Explain the meaning of Aspiration and Achievements in context of personality development.

Aspiration and Achievements.

Aspiration means goals, desire for more than what people have in their present. it is ego that makes people want to achieve more or have more than they possess. Those longings or desires of people that have their roots in their ego influence their behavior and personality.

Some people get possessed by their desires. This causes adverse effects on their personality. People may aspire to achieve success, which is a positive aspiration, have a negative aspiration like wanting to avoid failure, have realistic aspirations which are within their reach or unrealistic aspirations which they cannot achieve. Another category of aspirations are remote and immediate aspirations. Remote means related to the remote future while immediate aspirations are related to the near future.

Different aspirations differ in their power of motivation like remote and unrealistic aspirations have more power than the immediate and realistic ones. Negative aspirations are not good motivators while positive aspirations are.

Having a very high level of aspiration will adversely affect one’s self-concept. The difference or discrepancy between one’s capacity to achieve and his level of desire should not be too much. Then the person is not able to achieve what he desires and his confidence will be shaken. The person may not take his failure lightly especially when others also label him a failure. For example, if a student of below average intelligence wants to become the topper, and others also know about it, most probably he will be disheartened and others may laugh at him.

It is the other way round also. High levels of aspiration have proved to be great motivating factors and source of happiness, not always damaging self-concept. As long as the person remains positive and takes it sportingly, high aspiration levels will just be wishful thinking, not causing any serious harm.

Achievements.

Achievements are viewed in comparison with others in an objective manner or with one’s level of aspiration in a subjective manner. People may feel that their achievements are a success or a failure, affecting their self-concept accordingly. If an individual feels happy about what he has achieved, he will view his achievements as a success.

As such, his self-concept will get a positive boost. But if the person feels that his achievement is a failure, he will not get a positive boost from it. In fact, he will feel dissatisfied and miserable and feel low about his self. People who feel that low about his self. People who feel that they are successful in life feel good about themselves, remain cheerful and have a positive self-concept.

In addition to developing a positive self-concept, achievements make a person confident, raises his self-esteem and such a person is more capable of tackling any problem in life hands-on. The person becomes confident enough of making good decisions and taking appropriate action in different situations. He develops a stable behavior in different situations. He becomes a more relaxed person while people who consider themselves a failure are more fidgety and nervous.