Grow Yourself
Step two in the growth journey
Hopefully you read the post on knowing yourself, and you are ready to grow yourself! It’s time to start matching your outside actions with your inside values.
Most people have played the ‘memory’ game, where you flip over two cards and try to match the pictures. You have to remember what the pictures were on the cards that were previously flipped over so you can make a match to it later. That is like what we are trying to do here. For every characteristic you have decided to work on, we need to find the appropriately matching action or reaction.
How do we know what action or reaction best matches our values? We are so glad you asked! Just like in the memory game, we should be searching for it. When you start looking, answers find their way to you. Read new books or articles that you normally would not seek out, listen to different podcasts, journal (we are big on writing out the definitions for the value you would like to grow AND the definition of its opposite), search for signs in the songs playing in the grocery store. These are all ways truth can find you. Be open to it.
Try out different responses and personality types to see if any of them feel like they fit YOU right. Not everything will match well, or even go well, but that’s ok. Eventually something will resonate in your soul so strongly that it’s obvious this is who YOU were meant to be.
Using the questions from the last post as examples, let’s say a weakness of yours is patience. Ok, have you defined it? Journaled about what it means to you and why it’s important? Can you picture how you want to act it out in real life? Perfect. With all that knowledge in your mind, look for the chance to grow at it. And when it comes, try to react how you picture the best version of yourself would handle it. Most likely it will not take long before you are confronted with an opportunity to practice it. You may nail it. You may botch it. Either way you are growing because you learned something from the experience!
Want to be more bold? What does bold mean to you? Why is it important to you? How do you picture yourself acting it out? Keep reminding yourself of this and be ready. You heard a person on a podcast say that they didn’t want to worry so much about what other people think about them and they wore a crazy outfit to desensitize themselves and that resonated with you? Maybe you should do something similar.
Want to be less critical? What does being critical mean to you? What is the opposite of being less critical? Rehearse all these things in your mind and then maybe purpose to say as many genuinely nice things to people as you can for a week.
Want to be more playful? What exactly does that mean to you and why do you feel like it’s an important thing to add to your life? How do you picture yourself acting it out? Then try things out. Do you need to sing as loud as you can in the car with the windows down? Play outside next time it rains? Watch kids at a playground to remind yourself what play is? We get that, but please don’t be creepy 😊
Start with knowing how you want to change. Like really understanding the goal. Don’t be vague. Then try new actions, and new reactions, and keep track of how it feels deep down. Growth is as uncomfortable as it is exciting. Don’t give up if something feels weird. We are fans of weird around here! Keep going and practicing until the value you want to exhibit starts to feel like a natural extension of you.
Join us with the next post about the benefits that come from knowing yourself and growing yourself. Truly loving yourself and your life is one of the greatest gifts you can give to yourself.
And please share with us where you are on this journey in the comments. Or let us know the craziest place you have learned a truth from. We love hearing from you!
Share your wins
What are you doing to know yourself, grow yourself, and love yourself? We love hearing from not only readers of our books but also from anyone striving to grow in life. Drop us a line!