A personal growth guide is essential to growing according to our circumstances and preferences.
It is a general mindset that we need self-improvement lessons to recover when we go through a difficult phase in life. Though difficulties do makes us mature and grow, personal growth should be aimed in all weather. Growth is a continuous process, not a thing for a day or two. Every day we learn what to do, what not to do, whom to trust, and whom not to, and the list goes on. This is all part of your self-development journey!
This article explores the concept of personal growth in depth, which undoubtedly benefits your personal and professional life. And this is what the blog relay is about – accelerating personal growth.
What Is Personal Growth?
Personal growth or self-growth, or personal development, is a process of knowing who we are, what we need, and how to expand our abilities to adapt and change.
It goes in sync with our life. What was important once might not even be relevant now, and that’s why we need to grow to get along with our life.
Personal Growth is anything that makes you better in everything you do.
Surbhi Mahnot
Areas of Personal Growth
There are basically five significant areas of personal development:
- Mental Growth involves being more adaptable, understanding, and open-minded about new perspectives and learning.
- Physical Growth is about being more involved in health, fitness, and body awareness.
- Social Growth involves relationships, friends, and the ability to mix with people.
- Emotional Growth consists of better control and understanding of your and others’ emotions.
- Spiritual Growth is about knowing your inner self, personal values, and who you are.
Examples of Personal Development Activities
To understand better, following are a few examples where personal growth is needed:
- To have an optimistic mindset. Mental growth
- To be more productive. Mental growth
- Make more stable relationships. Social growth
- Learn leadership. Mental growth
- Have better control over emotions. Emotional growth
- Gain confidence. Emotional growth
- Increase self-esteem. Emotional Growth
- Make fitness important in life. Physical Growth
- To develop a routine and decide on priorities. Mental Growth
- Knowing yourself. Spiritual Growth
Why Is It Important To Have A Personal Growth Guide?
There can be various reasons why personal growth is vital to you. Yes, one can have their own reason to vouch for it. For me my reason is:
“It helps me save my time in routine stuff by being both creative and productive, allowing me to create some space for new opportunities. It also helps me prove my commitment and dedication towards my work, making me look smart and efficient in what I do.”
After all, who doesn’t like version 2.0, 3.0,4.0, etc., filled with confidence to learn from the past, sort the present, and be prepared for the future? Personal growth impacts all aspects of your life, from social to mental. Following are a few reasons why you should look for continuous improvements:
- To come out of your comfort zone.
- Be better at communication.
- More aware of the inner self.
- Have high confidence to take risks and set challenging goals.
- Have less stress and better health.
- To be able to manage situations in a better way.
- Increased productivity.
- Improved peace of mind.
- Greater resilience.
- Readiness for success, the way you wanted. Even failures don’t disappoint you for long.
How To Start Your Personal Growth & Development Journey?
The personal growth journey is different for everyone. So, there is no specific process or strategy for this. In other words, all the paths to self-growth and development are an individual’s journey.
Knowledge is only helpful if you implement it and actually make a difference!
Surbhi Mahnot
My growth journey is a full-proof 3-step process.
- Understanding. Firstly, awareness about my strengths, weaknesses, passions, core values, emotional stability, ambitions, ideal self, thoughts, actions, and behavior is essential, irrespective of what others do.
- Analysis. Next comes the part where it is important to define my understanding explicitly in some concrete manner. This concerns mainly the “How” aspect – how I respond (or expect) to situations and balance (or juggle) work, relations, and passions, how I treat others and how I expect others to treat me, etc.
- Execution. Lastly, we need some goals to start. A development plan that comprises an actionable list to help me stay consistent and motivated in my journey.
Let’s dive deep to understand each of the steps in detail.
Step-1. Understanding
Here are five techniques to understand yourself in an actionable rather than theoretical approach.
#1. SWOT Analysis
This is a great technique to evaluate any strategy or process, whether it relates to work or personal life. When you can determine Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats, you can anticipate and eliminate risk factors and implement them better.
At the personal level, we use this same analysis to review our personality, career, and relationships.
#2. Self-Discovery Questionnaire
The questions not only make you look deeper within yourself but also explore the external factors that affect it. Some questions you can ask yourself to answer questions of the two approaches mentioned above can be:
- What is my overall purpose in life?
- Where do I see myself in the next five years?
- What am I afraid of?
- What are my good habits and bad habits?
- Do I feel the need for change within myself?
- What are my best qualities?
- Do I find time for myself?
- How is my social circle? Family, friends, relationships?
- What matters to me the most at this point?
- Do I hold myself back from doing something that I want to?
#3. Journaling
“A journal is your completely unaltered voice.” – Lucy Dacus.
Things you cannot share with anyone, including yourself, you can write them down. Writing is the best way to express yourself without fearing being judged or evaluated. It eases anxiety and stress too. When you keep writing, you start to remember events, patterns, feelings, and reactions which is a great way to increase self-awareness.
#4. Personal Core Values
Core values are your beliefs, things you believe in deeply. You may or may not be aware of them, but your core values entirely drive your life, actions, thoughts, and behavior. Here is a straightforward yet powerful tool to identify your core values. They help you to remember who you are as an individual, and it’s a great start to personal growth in both personal and professional lives.
#5. Meditation
All in all, this brings a great sense of inner peace and relaxation. It is quite a helpful technique in today’s competitive lifestyle.
Step-2. Analysis
Now that you know yourself, the next step is to use this understanding gained and describe yourself, your actions, thoughts everything. I have divided the analysis into two sections; trust me, it works magic!
- To look at myself with an open mind and unbiased process.
- How do I behave, react, treat others, and respond to situations?
- How am I handling work, family, relationships, and career?
- Am I still connected to my dreams and passions? Is my life around it or way too deviated?
- Do I feel happy about how I am and my life overall?
- To look at others with an open mind and unbiased approach.
- How do others behave and treat me?
- How are they managing their everyday routine?
- Are they adding value to me and my life?
- Do I feel happy in their company? Do they feel comfortable being in my company as well?
I follow this exercise once every week or sometimes once a fortnight.
Remember: Answer all these questions honestly based on the events during that period. It sometimes gets difficult to answer when you know what you’ll write is not something you’ll like! Acceptance is too tricky; therefore, you must do this exercise fully prepared (not in denial) in a quiet place with no disturbance.
Growth begins when we begin to accept our own weakness.
Jean Vanier
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Step-3. Execution – A Personal Development Plan
Now that you know the proper techniques to get started, here is the plan you can follow for your development and growth.
- Set one goal to complete daily. Whatever little thing excites you or interests you, do that unquestionably. Be it as simple as reading a book, watching a movie, going shopping, hanging out with friends, going for a walk, or anything.
- List your long-term and short-term goals. Anything that you want to achieve personally or professionally, you list those goals. In this case, go for SMART goals that you can accomplish.
- Add priority to your goals.
- Prepare a schedule and a timeline. It helps visualize the big picture and also makes goals more achievable.
- Review progress. Maintain notes, track progress, and see how things are going.
- Update goals as needed to keep the motivation going.
Tips to Shine in Your Personal Growth Journey:
Additionally, to reap the benefits of the above-mentioned process, here are some prerequisites you should be aware of.
- Curiosity: By all means, it can drive you to seek more answers.
- Honesty: With this, you can genuinely identify your potential areas of development.
- Willingness to change: Change is the only constant. The sooner you accept this, the higher your chances of growth.
- Zest to learn: There is no age for learning. Be open-minded to accept your flaws just as you boast about your strengths.
- Read: When you read, you learn about other stories to which you can relate and understand that you are not alone in thinking a certain way.
- Travel: The best way to explore different people, cultures, food, and lifestyle. It automatically pushes you to change.
- Patience: Don’t give up. Refrain from citing time concerns or so. Personal Growth is for your betterment only.
When Should You Consider For Growth?
“I have just started my career. Growth & development comes at later stages. Right now, I should only focus on work.”, “My life is going ok then why do I need all these growth things?”, People have no problem with me or my behavior, so why should I change?” etc.
I have been asked these types of questions in many of my workshops. That’s why I included this point in this article as well.
If you are unhappy in your current workplace, it is a call to think why apart from changing the job. When your relationship ends, it is a call to guess how it happened apart from moving on. If you have a habit of having numerous mood swings that create chaos for you and others, it is a call to think about what is happening apart from taking action on it.
A wake-up call is all you need to start your growth journey.
Significant struggles such as failures, heartaches, or financial instability are reasons you change. But these small things you do in your daily routine are equally important reasons for change. They actually make a difference to your personality. Personal growth is a slow and continuous process. The more you work on yourself, the better you connect with your purpose and inner self.
The zest to make every day better makes you a better person.
Surbhi Mahnot
Personal Growth Quotes
The only thing that stands between a man and what he wants from life is often merely the will to try it and the faith to believe that it is possible. – Richard M. DeVos.
Stay afraid, but do it anyway. What’s important is the action. You don’t have to wait to be confident. Just do it and eventually, the confidence will follow. – Carrie Fisher.
The swiftest way to triple your success is to double your investment in personal development. – Robin Sharma.
Growth is painful. Change is painful. But nothing is as painful as staying stuck somewhere you don’t belong. – Mandy Hale.
The key to growth is the introduction of higher dimensions of consciousness into our awareness. – Lao Tzu.
Happy is he who makes daily progress and who considers not what he did yesterday but what advance he can make today. – St. Jerome.
Be patient with yourself. Self-growth is tender; it’s holy ground. There’s no greater investment. – Stephen Covey.
Whatever makes you uncomfortable is your biggest opportunity for Growth. – Bryant H. McGill
Recommended Reading
- 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephan Covey.
- The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*uck by Mark Manson.
- Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman.
- The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle.
- Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus by John Gray.
In summary, this ultimate personal growth guide adds more insights to your existing development journey.
