What’s the benefit of personal growth?

Personal growth is the process of understanding and elevating yourself across one or more facets of your life.  The major Five Facets of Life are Physical Health, Financial Health, Social Health, Mental/Emotional Health, and Higher Purpose.  Working to progress in one of these facets will lead to growth in others.  For example, by pursuing financial health (developing passive income) you will undoubtedly gain a greater belief in your ability to accomplish things, which will in turn give you greater mental fortitude to pursue a fulfilling purpose in your life.  When you’ve found a fulfilling purpose, the bright mental state may help elevate your social life to the next level as you make a positive impact on people.

Personal growth is just one positive value among many.  Some others are family, leisure pursuits, work satisfaction, academics, fitness….  All of these are positive values, though each person may prioritize them differently.  Which is OK!  Though by prioritizing personal growth high on the list, it can help elevate the ability to pursue all the other values.  A rising tide floats all boats.

Some specific examples of personal growth are:

• Learning to shift your mindset when situations get stressful
• Overcoming procrastination
• Acquiring the skill to express anger in a healthy way, not taking it out on others
• Taking on a journey of self awareness
• Building deeper relationships with people around you
• Taking on new hobbies or projects
• Following a meal and fitness plan
• Educating yourself on money so you have healthy investments
• Taking classes to deepen your knowledge and understanding of a topic
• Learning to adjust your thought patterns when you feel you can’t do something or aren’t worthy
• Setting and holding stronger boundaries in your life

What does it take to grow?

A lot of personality traits you already have will support you in your journey of personal growth.  One of the most powerful is desire.  Without the desire to grow, one won’t take action to better themselves.  Desire comes from having a clear picture of what it is you want to create; from understanding the value the personal growth brings to your life.  When your desire is strong enough, all the excuses that are stopping you tend to melt away.  Diligence is also important.  That’s to remain steady on your course, even when you face setbacks or progress on your goals seem to be going slow.  Having a high level of self awareness increases your capacity to grow.  Responsibility is also a big one.  If you don’t take responsibility for your own personal growth, then who will?

Self efficacy is probably the most important of all.  This is your belief in your ability to produce results… to reach that goal… to make things happen!  Having a strong desire will help kick your self efficacy into gear.  So will being true to yourself, holding boundaries in your life, and reviewing all the positive things you’ve accomplished.

So what’s stopping you?

Overcoming the walls and obstacles you have put in your way is another factor in how much or how fast you grow.  The higher your self efficacy and self respect, the higher your self esteem is.  For some people, they know they have challenges due to low self esteem.  For others, the limiting beliefs are a little more subtle.  Something like, “that sounds like too much work” is often used to cover a lack of self efficacy.  “I need to get through ____ first” or “I have a lot on my plate right now” are also signs of a person’s lack of drive or self efficacy.

“I don’t have the time” is a common excuse.  Time is the great equalizer; it’s the one thing that everyone has the same amount of, from the poorest homeless person to the richest billionaire.  It’s simply a matter of how you use and leverage your time.  Which life values are you prioritizing over your personal growth?  When you find yourself saying I don’t have the time, I suggest adding detail about the life value to the sentence on what exactly you don’t have time for.  Saying “I don’t have time for that class/book/seminar” is one thing, but saying “I don’t have the time for my personal growth” doesn’t sound very comfortable does it?

How to grow… internally

Everyone grows over time.  Think about it, are you the same person now that you were five years ago?  How about 5 years before that?  We all grow, but people who actively pursue personal growth tend to elevate their lives higher and faster than those who don’t.  So how do you supercharge your journey to be the best version of yourself?

Self Efficacy

A good starting point is boosting your self efficacy.  As mentioned earlier, it’s an extremely important factor in determining if you reach your goals.  This alone can be a very in depth topic, so it’s recommended you continue to do your own research on it.  Though a good starting point is developing a hobby or a skill.  Having something in your life that you can be unquestionably proud of is a great way to boost your belief in yourself.  Trying new things, to find those hobbies or skills you like, is also a fun journey in and of itself!  Once you have at least one, branch out!  Pick a facet of your life you want to improve, then pursue education on it, and take action!

Self Awareness

Your beliefs and personality dictate your actions.  So in order to take action towards personal growth, it’s helpful to have a solid level of self awareness.  This gives you greater ability to choose who you want to be as a person; greater capacity for personal growth.  So how do you develop or grow self awareness?  There are two starting points for you.  The first is to try looking at your actions from an outside perspective.  If someone else was taking the same actions you were, how would describe them as a person?  Those descriptions would likely fit yourself since the actions are the same.  However, this method has some challenges.  When you try to look at your life through a 3rd person perspective, your perspective is still filtered through your beliefs and experiences.  

Feedback

That brings up the second starting point.  Feedback.  Asking for feedback from others is an excellent way to learn how you show up in life, and consequently, learn who you are as a person.  As you ask people for feedback, notice your reactions.  Simply notice.  If your reaction is emotional and strong, there’s something there to explore.  Also keep in mind, these are people’s experiences of you.  There’s no right or wrong about their feedback, it’s simply their experience of you.  As you ask more (and different types of) people for feedback, you’ll notice patterns emerge.  These patterns are likely the most relevant to who you are being as a person.  If one person calls you a jerk, that’s just their opinion.  If ten people call you a jerk, you’re a jerk.  The same is true for the positive.  If your friends and family call you loving, kind, and deserving of better, then you’re loving, kind and deserving of better.

How to grow… externally

OK, so you’ve got a good start on the internal base for your journey in personal growth… So now, what actions do you take?  There is nearly an endless source of material to support you on your journey.  Audio-books, books, seminars, webinars, videos, and college classes are just a few.  Many of those are free as well.  The entire collective knowledge of humankind can all be found online somewhere, though it’s important to make sure the information you get is credible.  While using Google Scholar is a great way to get credible information,  what you’ll mostly find is people’s opinions.  And that’s OK!  This entire article is a collection of facts and opinions of the author, based on experiences and education. 

So how do you distinguish between what information to use and what information is not supportive?  Part of it again goes to patterns.  If you gain knowledge from many different sources and authors, ideas you learn will seem to keep repeating.  These repeating ideas are likely information that you can use reliably.  For example, one idea is that a person cannot love or respect someone more than they love or respect themselves. This idea has been expressed in emotional intelligence workshops, audio-books, and psychology textbooks, all from people who are experts in their fields.  Thus it’s likely a true piece of knowledge that can be used to deepen relationships with those around you, by understanding that your personal growth will allow you more love to give to others.

Onward in your journey of personal growth!

Personal growth is a fantastic and fun journey that will benefit every facet of your life!  It can benefit your social life by creating closer relationships with your family and friends, provide health to your financial life by bringing you more income, and create fulfillment by supporting your higher purpose.  It has challenges that allow opportunity for pride as they are overcome, even if they are small, like reading a book a month.  Personal growth is a positive life value that supports nearly every other life value in your list.  What action are you going to take today, that will support your internal and external personal growth?

About IntegriCoach

At IntegriCoach, our mission is to coach people to gain self awareness, self esteem, and intentionally create a balanced life filled with health, wealth, and deep relationships.  The purpose of our mission is to create a world that grows through integrity, honor, responsibility, and love of self and others.  We do this by providing one on one coaching packages to support you in developing and following a plan to create a whole and balanced life.  We also offer online courses for you to complete at your own pace. With the online courses comes a members only chat forum for continuous peer coaching and monthly live webinars that provide new themes and the opportunity for group coaching.  If you’re interested in taking your personal growth and life to the next level, join us today!