Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly,’ is a quote by Chuang Tzu acknowledged globally. It encompasses within it the essence of growth and development. Throughout our lives, we are asked and compelled to take action to achieve a positive result. Students are asked to focus on their studies while professionals need to concentrate on their office-related tasks.
Growth and development is a continuous process. We learn by doing and we get to know about our strengths through experience. Perhaps this is why internships are an obligatory requirement for university students to complete their degrees. However, more important than a four to a six-week internship is the students’ ability to understand the processes involved in completing various tasks leading to developing their professional acumen. To acquire knowledge about a task, practical exposure is necessary. Students must become a part of the process. Capstone Projects, in this regard, are completed by final year students of Pakistani universities. This project is a multidimensional assignment completed at the end of the academic journey at the university.
Even though a Capstone Project along with semester assignments, term reports, and presentations are essential for the growth of the students’ cognitive development with regards to academic insights, there is much more needed to ascertain that students become experienced professionals.
Growth and development, therefore, are not milestones but are continuous processes that one must experience. Students need to go through the process of completing their assignments, delivering their presentations, and studying to excel in examinations. Similarly, professionals need to keep learning skills and perform tasks to complete all work within the deadline as per the objectives.
Growth and development should be external and internal. Personal grooming, etiquette, image management, verbal and non-verbal communication among others must be developed and followed with diligence if one wants to evolve at a personal and professional level. Similarly, when it comes to intrinsic growth, values such as honesty, modesty, rectitude, integrity, honor, and courage among others must be followed.
It is important to note that our growth also occurs positively if our peers, social circle, and office colleagues follow the same principles of success. Therefore, it is imperative to find, select, and keep in our lives such friends and colleagues who exhibit ideas and values that correspond to the ones we deem as important.
The challenge of life must not be to become a successful professional but it must focus on how to become a successful person. Students need to follow righteousness when giving their examinations. They must refrain from cheating or using any unfair means. Professionals must pursue self-accountability when completing their tasks. They need to abstain from pursuing any acts that hamper their integrity or damage the reputation of their organization.
When talking about personality development, we must emphasize how the youth of today, especially children, are being taught at home and in schools. The seeds to help them grow into mature, responsible, visionary adults must be planted in their personality at an early age. Parents must guide them through constructive stories and personal experience on how to use their skills and talent to achieve their dreams. Here the concept must be to develop the child’s personality to become courageous yet humble, assertive yet friendly, and realistic yet visionary.
While social media is in the reach of children these days, parents must give time to their children every day. They should have a heart-to-heart conversation with them, listen to them, and help them discover their skills and talents. While learning and development is an innate process, it accentuates when the person observes that his talent, skills, and ideas are being appreciated. Parents must acknowledge the talent of their children.
Similarly, teachers should applaud their students’ constructive ideas to help them grow. The managers at the office need to identify the skills of their subordinates and help them develop and fine-tune their skills so they too can grow. Personal and professional growth must be a continuous process and should be followed with diligence. Once we go through the process of training our skills, identifying our strengths, accepting and overcoming life’s challenges, we will transform into a new version of ourselves.
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