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Many of us, while we pursue personal growth, we don’t always take measures to measure personal growth. It can be hard to gauge where we’re at.
This article can help you measure your personal growth and make it easier to do so with different tools and methods listed below.
Practice awareness
In order to measure your personal growth, it’s important first to gain and practice self-awareness.
Self-awareness keeps you grounded in reality and present in the moment. Self-awareness doesn’t let you sugarcoat nor understate truth and facts with false or inaccurate pretenses about yourself and your abilities.
Having self-awareness means to be real and honest with yourself.
It’s nearly impossible to know where you’re at and measure your progress without having self-consciousness and awareness.
Lack of self-awareness is essentially being blind to yourself and your personal growth.
It’s really important not just to gauge things that are going on in your life but deeper things like your emotions and thoughts. It’s easy to be aware of surface level reality, but it’s another thing to be aware of unconscious habits, behaviors, emotions that we don’t put much thought to.
An example would be attracting a certain type of toxic man when it comes to dating.
Look at trends
You can be better today than you were a year ago, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll be better a year from now. I don’t think looking back to your past, in general, to see how far you’ve come is the best way to measure your personal growth now. It’s good to look at your past personal growth, but it can be outdated.
It’s important to see how things are going currently and in the near past. You may be better now than you were a year ago, but you may have also been doing better two months ago than now.
How is your month doing? Is it better than last month? How’s your week? Your day? It’s okay to not always be doing better, in fact, it’s normal to have dips and low points, but it’s important to be aware of that and catch on to it as soon as possible to avoid going further downhill.
And if nothing is changing, maybe it’s time to try something new to induce some growth.
Have clarity and set goals
Besides looking at trends, it’s difficult to know if you’re going in the right direction if you don’t know where you’re headed or if it’s too vague.
This is why it’s important to gain clarity and set clear goals. If you’re having trouble setting goals and you’re feeling stuck, this article may help.
If you’ve tried setting goals before, you may have heard of SMART goals.
Each letter in SMART stands for criteria you should have with each goal you set.
S – Specific
M -Measurable
A – Attainable
R – Relevant
T – Timely
Specific
The more specific your goal is, the better. Setting vague goals isn’t going to help you. Vague goals are hard to measure and even harder to reach.
How are you going to reach your goal? Through what measures? What are you going to do and how?
Measurable
You want to make sure that your goal can be measured.
If your goal is to lose weight, then if you lose a half a pound, you’ve reached your goal. But you probably want to lose more than half a pound. A goal to lose 10 pounds of weight is a measurable goal.
Also, make sure to start small and try to focus on one big goal at a time. It’s easy to get overwhelmed with too many goals.
This article can help make reaching your goals relating to behavior change easier.
Attainable
Is your goal physically possible? Is it realistic?
Having a goal to have 10 million dollars in 2 months when you have 0 dollars to your name and no job or business is not realistic.
Start with what’s attainable and then work from there. You’ll only make yourself miserable if you don’t reach impossible goals.
Relevant
How relevant is your goal to you? Do you really want to reach this goal? Is it a high priority for you? What’s your why and reasoning behind it?
Your goal should be backed by a strong desire to reach it and a strong ‘why.’
Timely
This means to set a deadline on your goal. A deadline makes a wish become a goal.
Setting a deadline sets your goal in motion. Make sure to also set a plan to reach your goal by its deadline.
Just make sure the deadline is realistic and attainable.
Examples of SMART goals
My goal is to lose 10 pounds of weight (measurable) through exercising and nutrition plans (specific) by September 1, 2019. (timely) I want to feel more confident. Being confident is important to me. (relevant) With dedication, resources (gym membership, weights, etc.), and hard work, it’s physically possible. (attainable)
My goal is to make $10,000 a month (measurable) through selling products from my online business (specific) by January 1, 2020. (timely) I want to have more time and money to provide for my family and be able to spend time with them. (relevant) With a business (or business idea), dedication, resources (capital, etc.), and hard work, it’s physically possible. (attainable)
It’s not absolutely necessary to write down the relevant and attainable parts of the goal, but it’s important to have those aspects to the goal and keep them in mind.
Personally, I like to write down my goals as follows:
I am so happy and grateful now that I am / I have [measurable – goal] through [specific – how I’m going to reach that goal] by [timely – deadline].
Track your progress
One of the best ways to measure your personal growth is to actually implement measures to track it.
There are many different ways you can track your personal growth, goals, and habits.
How to track:
– Journaling
Journaling is great for tracking things like success, failures, goals, thoughts, emotions, self-esteem.
– Apps & habit trackers
I like to use the app HabitBull on my iPhone to track my habits.
– Schedules & planners
I like to use schedules and planners to track pretty much everything. I like having it on the wall in front of me (or on your desktop), so I can easily see and assess everything. That way I can see how my month is going and my weeks as well.
They’re great for tracking habits after the day is over as well as setting deadlines and planning goals.
There are many different things you can track in relation to your personal growth.
The following lists some things you can track and measure:
What to track:
- Failures
- Successes
- Actions
- How you spend your time
- Moods, emotions, feelings
- Thoughts
- Self-esteem
- Habits
- Goals
Remember, while it’s important to measure your personal growth, it’s normal to have downs, low points, and failures.
The key is to be aware of it, accept it, and make changes to fix it. There’s no need to be hard on yourself and unkind to yourself.
Making mistakes and having failures are just a part of personal growth, as long as you can move past them and keep growing stronger and wiser regardless.
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