Personal Growth: A habit we have the power to activate and perform.

Posted on May 02, 2022 by Lily Corail, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.

“One can choose to go back toward safety or forward toward growth. Personal Growth must be chosen again and again; fear must be overcome again and again.”
- Abraham Maslow

Psychologist Abraham Maslow stated that human motivation is based on people seeking fulfillment and change through personal growth.

Do you ever have the feeling that some years have gone by and somehow everything around you looks and feels the same?

It makes you wonder how things would be if you would do X?

But then you go back to your present moment and quit that thought?

This is more common than what many people think due to a simple fact: we are creatures of habit.

We get used to a specific routine, perform a certain way, and do particular tasks daily. We create in our mind a weekly structure on how our days will look like, typically from Monday through Friday. Once Friday knocks on our door, we know it’s time to have a break from our long week at work.

But why is it that this somehow became a film tape that starts rolling and replays similar chapters repeatedly?

Do we have a way out?

If so, how?

We all seem to know what personal growth is, but… how could we describe a general understanding of this?

What is Personal Growth?

Personal growth is known to focus on targeting an improvement in the quality of our lives. By seeking and applying a continuous learning process, it gives us a sense of purpose and fulfillment. It helps us achieve success according to our personal goals while also improving skills in the areas that we desire. It allows us to reach our next level and unlock our full potential. All of this is done through conscious changes in our habits, thinking, and actions.

The description explained above made it sound easy peasy, right?

Let’s proceed to what are the most common issues for people when it comes to applying this term.

Most common stumbling blocks in a personal growth process:

Self-doubt. Insecurities are part of everyone’s plate, and it’s completely normal to feel and experience them. Our mission is not let them manage our thoughts, decisions, and actions. This is due to the obtrusion that could result in the ideas you have for a better and brighter tomorrow.

Other people’s opinions. Some or too many people around you seem to “know it all”, or know what’s the right next step for you to take in life in order to get positive results. But, for some reason, you just don’t feel that “click” with the advice these people are giving you. You don’t seem to resonate with them, and, hand-in-hand with all of this, you are afraid to let them down. You feel confused and skeptical to speak your truth and your life desires, along with fear of judgment.

Comparison. Sometimes you tend to look at how others live, and, if you own a social media account, you tend to see the highlights others show to the world. It produces an uncomfortable result in the feelings you experience towards what others present and how you view your own life presentation.

Analysis paralysis = Action taking gets blocked. You have too many ideas. It almost feels like there’s a knot in the thoughts that focus on your ideas, holding you from taking action. You think about them a lot, you analyze them carefully. They all seem very appealing to you but that’s what it is for most days of your week: thinking about them for the most part and experiencing a hard time bringing them to life.

A mindset that’s more focused on present pleasures and less on long-term satisfaction. You like to have a fun time, you enjoy what life has to offer in the “now” moment. But, if you evaluate this on an imaginary balance scale it seems like there’s more predominance in the situations, events, feelings, actions, and results that reflect on the short term pleasure. Hence, it doesn’t contribute to your long-term goals. However, you are aware that there are different and more beneficial paths to reach your success.

Trouble formulating a goal, and/or a plan for it. You kind of know what you want. You feel there’s more to life, and you would love to experience that. Nevertheless, you don’t know when, where, and how to start.

Habits. Do you feel your sleeping hours are a little bit messy sometimes? As if you were not getting enough rest, therefore, your energy levels are not as optimal as you would want them to be? Do you feel you’re fueling your body with nutritious food? Has coffee become a way of escape from the un-rested days that demand a lot from you? Undoubtedly, many of our habits are key to our success, impacting the ways you manage your rest and also interfering in the overall ways you think and feel.

“It is never too late to be who you might have been.”
- George Eliot

Why and how should we consider personal growth a habit?

As human beings, we are considered creatures of habit. We manage to set certain routines and rituals that make up our day. Whether they point to a specific goal or not, our days are based on a set of habits that we’ve made up for ourselves in an intended or unintended way.

By considering the possibility of adding personal growth to our set of habits, we open ourselves a door that can set us up for success through specific actions, routines, and rituals that are planned to focus on the positive outcome that will help us reach a higher quality of life.

Basically, it’s a gift we give to ourselves.

Through the process of implementing personal growth as a habit, we allow ourselves to explore our interests, our desires, our skills, our knowledge. It empowers us to create a safe environment for our growth, judgment-free, adapting an exploratory point of view focused on curiosity, supporting us to learn from past experiences and create new exciting alternatives for our unlearning and new learning process.

Our past experiences have shaped the way we view ourselves, others, and our overall results in life. Through the incorporation of persistent dedication to our growth habits, we can modify the ways those past experiences have shaped, up to now, our way to view, feel, and be in the spaces we unfold ourselves.

Some questions to ask ourselves in order to answer our own “How” when it comes to considering personal growth a non-stop habit:
• If I could make a list of the things am I genuinely willing to do, in a persistent and committed way, that could bring positive results in the goal/s that I aim for, what would they be?
• Which skills do I currently have that could contribute to making my journey feel with ease?
• Are there any skills I would like to acquire that could contribute to the positive outcome of my goals?
• Which self-care activities would I enjoy as a way to reward myself every week?

Bear in mind that personal growth is a journey, it’s not static. It can be modified and exploratory. Our mission is to be present with ourselves, with our feelings, and the ways this journey is contributing to the way we feel with our goals.

What are the benefits of making personal growth a habit?

Self-exploratory experience. By focusing our mind on something we desire for ourselves, for our well-being, and for the improvement of our quality of life, we give ourselves the chance to explore our inner world in new ways that allow us to identify our limiting beliefs. We build our determination to choose, to be curious, and to expand the ways we feel, act and perform.

Self-esteem boost. Our self-confidence level raises, the perception we have towards ourselves and our surroundings improves. It enhances the benefits towards our well-being and performance. As a result, we find purpose and experience of fulfillment in our process and progress.

Better relationship with yourself and with others. We find ourselves in a more mindful standpoint that allows us to know what type of situations we want to take on, and, how we are willing to relate with ourselves and others. We develop healthy boundaries, resulting in an improved ability to develop and maintain relationships that result in beneficial interactions.

Clearer mind. Your thoughts become more clear on how your days should be, and the decisions that are more optimal for you to take. This occurs because you have an end goal that motivates you and helps you focus on the healthy options for your well-being.

Personal achievements. Noticing and acknowledging your progress will make you feel proud of the time you dedicated persistently to what you have set your mind to, marking a before and an after period, allowing you to experience ownership and empowerment.

Increased self awareness. Our thoughts, perception, interpretation, actions, and reactions become a set of mindful tools that target the way/s we respond to certain situations. Our level of awareness expands, allowing us to acknowledge the areas we would like to improve hand-in-hand with the acknowledgment of the progress we’ve already accomplished.

Temporal side effect from building a higher you:

At some point in your journey you may start to feel that “this” is not you, questions such as “who are you pretending to be?” may pop up in your head. Consequently, this temporal side effect for some ends up being a long-term side effect, because it ends up convincing.

This temporal side effect is known as Impostor Syndrome, and it acts like a mind bug that refuses to step out of its comfort zone. It can be loud and persistent. Fortunately, once a person is aware of its existence and possible visit, it becomes easier to manage and eventually remove the level of control it may have.

Imposter Syndrome was first identified by psychologists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes, in 1978, noting that people who experience Impostor Syndrome go through intense feelings that their achievements are undeserved, making them unable to internalize their success, pointing out characteristics such as fear of failure, fear and guilt about success, and denial of competence and discounting praise.

Questions we can ask ourselves whenever this mind bug knocks on our door:
• For how long would I be willing to let these thoughts dwell in my mind? (Personal Boundaries)
• What was it, specifically, that made me experience these thoughts? Where do I think the “why” comes from?
• Which action can I take today to make my mind feel empowered in the goal I’ve been working for?

Conclusion

Personal growth can be an enlightening experience, because it allows us to live a life beyond our own limiting beliefs. It can be challenging, yet the rewards we get from incorporating and exploring the areas we currently feel curious and excited about can be life-changing.

Personal growth invites us to view:
• Who, where, what, why, and how we were in the past;
• Who, where, what, why, and how we currently are; and,
• Who, where, what, why, and how we would like to be in the future.

Incorporating an exploratory, judgment-free point of view within ourselves can be the first step to move one step ahead from the limiting beliefs that have held us back from the things we internally desire.

So, if you could think for a minute about how your life would be if you’d allow yourself to break from your current routine and experience positive outcomes that build the life that you aspire to create… how would that look like?

- Lily