Dear reader, compare the two formulations:
- Personal growth training.
- Personal development training.
Read carefully again … Tell me, is there a difference for you? And if so, how do you understand it?
For a normal person, even one who is interested in psychology, both of these formulations are just different words about the same thing. Personal growth training — well, it sounds somehow more familiar and shorter than personal development training, but in meaning — there is no difference.
You are right, today no one understands these subtleties, and if a psychologist writes an advertisement for his training, he chooses the wording not the one that is correct, but the one that sounds better, the one that will attract more participants to it for training. Therefore, if you are not a professional, you really do not need to strain yourself, thinking about the difference in the meaning of «personal growth» and «personal development», today these phrases are used almost as synonyms. But if you are a professional and, next to a professional, want to understand his idea of training, you should understand such shades of meaning. Required. Otherwise, this is not professional work.
Shall we understand, colleagues?
Remember: personal growth is an increase in the potential of the individual, which occurs as a result of natural unfolding in a person what is inherent in him by nature or has become his second nature. Growth occurs by itself, if only the conditions normal for this are present. Life goes on — the child grows, his butt grows and his hair grows, intelligence slowly develops and gradually, in the process of life, a psychological culture is naturally formed.
Of course, this natural unfolding of personal potential can be helped, but if a person begins to actively and intentionally engage in his self-improvement, he takes classes and trainings that develop the skills and abilities he needs, and along with this, his personality — in this case, about personal growth it’s not quite correct to speak, it’s more accurate to talk about personality development.
Personal development is a concept that is much broader than personal growth, since it occurs in a variety of forms: both as a natural unfolding of something internal, and as an active formation from the outside. Personality development is diverse: sometime it occurs in the joint activity of a child and an adult, sometime it turns out to be the result of study or training, development can be the result of resolving internal contradictions, development can be the result of formation — the process of personality development is many-sided and complex.
Thus, speaking strictly terminologically, personal growth trainings and personal development trainings are different. In personal growth training, the leader cannot set or determine what should happen to you, where and how your personality will grow. Since the direction of natural personal growth is determined only by the internal programs (core) of the personality, the role of the leader of personal growth training is limited: it consists only in creating the best conditions for this growth, removing blocks that hinder the growth and development of the personality, improving and strengthening personal potential.
Obviously, such a training format is closer to psychotherapeutic work.
Personal development training is always a more active and varied work, where personal changes occur not as a result of a natural unfolding, but as a result of procedures applied to the personality, as a result of study and training. So, if the training involves learning new skills and their development, this already applies to personal development, and not personal growth. Growth cannot be the subject of skill training, much less short-term training.
And now let’s get back to reality: in a real training process it is very difficult to distinguish what happens to the participants of the training as natural growth, and what happens as a result of externally given development. More often both things happen at the same time, so it is easier and, apparently, more accurate to say that most personal growth trainings are trainings for personal growth and development at the same time. Such trainings include educational trainings (providing knowledge and developing skills), and trainings that work with values and beliefs, and trainings that affect the state of participants — if as a result, the training participants increase their personal potential: the ability to more successfully move forward and solve life problems.
In particular, Sinton’s trainings in this broad sense refer to the range of personal growth and development trainings.
Tips for those who go to training
Dear readers, the reality is richer than any science, and if you see an advertisement for «personal growth training» and go to this training, it is not at all obvious that you will get to the training, and not to disgrace, and that there you will be offered personal growth, and not a mixture of cheap advertising, empty appeals, light mysticism and heavy esotericism. Trainings are of high quality, but there are others — amateur and base. So — be picky! And to make it memorable, here is a letter from one of our readers:
“Dedicated to all trainings and training fans. Looking into the past, I can honestly say with a smile on my face “Thank you”: to all those who conducted trainings, to all those who organized them in various teams, to all those who are still spinning in this environment, actively promotes trainings, and at all to all those who are fond of esotericism and mysticism. Thank you! Thanks to you, I understood a lot … Looking at how you live — how declaiming love and selfless bestowal, you actually (remember your goals) chase after sex, money and vanity, I realized how it’s not worth living … Looking at how you selflessly listening to your coaches and resignedly doing what you are told, I realized how important it is to hear yourself and do what I want and the way I want it … Looking at how you force yourself to believe in someone invented — a fantasy, and then in every dog bark you see confirmation of its truth (or, as you call it “turn off the brain”), I understood how to objectively look at things and distinguish truth from lies and self-deception … And looking at, then how your coaches impose their own views on you, and when they don’t work they accuse you of doing it wrong, I realized that a person’s opinion is worth anything only when he is actually responsible for his results .. Looking how you diligently try to be like a coach and agree with everything he says, I realized how important it is to be yourself and have your own opinion … And this list can be continued for a very long time. But that’s enough for today’s gratitude. And finally, the most epic. Recently, a lot has been said about the “danger” of trainings and sects, that they destroy a person, etc., but, fortunately, having been in this circle, I can confidently say: a lot of honor, they do not pose any real threat, this is not a community of dangerous and skillful manipulators, this is a community, let’s say for the purpose of censorship, of contemporary artists … Passion for this fanaticism, as a rule, leads to the fact that a person becomes smarter — if one of your friends is carried away, do not try to resist it (him have already explained that those around them don’t understand a damn thing in life, and now he is one of the elect, to whom the coach transfers his secret knowledge of the universe), on the contrary: indulge his aspirations in every way, focusing on the fact that you first want to see a convincing result before how to go there. Sooner or later, the subject himself will begin to realize that from all these secret skills of controlling the universe, not a penny in his pocket, nor the love of beauties, nor anything else was added, nor the promised happiness and harmony did not come, and not that a Ferrari appeared, but even the usual trolleybus did not go faster. If the hobby does not go away … well, most likely, your friend is a special case, in which case you should not be upset either, because this means that he has every chance to become a successful coach himself!
To get more often all the same on high-quality trainings, see the article How to choose a training.
Tips for trainers
Dear trainers, you are interested in getting more participants to your trainings, and your task is to make a well-functioning advertisement. If in advertising you designate your training as training for personal growth, people who are more likely to come to you are tuned in to soft, thoughtful work, more of a psychotherapeutic plan, and these will be mostly women and insecure young people. Self-confident men and successful businessmen are not very interested in personal growth trainings, but, most likely, your training was not designed for them, right?
If your trainings have a personal orientation, but are more likely to be designed for successful business people, then it is more adequate to designate your proposal as personal development training. However, it is even more adequate not to write anything at all about the type of your training, not to scare you with the words “personal growth” or “personal development”: some people are afraid of these words. If instead you energetically and specifically list the tasks that people will be able to solve at your training, what they will receive there, this will be the most adequate and effective advertising.