PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT

Personality is the sum total of ways in which an individual reacts and interacts with others. Or Personality is generally defined as the deeply ingrained and relatively enduring patterns of thought, feeling and behavior. In fact, when one refers to personality, it generally implies to all what is unique about an individual, the characteristics that makes one stand out in a crowd.

 

Personalities is the sum total of individual’s Psychological traits, characteristics, motives, habits, attitudes, beliefs and outlooks.

 

Personality determinants :

 

Heredity : Heredity refers to those factors that were determined at conception. Physical structure, facial attractiveness, gender, temperament, muscle composition and reflexes, energy level, and biological rhythms are characteristics that are generally considered to be either completely or substantially influenced by who your parents were, that is by their biological, physiological and inherent psychological make up.

Environment : The environmental factors that exert pressures on our personality formation are the culture in which we are raised, our early conditioning, the norms among our family, friends and social groups, and other influences that we experience. The environment to which we are exposed plays a substantial role in shaping our personalities.

Situation : A third factor, the situation, influences the effects of heredity and environment on personality. An individual’s personality although generally stable and consistent, does change in different situations. The varying demand of different situation calls forth different aspects of one’s personality. We should not therefore look upon personality patterns in isolation.

DEVELOPING POSITIVE PERSONALITY

 

1. Subconscious Programming :

Most of us sometimes get programmed / conditioned by a wrong messages that “ donot do that”, “don’t take the risk”, “you can not do that” you are not good in …and so on…..

You can imagine the bad effect such message can have on any person.

Fig- I : Subconscious Mind Programming Our Conscious Mind is like a watch man. And the Subconscious Mind is a store of all the previously programmed or conditioned information / knowledge/ believes. Now programming personality means putting positive believes/ information into the store with out the knowledge of the watchman (conscious mind).

Suppose you tell yourself that “you are good at Public Speaking”. And the store has stored based on peoples comments and experience that “you are poor in communication” “you can not speak well in public”, “you don’t have an impressive body language” …..

The watch man sees your sentence and compares it with the knowledge in its store and says “this information is wrong”. The watchman throws the new information away. He does not allow the new positive information into the store. This is the fundamental difficulty in changing personality & behavior of a person.

Now the question is how and when we could programme our mind for positive personality trait with out the obstruction of watchman…

 

The answer is we can programme our mind for positive personality traits during the Twilight period just before sleeping and just before waking up. This is the time when the conscious mind is active enough to generate the positive traits for entering into store but inactive to judge/compare and will not obstruct to the positive traits to enter into the subconscious store house.

 

2. Reinforced Programming / Conscious Programming :

Autosuggestion and Repetition of the positive traits despite negative response from comparison with the store house also gives success in programming for personality traits.

Auto-suggestion is a statement made in the present tense, of the kind of person you want to be. Auto-suggestion are like a commercial about “Super You”, or “Future Super You” for yourself what you want to be or achieve. They influence both your conscious and subconscious mind in the long run shaping your personality and attitude.

Auto-suggestions are the conscious way to programme the subconscious mind for positive traits. It is the effective method of voluntary development of positive traits and attitudes.

Auto-suggestion should be mixed with emotions. All such reinforced / conscious programming which have been emotionalized (giving feeling) and mixed with applied faith, begin immediately to translate themselves into physical or real equivalent.

Auto-suggestive thoughts which are mixed with any of the feeling of emotions constitute a “psycho-magnetic” force which attracts other similar or related thoughts.

Our subconscious mind resembling a fertile garden spot, in which weeds will grow in abundance if you the seeds of more desirable crops are not sown therein. Auto-suggestion is the agency of control through which an individual can voluntarily feed his subconscious mind on thoughts of creative/ positive nature or by neglect permit thoughts of a destructive nature to find their way into the rich garden of mind. So Caution should be taken while programming your mind for positive traits only.

3. Defensive Approach :

One of this type of approach is protest or deny the negative traits at it’s very beginning of the entering in the subconscious store. And the second is to consciously avoid this type of environment or situation. In real life situation it is very difficult because it may lead to confrontation and argument or Inaction.

Another problem in this is that most of us have some negative traits previously in our store house due to our past experience and conditioning.

4. Imaginary Anchoring or Invisible Counseling Committee :

While watching a picture we anchor the Hero, placing ourselves in place of hero. Similarly we can anchor Great men in imagination and let them shape our personality.

Another is the Invisible Counseling Committee comprising of great personalities of your choice. We can counsel from these great minds at times or situation. What decision or action he would have been taken in my situation..

Winston Churchill the war time British Prime Minister was following this principle. He had his Imaginary Counseling Committee by the side of his Chamber. Many great decisions he used to take by following these principles.

I follow the habit of reshaping my Character by trying to imitate some great personalities whose lives and life works have been most impressive to me. These personalities are Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Abraham Lincoln, Napoleon Bonaparte, Albert Einstein, Shiva Khera, Napoleon Hills & Bill Gates. I held an imaginary council meeting with this group whom I called my “Invisible Counselor”. In these imaginary council meeting I called on my cabinet members for the knowledge I wished each to contribute addressing myself to each members in audible words as follows :

Mahatma Gandhi, I desire to acquire from you the ideology of truth and Non-violence and devotion towards practicing these in every odd hours and to acquire the magnet leadership to attract millions to join in the peaceful struggle for freedom and Humanity.

Mother Teresa, I desire to acquire from you the ability to provide relentless humanitarian services to the most unprivileged, poor diseased and intense spirit to serve the mankind despite all odds.

Mr. Abraham Lincoln, I desire to build into my own character the keen sense of justice, the untiring spirit of patience, the sense of humor, the human understanding, and the tolerance which were your distinguishing characteristics.

Napoleon Bonaparte, I desire to acquire from you, by emulation, the marvelous ability you possessed to inspire men and arouse them to greater and more determined spirit of action. Also to acquire the spirit of enduring faith, which enabled you to turn defeat into victory, and to surmount staggering obstacles.

Albert Einstein, I wish to acquire from you the Scientific Bent, ever inquisitive mind, the spirit to innovate and contribute to Humanity.

Napoleon Hills, I want to acquire from you the ability to nurture the human resources and to Give the society the magic formulae of success of wealth and fortune and helping people realize their true potential.

Mr. Shiva Khera, I want to acquire from you the skill and understanding to motivate the people towards positive ends and to offer the world the blue print for positive and successful life.

Bill Gates, I wish to acquire from you the Brilliant Intelligence, Innovation, Intense drive to succeed, persistence, personal intensity and conscientiousness dimensions

5. Physical Action / Body Language Approach :

In general it is the positive practice or experiencing desired traits whether the desired perfection achieved or not.

It is generally said that our personality traits control our body language. But it is a fact that the reverse is also true. This means we can change our negative traits towards positive traits by consciously practicing the body language for positive traits.

6. Domino-effect. Direct exposure to good personalities or environment :

Here the direct environment is the driving force in shaping the personalities. When one constantly remains in direct contact with great personalities will enriches his own to be the one. Similarly the organization culture and structure also many times influences ones personality. Sometimes it is the guiding principle for job satisfaction / recruitment.

Caution should be taken while programming your mind for positive traits only. Because these processes give results for negative traits also. Mahatma Gandhi and Adolf Hitler both successfully applied these principles but one positively and other negatively.

SIXTEEN PRIMARY PERSONALITY TRAITS :

1. Reserved vs Outgoing
2. Less intelligent vs More intelligent
3. Affected by feeling vs Emotionally stable
4. Submissive vs Dominant
5. Serious vs Happy to Lucky
6. Expedient vs Conscientious
7. Timid vs Venturesome
8. Tough-minded vs Sensitive
9. Trusting vs Suspicious
10. Practical vs Imaginative
11. Forthright vs Shrewd
12. Self-assured vs Apprehansive
13. Conservative vs Experimenting
14. Group dependant vs Self-sufficient
15. Uncontrolled vs Controlled
16. Relaxed vs Tense

Some of the behavioral and attitude traits as identified by Shiv Khera for positive personality building……

TRAITS FOR BUILDING POSITIVE PERSONALITY :

1. Accept Responsibility :

The price of grateness is the responsibility – Winston Churchill

“Responsibility gravitates to the person who can shoulder them.”

-- Elbert Hubbard

 

Society is not destroyed by the activities of the rascals, but by the inactivity of good people.

2. Show consideration :
Show consideration, courtesy, politeness and caring.

3. Think Win-Win : Win-Win philosophy is the ultimate way to success in the collaborative and networked world. One who master that art can achieve greatly.

4. Choose your words carefully:
The principle is your speaking must be better than silent, rather be silent.
Words spoken out of bitterness can cause irreparable damage. The way the parents speak to their children in many instances shapes their children’s destiny.

5. Never Criticize, Complain and Condemn: Constructive criticism is a terminology used to conceal one's own cynicism. Afterall the limit of constructiveness of constructive criticism vary from person to person. we sometime misjudge this limit and many times cross the limit which is detrimental.

6. Smile and Be Kind :

Smile is the shortest distance between two people.

7. Put Positive interpretation on other people’s behavior:

We see the world not as it is, but as we are.

So when we are interpreting other peoples behavior negatively we just reflecting our own mentality to this situation. In contrast when interpret positively, chances that other people may realize its negativity and change or amend this.

8. Be a Good Listener :

Effective communication is 50% listening, 25% speaking, 15% reading and 10% writing. So when we listen carefully then 50% communication is done.

9. Be Enthusiastic :
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm

--- Ralph Waldo Emersion

10. Give honest and Sincere Appreciation :

The desire to feel important is one of the gratest craving in most of the human beings and it can be a great motivator. Honest and sincere appreciation makes one feel important and promote these positive qualities in him. In contrast giving false and insincere appreciation is flattery or sycophancy which in the long run is harmful to the receipient.

11. When you make a mistake, accept it and make it easy to amend:

Mistakes are to be learned from. So accept it immediately and make change or amend easy.

12. Discuss but don’t argue:

Arguing is like fighting a losing battle. Even if one wins in the argument, the cost may be more than the worth of victory.
An Ignominious victory is a defeat itself.

13. Don’t Gossip:

Gossip may lead to slander and defamation of character. People who listen to gossip are as guilty as those who do the gossiping.

14. Turn your promises into commitment:

Commitment leads to enduring relationship through thick and thin. It shows in a person's personality and relationship.

15. Be grateful but do not expect gratitude:

16. Be dependable and practice loyalty:

An ounce of loyalty is worth more than a pound of cleverness.
Ability without dependability is of no worth.

17. Avoid bearing grudges:

Life is too small to bear grudges.

John Kennedy once said “forgive the other person but don’t forget their name.” Means “if one cheated me once it is his fault, but if cheats me twice then it is my fault.”

18. Practice honesty, Integrity and Sincerity:
Lies may have speed, but the truth has endurance.
Honesty, Integrity and Sincerity have more enduring effect than the opposite.

19. Practice Humility:
Don’t be cheated regularly to forgive.

Confidence without humility is arrogance. Sincere Humility is the foundation of all virtues. It is a sign of greatness.

20. Be understanding and Caring :

The best way to be understood is to be understanding. And the basis of real communication is also understanding.

21. Practice courtesy on daily basis :

22. Develop a sense of humor:

Have a sense of humor and you will possess the ability to laugh at yourself. A sense of humor makes a person likeable and attractive. Some people are humor-impaired.

23. Don’t be sarcastic and put others down :

24. To have a friend be a Friend :

Mutual trust and confidence are the foundation stones of all friendship.

25. Show Empathy :

Empathy alone is a very important characteristic of positive personality. People with empathy ask themselves this question, “how would I feel if someone treated me that way?”

By : Abhishek Kumar Sadhu

http://sadhuji.blogspot.com/2008/12/personality-development.html