Abstract
It is known that self esteem and gratitude play a pivotal role in the development of an individual. The purpose of this study was to find out about the exact role that self esteem and gratitude play in the development of Indian students of 16 to 24 years. Rosenberg Self Esteem Scale, Gratitude Questionnaire and Personal Growth Initiative Scale were administered on the participants who were selected for the study by the method of random sampling. Data was collected with the help of google forms as personally meeting the subjects was not possible during the pandemic. Findings suggests that most participants who participated in the study possessed high levels of gratitude and moderate levels of self esteem, thus showing good personal development. It was believed that increment in self esteem leads to the increment in overall personal development of a person, but in this research, it came out that rise in self esteem up to a certain level can positively impact personal development, more than that can create a negative impact on the development. It was also found out that gratitude and personal development were positively correlated to each other, i.e., rise in levels of gratitude leads to increment in personal growth of students.