You Must Know: Personality Development (Part 2)

Parental Guidances Personality Development

This article is second part of You Must Know: Personality Development (Part 1).

The Part Played by Heredity

As you know, heredity plays a part in influencing personality. What you inherit is sometimes called the raw material out of which your personality will develop. The chief element of this raw material is your physique.

Physique include your body build and structure, your blood type, your sex, the color of your eyes and skin, the texture and color of your hair, and the shape of your head and facial features. All these you inherit, as well as your individual pattern of growth – the rate at which you progress through the various stages of physical development.

Heredity is thought, also, to set the broad limits of your mental powers. Yet no one knows the full extent to which a given amount of intelligence may be used and developed. Probably no one uses to the almost the mental ability he has; and few develop fully their other special strengths.

Your temperament, too, is considered to be at least partly dependent upon your heredity. Evidences of this appear in the differences in reactions of babies in their very first days of life. Some babies, for example, even from the start, seem more placid and easygoing that others; some respond more vigorously to hunger and discomfort.

You must always remember, though, that your inherited characteristics are only what you begin with. As you grow older, you can use, or fail to use, your inherited characteristics to good advantage. Thus, while heredity provides your physique, it does not by any means fully determine your personal appearance. That depends upon cleanliness, neatness, good grooming, the choice of the right kind of clothes. You can grow in learning to make the most of yourself in appearance as well as in other ways.

You are all born with the ability to feel and to react, but you can grow in learning self – control – in learning to handle your emotions wisely instead of letting them “run away” with you.

The Part Environment Plays

What does your environment, or all your external surroundings, have to do with your personality development? You are what you are, in part, because of such features of your environment as your family, your friends, your school, your community, your church or mosque.

From your family you absorb attitudes and view-points, standards and ideals, interests and curiosities, and many of your feelings about yourself and others. You are also influenced by your church or your mosque, your teachers, and your friends.

You Can Change

In thinking about your environment, it would be a mistake to decide, “I am what I am because of my experiences so far, so there is nothing much I can do to change myself!” It would be equally foolish to take a similar attitude about your heredity. Just as you can assume some personal responsibility for building upon your inherited characteristics, so can you begin to change your environment in ways that will result in desirable personality growth. For example, your friends, reading materials, radio and television programs, internet and their social media, hobbies, and recreational activities can to a large extent be a matter of your own wise choices.

Your personality is yours alone. You can have a big part in developing that personality. As you grow older, you become increasingly accountable for the direction and extent of your personality growth.