Personal growth is a lifelong journey. It shouldn’t stop the minute we leave school. There’s also a wealth of advice that can contribute to our development and wellbeing, and this article hopes to show the best personal growth advice in the world.
What Do I Mean By Personal Growth
According to van Woerkom and Meyers (2019), personal growth is an essential personal need, which I agree with, but it also doesn’t add to the understanding of what personal growth is. For that, we turn to Maurer, Maurer, Hoff, and Daukantaitė (2023) and the Personal Growth Process model.
In this model, personal growth is explained as a sociocognitive embodied process whereby someone undergoes several mental shifts that make up an ongoing, fluctuating process over the long term, starting from a place of perceived psychological safety. And by long term, I would argue it’s a lifelong process. I’d also argue that we don’t always have to perceive that we’re in psychological safety for growth, either. But it certainly helps if we are.
The growth process involved in this is an openness towards experiencing, openness to change, existential courage, self-awareness, autonomy/internal locus of control, taking responsibility for the self and others, self-compassion, and kindness towards others.
Hopefully, The Best Personal Growth Advice In The World
Self-reflection
Self-awareness is crucial for personal growth. So, what better way to become more self-aware and to aid with our personal growth than engaging in self-reflection? To do this, all we need to do is take time to reflect on ourselves, our values, and our goals.
It can also help to regularly assess our strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement, and one of the best ways to do this is to make it a journaling prompt. Reflecting on our experiences and learning from them helps us make better choices and grow as people. This is often a feature in mental health and substance dependence recovery, because there’s always the risk of a lapse.
It can also be useful to perform a self-audit. This can help us understand if we’re living our life, or a life that someone else has given us. This is because selfhood is important.
Embrace continuous learning
As a therapist, Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is part of best practice. But even before becoming a therapist, I always knew the importance of continuous learning. I grew up in the 80s and 90s, so a lot of what I learned is either useless or I’ve forgotten it. But I also have a drive to understand the universe and people better, so I’ve always nurtured that curiosity.
To get the most out of personal growth, we can benefit from staying open to learning new things and acquiring knowledge. Therefore, we should seek opportunities for personal and professional growth through reading books, taking courses, attending workshops, or engaging in online learning platforms.
Embrace a growth mindset, as it allows us to adapt, acquire new skills, and expand our horizons. It can also be really good for developing our problem-solving skills and aid in improving our resilience.
Set meaningful goals
As humans, we often benefit from having a direction and meaning/purpose in our lives. Thus, we can benefit from establishing clear and meaningful goals that align with our values and aspirations. Setting goals provides direction and motivation for personal growth. This works because having a goal can become a motivational factor. Without a goal, our motivation might not kick in at all.
Developing goals based on the SMART goals model can be really helpful, ensuring that our goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. This allows us to break them down into smaller, actionable steps to make progress. You can find a free SMART goals worksheet by checking out my article on SMART goals by clicking here.
Practice self-care
Self-care often goes out the window pretty fast, especially if we have children. But self-care is also important because who else will take care of our physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing needs if we don’t?
Therefore, we need to prioritise self-care activities that promote relaxation, stress reduction, and overall wellness. This includes getting enough sleep, exercising regularly (even walking a few times a week can make a difference), eating a balanced diet, practising mindfulness or meditation, and engaging in activities that bring us joy. It’s always a good idea to have at least one hobby or interest to pursue, as that’s one of the best ways to help us feel happy.
Cultivate resilience
Life is full of ups and downs, and building resilience is essential for personal growth. But so is understanding that resilience isn’t an unbreakable shield, because it’s not a matter of if, but when, when it comes to being able to manage the stresses of life.
Embrace challenges as opportunities for growth, learn from failures/mistakes/setbacks, and understand that, as living beings, we all have limits; when that limit is reached, we need to allow ourselves time to recover. Thus, develop coping strategies, such as reframing negative thoughts, seeking support from others, working on improving negative core beliefs, and practising self-compassion.
Foster healthy relationships
We can all benefit from having a good social support network. Thus, we gain a lot from surrounding ourselves with positive and supportive people who encourage our personal growth. Nurture meaningful relationships and invest time in building connections with the right family, friends, mentors, or like-minded people.
Healthy relationships provide a sense of belonging, support, and inspiration. Unhealthy relationships will do the opposite, and sometimes we need to reflect on those relationships and make tough calls on how much of a presence they’ll have in our lives.
Step outside our comfort zone
A lot of our issues come down to one thing: an unwillingness to leave our comfort zone. A lot of my issues over the decades can be traced back to this. Growth often happens when we step outside our comfort zone.
Therefore, challenging ourselves to take on new experiences, try new activities, and face our fears can be great for our mental wellbeing and personal growth. That’s because pushing beyond our limits helps us develop new skills, gain confidence, and discover our true potential.
Therapeutic approaches like exposure therapy take this getting out of our comfort zone to its logical extremes to turn our fears into bearable progressive steps that help us to master our fears.
Summary
Personal growth is a unique and individual journey because we’re not carbon copies of each other. It’s also a journey that we should be on our whole lives because life events come with the potential for growth. Thus, what works for one person may not work for another. It’s important to explore different strategies, adapt them to our circumstances, and find what resonates with us. As such, you may create your own best personal growth advice.
As always, leave your feedback in the comments section below. Also, please share your experiences with personal growth in the comments section below as well. Don’t forget, if you want to stay up-to-date with my blog, you can sign up for my newsletter below. Alternatively, click the red bell icon in the bottom right corner to get push notifications for new articles.
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Refereneces
Maurer, M. M., Maurer, J., Hoff, E., & Daukantaitė, D. (2023). What is the process of personal growth? Introducing the personal growth process model. New Ideas in Psychology, 70, 101024. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0732118X2300017X.
van Woerkom, M., & Meyers, M. C. (2019). Strengthening personal growth: The effects of a strengths intervention on personal growth initiative. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 92(1), 98-121. Retrieved from https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/joop.12240.