The importance of 2P development

We all have been through schools. Chances are that if you can read this article well, you must have been through the schooling since an early age and have completed this journey spanning on good 12 years. This accounts for a significant portion, of about 20%, of an individual’s life considering a median lived age of 60 years, and these years represent all the influential experiences that shape one’s personality around 2Ps – Professional – which is evident, and Personal – which is latent.

To what extent can you regard your personal development, which includes your confidence, awareness and ownership of self-esteem, ability to work under pressure, enhance creative skills or pursue a hobby confidently etc. to your schooling experience? Where schools are primarily mandated towards professional development, the former often gets missed out as an ancillary objective to be developed on its own and without any dedicated mechanism at place. What we get as a result are qualified individuals which, according to Simon Sinek, are full of doubts, shattered confidence, and inability to face hardships in life. Where there are several studies to substantiate the fact that it is the personal/self-development which is a bigger indicator of success then professional qualifications, yet there are no schools to work on it in an organized manner and we have an entire generation growing up with little knowledge about their own selves.

Angela Lee Duckworth in her Tedtalk shares her findings, gathered through empirical study, that Grit is a better predictor of success compared with having a higher IQ, skills or any form of education. Companies like Google, Tesla and Amazon are having talks around employing individuals with no formal education but rather specialized certifications which they think is better choice for a self-aware individual. And there would be many other sources following this stream of idea. Where schools do a marvelous job in exposing us to various streams of knowledge that exist, rarely do they prepare an individual to explore oneself and built tools around it for sustenance. And this can not be neglected at all. Now the question is:

Should we then have separate schools to cater to this notion of personal development? Or is it a good idea to merge it with the conventional schooling system and make it part of their curriculums?

Where there can be many ideas and thoughts around it, but we would like to hear your opinion on it.  Do let us know in the comments section on what your think can be a solution and let’s make small efforts to air this idea and make the system better.