NAME: MARIMAZHIRA BEZZEL KUDZAI

REG. NUMBER: R201987S

PROGRAM: HENCEQS

FACULTY: ENGINEERING AND THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT

DEPARTMENT: CONSTRUCTION AND CIVIL ENGINEERING

COURSE CODE: SDLSEB201

ASSIGNMENT 1
Explain how John Maxwell’s insights on personal growth has been key in outlining your
personal growth trajectory in relation with any cognitive theory from SDLS101.

According to john Maxwell (1993), growth is essential to our satisfaction and out success but
it doesn’t just happen. It requires intentionality, focus and accountability in accordance to
Halfon, N., & Forrest, C. B. (2017). He generated an outline for personal growth which is a
one-year development plan in accordance with his personal experience as a well renowned
leader, methods and teachings. It can be clearly seen that having a personal growth plan is
one of the first steps toward bettering yourself and stepping out of your comfort zone. People
and their mind-sets are constantly evolving since you are not the same person you were a year
ago In this discourse, I will explore briefly on how John Maxwell’s insights on personal
growth has been key in outlining my personal growth trajectory also in relation with William
Perry’s cognitive theory, ever since I joined the University of Zimbabwe analysis .John
Maxwell’s insights were summarised by his 15 Invaluable Laws Of Growth whilst Perry’s
cognitive development was emphasized in 4 stages having nine positions in total.

First and foremost, we have the law of intentionality which addresses the fact that personal
growth is not a natural process in most people’s lives. This law contains eight crucial factors
which includes timing gap, knowledge gap, mistake gap, perfection gap and soon. However,
the mistake gap is the one that has been a main part of my personal growth trajectory since I
was in the basic dualism position where I expected the authority to provide answers to every
question, having a mistaken mind-set which tells me that only correct answers exists and also
to be spoon fed almost everything. Luckily John Maxwell reassures us that a mistake is
simply another way of doing things. To become intentional about growing, expect to make
mistakes every day, and welcome them as a sign that you are moving in the right direction.

Moving on to the second law which is The Law of Awareness. This law encourages us to
know ourselves first in order to grow ourselves. Pertaining to this particular stage, I came to
university without proper direction since I did not know what I actually wanted to do and I
was very confused. At this moment I also belonged to the basic duality phase as my critical
thinking skills were so limited and I was narrow minded indeed. However, this law
emphasised and also helped me realise that there is more to life and I personally can have a
self-introspection whereby I would be able to know what l would like to do and fulfil it.

The third law of the mirror is whereby you must see value in yourself in order to add value to
yourself. According to John Maxwell (1993), all people have the seeds of success within
them and all they need to do is cultivate those seeds, water them, feed them, and they will
begin to grow. Arnett, J. J. (2014) once said “It’s impossible to consistently behave in a
manner inconsistent with how we see ourselves.” With respect to Perry’s full dualism, we are
thereby entitled to recognize other people’s perspectives. From all this I’ve learnt that
knowledge is quantitative and the output should be decided by one’s reasoning after
considering other people’s thoughts.
Moving on to the fourth point which is the law of reflection which involves learning to pause
in order to allow growth to catch up with you. In accordance to John Maxwell’s insights
pausing with intention expands and enriches thinking skills. This law has helped me to realise
that self-introspection is very important especially when done regularly. I have also noted the
correlation with the early multiplicity whereby through this reflection law I recognised that
ambiguity exists and there is uncertainty in the world and also observed that there are
problems whose solutions are yet to be known. However, this law greatly enhanced my
personal growth as a scholar and as a citizen.

The law of consistency is the fifth law which tells us that motivation gets you going and
discipline keeps you growing. In short, this law warns us that it doesn’t matter how talented
you are, it doesn’t matter how many opportunities you receive, if you want to grow,
consistency is key. In my personal growth I found the question ‘’Do you know what you need
to improve?’’ as the one with utmost importance. Improving myself daily guarantees a future
filled with possibilities and also the future is dependent upon my personal growth. This law
corresponds to the contextual relativism particularly on commitment foreseen position where
we need to make choices and commit to those perspectives and this has helped me to develop
greater inner strength as a result of commitment. Moreover, it helped me to notice that
choices become more personal and proactive.

One of the most influencing laws is the sixth one which is the law of environment. It
emphasises that growth thrives in conducive surroundings. If we want to reach our potential,
we must be in the right environment. That usually requires us to make changes in our life.
I’ve linked this law to commitment in relativism whereby lifestyle consistence with one’s
belief, values and identity maintains a healthy place for one’s development. Environment has
greatly impacted my personal growth both negative and positively. The type of people I
firstly got along with when I came at the university where very much into parties and
drinking alcohol so I partially followed suit and the results at the end of the semester were not
pleasing at all. I then changed friends and also switched to morally good habits that would
create a conducive environment for both my personal growth and studies.

The seventh point is the law of design which generally encourages us that in order to
maximise we must develop strategies. John Maxwell also emphasised on seeking out
principles that have stood the test of time. The law also teaches us that designing my life is
more important than designing my career. According to Perry’s late multiplicity stage I
realised that there are multiple perspectives and therefore everyone has a right to their own
opinion especially when designing the story of your life. I also noted that during the
trajectory of my personal growth the choices I made stained a permanent mark on my life’s
story

Moving on to the law of pain which generally tells us that good management of bead
experiences leads to great growth. The law equips us with the ability to make good changes
after learning from bad experiences. It helps me in growing as it motivates me to be
courageous and strong during hard times. It also made me to accept mistakes and grow from
them. The law relates to contextual relativism whereby we sometimes try to move back to
previous positions because of the mistakes or the pain we have endured. According to Perry,
we try to retreat which can result in prejudice and closed mindedness.

John Maxwell’s ninth point was the law of ladder which tells us that character growth
determines the height of your personal growth. He also sees good character, with honesty and
integrity at its core, is essential to success in any area of life. The law has also helped me to
appreciate the importance of people in life, being willing to serve others and being able to
listen to other people’s views. The law relates to the contextual relativism where one is
supposed to at least listen to all proposed solutions which are supported by reasons since
some solutions are better than others, we then weigh the solutions on your own and come up
with a set of efficient alternatives on a particular problem.

The law of the rubber band emphasises that growth stops when you lose the tension between
where you are and where you could be. It also teaches us that stretching always starts from
the inside out. The law helped me to understand that I cannot improve and avoid change at
the same time thus innovation and progress are often initiated by people who push for
change. Commitment in relativism also tells us realisation that commitment is on-going and
ever evolving thus we continuously change in that stage so we have to cope up with it and
learn also with our own experience.

The eleventh point is the law of trade-offs which edges us that we have to give up in order to
grow. It also tells us the reality that people will cling to an unsatisfactory way of life rather
than change in order to get something better for fear of getting something worse. This point
also helped me to give up useless mindset that I held on to, so that I may change my view on
certain aspects of life, focus on the positive and ultimately enhance my personal growth.
Moreover, with respect to Perry’s (1999) cognitive theory we see that in the dualism level,
students believes that correct answers exist and only authorities know them but in actual facts
the multiplicity level emphasises that some problems cannot be solved and it’s the student’s
task rather than the authorities to find the most relevant one.

Moving on to the law of curiosity whereby growth is stimulated by asking why. Other people
see curiosity is the key to being a life-long learner, and if you want to keep growing and
developing, you must keep on learning. Halfon, N and Forrest, C. B. (2017) proposed that
“the cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.” This law has been vital in
my growth since it encourages me to be eager to know more about almost everything around
me by asking why this is doing this. Through this law, I’ve acquired many answers especially
from own researches and its proving to be an efficient way of growing and studying at large.
Multiplicity also emphasises on the same concept on the stage of transition where you need to
support positions with data and logic rather than just telling us unbacked facts.

It then brings us to the law of modelling which generally tells us that its hard to improve
when you have no one but yourself to follow. This insight emphasises on having models that
we can try to follow after we scrutinize their personal lives as carefully as their public
performance such that my life will be influenced by theirs. On the same note, late multiplicity
seeks to identify the rules by which the authorities operate to be successful such the if we
scholars follow through their knowledge and experience then we will grow mutually
The fourteenth point is the law of expansion which illustrates that growth always increases
your capacity. There is a question ‘’stop thinking, can I? and start thinking how can I? I have
learnt that the potential that exists within me is limitless and largely untapped thus l can
achieve great things if I allow expansion to presume. In relation to Perry’s theory particularly
on commitment relativism, exploration of one’s ability as a result of commitment is attained
and that helps in the establishment of one’s identity

Lastly, we have the law of contribution which emphasises that growing yourself enables you
to grow others. It also encourages us to define our success as sowing not reaping. The law has
helped me to know that progress in personal growth also opens the doors for others. It makes
it possible for me to contribute to them. It also encourages me to visualise the importance of
teamwork in our day-to-day activities. On the cognitive processes, we may relate this law to
the post commitment of the commitment in relativism stage where lifestyle consistence with
one’s beliefs, values and identity makes us to be a very influential part of the community and
country at large. In conclusion, the Perry’s theory and Maxwell’s insights have positively
influenced my personal growth highly since I have adopted a new mindset which is to strive
to be a better version of yourself today than you were yesterday.

REFERENCES

1) Perry, W. (1999). Forms of intellectual and ethical development in the college years:
A scheme. NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston
2) Baxter Magolda, M.B. (2001) 'A constructivist revision of the measure of
epistemological reflection', Journal of College Student Development, 46(6), pp.520-
534
3) Zhang, L. and Watkins, D. (2001). Cognitive development and student approaches to
learning: An investigation of Perry's theory with Chinese and US university students.
Higher Education, 41(3), 239-61
4) Arnett, J. J. (2014). Emerging adulthood: The winding road from the late teens
through the twenties. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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215–227.
7) Nuhfer, E. B. and Bhavsar, V. (2011). “Events a learner can expect to experience.”
Unpublished class exercise. California State University Channel Islands, Camarillo: C
8) John C Maxwell, The winning attitude (Nashine: Thomas Nelson 1993