12 Dimensions of Human Development

The Map: The Twelve Dimensions of Human Development

The term, “Twelve Dimensions of Human Development” refers to twelve major areas of life in which humans can grow and develop. Together, they form a “map” or framework for human growth towards wholeness. The first letter of each dimension spells out the acronym, “Shalom Advice”, since they all contain advice for living based on the elements of the ancient Hebrew word for wholeness, “shalom”. “Shalom” is usually translated as, “peace”, but according to Scottish theologian, the late Jim Punton, it is an ancient Hebrew word for “coming to completeness” or “wholeness”. The experience of shalom was understood to exist on four levels. On an individual level, it meant a sense of spiritual purpose and well-being in all areas of an individual’s life. In relationships, “shalom” meant an openness and honesty between people. In the community, it meant social justice for all, and in the cosmos, it meant harmony for the whole created order. In this “Curriculum for Whole Living” series, I have spelt out these four levels in terms of the twelve dimensions. Here are those twelve dimensions listed with their major topic areas and their related book titles in the series.

The 12 Dimensions and related Book Titles in the Curriculum for Whole Living Series

S - Spiritual Dimension: Personal identity, how to find purpose in life, how to live according to your values, how to find meaning in daily living. (Book 1 - Ways to Identity, Purpose & Meaning)

H - (Physical) Health Dimension: Cardio-vascular fitness, physical strength and flexibility, healthy diet and eating habits, caring for our body, teeth, hair, eyes, ears etc., sleeping and resting well, avoiding accidents and being safety conscious. (Book 2 - Ways to Health & Well Being)

A - Affective (Emotional) Dimension: Controlling our negative emotions, taking our mind off our problems, managing our stress levels, coping with anger, grief and feeling down, personal motivation, maintaining high self-esteem, setting up our own support and friendship networks, knowing how to experience happiness. (Book 2 - Ways to Health & Well Being)

L - Learning Dimension: Being aware of our preferred learning style and how we learn best, being skilled in analysing information, effective goal setting, knowing how to find the right information when we need it, thinking up creative ideas, thinking clearly and logically and being able to plan effectively, communicating clearly in writing and speaking, knowing how to listen well, being able to keep working when we’re bored, memorizing important information, sharing our knowledge and skills with others. (Book 3 - Ways to Learning Success)

O - Organizational Dimension: Organizing ourselves and keeping things in order, organizing the spaces where we live and work, managing our time, getting rid of stuff we do not need any more, maintaining the stuff we use so it keeps working well, being well mannered and knowing how to behave appropriately in various social situations. (Book 4 - Ways to Personal Management)

M - Money Management Dimension: Developing effective systems to look after our money, knowing how to avoid getting into too much debt and being skilled at paying things off as quickly as possible, knowing how to save money for the future, knowing how to reduce costs, gaining from wise investments, helping others financially. (Book 4 - Ways to Personal Management)

A - Aesthetic Dimension: How to better appreciate art and music of all kinds, how to do ordinary things in an artistic way, how to express ourselves artistically, how to improve our artistic skills, sharing our artistic creations with others, working in the community to promote the arts. (Book 5 - Ways to Creativity, Delight & Satisfaction)

D - Delightful Dimension: Enjoying play and fun without addiction, developing our sense of humour, developing our appreciation of visual beauty, developing our sense of smell, developing our love of new tastes, developing our sense of hearing, developing our sense of touch. (Book 5 - Ways to Creativity, Delight & Satisfaction)

V - Vocational Dimension: Knowing the career areas we would enjoy and which would suit us, applying for jobs effectively, how to make any boring job meaningful, how to be a good team member, how to lead or supervise others effectively, how to negotiate with others for improved conditions or needs. (Book 5 - Ways to Creativity, Delight & Satisfaction)

I - Inter-personal Dimension: Meeting new people and placing them at ease, developing new friends, keeping close friends, being a good partner, sorting our conflicts, looking after children, being a loving, caring person. (Book 6 - Ways to Love, Justice & Sustainability)

C - Community (Social Justice) Dimension: Awareness of universal human rights, being a responsible voter and citizen, donating wisely to world charities, being helpful in the local community, standing up for injustices when necessary. (Book 6 - Ways to Love, Justice & Sustainability)

E - Environmental Dimension: Conserving energy and endangered species, avoiding or minimizing practices that harm the environment, recycling, re – using and not wasting resources, learning about sustainability and the real environmental needs of our planet (Book 6 - Ways to Love, Justice & Sustainability)

All human beings are making progress, or not, in each of these dimensions or areas at the same time. We confront spiritual questions whilst we are grappling with such issues as physical weight concerns, money management problems and inter-personal conflicts etc. Furthermore, each dimension of life impacts on the growth we may experience in one, two or even more of the other dimensions e.g. feeling physically well usually has a direct impact on how we feel emotionally, our relationships and our capacity to have fun.

These dimensions provide us with a vision of fulfilled human development or whole living. Human growth towards wholeness ideally involves some development in all of these dimensions so we become what some might call, “a fully rounded individual”. This is what I mean in this series when I use terms like, “becoming a better person” or “more fully human”.

The twelve dimensions also map out a vision for a better world. The most obvious of these elements are environmental sustainability and social justice. However, implied in the other dimensions are concepts such as honest and loving relationships between people, a thriving arts community, a decline in poverty, and meaningful employment, education, emotional peace, physical health and purposeful living for all citizens.

Whilst development occurs in most of these dimensions simultaneously, there is a suggested order for tackling them in the “Shalom Advice” acronym. The spiritual dimension is the logical first area for transformation because unless we know and like whom we are, have clear values and live with a sense of purpose and meaning, we will find it extremely difficult to live with integrity and consistency in all the other areas.

Here is an activity to help you think about the twelve dimensions in relation to your own life at this point in time.

CREATIVE RESPONSE (SU): Reflect on the twelve dimensions of human development and determine how happy you are with your level of development in each dimension.

On a blank sheet of paper, copy an outline of the circular chart of the twelve dimensions (above)

Reflect on your current level of development in each of them. Draw a small dot on each dimension line to indicate where you would rate yourself as a percentage at this point in your journey. Rate yourself with a 10% for very little development, with 20% to 30% if you are just starting and so on up to 50% or 70% for fair to average development, and up to 90% or 100% for excellent or outstanding development.

Once you have rated all of the dimensions, draw a coloured line connecting all of your indicator dots to provide a visual map of your levels of development in the twelve dimensions. Here is an example of a chart produced by someone who was physically very fit, feeling happy in her vocation, but not well developed in the aesthetic and spiritual dimensions.

 

One way of thinking about the concept of “wholeness” might be to conceive a coloured line on the chart that is more or less circular, somewhere between the score of 70% to 100% - indicating someone who is making good progress in all of these dimensions. I am not sure that such an image is very helpful, though. Our growth towards wholeness is a dynamic concept, and we typically grow at different rates in each area depending on opportunities and obstacles we encounter. Our connecting line on “the map” will always be in a continual state of fluctuation. It is probably more helpful to think in terms of being on the journey towards wholeness rather than “arriving” at a particular condition and staying there. Furthermore, whilst all these dimensions are important and affect our overall growth to wholeness, some are obviously more important in the overall scheme than others e.g. many would argue that the pursuit of social justice is more important than the pursuit of delight.

Reflect on your completed chart and ask yourself how satisfied you are with your level of development in each area. On one hand, you may have given yourself a low rating in some areas, but you may still be reasonably satisfied with your progress because those areas are not a high priority for you now, or you may have little experience in them. On the other hand, you may have rated yourself more highly in other dimensions but still desire improvement in those areas. Mark your chart with responses that indicate your level of satisfaction e.g. “Happy”, “OK” or “Problem Area”. On our sample chart, this woman sees the need to be more active in environmental and social justice areas as more of a problem area than her low ratings in the spiritual and aesthetic dimensions.