.
When a person is highly organized, all important goals and affairs are described in detail, structured and organized into a single system. With its help, he can quickly find the necessary information and make the right decisions depending on current conditions and available resources. But this system requires the expenditure of additional resources to create it and update the information in it.
Improves success by clearly understanding what needs to be done to achieve a goal and quickly obtaining the information you need to make decisions and take actions.
It develops through the progressive complication of the system of organizing activities for self-realization and continuous updating of information in it. This is facilitated by the development of determination and self-discipline.
Criticism of personal training programs
Unfortunately, for residents of Russia, training practices are the latest discovery, and accordingly, they raise doubts in the eyes of people. Why is this happening? The answer is quite simple; it is always difficult for a person to believe in promises from the outside until he himself sees a clear result.
The main problem of the trainings was human laziness. The trainer is able to put knowledge and motivation into the heads of listeners, but the achievement of their goals will depend only on their independent work. No matter how much the coach tries to convey to the listener the need for certain actions, until the listener himself tries to implement them, changes will not come. This is where criticism of training comes from. Many people who come to them expect instant changes, but they don’t always get them, because they don’t want to put in much effort or effort.
The positive outcome and benefits of personal growth training will only come when the participants themselves begin to apply their own efforts to achieve them.
The path and definition of self-knowledge
Each person strives for success, where self-knowledge and its methods play a major role. The immortal scholar of the Islamic world, Muhammad Ghazali, argued: “Nothing is closer to a person than himself. Without knowing yourself, how can you know others? That is, for each of us, personal growth should prevail over other needs.
Self-knowledge is the comprehension of one’s own personality, one’s inner “I”, awareness of one’s own physical and psychological abilities, needs on the path of personal development. Esoteric teachings form the process of self-knowledge in three stages, where each of them is a new level of personal knowledge. The outer shell - the body - becomes only a method of comprehending the perfection of the inner shell - the soul. If you can purify your spirit, your mind will also become pure, choosing the right path in life among many erroneous ones. Human happiness, comprehension of divine perfection and higher goals depend on achieving results.
Self-discovery and personal growth
Personal development and self-knowledge are the main components of correct actions and human success, adequately assessing one’s potential and worldview. Development leads to personal improvement using one’s own strengths. In the theory of awareness of the inner world, the role of esotericism comes first. Faith in a Higher Power always gives a person strength and helps in the most difficult times.
The spiritual concept of self-knowledge implies reaching the peak through communication with God, absolute humility and comprehension of the spiritual world. All holy scriptures teach a person to live correctly, analyze his actions, and extract the best from his own and others’ mistakes. After all, the Bible, Koran, Book of the Dead and other religious sources talk about self-knowledge and self-improvement as a way to achieve the highest goal - unity with God.
The psychological scientific concept is not very different from the spiritual one, and interprets the meaning of self-knowledge as the desire for human health, development of personal potential and spiritual harmony. These three steps form a single whole, like the meaning of self-knowledge, which does not stop throughout adult life. Already at an early age we begin to become aware of our abilities, the outside world and distinguish ourselves from others. The child's psyche absorbs all the events around it, receiving information about the life of the world. Upon reaching the age of three, a person begins to separate the data received, forming his own worldview.
Methods of self-knowledge include many theories that teach self-control and self-concept as a start to self-development of body and soul.
During the age-related formation of personality, a person develops his own principles and personal motives that form a culture of behavior. On the basis of the emerging personality, feelings, theories and thoughts of a person are created. The specificity of character and one's own view of the world begins to appear. This theory is the personal growth of a person, concluded in one life, during which we can improve with the help of consciousness and development.
Professional personal growth
The personal growth of a psychologist largely depends on the specifics of his activity. There are many types and ways that allow a psychologist’s personality to develop and grow. This includes training according to your own program or a ready-made one, special literature that motivates action, and an integrated approach to personal development. With the right choice of self-development method, the professional growth of an individual will be successful and rapid. The personal growth of a psychologist directly affects professional activity, which develops under the influence of many motivating factors. Motivation makes a person successful and contributes to the quick completion of assigned tasks. Studying the works of leading psychologists allows us to draw the following conclusions regarding the professional growth of an individual:
- Professional growth provides an opportunity for self-actualization.
- Personal growth is the basis of professional growth and development.
- Despite one’s individuality and characteristics, the formation of a professional personality is subject to specific characteristics and patterns.
- The individuality of professionalism depends on external factors: random events, human desires.
- Knowledge of the features of professional development allows you to create your story and design your life.
The personal growth of a psychologist is painstaking work that affects the professionalism of his work. A true professional in his field will look for ways to improve himself, to create new methods of human development.
Our world is full of stereotypes and needs help. If you want to become individual, unique, with your own identity, then you need to work continuously.
