Written by: Morgan Liptak, MAS, LAMFT
If you’re anything like the rest of us, you probably read countless motivational quotes as you scroll through social media, see self-help books on every shelf, and hear the words mental health time and time again. While society may always have been aware of the importance of self-exploration and personal growth, it seems to be increasingly pushed on us from every direction in recent years. And don’t get me wrong, personal growth is a positive thing, but do you continuously read quotes like these ones below without any context or actual steps to help you out?
“Imagine if you were as committed to your goals as you were to your excuses”
“Always do your best. What you plant now, you will harvest later.”
“You are capable of amazing things”
“Each new day is another chance to change your life”
“What’s yours will find you”
If you do, you’re not alone! Let’s talk about some ways to start exploring personal growth in an attainable way. Instead of working to improve everything about yourself all at once and picking out every possible weakness (spoiler alert: you aren’t full of them!), it can be best to just focus on one area you want to improve at a time. Working on yourself can be an ongoing process and certainly isn’t always linear. However, it can be so rewarding, and it is never too early to start. Here are a couple areas I encourage you to explore.
Self-Discovery
In order to grow, it’s important to spend some time exploring who and where you currently are. Everyone has a combination of personality traits, values, passions, and beliefs that make them who they are, and it takes some time and work to reflect on what all of yours are. This reflection increases self-awareness and your ability to live as your authentic self. Some questions you might ask yourself are: How would you describe yourself? What are you passionate about? What are you most grateful for? What is most important to you? What achievements do you most care about? What is your ideal self? What are the biggest things you’ve learned so far in life?
Self-Esteem
A struggle with confidence can be one of the biggest hurdles in one’s personal growth journey. It’s so normal to compare yourself to others, focus on all their strengths, and ultimately make you not feel like the best version of yourself. In order to improve self-esteem, start taking steps to create a mental distinction between you and everyone else and remind yourself that no one person is the same (and that’s a good thing!). Identify your strengths and begin to admire yourself for each and every one of them. When you do this, you can use those strengths to accomplish the goals you set.
Create Your Vision & Set Goals
Okay, so we explored who we are and we’re working on being patient and kind to ourselves. This is no easy task and something huge to be proud of. When you’re ready to continue your journey for personal growth and keep moving forward, only you can create your vision of what you want that to look like. A vision board is a fun way to gain clarity about your passions and dreams and a great start to actually making them a reality. This might look like a combination of pictures and text cutouts from magazines, printed from the internet, or maybe even drawn yourself all put together on a poster board (or your choice of background). The law of attraction tells us that continuously looking at all your goals and dreams in a visual manner motivates you to do what’s necessary to reach those goals. Get creative with it!
Personal growth is a balance between exploring, understanding, and loving yourself as well as pushing yourself to reach your highest potential. I think a lot of people get caught up in the “expected timelines” of achieving the same things as others or feel like they aren’t doing enough. When this is your motivation to create goals and push as hard as you can, it makes it so much harder to actually know what you want and why you want it. I recommend taking a step back and really doing the work on yourself if you want to feel good about what you’re doing and reach your goals. I mean it is called personal growth, isn’t it?
*************************************************************************************************************
Morgan is a Licensed Associate Marriage and Family Therapist who earned her master’s degree in Marriage and Family Therapy from Arizona State University. She specializes in working with children, teens, and families struggling with anxiety, depression, disruptive behaviors, self-esteem, life transitions, trauma, and the parent-child relationship.