Written by: Dr. Mykim Tran, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Personal growth is one key component to helping you reach your full potential. Contemporary psychology has revealed that as human beings, the desire for personal growth is one of the strongest desires. According to Abraham Maslow, one of the founding fathers of humanistic psychology, individuals who use personal growth to reach their full potential tend to be at the highest level of human life.
What is personal growth?
There are different ways to define personal growth. In the Handbook of Humanistic Psychology: Theory, Research, and Practice, personal growth is described as a continuous journey of self-discovery, self-improvement, and self-realization filled with happiness, creativity, and fulfillment. Personal growth is about developing the whole person or self that makes individuals human, the physical, the emotional, the intellectual, and the spiritual. Personal growth can also develop from individuals making choices, planning their lives, and interpreting and giving meaning to events, situations, and experiences.
Personal growth can be simply explained by breaking the two words apart. First, personal means you, and growth means learning and growing. If you combine the two definitions, you get learning and grow yourself. Every time you learn and grow to become a better, stronger, and happier person, that is personal growth.
Why is personal growth important?
Personal growth will help you be more comfortable with yourself because you will better understand who you are. You will be able to discover and use your strengths and talents to become the person you are meant to be and to create meaning and purpose out of them. You are on a path to creating a legacy you can be proud of.
You see yourself more accurately and develop a more stable personality. You know what you want out of life. You become more creative in seeking out and taking advantage of opportunities and resources to make your life successful for your career, relationships, and health.
You develop a sense of what is intrinsically important over time to help align with your life purpose. You can make great decisions, set healthy boundaries, and clear targets to guide you to achieve successful outcomes. You can assess and accept what is real in both their external and internal worlds. Therefore, you can set better goals to help you reach your full potential more quickly than individuals who do not understand themselves.
With the knowledge, skills, and strength you gain from personal growth, you can effectively tolerate uncertainty and overcome stressors and setbacks. For instance, you can manage your emotions successfully when you make a mistake. You can normalize feedback, highlight your personal growth experience and build trust in the process of changing.
Applications for personal growth
Nourish your body, mind, and spirit
Your body, mind, and spirit are a part of you. You must nourish them daily to develop yourself. To nourish your body, improve your eating, exercising, and sleeping habits. To nourish your mind, improve your self-confidence, self-esteem, courage, intelligence, and stress management skill. To nourish your spirit, strengthen your kindness, compassion, appreciation, and forgiveness.
Career and relationships
Learn new skills to become more productive in your work and career. Improve your communication and confidence skills to improve your relationships with your family, friends, co-workers, acquaintances, or whoever is in your life.
Read different subjects
Learn from different fields, such as health, psychology, education, law, medicine, technology, mathematics, chemistry, etc. Learn from different cultures. The more you know the more you grow.
Try a new hobby or activity
Try a new cooking recipe. Play a new instrument. Create a new exercise routine. Learn a new language. There are countless new skills you can learn to develop yourself.
Learn from your failures
Learn new knowledge and skills so you won’t repeat the same mistakes. The more you overcome your mistakes the more you grow.
Taking personal responsibility
Whatever outcome you have in your life, see where your strengths and weaknesses are and try to improve them for better future results.
Using resources
Do not be afraid to use external resources and seek help to learn and develop yourself.
Personal growth in small daily steps
Drink one more cup of water
Eat one more serving of vegetable or fruit
Exercise for 10 minutes
Read a new book to improve your mindset
Read 3 pages of a personal growth book
Watch a 5-minute video on personal growth
Talk to a new person or build a new relationship
Forgive yourself or another person this week
Try a new recipe or activity this week
Listen to a podcast to improve your relationships
And many more
Personal growth is a journey, not a destination
Successful personal growth is not about taking big steps and getting big results once in a while, but it is about improving yourself a little bit daily. If you are genuinely on a personal growth journey, you will never run out of ways to improve yourself. At any moment you say to yourself that you ran out of ways to improve yourself, then it means you are not truly on a journey of personal growth. No matter how great of a result you have, there will always be something that you can learn and develop to have a better outcome. There is no destination for personal growth.
Dr. Mykim Tran, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Dr. Mykim Tran is an expert in humanistic psychology. She is a keynote speaker, educator, life coach, author, and scientist. She is on a mission to help individuals create a powerful legacy that will carry on for eternity. In the process, individuals will transform into the best version of themselves and reach their full potential. Dr. Tran is the founder and CEO of Wake-Up Foundation, a non-profit agency, transforming individuals into social change agents to promote stronger communities. She received her bachelor's degree in Media Communications from the California State University of Sacramento, her master's degree in Psychology at Walden University, and her PhD in Humanistic Psychology at Saybrook University
