One of the terms that get thrown around a lot is “personal growth”. But what does it mean? What is it like to achieve personal growth and why is it so important? In this article, we shall tackle these questions and try to paint a clear yet concise picture of what personal growth is. But first, let us start by defining personal growth.
What is personal growth?
There is no single definition for personal growth. It can mean a lot of different things to different people. In general, however, it denotes some kind of improvement in yourself. You might improve your skills, or increase your knowledge, or have better character, life goals, or just a better outlook on life. The point of personal growth is to become a better person, whatever metrics you use to measure this betterness. When you are constantly seeking to improve yourself, whether you’re working on educating yourself, or controlling your anger, or being more mature, you are pursuing personal growth.
My journey of personal growth involved becoming better at writing. That’s an essay writer for you! However, the journey can be different for everyone. The point is to become better.
Why is it important?
So now that we know what this phenomenon is, why does it matter so much? Why is it important to our lives?
For starters, there is the intrinsic value in personal growth. You will gain new knowledge of yourself and the world and you will improve yourself as an individual. One of the side effects of seeking personal growth is that you will naturally stand out from the people around you.
Whenever you pursue personal growth as a goal, your desire to improve yourself reflects outwardly, and your personal qualities will be appreciated by others. These are qualities that can benefit you in your career and personal relationships.
The beauty of the concept of personal growth is that it doesn’t really matter where you’re at right now. What matters is that you have the desire to improve, which will push you well beyond your wildest imagination.
The state of self-improvement in the US
Self-improvement is big business in the United States, according to BrillAssignment. The industry collectively earned $9.9 billion in 2019 alone. That’s not a lot, though. The entertainment industry grosses over $60 billion and the beauty industry does over $200 billion a year. Americans are spending significantly more money on their appearance and entertainment than they are on improving themselves. This is no surprise in our modern society that is driven by instant gratification and appearances.
This article seeks to change that, and convince you that you should start pursuing a path of self-improvement. Here are 5 reasons why.
- You will have healthier relationships
Relationships are the bread and butter of life. You have a relationship with your spouse or significant other, your children, your family, your best friend, and even yourself. These relationships are what make life interesting, and no matter what you do, you cannot avoid interacting with others in some way.
Low-quality relationships lead to a low-quality life. Similarly, healthy relationships lead to a healthy and vibrant life, often with compounded benefits.
A good path of self-improvement is to learn the skills required to build good relationships. When you deliberately work on your interpersonal skills, you will have greater satisfaction in your relationships.
- You will have less stress
Stress is quite the killer. It can ruin your whole life and such the joy out of an otherwise sunny (literally and metaphorically) day. Given the negative impact of stress, anything that eliminates or even reduces it is worth looking into.
Personal growth will help you do that. When you practice certain personal growth strategies, such as mindfulness, you will be able to greatly reduce stress in your life. You will also have an easier time identifying sources of stress, managing them, and even eliminating them through deliberate action.
- You will have significantly better health
Once you have healthier relationships and reduced stress, improved health is a natural end-result. Health is inextricably linked to stress. When you are more stressed, you will have more disease. When you have healthier relationships, you are happier and experience more life satisfaction, which leads to less stress, which leads to a healthier life. Similarly, when you have the right techniques to manage stress, reduce it, or eliminate it altogether, you are going to have less of it in your life and you will overally be healthier.
Personal development teaches you all the right lessons and gives you all the right tools to do this. It helps you increase your self-awareness and understanding, as well as your awareness and understanding of the world around you. The more you know and understand, the better able you are to deal with whatever curve balls life might hurl at you.
People who seek personal growth are better able to deal with the challenges of life and have fewer lifestyle diseases. They also live longer.
- You will be more productive
The arch-nemesis of productivity is procrastination. Procrastination can cripple your drive and not only leave you with a large stress-inducing backlog of overdue work, but it can also leave you feeling negative after, even possibly leading to depression. The thing about procrastination, however, is that it almost always is a symptom, rather than a root cause, and is driven by far deeper emotions, such as impostor syndrome, fear, and even apathy toward the task to be done, especially if you’re not doing what you naturally love.
When you seek personal growth, you will get used into delving deep into your mind to figure out the root causes of your self-limiting habits and you will be more likely to solve those problems.
You will also be better able to delegate what you don’t love doing to those who enjoy it and are better at it. For example, if you prefer to spend your time researching literature, you can delegate your biology homework to those that offer professional writing services. This helps you focus on what matters to you.
Stress is also the enemy of productivity. When you’re stressed, you can feel bogged down by all the expectations weighing down on you. However, with personal development, your ability to manage stress and focus on the task at hand will increase. The end-result will be a soaring productivity. Whatever you do, personal growth can enable you to achieve the same exponential improvement.
- You will gain increased self-control
Self-control is the ability to regulate your own thoughts, emotions, and behavior and align them to your goals. Self-control is like a muscle, and it can be improved by working it out like a regular muscle.
When you set goals for your life, you can easily get derailed by your own impulses and habits, as well as powerful temptations along the way. By pursuing self-development, you will be able to discover your underlying beliefs and emotions and work on them, making it easier to control them and build the right habits to achieve your goals.
Conclusion
Self-growth is an important path, and while the industry is quite large, it could definitely be larger. The reasons above should hopefully convince you to pursue your own path of personal growth. When you come out the other side, you will be so much better as a person that you might not even be able to recognize yourself!
Author Bio
Jessica Chapman, a writing editor from Chicago working for Best Essay Writing Services. and alike company – Best Essay Writing Service UK. She is into sports and politics, and enjoys traveling.
- Photo Credit: Tima Miroshnichenko via Pexels WordPress
