What is Personal Growth?

Personal Growth
Explore practical steps for personal growth, understand why finding a way that fits you and your unique needs is key.
Understand what is meant by personal growth, how to set goals and the benefit of self care and mindfulness for an holistic approach to growth.
*Affiliate Disclosure: Some links in this post may contain affiliate links. If you purchase something via the link, I may receive a small commission. This doesn't affect the price you pay.
If you have any questions, reach out for a chat [email protected] or check out my other blogs
Table of Contents
What is Personal Growth?
Personal growth refers to your own journey to improving yourself and your life. It can relate to your mental wellness, your career, learning, relationships, confidence and creating a balanced lifestyle.
When you make the decision to improve an aspect of yourself or your life, you are embracing personal growth. It's unique to you, and is something that can be difficult to define as it's something that evolves over time.
Personal growth for one person may look completely different to another, but they key is that what you are focusing on is improving and creating a more fulfilling and balanced life.
Benefits of Personal Growth
There are so many benefits of personal growth, and the beauty of it is, it doesn't need to be unattainable huge goals – a simple daily habit is personal growth if it brings a positive change to your life.
Some key benefits include:
Increased Self-Awareness:
Self-awareness is your superpower. Once you fully understand who you are, your values, beliefs, your triggers, the things that light you up, and your purpose… You have the ability to make changes.
As a therapist, self-awareness is a huge part of the personal growth work that I did during my training, and that I support my clients with today.
When you fully know yourself, including your strengths, weakness, values and beliefs, you can shape the world around you. You can make informed decisions about things without second guessing or doubting yourself.
You can focus on what truly matters, and identify the areas in your life that you want to change or improve.
Improved Mental Health
Personal growth involves working on your mental and emotional wellness. It involves getting to know yourself on a deeper level, and understanding your thoughts, feelings and behaviours.
As you begin to feel the changes, your motivation, self belief and confidence increase, helping to push your forward. There's nothing more rewarding than seeing those often intangible changes in other areas of your life.
As you focus more on self care, balanced living, and your mindset, you will in turn begin to feel capable of achieving all the goals! This confidence and inner belief can then help you face challenges that previously you may have avoided.
Learning to be more present, soaking up experiences and letting go of the hustle culture or the belief that your worth is based only upon your achievements, removes a tonne of pressure!
More Opportunities
As your resilience and self-belief grows, you will be able to see more possibilities in your world. Ideas or dreams that you were too afraid to take seriously, start to look achievable!
Once you are able to see that you are strong, capable and resilient, you are able to view these scary things in a more practical and solution focused way.
Self growth also helps you to feel fulfilled and satisfied with life. When you don't see as many blocks in front of you, it's easier to build a life that's much more aligned with your values and beliefs.
A Happier Life
A strong claim? That depends! When you focus and mindset is more positive and forward thinking, you will also naturally feel better inside.
Think about a time that you had a seriously bad start to the day. Running late, you're stressed, the children feel it too and play up. You rsuh out the door forgetting your coffee. You drop the children off and set off for work only to be confronted by every slow driver possible.
By the time you get to work you're done. The day continues on this path, feeling like the whole entire world has an agenda to piss you off. Things don't go well and you're emotional and exhausted.
Feel that stress and raising anxiety in your body when you think about a time this level of pressure dictated your feelings and reactions, and ultimately influenced your whole day.
With personal growth, learning different ways to manage and respond through things like self-care, mindfulness, journaling etc. As a happier person, that ability to think clearly (which is impossible once you're too stressed), gets you through the door in a totally different mindset.
That slow traffic – you don't notice it because you're not fixated on everyone doing their best to hold you up! Being able to respond better to situations is just one of the things that personal growth can help with.
Your communication with others will improve, which in turn improves your relationships. The positive energy is contagious, and seeps into your life.
Practical Ideas for Personal Growth
How you approach personal growth will be individual to yourself and your circumstances. For some, self growth is about learning more, so creating a plan to access that learning is where you can begin.
Identify Your Goals
To begin with you need to identify your personal growth goals. There are a few ways you can do this:
SMART GOALS – Specific, Measureable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. SMART goals helps with being clear on what exactly you need to do. They are achievable and relevant to the changes you want to make, and measurable so that you can track them.
When you add a deadline to your goals it can help with staying focused and motivated. SMART goals are great for things like weight loss, improved fitness, business related goals.
PACT GOALS – Purposeful, Actionable, Continuous, and Trackable. PACT goals are great for personal growth goals. They need to be meaningful to you – think about the reason why you want to make those changes. When you make the goals actionable, you break them down into less daunting micro goals. this helps remove overwhelm and keep your focus on the next step rather than the entire staircase.
The daily habits are key in achieving long lasting change. The continuous work towards your goals allows momentum to build. If you commit to a daily walk or daily journaling, its doing these things that will help you to keep moving forward. Your goals also need to be trackable – when you can see progress it is a huge motivator.
Many goals aren't tangible, it helps you to see that change is still happening – which is great for those low energy days and those times you don't feel like you're achieving much at all.
Continuous Learning
If you're reading this, the likelihood is you are a fellow lifelong learner. Whether that's formal qualifications or CPD / self development, being a lifelong learner is essential for personal growth.
With the online world and development of tech, learning has never been more accessible. There are a trove of online courses, free workshops that are aimed at a whole range of topics.
Podcasts are another brilliant tool, with my favourite being Mel Robbins. The majority of the podcasts are free to listen to, and can help you on your personal growth journey. Others include Steven Bartlett (Diary of a CEO), Gabby Bernstein Roxie Nafousi and many more!
Find your favourite way to learn and do a little research. YouTube is another great resource, with many coaches, professionals and trainers providing free learning videos that you can access through your phone!
Self Care Ideas
Self care is all about taking the time you need to bring balance into your life. This could be booking a morning off work and using it to relax, read a book, declutter or take a walk.
Self care doesn't need to be grand – it doesn't mean you need to book into a spa (although if you want to – go for it!!), it's taking care of you.
Planning in more rest breaks, drinking enough water, getting an early night or starting a new morning routine to support a positive start to your day.
If mindfulness and meditation are things you would love to explore, there are lots of free meditations available via Youtube, or Apple Music / SPotify etc.
If meditation is a goal, it's also worth checking out different apps like Calm or Insight Timer. Insight timer has plenty of free meditations, but also offer an annual plus membership.
Journaling is another brilliant way to practice self care. It's also a useful tool when you're working towards any of your goals. Giving yourself the time and space to empty your mind helps you stay focused and clear.
These activities are a great way to keep yourself grounded when faced with challenges, or day to day tasks. They help you develop a sense of calm, enabling you to handle everyday stresses and pressure with more ease.
Connection With Others
It's easy to forget about the power of connection. But, when you surround yourself with others who have similar dreams and goals, it can do wonders for your focus and motivation.
Accountability groups, support networks, or working with a mentor can help you achieve your goals with much more ease through their encouragement and support.
I worked with a coach for weight loss and fitness goals last year, and I found the support immeasurable. Due to health issues, and life challenges, I was able to remain focused and hit my targets by the summer.
I also work closely with a group of women who are like me creating a brand of journals and planners. The support is unmatched when you can talk to someone about what you're experiencing and they just get it.
As a therapist and specialist mental health mentor, I also understand the power of being able to offload. If mental health is a goal and you are able to, seeking therapy can be a powerful and transformative experience.
If you prefer in person communities, search your local area. There may be co working circles, wellness groups or others who meet to work towards their own goals.
A community where others have a shared goal can be great for accountability, motivation and encouragement. They can be a way to create close connections with others, or open up opportunities for networking if your goals are related to your business or career.
Tracking and Self Reflection
When you monitor your progress, you can celebrate your achievements, identify areas for improvement, and stay motivated along the way.
Journaling, tracking apps and regular self assessments are all good ways you can stay on top of your progress.
When you reflect frequently you can easily identify things that may need tweaking or changing completely. You can reflect on things you need to improve, or discover patterns that you weren't aware of.
Journals with guided reflections are great for prompting you to reflect on how you have overcome difficulties, faced challenges as well as paying attention to how you have felt across the week or month.
Tools, Resources & Support
Below are some of my favourite tools and resources:
Thought-Shifting Mini Journal – CBT-Based Thought Shifting Activities + mini journal with prompts
Mindset & Wellness Worksheet Bundle – A set of worksheets and activities to help you improve your confidence and sense of wellbeing. A great selection of printable mental health & therapy & coaching tools for personal use, or to use with clients.
Canva Pro – Upgrade your content design with Canva Pro. Explore the enhanced features available in Pro. Grab your free trial here.
Etsy – Are you ready to create your own online store? Etsy is a brilliant shopping platform that's used by millions. Setting up your store is simple, and when you sign up with this link we both get 40 free listings!
Sunsama – Sunsama is a brilliant project management and scheduling tool for simplifying and managing your daily routine. It's great for neurodiverse entrepreneurs who feel overwhelmed with managing tasks.
Final Thoughts
Personal growth is just that – personal to you. While many will have similar goals, the pathway to that goal will be unique to you and your current reality.
Personal growth is something that you can start at any time. It's your goal, and you can choose the level of time and commitment that you are able to give it.
Whether you are focusing on your career, business, health or mental wellbeing, it's not too late to start.
There are so many free resources available to you, so don't let the thought of high priced coaches or courses put you off.
Working on yourself to improve your overall experience in day to day life is a continual process, but the reward of living a more fulfilled life is something great to aim for.
Remember to start small, let it be as easy as possible until you get into a rhythm – and always track your progress – especially when your progress isn't easy to see when you're in the middle of it!
What does Personal Growth mean to you?
I'd love to hear from you – just pop your details below the images
If this post helped or you enjoyed reading it, please share one of the images below as it really helps my blog – Thank You!



Meet Lynsey

Hey there! I'm Lynsey, a coach, counsellor, and mentor for low energy, introverted or low confident female coaches & small business owners. With over 5 years’ experience of running businesses, and over a decade as a tutor and trainer, I've learned the value of effective time management that energises you through working with your energy.
I've lived with chronic illness – ME/CFS since 2011 and since then I re-trained as a counsellor, and achieved a distinction for my MA in Counselling and Psychotherapy Practice; all while running 4 businesses! I want that for you as well & it is possible with the right support and pathway to success.
Improving your mindset, finding acceptance and developing a solution-focused approach to achieving your goals is my passion. Blending mental health support where needed, as well as a supportive space and methods to manage your work more effectively.
If you'd like to know more about working with me, you can email [email protected] or find me on socials (links in the menu)
Have you seen my online store Shop.QuietlyConquer? Find DFY templates, downloads & more!