9 Principles of Personal Growth
“How to become better each day and grow to the best of your potential”
Do you want to be better at what you do?
If the answers to this questions is Yes then you should read on.
First of all, Congratulations! The fact that you have this self-realization is itself a big win. When you start looking for answers, you are already on the path towards personal growth. Diagnosis of the underlying root cause is the next step. You need to start asking probing questions to yourself. Follow it up with honest answers. You will start noticing the underlying root cause.
“You can’t get the right answer until you ask the right question”
I personally have tide through similar situations in life and spent years to arrive at the right answers. I call these as Principles of Personal Growth.
Principle #1: Meditate every day
Meditation is a highly effective way of calming your mind and improving focus. It helps you see through the daily noise of your life and make better judgements. There are many ways to meditate. Simplest one is to close your eyes and let your thoughts flow. Just observe, don’t engage. If you do engage, bring yourself back. Breathe deep, hold for a few secs, and exhale slowly. Maintain focus on your breath. After a while, the train of thought stops. Mind becomes blank. This state of thoughtlessness is called Meditation. Start with five minutes and increase the time gradually to suit your comfort.
Remember this, meditating regularly, be it for just a few mins, is more effective than meditating for long hours, but only once a while. So be regular.
Principle #2: Workout 3–4 times a week
Workout increases blood flow to your brain. This increases your energy levels, releases feel-good-hormones, enhances your mood, and keeps you charged up throughout the day. You need not do heavy lifts for a workout, a simple walk or a climb up the stairs is good enough. The idea is to get some level of physical activity as part of your routine. If you can engage in more intensive workout, it would be even better.
Principle #3: Read every day
Reading doesn’t mean going through newspapers. Read something which helps you learn something new. Make your reading contextual and targetted. Eg: If you are a new manager, read about how to be a good manager. In this way, you will be able to absorb the knowledge in a much better way and would be able to apply it as well. This is a great way of increasing your effectiveness. It will also give you the chance to break out of routine and spend some time exclusively investing in yourself. Remember, reading is much better than watching TV or a web series. Start with perhaps one article a day, and increase your reading to 1 hour gradually. The more you can manage, the better it would be.
Principle #4: Become a Listener
Listening is an underrated strength. Do you see yourself interrupting people even before when they have finished their sentences? If you do so, then stop doing that immediately. The impulse to speak your mind is natural. However, it is only limiting your effectiveness. Listening is important for persuasion. When you listen to people, you understand them and the situation better. When a person gets a chance to speak her mind, and feels being heard, she is much more collaborative. This allow people to speak and develop the habit of listening patiently.
Principle #5:Write down your thoughts
Do you have a habit of taking notes while in a meeting? Please start if you don’t. A meeting done without notes is like a lost opportunity. You miss so many great points made during the meet. We tend to forget more than 50% of what we heard only after 1 hour. With half of the info lost, you are missing on some great action items. Thus take notes in every meeting without fail.
Also, writing in general helps one retain information better. In the world of excel sheets and digital notes, whiteboard and dairies still have immense value. Writing down has cognitive benefits as well. Handwritten information registers easily in the brain. So buy a diary and start carrying it with you.
Principle #6: Network with people
If you wish to be successful and wield more influence, you must build your network. We often do this successfully within our office, but ignore do it so outside work. Having a strong external network helps massively. You can draw upon this network to get more information, references, key introductions, benchmarks, feedback, and maybe life-changing advice.
Benchmarking via our network helps understand how industry has tackled a problem your company is facing. This provided with insights into solutions which have already been devised to your problem at hand. This is equally applicable for your personal life. Some problems have been successfully solved multiple times and solutions exist. Afterall why re-invent the wheel?
So don’t think of networking as work after your regular work hours. Don’t think of it like wasting a precious weekend. A couple of networking phone calls a week might change your life.
Principle #7: Reflect
Reflection is the perhaps the most effective utilization of time. It helps us see our actions in the hindsight and draw important insights. Sports uses reflection extensively and effectively when they see videotapes of sports manoeuvres and identify technical flaws. An ace sportsperson needs to continuously work on improvements in technique to continue excelling at his game. An objective reflection serves a similar purpose. We can only improve if we reflect on our actions.
Principle #8: Strategise
Insights from self-reflection can help us come up with strategies to rectify our flaws. When we reflect on collective actions, it helps us identify better ways to approach a collective task.
Strategy is a vision- an imagined way for solving a problem. When you start developing the capability to assess your past, you also develop the power to imagine the future. It is like building your personal time-machine. Being a visionary is a must-have trait to become an inspiring leader. This also applies in personal life and helps you become a respected individual or a better parent.
This complete 8 of our 9 principles. Even the infographic above mentions only eight principles. What is the 9th one? Well, that what we started with.
Principle#9: Asking the right questions
Make it a habit to question everything. Simple questions like Why, what, when, where can help you arrive at life-changing answers. In philosophy, this is called as Striving for Truth.
Real knowledge is in knowing what you don’t know!
Conclusion
Ask questions, meditate to keep a calm mind, give your body some love by exercising, give your mind some food for thought by reading, don’t miss key message by taking notes, build a network both within and outside work, and reflect.
Reflection of the moon in water is only visible if the surface is absolutely still. Meditation is the calm which can keep your mind still to see your own reflection!
This summarises the message I wished to pass on. It has taken me years to arrive at the principle. They helped me become better each day. The journey is still on. Hope this helps you to reach to the best of your potential. All the best!
