Take a more nuanced approach to growing, learning, and living your best life by embracing a self-growth mindset.
Every January, the “fresh start” mentality inspires us to reignite our resolve to “do better.” But according to some estimates, less than 8 percent of Americans are able to reach their lofty resolutions, and our self-perceived “failures” often make us feel demoralized.
It’s a laudable goal to want to improve your life in some way, but if resolutions aren’t working, what can you aim for instead? Self-growth, many mental health experts suggest.
Read on to learn more about what this is, how it’s different from your “I’m really going to exercise this year!” resolution, and how to achieve self-growth that sticks.
What Is Self-Growth?
Self-growth involves developing ways to improve your overall well-being by fostering new attitudes, skills, behaviors, and ways of reacting to your environment, explains Gail Saltz, MD, clinical associate professor of psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City and the host of the How Can I Help? podcast from iHeartRadio.
Self-growth is committing yourself to goals that matter to you, says Sonia Jhas, a Toronto, Ontario–based mindset and wellness expert and author of I’ll Start Again Tomorrow (And Other Lies I’ve Told Myself). “That means nurturing behaviors, attitudes, beliefs, habits, and actions that align with how you want to feel as your authentic self.”
Self-growth is all about the journey, not the end result. “When you shift your focus to self-growth, you visualize your ideal life and commit to embodying that reality over time,” Jhas tells DailyOM. “By asking yourself what you really want and why you’re doing what you’re doing, you’ll achieve a sense of clarity and purpose that will help you take steps in the right direction and build positive momentum.”
Interested in learning more? Check out 7 Weeks to Self-Love
The Difference Between Self-Growth and a Resolution
Resolutions are now nearly synonymous with the “new year, new me” narrative that Jhas believes is just a thinly veiled feature of “hustle culture.”
“We set resolutions thinking that we’re going to change our lives overnight,” she says. (Everything will be different this time. Right?!) “Then, when that change doesn’t magically happen, we feel defeated.”
Resolutions are often empty statements — big, lofty, often unforgiving goals that we set without thinking about how we’re going to get there or why we’re even setting them in the first place. “Most people make a resolution to stop a certain habit or create a new habit. A resolution may be in the service of self-growth, but it’s typically one behavior or reaction,” Dr. Saltz says.
“When you put so much pressure on yourself to achieve perfection, you actually rob yourself of success.”
A more nuanced approach to achieving your hopes and dreams can work wonders not only for your development, but also how you care for yourself as you go about your life. With a rigid resolution, the moment the scale starts moving in the wrong direction, for instance, or you miss a day of your new hardcore workout routine, you’re “off plan,” and you can wind up feeling guilty or angry with yourself.
But if you let go of the need for perfection and the need for control, living your best life in a mostly positive direction, you will start to see real and lasting results in the area of self-growth by taking a big-picture, long-term view of your path. It’s a more compassionate and realistic way to take strides toward your best self.
How to Achieve Self-Growth
Here are three distinguishing factors that make self-growth different from that same-old resolution:
- A self-growth goal focuses on how you will exercise more (or save more or eat more healthfully), and why is that the aim.
- Self-growth is a feeling, not a number, object, or job. For instance, “I feel proud of the example I’m setting for my kids” or “I feel empowered to express my emotions to my partner so I don’t ruminate for a week.”
- Since it is a feeling, you can’t really be “off” track, and as a result, you can’t be a quitter or a failure.
That doesn’t mean you can’t have specific self-growth goals and guideposts to help you move toward that feeling. Just like negative habits can become routine, new and more positive ones can be integrated as part of your self-growth plan, so long as you target them appropriately, Jhas says.
When you’re seeking self-growth and setting self-growth goals, make sure they’re closely aligned with things that are most important to you. For optimal self-growth, think about how you want to feel — and the specific, measurable, and realistic steps that can get you there.
“If you’re not working toward goals that you actually care about, then you’ll just end up spinning around in circles, wondering if you’ll ever stop,” Jhas says.
Enjoy the Process — and Your Progress
Along the way, it will be vital to keep in mind that no one is perfect — and you don’t need to be either. In fact, this perfectionistic, extreme mindset is why so many resolutions don’t work. A key difference between a resolution and self-growth (and the self-growth goals that will help you get there) is a mental reframe. (It’s also why positive intentions and affirmations are far more powerful motivators than beating ourselves up for our self-perceived shortcomings and stumbles.)
“When you put so much pressure on yourself to achieve perfection, you actually rob yourself of success,” Jhas says. “By prioritizing progress over perfection, you’ll get better at riding the ups and downs, feel better in your own skin, and begin to achieve realistic, healthy self-growth goals that bring you joy” — that feeling we’re all aiming for.
“Chasing goals can be tricky,” Jhas admits. “It’s easy to get caught up in the ‘Once I get to the next goal, I’ll feel better’ mindset. It still happens to me when I lose sight of my purpose.” Jhas thought that hitting a million views for her TEDx talk would unlock some key to the next level of happiness, but realized that nothing felt different as the views went from 999,999 to 1 million. “It was just another piece of my journey and an experience to feel grateful for. This presented an opportunity to further refine where I want to go and who I want to be, and a moment to quietly sit back and say, ‘You know what? You did good.’”
Give yourself grace along the way and pepper in rewards to keep you motivated to move in a general positive trajectory. Self-growth is a practice, not a place. Slowly but surely, you’ll be unlocking more and more self-growth and finding joy in the journey.
