We hear the term “personal growth” a lot in our lives. Questions on college applications sometimes ask “how did you grow from this” and lots of people have new year’s resolutions of work on “self-improvement,” but since it is subjective, it is often hard to rank your personal growth. Moreover, how do we grow? It’s just changing your whole outlook on life, right, can’t be that hard. 

The concept can be a little confusing and daunting, but a teacher I had last year shared their article called “Seven Tools for Personal Growth” that I really enjoyed and wanted to talk about in this blog post. The three that I think are the most interesting are seeking truth, “not doing,” and willing to be open. I’ll go into two of them today.

Seeking Truth

One of the claims my teacher brought up was the desire to develop a love of truth, looking past our brains’ automatic explanations for events to our perhaps repressed thoughts. It’s sort of a vulnerable idea, but the basis of this “tool” for personal growth is that sometimes we lie to ourselves in fear of our deeper feelings, and to acknowledge this is the first step towards growth. Once we acknowledge it, we can look past our “automatic response” to our true feelings.

Willing To Be Open

This is probably my favorite tool. The idea is that every moment in the day has the potential to provide meaning for you, captivate you, and cultivate you, if you let it. I find myself going through the motions a lot, and overlooking the little things that may bring me happiness if I am present to see it. It’s hard to stay in the moment and appreciate awareness, but when we do, every day holds the potential to provide us with a nurturing gift. What may stop us from doing this is getting caught up in the self-image or even what you believe others expect from you. To ignore this and be open to new images is to take a step towards growth. For me, I had an experience of this yesterday when some of my friends and I went to get our flu shots yesterday. What may be a boring hassle to some turned into a little bonding experience for us. We took my friend’s brother’s car to rite aid where we all lined up for our flu shots. Some of my friends have a fear of needles, so of course we held their hands while they got their shots. After that, we roamed around Rite Aid looking at the skincare and other things, then we went out to dinner. It’s the little things like driving with your friends that I miss while in college because we don’t have cars. I appreciate that little outing and just being with my new college friends doing something as simple as getting a flu shot, feeling like adults! Being willing to let yourself live in the moment and be nurtured by every moment is a big step towards personal growth.

These two things may sound simple and obvious, but sometimes it is the most simple things that we struggle to do!