This year, you’ve faced challenges that have helped you grow in new ways. What lessons did you take from these experiences? How did they contribute to your growth? Knowing your current situation based on these events can guide you as you look ahead to the future. You might discover that significant changes aren’t always necessary for growth; instead, maintaining steady awareness each year or each month can lead you towards confidence and success. To help you monitor your personal growth, I’d like to share some tips for creating a system to track your progress.
Evaluate yourself annually
Twice a year, usually near my birthday, I take a moment to look at my life and see what changes have happened. You should do the same. Find a quiet spot where you can think about your successes. Look back at the last few months and ask yourself, “Where did I fall short?” and “How have I grown?” Assess where you stand now and where you wish to be in the future. Make it a habit to write down your goals so that when you reflect again, you can refer to the list and check things off.
Sometimes we get too focused on our failures, and social media can be a trap for negativity. We can get wrapped up in watching the highlight reels of others on social channels and develop an unrealistic view of the world around us. We see people traveling or the accomplishments of our competitors and think, “Why haven’t I done this?” But personal growth is about you, not them. Even the small, incremental changes from your year add up to a more strategic you and ultimately pay dividends, trust me. Changing your perspective little by little, even by just one degree, will eventually result in a significant shift to an improved frame of mind.
Perform a SWOT analysis on yourself
You understand the concept of a SWOT analysis but have you ever thought to perform one on yourself? What are your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats? Originally created in the 1960s by Edmund P. Learned, Kenneth Andrews, C. Roland Christensen and William D. to improve business, people are now performing a SWOT analysis on themselves to see where they can be refined. It’s an excellent way to build a checklist of your characteristics and assess personal growth.
Corporations aren’t the only ones who have brands anymore; we have them, too. To perform a SWOT analysis, you must first understand what your personal brand is. Your brand is what you communicate to the people around you. You’ll want to make sure that brand is consistent and offers employees, friends, and anyone you come into contact with the most authentic representation of who you are. Just like Home Depot is different than Lowe’s, you’ll want to offer a unique personal brand. We all have people we admire, but admiring them and creating a personal brand around them are two different things. The characteristics and passions that define you are what make you unique, so own them. Once you understand your personal brand you can perform a SWOT analysis to see where you would like to improve or adjust.
Become emotionally intelligent
How often are you aware of what’s happening around you? Being emotionally intelligent can be as simple as opening your eyes to your surroundings, and it’s responsible for 58 percent of business performance. There are also skill tests and personality assessments that can help you see how you’re doing or what level of awareness you have or are capable of. Consider this, if your business was unaware of market or social trends, where would it be? If an event happens that changes the way a customer communicates with your business and you are unaware of it, you are closing yourself off to better service and improved customer engagement. Personal growth works much the same way. Situational blindness hinders each one of us from growth, and you’ll find there is always something to learn when you are properly aware. Every day there is something we can take with us towards the future.
The last piece of advice I can give is not to give up. Let’s say you want to dig for water, so you try digging ten feet in one corner, then give up and move to the next corner and so on. But what if you had stayed in the first corner and dug ten more feet? You probably would have found water. What does this mean in terms of personal growth? It means you shouldn’t give up just because you don’t see immediate improvement. Keep digging in the right direction and you’ll find an improved you during your next evaluation.