The greatest desire of any human being is to get better in life. With the consistent approach for the better levels of self–knowledge, one can ensure the growth in every aspect of life. Personal growth is a never-ending journey.
What is Personal Growth?
The human quest for the best is well known and self-improvement attached in the human gene. Irrespective of how great one already is, there will be always something to learn and develop. The developments in the mental, physical, and spiritual field will definitely lead to a truly contented life.
The journey of personal growth is not so smooth. As individuals, we should decide where we want to take our lives. Even though many people want to grow, it is hard to stick on the path of growth. Some are able to live a committed life for personal growth while others fail to do so. In addition, in some cases even if the person wishes to be in the path of growth, they may find many obstacles in between like sickness, dullness, fatigue, and lack of interest, self-deception, and losing the qualities we already achieved.
There are many ways to the development of personal growth. They are by gaining more knowledge, traveling more, monitoring your time, prioritizing health, involving in creativity, assessing life in an honest manner, and concentrating on time management.
In a way the obstacles are fine, they test the endurance level of a person. For a strong person, the obstacles act as the catalysts to grow. On the way to success, many stages will come across; not all of them are roses and sunshine. The beauty of life comes in many strange ways. You should be prepared to accept them with an open and unbiased mind. The main stages are:
Stages Of Personal Growth:
1. The unawareness state:
When lives of people ruled by fear, lack of self-esteem, lack of personal fulfillment they take the least care about their personal growth. They may not even know that they are lacking that growth. These people never get long-lasting satisfaction, even if they achieve great goals.
2. Awareness of old habits:
Once the ignorance stage is crossed, individuals should find out the lack of dedicated time for personal growth. They will start realizing that many old habits were the hurdles in the path, like wasting time on low-quality T.V. shows, reading shallow books, unnecessarily spending too much time on work, etc. They take time to recognize the bad habits and by overcoming them, one can become a better person.
3. Ignore the false advice:
On the way to personal growth, many close friends or relatives will be there with too many devices. One should have the ability to discriminate things. The opinions of others will not do well to you always. You have your own ways and aims and try to follow those.
4. Making a commitment:
Once you are in the track of growth, you can make changes in your deeds. You may have to alter your systems of belief. The realization of the very little knowledge will help to boost your drive for knowledge hunt in all aspects. Spiritual literature will be good suggestions on these stages. They start exploring and for this, the necessary parameter is wise actions.
5. Reluctance:
After making commitments, to stay on the journey is a big challenge. The chances of the obstacles mentioned in the initial stage are prominent. There are situations where you are away from goals. However, if you are able to resist own will after succeeding in this test, your forward path will be easier.
6. The Judgemental stage:
The stage in which you may begin to feel allergic to anything seems superficial to you. You will begin to identify which is a good place to be in. You gain the capability to identify the right and wrong with your perspective.
7. Acceptance:
One is ready with their inner strength, which helps to keep going. New habits are developed and actions for growth are initiated. At this stage, the individual gains the capability to cross over obstacles. Ready to get over the judgemental mindset is a symbol of acceptance.
Personal Growth and Personal Development:
Though there may be an intervening of both the terms, there is a border between the two. In personal development, the specific aspects of an individual are considered. Therefore, the development of a certain thing is well planned and achieved. On the other hand, personal growth is a more generic process that monitors the total aspects of an individual. In order to judge personal growth, different values are considered. With the following examples, one can clearly understand what it means by personal growth.
- Learn to control anger
- Able to overcome laziness
- Becoming more polite and considerate
- Willing to change the mindset and becoming more positive.
- Developing into a more responsible person
The personal growth is an on-going process that starts from an early age, mostly shaped by teachers, society and the parents. For those who are not able to find the ways of growth, but are willing can seek the help of some professional bodies. There are ample courses offered in this field and personal growth counseling is the best.
Types of Personal Growth:
Below mentioned are the four major types of personal growths and there is no rule that one should follow the other. The growth may happen in any order. All the types of growth will be beneficial to us more or less, depending on whether one has to discover the new interests and redefine them, or simply ‘go deep with heads down’.
Each type will be helpful for the rediscovery of one. Once the individual identifies the personal growth type, perfect decisions are easy to make investing energy and time. So one can blend different types of growths or can switch between them with the apt awareness of the type, which you are following.
1. Open expansion:
Hearing the people from different areas and open to their ideas and working on different things and just taking out everything you can find. As if a new child for whom everything in the world is new and takes a new opportunity in anything, the person also will be in this stage. In this process, you are growing as a person but you are not necessarily moving in any direction.
2. Forward expansion:
In this category, you would be ready to listen to people but would concentrate development only in a particular direction. Still widening your horizon, but definitely moving in one direction.
3. Forward focus:
Once you discovered the area of interest, you will start focus on that area and would like to meet people in that area and develop the skills in that area alone. For example, if one individual is deep into spirituality, he will enjoy that atmosphere only and will find happiness amongst those kinds of people. Obviously, fast personal growth is possible in this process but only in a particular arena.
4. Narrow focus:
Even though you are moving forward in terms of personal growth, you are likely to reduce the distractions from the people. You will not be interested in meeting new people and will be focussing in your own work. The individual would lack interest in exploring new aspects.
Interesting Personal Growth Ideas:
It may find boring if the same routine has followed every day. You may feel like you are going with the wind. You can bring back the enthusiasm and excitement with shaking up the routines. Just welcome a positive change with the following great ideas.
Express yourself creatively:
Have you ever thought, what is the best way to express your authentic selves? It is none but creativity aligned with the values, talents, desires, and beliefs. Think about the best creative activity that excites you. Whatever it may be like painting, writing, cooking, try to spend time on that. Sometimes a pleasure trip can spark the creativity in you. Find your passion and go behind it.
Make a spiritual journey:
Different people got different meaning for spirituality. For some people, spirituality means merely a pilgrimage or holy place but some others practice meditations and yoga, read spiritual texts to stay on spiritual paths. Making the scripts of your spiritual journey will redeem yourself.
Select your values:
Select a virtue that can support your vision of life. Many values such as kindness, gratitude courage, determination, and integrity are inevitable for a successful life. You can spread those virtues to the surrounding people also. Values such as kindness will fill rejoice in the hearts of the beneficial and give satisfaction to the providers.
Stop resisting:
Whenever one is running away from an experience, it will keep popping up in their life. If your thoughts are focussed on the bitter sides, that will revolve around you in a magnified form. Try to approach the same with a positive attitude and lessen your resistance. Otherwise, personal growth will be stuck up in-between.
Practice self –love:
No other medicine can work as well as self-love for personal growth. By practicing this, we can make justice to our needs and wants by honoring ourselves. Self -love helps to boost confidence and self-respect. Hence, by continuous practice of self-love, the stress levels, personal happiness, and health are perfect.
Forgive and forget:
These are the success mantras for personal growth. The hardest and the most beneficial thing in life are forgiving. The one who is able to forget the past can fly the flags of success in the near future. Irrespective of the issue, the way to deal it would be the main parameter for satisfaction. The forgiveness lowers the blood pressure and relaxes the heart. These act as best medicines for anger, depression, and stress. It will lighten the mind with rays of hope.
Step out of the comfort zone:
It is time for new experimentations and challenges. Overcome the fears and shyness and open up to the world. Feel alive by increasing risk-taking abilities. Rewrite the definition of comfort and redefine the boundaries of the same. The after effects will be wonderful and joyous.
How To Achieve Personal Growth:
Each individual is a unique creation by God. Therefore, the methods good for someone will not work for others. Try to follow the given below activities to achieve personal growth in an efficient way.
- Plan Trips
- Make the focus on experiences and not things
- By not comparing with others, compare yourself to who you were yesterday
- Prepare smaller to do lists
- Depend on yourself and just accept the support of others
- Make a good friend circle.
- Wake up and go to bed at the same time as much as possible
- Get rid of venomous people
- Wake up early avoiding sleepless nights
- Regularise the bedtime and wake up time
- Do not compromise the exercises
- Follow a good diet scheme
- Include plenty of fresh water in the daily diet
- Reduce unwanted expenditures.
- Model the life stories of successful people.
- Reading makes a man perfect.
Final Words:
Personal growth helps in all areas of life. It means growing emotionally, mentally and becoming a considerate and more loving person. Being a course correction method dealing with negative habits and mistakes, is beneficial. Beginning of growth happens at that point when one starts to accept his own weakness. Through many techniques for personal growth, such as creative visualization, repeating affirmations, meditation and developing a positive mindset, one can achieve the ultimate success.
Successful personal growth requires a willingness to strive, strong desire to improve, and motivation. Sometimes you have to adjust with the uncomfortable situation for your own sake. Many books are available in the market, which deals with the ways of self-growth. One will never become what he wants by remaining what he is. Give enough love to yourself to create a conducive environment, which nourishes personal growth. Commit yourselves to make choices by cultivating vibrant surroundings. Let the world enjoy the greatest expression of your unique reason and charm.