As the big personal growth fan that I am, I always find myself encouraging people to embark on this journey. Whether I give it the actual name or casually drop it in a conversation, I believe that it’s an essential step if we want to build a successful life.
However, I know that many people who are interested in this journey, are faced with the challenge of how they can even start and achieve their goals.
In today’s blog post I’ll be sharing 7 proven ways that you can apply to achieve personal growth.
What does it mean to achieve personal growth?
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Let me start by saying that personal growth looks different for everyone and doesn’t just apply to one area of our life.
This process goes across our physical, mental, and spiritual areas and involves our personal lives but also our relationships and our careers.
Achieving personal growth means that we work daily on becoming better versions of ourselves and this will impact and improve all areas of our life.
I don’t believe that we’ll ever be done with learning and improving ourselves, as I firmly believe that it’s a lifelong process.
However, I do think that every day we can make considerable progress and that we should celebrate the milestones we hit.
This is why I don’t agree with a cookie-cutter definition of achieving personal growth, but it’s up to you to track and evaluate your progress.
Tony Robbins is THE personal development guru, and I’ve learned some incredible lessons from his teachings.
Why is personal growth important?
To put it shortly, personal growth will completely change your life.
However, if you’re still not sold on the idea of why you need to jump on this train, I encourage you to read this post where I highlight four reasons why personal development is essential for success.
7 ways to achieve personal growth
Although there are probably many different opinions out there, I decided to write down the exact list I use in my own personal development journey, so let’s go through them together.
Have a personal growth plan
This is really, the first essential step. Remember that famous quote that says ‘A goal without a plan is just a wish’, that’s exactly what I mean.
If you want to embark on a personal growth journey, you need to create a plan. You need to write down what it is you want to achieve and in which areas of your life.
Not everyone will want to apply this to their career, personal life, relationships, etc., so do what aligns with your vision. However, I believe that once you’ll start the process you’ll fall in love with it and will apply it to every area of your life.
You need to make sure that the plan you create will be achievable, and will also be measurable. How will you know if you’ve achieved success? How long will you give yourself to work on a certain area and establish if you’ve made progress? How are you going to break up your big goal and turn it into small steps?
I highly recommend that you follow the SMART goals process for this, and you can read all about it here.
Start working on your mindset
This step is also extremely important because a lot of the time we have set limitations in our minds and it’s necessary to overcome them to achieve the next step in our life.
Mindset work is a constant process that will require a lot of effort. You will need to identify wrong beliefs that you may have held for years without knowing; you’ll need to break down patterns that aren’t helping you in your growth, and you’ll need to be very patient with yourself.
The sooner you start working on your mindset, the earlier you’ll reap the benefits.
There are so many incredible resources out there that you can use, but an incredible book I always recommend is ‘Mindset’ by Dr Carol Dweck.
Do a SWOT analysis
To really learn more about yourself and identify the areas where you need to grow, it’s important to do an ‘internal examination’.
This means that you reflect on the things you’re currently good at, the things you need to improve, the opportunities you have for your personal growth journey, and the threats that could hinder you from achieving your goals.
When I was studying Marketing at University, I learned to use a tool called SWOT analysis to examine a business and identify its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Based on the findings of the analysis, we’d then create an action plan to reach growth and success for the business.
We once applied this to our own selves and I was quite impressed with what I discovered, which is why I use it periodically in my life to assess my progress.
Track your progress
As I was mentioning earlier, it’s really important that your goals are not only realistic but that you’re also keeping track of your progress to determine how you’re achieving the personal growth you desire.
The easiest way to do this is by having a tracker where you list all the items you’re working on, and then tick them off based on the frequency you want to do them.
Another thing you can do is to regularly schedule a journaling session where you ask yourself some questions and evaluate the progress you’ve made.
It’s really important not to skip this process otherwise it will get discouraging in the long run and you might also lose sight of the vision.
Celebrate milestones
So many people don’t do this and it’s such a shame because celebrating milestones is as productive as working hard for your personal growth.
The reason some people skip this step is because of limiting beliefs they hold that make them think that they can only celebrate once they hit the final result (spoiler alert: there’s never an end to this).
If you start working on your mindset as I shared on point two, you’ll learn that celebrating and rewarding yourself for your milestones will boost your motivation and your likelihood of continuing to make progress in your journey.
Don’t focus on perfectionism
I know that this is something that cripples many people (I used to be one of them), but there’s nothing worse than not taking any action because things aren’t perfect.
The thing about life is that things are messy, and even though some people don’t like to admit it, no one is perfect.
However, it’s in the messy action and the imperfect moments that we learn the biggest lessons and make the most progress.
This applies to your personal growth journey too; maybe you feel like because you’ve skipped one day of your daily reading, you’re not good enough and you will never achieve your goal of reading a book a month.
Maybe you want to invest more time in your passion project but because you feel like it’s not looking super polished, you can’t put it out there and present it to the world.
I’m here to remind you to take action, no matter what it looks like, and ditch perfectionism now!
Make learning a lifestyle
Another thing that I really believe is fundamental in your personal growth process, is accepting the fact that learning is a lifelong journey and as such, it should be a part of your lifestyle.
You can incorporate daily exercise into your life, or reading a chapter a day, or doing a lesson on a particular online course you bought, and so on.
And even when you’ve hit a certain goal, set more, continue to work and continue to learn.
Nothing opens our minds to a world of opportunities the way learning does, and that’s why it’s important to see it as an essential part of your personal growth journey.
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Final thoughts on how to achieve personal growth
I know that reading this post has probably created many questions in your mind, and that’s okay.
Take time to write them down and reflect on them, and start creating your personal growth plan so you can reach incredible success and fulfilment in your life.
I wouldn’t recommend these tips if I hadn’t tried them myself, but as I said before, these are tried and tested ways I regularly use to achieve personal growth in my life, and I know they’ll help you do the same!
