Making an Effective Plan for Your Personal Growth

Someone once wrote that the two most important days in your life are the day that you were born, and the day when you understand why. Having a sense of purpose is vital to being focused and moving toward a goal. Without a sense of what you’re doing and why, you can wind up meandering aimlessly in life and without the deep satisfaction that comes from living in line with your purpose.

Planning for effective personal growth is important for many reasons, including your overall sense of wellbeing. Change doesn’t happen by itself. You need to plan for it, otherwise you might find yourself swept away by the tides of circumstance. This article will walk you through why having a plan matters, and what that plan might look like for you.

The Value of Asking “Why?”

It’s possible to do amazing things that are remarkable in their own right, and yet to feel as though you haven’t accomplished much. That’s because when we don’t see ourselves as contributing to something bigger, whatever we do feels like simply going through the motions. You can deal with this by either changing your perspective on what you’re currently doing, or by finding something new to invest yourself in.

We are always moving and engaging in one activity or another. The important question to ask is where you’re going, and what all the activity you’re engaged in will amount to. We often don’t pause long enough to ask these crucial questions, and that for various reasons. But these questions need asking, and the answers may help you channel your growth towards goals that bring you a sense of satisfaction, meaning, and purpose.

If you’re in a situation where you’re experiencing huge financial and social pressures, though it might be the perfect time to ask yourself about personal plan, those pressures can make it hard to create space for such contemplation. It can also be hard to ask yourself why you’re doing what you’re doing if such a question is painful to explore for whatever reason.

Asking yourself that series of all-important questions such as, “How am I doing?”, “Where am I going?”, “What do I want for my life?”, and “Why am I here?” can help you immensely in discerning your purpose. It is important to determine whether what you’re doing currently is fulfilling your purpose. These questions can be uncomfortable, especially if they push you to make some hard, but necessary, changes in your life.

Different Areas of Personal Growth

As you consider the various dimensions of your personal growth plan, it may also be valuable to look at the various areas of personal growth you could focus on. These may tie in either directly or indirectly with what you would consider your purpose. For instance, you may consider it your purpose to be the best parent you can be to your kids, and your fitness goals can aid you in that by making you better able to play with your children.

Each of us will have areas of strengths and weaknesses, and these need to be sharpened or cultivated, depending on what we see as the priority. As you consider what your areas of personal growth are, you can decide if you want to focus for a season on building up certain strengths, or perhaps work on certain weaknesses that are affecting your bottom line.

Some examples of areas of personal growth that you might be looking into include the following:

• Growing in your ability to connect with others
• Being more hospitable and opening up your home and life more
• Being better able at expressing your needs to others
• Setting firm, healthy boundaries in your relationships and at work
• Growing in your knowledge of God and in your ability to apply it in everyday life
• Becoming physically healthier, whether that’s eating better, sleeping and resting more, or getting more exercise in.
• Developing a better work and life balance
• Having healthy mechanisms for coping with stress
• Becoming better able at engaging in and resolve conflict in healthy ways
• Creating opportunities for nurturing your friendships
• Developing a more assertive communication style
• Having hobbies to help you unwind and connect with others
• Becoming better at handling your finances
• Developing skills like learning a sport, a new language, how to cook, or how to code
• Reading more and creating more opportunities to grow and learn
• Developing a more expansive palate that embraces a wide range of cuisines
• Becoming better able at managing household responsibilities, like chores, budgeting, grocery shopping, keeping your home clean, and so on

There are many other areas of personal growth that you may be aware of and are not covered by this list. We each have things in our lives that stand out to us as worthy of pursuit, and areas of our own lives where we feel we need to grow. Hopefully, this list sparks your imagination and gets you thinking about the different ways you could be growing as a person.

Knowing your purpose matters because it helps you focus in on the things you should be doing, and not just the things that everyone else is doing. It also helps you to pursue things you care about, because you’ll have a better chance of sticking to your plan when things get hard along the way.

To create your own effective personal development plan, ask yourself a few of the key questions posed earlier. You can also ask yourself things such as what matters to you. If you could describe what you’re like in a perfect scenario, what would that look like? Asking these kinds of questions gets you to reflect on your values as well as the qualities you think are worth having and aspiring toward.

When you know what matters to you, and who you’d want to be, then ask some hard questions about whether your life currently reflects what matters to you, and if you’re displaying the qualities you’d like to be. If it isn’t, ask yourself why that is. It may be because it’s something new that you’re still learning, or perhaps there are other values that are influencing you and you possibly haven’t been totally honest with yourself about it.

Personal growth is about more than knowing what you need to do; that much is very valuable. However, it’s also knowing what some of your obstacles are, including some ingrained habits that stand in your way. You might want to become more hospitable, but you don’t like inviting people into a messy space. However, you don’t clean regularly, so you never quite feel ready to have people over. Something needs to give in this scenario.

When you know what areas of growth you want to pursue because they matter to you, and you know what some of the obstacles are to that growth, you can go about creating your plan. Start with small steps that, over time, will build toward your overall goal. If you want to run a marathon one day, you don’t start on day one by trying to run the full distance. You start with shorter runs, and you do that consistently over time until you are fit enough for your goal.

Starting small matters. If you set such a lofty goal that you fail horribly in your first attempt, you may shudder at the thought of trying again. Rather, start small, and work your way up slowly. Simply starting is itself a huge win, and the aim is to build consistent habits that. over time, get where you want to go. It also helps to have someone to keep you accountable, whether that’s a friend, or a life coach.

As you implement your plan, leave room to reevaluate everything, from your motivations, your goals, and the means you’re using to get there. Sometimes, when you’ve been on the journey for a while, you may become more aware of yourself, what you truly want, and why. Give yourself room to shift things around so that your plan works for you.

Ask for Help

If you are ready for this journey, but need help to get started, reach out. If you have started to reflect and find some deep habits or conflicts that are undermining your purpose and joy, consider asking a professional to help you. Contact our offices today to set up an appointment with a therapist to assist you on your journey to a more whole-hearted you!