8 Habits You Need to Develop to Experience Continuous Growth in Life.
Avoid a Life of Stagnancy.
There is a deep satisfaction that comes from striving in life, achieving goals, and seeing the fruits of your work reflect in how your life improves. Having more resources at your disposal to provide more experiences for yourself and your family is definitely gratifying. It is also something that everyone should have the opportunity to have. However, it is very common to not exactly understand how we can apply ourselves in life in a way that allows us to create and take on opportunities that can improve our quality of life and make us better versions of ourselves.
Many times, people end up coasting through life. They work hard in their youth, find a lofty job, buy a house, start a family and then… they coast. They form the habit of remaining in a low-effort, low-risk lifestyle. The day-to-day tasks become mundane and they might even begin to ask themselves the deep philosophical question: is this all there is to life?
The reason many people experience an existential crisis when they feel they are remaining stagnant in life is because we feel most alive when we are intellectually stimulated. When we are able to apply ourselves to life and practice problem solving, goal pursuit and goal achievement this allows us to feel a continuous sense of accomplishment.
Although the safe and comfortable route is easiest, it will eventually feel unfulfilling and we’ll wonder if we are wasting our life away.
Focusing on continuous growth is important and should be a priority. Continuous growth can be experienced in our personal development, a hobby we pick up, in our relationships or in our careers. We can choose where we want to experience growth, although a commitment to continuous growth means that we should be growing in all facets of life.
One final note I want to make is that in order to experience continuous growth in life it is mainly your habits (behaviors) and mindset that you must focus on developing. You may have been dealt bad cards in life but that doesn’t mean that you can’t do more for yourself. You are not broken or destined to a mediocre life. Your thoughts and habits are what will create your reality.
Before continuing with this article, it is important to first make a mental shift into hope, possibilities, and open-mindedness. Once you have opened yourself to taking chances for a better future you will benefit much more from reading the tips in this article, and increase the likelihood of you applying them consistently.
The following 8 habits are ones that everyone and anyone can develop, no matter your race, financial income, or social status you can apply these habits to experience continuous growth in life.
Believe in Yourself.
It goes without saying that believing in your ability to up level in life and achieve goals is an important factor to continuous growth. If you do not believe in your ability to achieve more than you currently have, you will frequently find yourself discouraged and unmotivated to put in the work needed to make things a reality.
Believing in yourself is a skill that can be developed, and it best comes with practice.
Reflect on past occasions when you accomplished something that you felt was really challenging and that you may have felt anxiety and doubt around. Collect a few of those experiences and use that as proof that although goals may be hard, there is still hope for progress and achievement.
You CAN do hard things; you just need to give yourself the chance to do it.
Pursue the Things You Care About.
When setting yourself up to experience continuous growth it is important to use your interests as a compass for your goals.
If you allow yourself to be guided by what you truly care about in life, then you will feel more encouraged to play the long-game than if you were pursuing things out of social obligation or social pressure.
Developing the habit of pursuing goals that are deeply-rooted in your values and interests can give you the ammo you need to keep going during hard times. If your goals are based on things you care about, the impetus to achieve them will be even stronger.
Embrace Discomfort.
Something else you will experience while pursuing goals that require you to elevate yourself is discomfort. That discomfort is caused by fear and anxiety and these two emotions are completely normal to feel if you are doing something that is new and different.
Instead of shying away from this discomfort as if it were abnormal, or worse feeling shamed by it, shift your perspective to understanding that if you feel discomfort, it means you are heading in the right direction with your growth.
The more you are willing to embrace the feelings that cause you discomfort the faster you will be able to adapt to the experience and develop more as a person.
People who stay away from challenging and uncomfortable experiences usually stay stagnant in life. If you truly want to grow in life, then the discomfort you feel should be accepted as part of the process. Making steps to work through the discomfort is okay, just don’t allow it to deter you from your goals.
Increase Your Self-Awareness.
This an important detail that I believe is frequently overlooked. Many people go through life without an awareness around how they feel, what they want and what isn’t working anymore.
Making a habit of practicing self-awareness is important because it allows you to be more in tune with your emotions and thoughts. You will more easily know when it is time to make a change in life and which direction that might be for you.
Increasing your self-awareness will help you identify relationships that are unhealthy, when you have outgrown your current occupation, or if you are feeling unfulfilled with other things in your life.
If you are constantly self-analyzing, you most likely won’t allow things to go so far down the wrong path that you find yourself experiencing a crisis. Change and growth is normal in life, identify red flags when things in your life seem to not be trending in the right direction and take early action to remediate them.
Adopt a Growth Mindset.
Having a growth mindset in life is of utmost importance to experience continuous growth in life, among other things. Adopting a growth mindset allows you to discard thoughts that limit you, thoughts that tell you that where you are now is the best you can do, or that your skills and abilities are fixed.
A growth mindset was introduced by researcher and psychologist Carol Dweck, and it teaches that your abilities and skillsets can be developed and that you, essentially, can change. Just because you were always good with computers growing up doesn’t mean that is all you should do in life and just because you have been in one position for years doesn’t mean that you can’t aspire to get a promotion or pursue a different vocation altogether.
Having a growth mindset also promotes a healthier view of failure, as it does not consider failure to be a dead end, instead it is simply an event that presents you with data that you can use to build on what works or learn from what doesn’t.
Having a growth mindset removes self-imposed limitations and pre-conceived notions and is a crucial component to continuous growth in life.
Make Friends With People You Admire.
When it comes to personal growth, having a circle of friends or people in your corner that inspire, support and encourage you in your goals is key. It doesn’t have to be a lot of people, it only takes 1–2 people that you trust and who are constants in your life.
Look at the people that you interact with on a regular basis, do you have friends, family members or mentors that you admire and can learn from? Surround yourself more with them or people like them. If you don’t these positive influences in your life, now it the time to go out and find those people and nurture those relationships.
This is also important to note with people who may have the opposite effect in your life. Do you have people in your life that discourage you from your goals or are very pessimistic? How much time do you spend with these people? The energy that you surround yourself with will feed directly into your goals in life. It is okay to be selective regarding your circle of friends in life, in fact, it is necessary.
Have a Vision.
Having a vision will guide you and direct you in the direction you wish to go in life. What do you want out of your relationships? Your career? Your personal health and skills? Envisioning what that could look like and writing it down on paper helps to give you clarity as to what your ultimate goal is.
If you do not know where you want to end up then how will you know if you are going in the right direction? Take some time to reflect on where you currently are in different areas of your life and where you would like to be, envision yourself being in that position and think about how it would feel, what it would add to your life and how it aligns with your interests and values.
Working to keep this vision alive can be challenging at times but it’s an important part of staying focused on a clear outcome.
Have a Plan of Action.
Without having a plan, a lot of your aspirations might as well be day dreams. In order to cross the line from dreams to goals you need to come up with how you plan to achieve your aspirations. This will look different for everyone and will be based on your circumstances in life and the goal itself.
One thing I want to advise you on is that you avoid making your plan of action unrealistic. What does that mean? Let’s say you want to read more and you want to read faster. If you create a plan of action to read 30 pages a day, that might be an exciting plan because it is challenging, but is it realistic?
The problem with making a plan of action that requires you to take BIG steps right from the start is that they are harder to take and may lead you to being inconsistent and eventually stopping too early, before you get anywhere close to your vision.
Make your plan of action obtainable, start small. In the case of reading you can commit to reading for 10 minutes a day no matter how many pages you read. For exercise commit to 20 minutes a day. For career do a leadership training every other week. Then plan a next goal that is incrementally more challenging in the direction of your vision.
As you stay consistent you will begin to see progress and that itself will be motivating for you to stay the course. Focus on what you can sustain considering your life circumstances when creating your plan of action.
To Summarize
Desiring to experience continuous growth in life is a commitment to overall growth and development.
Regardless of your background, social status or personal circumstances, you too can experience the self-satisfaction that comes from applying yourself to life and creating new opportunities for yourself.
The habits and thoughts you nourish will create your reality, focus on these 8 habits to begin your journey towards life-long growth.
- Believe in yourself: the first step to growth and achievement is believing that you have what it takes to make your dreams a reality.
- Pursue the things you care about: allow your interests and passions to influence the goals you make, you will feel most strongly about goals you care about.
- Embrace discomfort: discomfort is normal in goal-pursuit, the more you stick with your goals the more you will adapt to discomfort and the easier it will become.
- Increase your self-awareness: develop the habit of being in-tune with your emotions and thoughts regarding things in your life. Don’t exist on autopilot.
- Adopt a growth mindset: understand that growing your skills and abilities is possible and you can do it. You are not limited to fixed personal traits, you CAN change and evolve.
- Make friends with people you admire: the people you keep closest will have a direct impact on your direction in life, choose wisely.
- Have a vision: having a clear vision on where you want to be eventually will be the lighthouse in times of hardship. Have a vision and stay focused.
- Have a plan of action: a goal without a plan is just a dream. Prioritize sustainable and manageable steps and work on being consistent.
