Five Ways to Personalise Your Personal Growth Journey

Personal growth is that wondrous journey to exploring, developing and unleashing your full potential. 

Yet over the past few decades, this life journey has been hijacked. Personal growth has become a massive industry. Everyone’s jumping on the personal growth bandwagon to proselytise (and capitalise). 

From “how-to books”, to self-help gurus, yogic retreats and development workshops, it can be easy to flit from one idea to the next. It’s natural to feel inspired and motivated, but not actually make any lasting and continual changes. 

Because at the end of the day quick fix hacks and cookie-cutter approaches just don’t cut it. Self-growth is your own, individual, personal journey. And it takes a lot of time, energy, set-backs, and steps forward. 

So, let’s run through some ideas to personalise your personal growth journey. 

Personal Growth Tip #1 Know Thyself 

Old man Socrates was onto something here. And if you’re going to take self-explorative advice from anyone, it may as well be a philosopher. 

Awareness provides the key to personal growth. Taking the time to truly get to know yourself (the good, the bad and the ugly) is that first step to making meaningful life changes. 

So, take time out to reflect on your life; how you interact with others, your habits, fears, motivations and aspirations. You need to acknowledge and understand obstacles to change before you can overcome them. 

In short. Understanding who you are is that foundational first step to breaking old patterns, creating change and journeying down the road of personal growth. 

Personal Growth Tip #2 Learn, constantly

Learning comes hand in hand with growth, which makes the mentality of mastery a crucial ingredient for personal growth.

Now, there’s no end point to learning. The more you know, the more you realise you don’t know. Yet, one of the main reasons that people don’t realise their potential is that they don’t prioritise lifelong learning. 

So be curious and find opportunities to learn new things or develop new skills. It could be anything from travelling, reading a book, signing up to an online course, or gaining new skills and insights.  

Just like any other muscle in your body, lifelong learning is a habit that takes conscientious and sustained effort to develop. And it’s a sure-fire way to accelerate personal growth.

Personal Growth Tip #3 Pursue something creative

Deep down everyone has a creative side. Creativity can literally be applied to anything. It isn’t just an “arts and crafts” endeavour. Anything that requires you to innovate, problem solve, or adapt is creative. 

People who make time for creativity are more self-aware, better problem solvers and have more confidence. Key ingredients for personal evolution. 

So, find ways to unleash your creative side. It may be writing a story, taking up photography, brainstorming ideas, problem-solving, thinking up new practical jokes for the office… yes, that’s creative too.  

Because thinking outside the box paves the way for change. And change is the name of the personal development game, right? 

Personal Growth Tip #4 Prioritise your health

Prioritising your physical and mental health is what gives you the stamina to manage your goals. And the ability to pursue personal growth. 

And health doesn’t come prepackaged. There are early birds and night owls. There are people who love running, and those who physically, spiritually, mentally (and metaphorically) die from it. 

Prioritising your version of health comes down to a few very simple things like:

- Sleeping properly. 

- Hanging out and about in nature. 

 - Doing exercise that you enjoy and leaves you energised. 

- Choosing healthy foods, ditching the “diet mindset” and indulging a little. 

- Fostering positive relationships and cutting ties with toxic ones.

- Saying farewell to work environments that don’t serve you.  

-Look for ways to build your confidence in yourself and your abilities 

- Putting aside time to do the things you love.

- Making choices that are for (your and others’) greater good. Not evil. 

Personal Growth Tip #5 Re-prioritise your time 

Excuses are the enemy of personal growth. And time is usually the go-to scapegoat. “I don’t have time to self-reflect, I don’t have time to draw something for two minutes, I don’t have time to find a mentor and I certainly don’t have time to sleep”.

Everyone has time. You just need to change how you use it. Re-prioritising and managing your time is crucial for dodging personal growth procrastination. 

Instead of driving, commute so you can listen to that podcast. Exchange that hour of internet surfing for real, in the water, surfing. Exchange your lunch break Facebook binge for self-reflection journaling. Hit the snooze button one less time and spend those extra minutes practising mindfulness instead. 

Don’t let time rule you. You need to rule your time. This is an important shift in your personal growth journey. It’s where the tangible effort and results of personal development play out.  

Final Words

From self-discovery and knowledge uncovering to taking the time to re-prioritise your time and making a space for creativity and health, there are plenty of ways to personalise your personal growth journey. 

So look beyond the happiness industry, the "how-to-guides” and self-help proselytising, to find what truly sticks! Only you can know what your version of personal growth looks like!