7 PERSONAL GROWTH GOALS FOR A BETTER YOU

Here’s a fact: Your hair grows naturally but your personal growth doesn’t. It doesn’t happen naturally. Your hair and nails grow by themselves but personal growth does not. It requires intention and actions. These two go together because you may have all the intention to grow but without actionable steps, you won’t achieve anything. Intention is great but action is power. 

For you to achieve personal growth and better yourself, you need to be prepared to leave your comfort zone because there is no growth in your comfort zone. Be prepared to take risks, feel uncomfortable because in the same way there is no comfort in your growth zone. Your journey to personal development is innately uncomfortable. The first thing to start with is personal growth goals. When traveling, you can’t wander through a new place without a map and expect to reach your destination. You need guides and directions to lead you to your destination and goals are the best leads to know where you’re going. You can’t really grow unless you know what you want and where you are going. So find your passion and pursue it. Find your intention and motivation to take action.

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1. Get to know yourself and what you want

There is nothing more fulfilling than knowing yourself and what you want. It is when you are aware of your own emotions and understands your behavior patterns. Reflect on the things that make you happy and sad. Work on your flaws and shortcomings. Nowadays, self-care and self-reflection are highly valued. Gain greater self-knowledge and deepen your understandings of your habits. Are you happy with your current situation? Do you feel fulfilled and passionate? Now is the time to evaluate your dreams and values. Notice the things that excite you. 

The best way to get to know yourself is by journaling. Your notebooks aren’t just for taking notes, jotting random things that you never visit. Use it for the purpose of journaling and knowing yourself better. Capture your thoughts and emotions into paper. Dig into what you’re spending your time with and root out the things that aren’t serving you any value. By doing this, you’ll be able to process your thoughts and reflect on them. Get rid of the activities that don’t fulfill you and get rid of the things and people that don’t contribute to your personal growth. Review your year, month, and weeks. Make changes and continue the process of reflection and evaluation. If you prefer digital. Go ahead and visit 750words.com 

2. Learn how to gain confidence in yourself

Confidence is essential in your personal growth journey. Without confidence, you cannot make changes in your life. Lack of confidence cannot make you act the way you want. When you have feelings of doubt, you won’t make it to the place where you want to go. But how do we cultivate confidence? 

Start with being comfortable with what you lack. This sounds counterintuitive but hear me out. If you want to achieve success in life, you have to be comfortable with failure. If you want to be a great speaker, you have to accept that you will encounter embarrassing moments. If you want to be a great conversationalist, you have to be comfortable with awkward conversations. These discomforts build up and make you more confident. 

3. One of the best personal growth goals is to practice meditation 

Through meditation, the best skill you can cultivate is mindfulness. This is when you can emerge yourself fully in the present moment and not be overwhelmed with life stressors. When life gets hard and challenging, mindfulness allows you to observe without judgment and react with calm. There are a lot of benefits you can get from meditation. It can improve your creativity, decision-making, and productivity. It clears your mind of unhelpful assumptions and negative thoughts. It’s such a great way to replace negative thoughts with positive ones. Replace assumptions with new ideas and thoughts. And remember, when your brain is fed with new things, it begins to reach something greater and it motivates you to achieve more.

Are you hooked on this topic yet? You can think of meditation as a voice that manifests through your thoughts. I can only think of one person when it comes to meditation and mindfulness. Check out Rachael Kable’s blog. I’ve learned a lot from her. Since I discovered her platform, I took action steps to practice meditation and It made a huge impact on my personal growth. It made me more compassionate not only to myself but also towards others. I want the same for you. 

Here are some ideas you can try to start meditation

• Make yourself comfortable
• Start with short meditations and then add up gradually
• Use guided meditations like podcasts, audiobooks, and mindfulness apps
• Cut out all possible distractions (turn off your phone and TV)
• Experiment. Try different techniques and meditation places
• Reflect on your journey. Write about the things that went well and didn’t

Here are some ideas you can try to start practicing mindfulness

• Go for a walk 
• Read books and blogs. I read pushing20.com for inspiration
• Start something creative ( writing, painting, coloring books, cooking, etc.)
• Hike a mountain
• Visit new places and travel alone
• Visit cafes (this is my favorite) 
• Deep cleaning and organize 
• Listen to your favorite podcasts and music

4. Always cultivate a beginners mind

How do you approach challenging tasks? What’s your attitude when you are faced with life stressors? Do you fret? Do you feel like it’s almost impossible to surpass or overcome such big tasks? The secret to this is having a beginner’s mind. When you feel like an expert, each failure or fall will take a huge toll on you. When it comes to personal growth, cultivating a beginner’s mind will allow you to have the willingness to learn. Change your attitude toward challenging tasks. Approach problems with a complete beginner mind with a willingness to learn and openness to change. 

If your mind is empty…it is open to everything. In the beginner’s mind, there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few.”

~ Shunryu Suzuki

Setting the goal to approach things with a beginner’s mind teaches us to be lifelong learners. It opens us to fresh prospectives, free of expectations, and filled with curiosity. Eventually, it teaches us to be open and accepting of new possibilities. Thus, it leads us to achieve more and make ourselves better. Does this sound good to you? How do we cultivate a beginner’s mind? First, let go of your expectations and limit your judgments. How many times have you assumed things and turned out to be untrue? How many times have had high expectations and went home disappointed. It’s time to dress this. Fill your mind with curiosity and ask questions. Expand your imagination and ditch the feeling of being an expert. Detach yourself from feeling the expert. 

5. Work on your growth mindset

You can think of a growth mindset as a state of mind. When you enter a mindset, it’s a new world where you fill with anything you want. Either positivity or negativity. Growth or comfort. With these things, you can come up with two kinds of mindset; fixed and growth. With a growth mindset, you see challenges and obstacles as opportunities to learn and gain new skills. It is believing that you can make your dreams come true. You accept that failures are inevitable, and with a growth mindset, failures don’t keep you down. You bounce back once and you bounce back stronger. You acknowledge that you might not have the skills yet, you get back up and improve yourself. With the fixed mindset, on the other hand, you assume that your character and creativity are limited and that makes you stay in your comfort zone. You assume that you cannot change in a meaningful way. 

When you work on your growth mindset as a goal for personal growth, you thrive on challenges and stretch your existing abilities. Here’s a table of comparisons to understand how working on your growth mindset will make you a better person.

6. Love yourself more and fall in love with yourself again and again

Shower yourself with love and affirmations. Create powerful and meaningful mantras to remind yourself of how amazing you are. Develop a more loving relationship with yourself and become less afraid of the things you really want to do. How do you make choices in life? A common pattern that we get is we do what others tell us to do. We based our decisions on other people’s expectations and standards. We think of what we are “supposed to do” instead of “what we want to do” Well, here’s a fact: You are more than capable of ignoring the disapproval of others and prioritize yourself. Prioritize self-care and be your biggest fan. When you love yourself first, accept your imperfection sit would be easier not to get affected by people’s criticisms. 

Practice gratitude daily and learn how to forgive

Add value and growth to each day in your life by expressing gratitude and forgiveness. Make amends from your pasts and forgive yourself for not doing your best. Let go of your regrets and move forward. 

RELATED POST: HOW TO BE KINDER TO YOURSELF

7. Gain new deep and profound perspectives in life

You can gain new perspectives on living in a foreign country. You can gain new definitions of friendship and relationships by chatting with different types of people. By dating foreign people, you can realize how culturally different people are in expressing their love. You can gain new political views and opinions by observing how society works and functions in different countries. When you listen to older people’s experiences, you gain new priorities in life.

So I say, expose yourself to a new environment and new people to gain deep and profound perspectives. Expose yourself to a wider environment and a different worldview. Just remember to maintain an open mind. 

What does gaining new perspectives have to do with your personal growth? How it will make you a better person? Getting complacent with yourself prevents you from reaching your full potential. Getting comfortable with your zone will prevent you from growing. This is the same as having the same perspectives in life. It prevents you from discovering possibilities. 

MY ADVICE

Growth is slow and working on your personal development does not happen overnight. Growth is incremental. It involves small actions and efforts every day towards your goals and in pursuit of your ambition. 

01. You are the source of everything you do

Invest in yourself. Add value to yourself from the inside and not just from the outside. From friends to habits, to money, improve all aspects of your life toward a better and happier life. Add value from the clothes you pay for, hair appointments, or fancy laptops. Invest in healthy relationships and channel your money into activities that enrich your soul. Attend inspiring seminars, learn a new language, hire a life coach, learn something new every day, and do something that scares you once in a while. Make a priority to feed your inner life as much as you do to your outer.

02. Ask for help if you need to

Others have struggled before you. Other people have been on the journey you are taking now. Speak out about your dreams and ask for support. Surround yourself with people who are willing to help you and people who are as committed to personal growth as you are. Observe and study people who have achieved success. Ask people who are doing what you want.

CONCLUSION

Personal growth is always within your reach. You just need to have the intention and actions to reach it. Use these goals to achieve the growth you want for yourself. Be strategic and systematic to achieve your vision and remember to have a growth mindset. Everyone is capable of achieving a breakthrough. What differs you from people not achieving it is not handwork nor intelligence, it’s a mindset. Remember to be kinder to yourself and show yourself more appreciation and love. When you experience bad things, real change happens when you battle them with resilience. You can control how to react. Journal your thoughts to reflect and process them.