Self-Concept

• Your ideal self is the self that you aspire to be.
• Ideal self is the one that you hope will possess characteristics similar to that of a mentor or some other worldly figure
• Your actual self, however, is the one that you actually see.
• Actual self is the self that has characteristics that you were nurtured or, in some cases, born to have.
• The actual self and the ideal self are two broad categories of self-concept.
• Self-concept refers to your awareness of yourself.
• Self concept it is the construct that negotiates these two selves.
• Self concept connotes first the identification of the ideal self as separate from others, and second, it encompasses all the behaviors evaluated in the actual self that you engage in to reach the ideal self.
• The actual self is built on self-knowledge.
• Self-knowledge is derived from social interactions that provide insight into how others react to you
• The actual self is who we actually are. It is how we think, how we feel, look, and act.
• The actual self can be seen by others, but because we have no way of truly knowing how others view us, the actual self is our self-image.
• The ideal self, on the other hand, is how we want to be.
• Ideal self is an idealized image that we have developed over time, based on what we have learned and experienced
• The ideal self could include components of what our parents have taught us, what we admire in others, what our society promotes, and what we think is in our best interest.
• There is negotiation that exists between the two selves which is complex because there are numerous exchanges between the ideal and actual self.
• These exchanges are exemplified in social roles that are adjusted and re-adjusted, and are derived from outcomes of social interactions from infant to adult development
• Alignment is important. If the way that I am (the actual self) is aligned with the way that I want to be (the ideal self), then I will feel a sense of mental well-being or peace of mind.
• If the way that I am is not aligned with how I want to be, the incongruence, or lack of alignment, will result in mental distress or anxiety.
• The greater the level of incongruence between the ideal self and real self, the greater the level of resulting distress.
• Personal development modules ultimate aim is greater self-knowledge that will lead to higher alignment between these two personality domains.
• Personal effectiveness means making use of all the personal resources – talents, skills, energy and time, to enable you to achieve life goals.
• Your knowledge of yourself and how you manage yourself impacts directly on your personal effectiveness.
• Being self-aware, making the most of your strengths, learning new skills and techniques and behavioral flexibility are all keys to improving your personal performance.
• Our personal effectiveness depends on our innate characteristics – talent and experience accumulated in the process of personal development.
• Talents first are needed to be identified and then developed to be used in a particular subject area (science, literature, sports, politics, etc.).
• Experience includes knowledge and skills that we acquire in the process of cognitive and practical activities.
• Knowledge is required for setting goals, defining an action plan to achieve them and risk assessment.
• Skills also determine whether real actions are performed in accordance with the plan. If the same ability is used many times in the same situation, then it becomes a habit that runs automatically, subconsciously
• Determination. It allows you to focus only on achieving a specific goal without being distracted by less important things or spontaneous desires. It may be developed with the help of self-discipline exercise.
• Self-confidence. It appears in the process of personal development, as a result of getting aware of yourself, your actions and their consequences. Self- confidence is manifested in speech, appearance, dressing, gait, and physical condition. To develop it, you need to learn yourself and your capabilities, gain positive attitude and believe that by performing right actions and achieving right goals you will certainly reach success.
• Persistence. It makes you keep moving forward regardless of emerging obstacles – problems, laziness, bad emotional state, etc. It reduces the costs of overcoming obstacles. It can also be developed with the help of self- discipline exercise.
• Managing stress. It helps combat stress that arises in daily life from the environment and other people. Stress arises from the uncertainty in an unknown situation when a lack of information creates the risk of negative consequences of your actions. It increases efficiency in the actively changing environment.
• Problem-solving skills. They help cope with the problems encountered with a lack of experience. It increases efficiency by adopting new ways of achieving goals when obtaining a new experience.
• Creativity. It allows you to find extraordinary ways to carry out a specific action that no one has tried to use. It can lead to a decrease or an increase of costs, but usually the speed of action is greatly increased when using creative tools.
• Generating ideas. It helps you achieve goals using new, original, unconventional ideas. Idea is a mental image of an object formed by the human mind, which can be changed before being implemented in the real world. For generating ideas, you can use a method of mental maps, which allows you to materialize, visualize and scrutinize all your ideas, which in turn contributes to the emergence of new ideas. These are just some, but the most important personal effectiveness skills which make the achievement of any goal easier and less costly