What is the difference between personal development and self improvement?

Transcribed from the podcast “Self Improvement Daily”. Written and presented by Brian Ford.

Recently I asked myself a question I should have asked myself a long time ago. What is the difference between personal development and self improvement? Aren’t they interchangeable? I don’t think it’s that simple, and I wanted to take a moment to explore that.

First, the way I like to think of personal development is to focus narrowly on what development means. In all areas of life — biology, business, relationships, development usually speaks to something being in progress. And personal development is no different, it speaks more to the daily process we undergo that contributes to growth.

Self improvement on the other hand is more outcome based. For something to improve, that means it needed to be in a certain state, and then become better into a new state. So in that way, self improvement is more the deliverable of the process and the evidence of growth.

So to tie those two things together in a nice bow, personal development is the process that leads to achieving self improvement. That’s not to say it takes a long time to experience self improvement, things can change for the better in a matter of minutes. The difference isn’t related to time, it’s about the lens by which you are evaluating the progress. Personal development is the how, self improvement is the what.

With this in mind, do I regret calling the podcast Self Improvement Daily? No actually, because by investing the time in your personal development to listen to the podcast, you can experience self improvement every day. So I think it’s quite fitting actually!

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