1. Introduction

In the first article of this series, the human assets of personal

growth, social growth, close relationships, lifelong learning, workplace readiness, citizenship, and work-family-leisure balance were surveyed in summary fashion. Subsequent articles were to elaborate on each human asset. Accordingly this article covers the key issues of personal growth.

The topics of interest in this article are:

1) Self-awareness

2) Instruments of purpose

3) Self-esteem

4) Stress management

5) Time management

2. Self-Awareness

A key element to personal growth is the ability to take an honest and accurate inventory of personal strengths and weaknesses in attitudes, behavior patterns or habits, choices and action results. Furthermore, personal vices and virtues, lessons learned, intellectual capacity, emotional stability and appropriateness also are included in self awareness. Such self-examinations were considered necessary by the Greek philosopher, Socrates, for living the Good Life. They help tell us how far we have traveled and indicate the direction and the preparation necessary to continue our personal growth and achieve our goals.

While self-awareness efforts may be done periodically, it is more naturally functional when performing the moral reflection that is part of making ethical choices and evaluating and learning lessons from the consequences of our judgments and actions. In particular, we can then update the growth or decline in our character and wisdom and make appropriate course changes in our development and ability to meet future challenges in our lives.

While we may get help from other sources in making decisions and assessments, the ultimate responsibility is ours alone if we desire to become truly autonomous. Otherwise, we would be living our lives under the control of others, robbing us of our self-dignity. Self-awareness skills are so important for correcting imbalances in our life and maintaining emotional and intellectual stability when facing personal challenges. For example, when we are under attack, with honest, accurate self-awareness, we can better judge the validity of the charges and make an ethical, productive response. Self-awareness skills also help us to empathize with others by realizing what all humans essentially have in common: inability to meet fully all our aspirations at all times. We are full of potential and flawed at the same time. A self-aware person develops a sense of healthy humility.

How can self-awareness skills be developed? Simply, through practice. If we make judgments through ethical critical thinking, we add to our accumulated wisdom and self-awareness. Similarly, if we make ethical choices and learn lessons from the consequences, we increase our self-awareness skills and knowledge. To make this process more productive, it should prove useful to document the decision through steps and conclusions in a personal journal. Then, by reading the journal in retrospect, there will be little distortion due to quirks of memory and the positive benefits would be amplified and reinforced more easily.

If our journal indicates net intellectual and ethical growth, we should savor our accomplishments, especially when our mood turns downward and we are facing difficult challenges. Our past successes could bolster our confidence in overcoming current obstacles.

3. Instruments of Purpose

Purpose provides us with direction, focus, concentration, and motivation in the way that suits us best as unique individuals. Purpose provides meaning and significance to our personal and social lives. With purpose, we can resist distractions and diversions. Without purpose, we could underachieve, drift aimlessly, waste time and energy, and succumb to temptation and false hopes and delusions.

Instruments of purpose provide structure and form to increase our effectiveness. Purpose in the form of strong desires generally starts in our imagination and dreams. We articulate such visions in a vision statement. From this vision statement, we develop the specific goals and tasks that help us realize them in the form of a mission statement. Also useful could be a values statement which enumerates the personal and social values which will guide and motivate our efforts. Such values should be in alignment with

the common core or moral values.

The personal vision statement has the following attributes:

1) Covers a specific time period.

2) Describes the desired character and personality traits to be

developed.

3) Describes the desired personal accomplishment to be achieved.

4) These descriptions should be tangible, vivid and inspiring to help us stay committed.

5) If circumstances change, it is reasonable to change the vision

statement to make it more relevant.

6) There should be consistency with our personal awareness.

The personal mission statement delineates the specific goals and tasks necessary to realize the vision statement. Each goal and task should match the spirit and intention of the vision statement as well as follow the Respect Principle of respect for the truth, respect for others, and respect for self, operating together. Furthermore, the task and goal selection should conform to our desires and wishes, not imposed by others. Finally, the tasks and goals should be worthwhile, challenging, and yet doable.

A values statement with a list of personal core values and priorities is an important part of documenting self-awareness, in particular, marking our uniqueness and individuality. These instruments of purpose are an integral part of self-awareness by providing another frame of reference for assessing our personal growth. If we meet our self-commitment goals for personal growth indicated and supported by the instruments of purpose, then we can take just pride in our achievements and successes.

4. Self-Esteem

The term self-esteem has been a mantra used for over 20 years as a silver bullet for solving personal, social, and educational problems facing young people. A favored notion was that if we could instill a sufficient amount of self-esteem in them, there would be no significant problems of substance abuse, violence, crime and poor educational performance. This assumes that self-esteem is more a driving force for personal and social progress than a consequence for real achievement.

It could be useful to distinguish between valid self-esteem and pseudo self-esteem. Pseudo self-esteem could be defined by our feeling good about ourselves without any objective justification. There is uncertainty whether pseudo self-esteem correlates with good character. Most gang leaders, dictators, tyrants, egomaniacs, and sociopaths generally feel good about themselves, characteristic of pseudo self-esteem. On the other hand, valid self-esteem is an emotional state, indicative of current sense of self-worth. It can fluctuate wildly with sudden changes of life outcomes. However,

valid self-esteem could be stabilized with the aid of honest self-awareness, associated with ethical competency. However, there could be situations of unfortunate individuals with low levels of pseudo self-esteem as a result of a history, for example, of physical and psychological abuse. Their negative, self-defeating attitudes could be improved with sustained, determined, patient efforts, allowing them to unfold their full potential. Even then, they may not be able to enjoy high enough levels of valid self-esteem that goes with living the Good Life.

5. Stress Management

Stress is a constant factor in our lives. With sudden changes of circumstances or sustained negative situations, we may experience involuntarily various physical and emotional responses that may cause discomfort and even pain. Note that negative stress or distress can include the following symptoms and conditions:

1)Tenseness

2)Muscle Aches

3)Confusion

4)Victimization

5)Negativity

6)Disorientation

7)Social Isolation

8)Demotivation

9)Lack of Feeling

10)Lack of Focus

11)Anxiety

12)Depression

13)Joylessness

14)Cynicism

15)Apathy

16)Lethargy

17)Forgetfulness

18)Paralysis

Often, sudden distress performs a useful service by warning that something is amiss, needing an update of self-awareness and choosing new ends and means to restore stability and tranquility. Sometimes, the acute stress responses dissipate with just the passage of time. However, there may be residues of stress which linger and even accumulate to the point of the aforementioned responses. To reduce or mitigate such residual stress levels could require various interventions referred to as stress management. It should be noted that making ethical productive choices while reacting to high stress or low mood levels become almost impossible. That is why stress management is so important for developing ethical and intellectual competency.

A preferred way to manage stress without depending on substance support would be the use of relaxation techniques such as deep abdominal breathing coordinated with mental focusing which excludes chatter from discordant negative thoughts. These features are included in many meditation styles. Excessive or unwarranted use of such techniques can cause disorientation because of sustained sensory deprivation.

Brisk physical exercise such as stretching or walking may be helpful. Also, progressive tension and relaxation of major muscle groups may be useful. Repeated positive self-talk saying that we are in or are capable of control of the situation could help suppress the negative chatter of thoughts associated with panic and despair.

After we have started to calm down, we could visualize ourselves

as feeling cool, confident, and competent to cope with the situation. A sense of self-compassion and humility to realize that we could forgive our mistakes and occasional moral trespasses takes place.

6. Time Management

For personal growth, we must always keep the element of time in mind as we assume more roles and responsibilities as being a member of a family, a student, a worker, a circle of friends and acquaintances, a team, a religious congregation, etc.

Since there are about 16 active hours we are awake in a day, we have to apportion the time devoted to each role or responsibility in a manner to strike the right balance for health and effectiveness in the personal and social aspects of our lives. We distinguish between structured and unstructured time. The times allocated to classroom and workplace are generally rigidly scheduled and structured, with few significant options for us. Most of our time management is centered on our time choices and schedules for the other roles and responsibilities we assume outside of structured time.

Typically, structured time takes up to 10 hours a day so there remains about 6 hours a day for managing unstructured activities. A basic principle of time management is to estimate the time necessary to complete a single task for meeting the daily requirement assigned to a particular role or responsibility. Trying to deal with multiple roles and activities over too short a time period could lead to high stress, excessive fatigue, and even disorientation, with unsatisfactory outcomes. The same holds for overlapping roles and activities over the same time period.

Thus, it is advisable to prioritize the selection of tasks each day and schedule sufficient time for effective accomplishment. Sometimes it is more effective to schedule the easiest, most predictable tasks first to make sure that they are not overlooked and ultimately create a backlog that reaches emergency levels. Once these tasks are completed, more time could be made available for the harder, more unpredictable tasks with less interruption.

For students, the high priority activities such as homework, study, and test preparation could be done after completing routine home chores, which generally take less than a half hour. Typically, up to 2 hours a day should suffice for most loads of homework for high school. If there is an occasional need to extend this period of time, this could be done at the expense of other unstructured activities such as active recreation, hobbies, and informal social activities. Watching TV could be the last item on the schedule as we wind down the day’s activities. The unstructured margin amounting to less than 3 hours a day helps us relieve our stress and helps maintain a sense of balance and proportion in our lives. If it exceeds 3 hours a day on the average, we are not using our time and energy productively for personal growth.

Al Mintzer Aim Center for Ethical Decision Making

4019 A Otono Drive

Santa Barbara, CA 93110

(805) 964-6676 Fax 964-9636

– Al Mintzer